Finished this earlier than expected. It helps that a) this chapter was fun to write, b) I'm not currently at school so I have too much spare time on my hands and c) I'm a pretty fast writer anyway and already have the plot mapped out.

So. Chapter four. Enter Trisha and Edward.

I own nothing.

Chapter Four: Love and Life

Sixteen years ago

Five-year old William Elric scowled at the brown-haired woman sat opposite his Daddy. Her name was Trisha, and Daddy had married her last year. William had not been very happy.

Trisha was by all means a very nice woman. She was kind, with a lovely smile, and she had never once been mean like Daddy's other girlfriends. But William didn't want Daddy to have a girlfriend, or a wife. He'd been happy living with just Daddy and he didn't want anybody else.

He especially did not want Trisha- because a few days ago, Trisha had brought another new person into the house. The other new person was small and pink and loud, with a few straggly blonde hairs. Daddy said he was called Edward and that he was William's little brother. William was not impressed.

William remembered when his Daddy had first met Trisha, but not very well. All he could recall was a lady with a kind smile chatting to his Daddy and bending over his pram to talk to him. He could remember the wedding much clearer- he had had to wear a strange suit and carry two rings on a pillow, and they had gone to the church and Trisha had walked down the aisle in a long white dress with another lady walking behind her who looked just like her. Trisha had said that the other lady was her twin sister, Aunty Juliette, and that she was being a bridesmaid. She said that what was happening was called a wedding, and it was a way for grown-ups to show each together that they loved each other and wanted to stay with each other for a very long time.

William thought it was stupid and boring, but there had been a big party afterwards and everybody had said he was clever, so it hadn't been so bad.

A while after the wedding, Trisha had started to get fat. Daddy said she was pregnant, which meant she was going to have a baby. William thought that this was stupid, and that having a baby was a silly reason to get fat. Daddy had laughed at that, and said that the reason Trisha was getting fat was because the baby was inside her, and soon, it would come out. William had thought this was even sillier.

Eventually she had gone to the hospital, and when she had come home, she had brought Edward with her- screaming, ugly Edward, with stubby arms and legs and a bright red face. Daddy laughed when he said that, and told him that when Edward got older, he'd probably look a lot like William.

William didn't want Edward to look like him. He wanted Edward to go away, and Trisha too, so that he could have his Daddy to himself again. He didn't actually remember having his Daddy to himself all that well, because he'd been small- but he knew that he had liked it more than he liked Trisha.

Trisha paid more attention to Edward than she did to him- even Daddy paid more attention to Edward. It wasn't fair. William was there first.

Daddy had told him that babies came when a lady and a man did something grown-ups do when they are very special to one another, and that before he met Trisha, he had known another lady who was very special to him and that that lady had given birth to William like Trisha gave birth to Edward. Then Daddy had explained that that lady hadn't been able to look after him, so William had come to live with Daddy instead.

William asked if that meant Trisha was going to go away and leave Edward here, but Daddy had just laughed and said that things were a little bit different with Trisha.

That night, William waited until Daddy and Trisha were asleep, and he snuck into Edward's room. He pulled the chair from the corner over to the cot and climbed onto it to look in. Edward snuffled a little in his sleep, wriggling slightly, his tiny, chubby limbs moving, his wispy golden hair, already rather long, resting on the pillow.

When he was asleep he looked changed- nicer. Normally when he was awake, Edward's face was all screwed up and pink, and he made that horrible loud wailing noise. Now that he was asleep he was different- his face looked round and plump and smooth, and he wasn't quite so pink, and he didn't make that awful crying noise that gave William a headache.

William reached out, and placed a small hand on Edward's head, gently stroking the golden-blonde hair. Daddy had told him that when you touched Edward, you had to be very gentle, because he was so small he could easily get hurt, and that if Edward got hurt, then Daddy would be very cross, and Trisha would be very upset. William was always very careful not to hurt Edward, even if he didn't like him very much. He didn't want Daddy to get cross.

"Hello Edward," he said, very softly, because Trisha said that when Edward was asleep you had to be quiet. "You're ugly when you're awake. You... you aren't when you sleep, though."

He withdrew his hand, and sat on the chair, staring through the bars of the cot at the baby within- a golden-haired boy with purple eyes in dark blue star-patterned pyjamas, looking down at a tiny blonde baby in a pale green nightie.

"I think Daddy likes you more than me," William whispered. "He's always with you. He says it's because I'm a big boy and that I can look after myself better than you, but I think it's because he likes you better," he informed the sleeping child. Edward snorted quietly.

"He likes you better because you're Trisha's baby, I think. He didn't like my Mama very much. He never said so, but one night I heard him telling Trisha about Mama. He sounded like he was sad. He said that he didn't love her."

William was quiet for a little while.

"Maybe he doesn't love me as much because he didn't love my Mama like he loves yours."

Edward snuffled a little in his sleep. William stared at him, studying the little face, round and plump like all newborn children, examining the blonde eyelashes and the tiny toothless mouth, the pink flush in his cheeks, the wispy yellow hair. Edward looked peaceful- it was hard to believe that this innocent sleeping babe was the same child that screeched during the day, all purple in the face and flailing pink limbs unless he was being held by Trisha or fed. He looked angelic- a beautiful child.

"I hate you, Edward." said William, and then he crept back to his own room.