See Area 51 1/2 for important info about the characters! If you're interested, that is.

4: Feelings Brought By the Night

"Alright, start talking," Christin prompted.

"It... happened again," Edward admitted, holding up his left hand. "Twice more today my hand vanished. It came right back, but..."

"It still vanished. That's really bizarre... I honestly don't know what to make of it," she plopped on the bed and drew one knee up to her chin. "Maybe they're right about it being something in the past, though it seems pretty far-fetched."

"I'm still surprised you haven't had a meltdown yet," he said.

"Gawd, enough with the intelligence bashing already! I'm trying to help you, you ungrateful jackass! I know I may not be the smartest person in the world but I'm doing my best!" she snapped. "Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so nasty," she said not two seconds later, flopping on her back and staring at the ceiling.

"Don't apologize. It's not your fault shit keeps happening to us," he replied, joining her on the bed. "I know you're doing your best, but you can ask for help once in a while."

"What the hell does that mean?" she asked.

"It means... you're not alone. I don't know what's going on but you can't solve the problem all by yourself. That's just impossible, and I'm not talking about your stupidity," he mumbled as his cheeks grew hot.

"You don't sound like yourself," she chuckled. "Even when you get remotely sentimental it sounds way out of character for you."

"Is that a complament or an insult?" he asked.

"It's a statement, I think." She sat up and studied him for a moment or two before speaking again, "Hey, you okay?"

"I don't want to go to sleep. I'm sick of that damned dream. There was once a time when I dreamed about you. It pissed me off at the time, but now I kinda miss it," he sighed.

"But I'm in that one, aren't I? That's what you said..." she started.

"It's you, but it isn't you. It's not the same. It's like... there are parts of you that are missing. Your modernness isn't there, and your damn pop culture references that I still don't really understand... its like you were born in a different time and grew up there. It... made a lot more sense in my head, wow," he finished with a huff.

"Maybe it is me... you know how energy can't be created or destroyed, only redirected like the Lifestream? Maybe it works the same way with our souls. They get broken down when we die and rearranged to form new life. I'd say that we could ask Truth, but given what he she it whatever said last time, that might be a bad idea," she mused.

"What did it say?" Edward inquired. He knew what it had told him the last time they met, but no one else mentioned what happened to them.

Christin looked at him, her mouth forming a firm line. "It said that if you two met again, it'd take your life. Speaking of Truth, I wonder what happened to that bastard..."

"You care what happened to him? You almost died because of him," he snorted.

"Well, sort of. You have to give up something when you commit the taboo, right? It didn't look like he had given up anything... you lost your leg and Al his whole body, then you gave your arm to get his soul back... Izumi lost some of her organs... and Dante, I wonder what she lost to the Truth... does it take only physical things?"

"I don't know. And personally, I don't want to find out."

"I lost my powers and my voice that one time, remember? Magic isn't something you can grab onto and hold... hm... maybe the bastard gave up his soul. He did become the pawn of Homunculus, so maybe when he transmuted Aislinn he managed to bargain and make his soul be the toll..." she mumbled, biting her lip thoughtfully. "And we were able to fix Aislinn after she became a Homunculus, so maybe he conducted the transmutation wrong and ended up meeting Homunculus instead of Truth."

"You don't sound like yourself," he teased.

He tugged on a lock of her hair. She had let it grow out after the recent war, so now the bottom eight inches or so were purple. He absently wondered why she kept coloring it purple, but knew if he asked her she'd say she didn't know. She was like that, doing things without giving a specific reason. Often she acted before she thought, something he did as well. She could be shockingly immature, though she was two years younger then he, but could do a complete one-eighty and act like a typical, responsible adult.

"You're thinking how annoying this is, aren't you?" she asked.

"No, not really," he replied. "I was thinking about... something more interesting."

"Oh, really..." At first she seemed disinterested (not that he could really blame her, since he usually ended up talking or thinking about things she wouldn't understand without a lengthy and boring explanation) but after a while her eyes widened like she realized something, which she most surely had.

"Took you long enough," he chuckled, placing one hand on her slender waist and pulling her closer.

"Excuse me, this stupid brain was busy contemplating all the bullshit still going on," she replied archly.

"You are not stupid," he said firmly as she positioned herself on his lap, her legs on either side of his hips.

"Glad to see someone on my side," she said smugly before kissing him firmly on the mouth.

Sunlight slanted through the gaps in tree leaves and branches overhead, blindingly bright against the darker shadows of the forest. The surrounding flora and fauna was colored a bright, vibrant green because of the snippets of light, the same color as her eyes. The sky was shockingly blue, dotted here and there with puffy white clouds. There was a fresh, wet smell in the air; a storm had passed just that night, leaving the ground moist and slightly squishy. A bird or two chirped in the distance as a warm breeze swept through the area, threading itself between the trees and playing with strands of his hair. The hourglass around his neck tinkled prettily as he moved. It was rather large, as far as hourglasses went, but it wasn't all that heavy.

"You're almost there..." a voice that was all at once familiar and strange said playfully.

He heard the sound of rushing water and, picking his way through a tangle of bushes, almost stepped into a mighty river. He watched it for a moment or two, feeling himself smile at the sight of a fish or two leaping out of the water and sending sparkling droplets into the air. Across the river, he saw a fox and three cubs. He winced, a hand moving to the place on his arm where the fox bite had once been and fingering the metal plating there. He could feel the cuts and scraped across it. He hadn't been keeping up with his maintenance as well as he should have, and perhaps was being more than a little careless.

A thought struck him: what would he do if it malfunctioned while he was here? He didn't know where he was, much less how he got there or how to get back home, and judging from the vastness of this forest, he wasn't sure there was a shop nearby that could fix him up. He'd have to solve this cursed problem quickly and get back to where he belonged. He made a promise, and he intended to keep it, no matter the costs.

He pushed forward, walking along the edge of the river towards its source. It wasn't long before he reached a massive stone wall, a mountain or large boulder, perhaps. He sighed angrily and rubbed his temples. He was supposed to continue towards the river's source, but how could he when the way was blocked by stones? There was only a small area where the water rushed forth, and that was far too small for him to fit through even if he crawled on his stomach. Of course, he'd probably get swept away or choke on the water if he tried that. The current was too quick for an army crawl through a tiny tunnel that was who knew how long. Another sigh escaped him, and he looked around. The stone was smooth and almost vertical, free of crevices or vines or anything that would help him climb the damned thing. Actually, the only thing that looked remotely promising was a small hole near the far edge of the river. But only a small animal could get through that, like a rabbit or squirrel...

Or a cat.

For the first time, he realized, he was glad that he was a chimera. He leapt to the other side of the river, nearly losing his balance and falling into the water. The tunnel wasn't as long as he thought it to be, and before he knew it he had emerged on the other side. His head throbbed in pain suddenly, so intensely it almost crippled him.

Edward sat up quickly, breathing hard and fast. He sighed wearily and shook his head a bit. That was strange, to say the least, but better than the dream he'd been having for the past month and more.

"I'm a chimera..." he muttered softly to himself, bringing a hand to his mouth in shock. He thought that damned cat transformation was just a bit of playfulness on his wife's part, but now he saw the broader picture. "But... why?" Flashbacks of Greed and his chimera minions ravaged his brain. He was like them, but why? Why was he a chimera?

There was a sleepy sigh next to him, and a shifting of weight. Out of habit, almost, he drew up his left leg and hugged it, feeling that phantom pain once again. Lately, for some reason or another, his leg had been hurting.

Why? Why was all this happening? Just what the hell had he done to deserve all this? Was it 'fate' or 'destiny' or some other nonsensical BS he didn't believe in? Or even just rotten luck? He didn't know, and he desperately wished he did. He watched as his hands, once more, faded in and out of view.

Unable to back to sleep, he wandered to the kitchen. Maybe he'd feel better if he ate something. All the same, he just sat at the table and stared out the window at the night sky, absently pulling his loose hair into a braid. Countless stars glimmered like glitter in the blue-black expanse, and the moon was huge and low against the mountains in the distance, casting its ethereal glow on the world. Nighttime sometimes made him feel melancholy. There was just something about the darkness... the stillness... of the night that brought out all the emotions he didn't want to feel. The things he had hidden deep inside him rose to the surface. But among the regret, the sadness, and the hint of lonliness, guilt stood out the most sharply. He felt absolutely horrible for feeling that way... for being slightly relieved that she would die. Yes, she wouldn't suffer any more, but it wasn't like he wanted her to die. If anything he wanted her to live, to see their kids grow up. But he didn't want her to be in any more pain. Her life had been hellish enough, and even now there was surely hell to come. His own life had been a living hell at times, but it had never been so bad that he tried to kill himself. There were times he had thought about it, but he simply couldn't bring himself to actually try. He had Alphonse to look after. They might be grown up now, with families of their own, but he was still the older brother. He was obligated... no, that wasn't the right word... he was responsible for his little brother. Things had improved, eventually, and those thoughts left his head entirely. But now he had to wonder, something he never really had time for before now, what drove a person to attempt suicide? What could possibly be so awful, so horrible, that someone wanted to die?

Christin had talked about it once or twice, saying that she had been insulted and ignored during the first sixteen years of her life. Her 'parents' had split when she was young, and she kept going back and forth between custody of her 'mother' and her 'father' and never really invested in long-term relationships, even platonic ones. The longest relationship she'd had with another person, she said, was perhaps two or three years. The relationship between her and her 'parents' had began crumbling before the Jump, and she and her 'brother' had never gotten along very well.

"Each time I made a friend I thought was worth keeping, something would get in the way and they would leave, and I'd be alone again."

He considered calling his brother, because these thoughts were beginning to eat at him, but decided against it, since it was three in the morning. He'd wait until later, so as not to upset anyone by the early morning phone call. Out of nowhere, he felt terribly lonely. He wanted to go back upstairs and huddle under the bedclothes, but he couldn't bring himself to stand up. How could he, knowing what he knew?

He expected it. He kept waiting for the day when he'd wake up and find her dead. But each day came and went, and things were as normal as they could get. He was scared for her. He almost wanted to wish she was dead, so he could stop waiting for it to happen, but he couldn't bring himself to. He just didn't want to lose her. That one person who had touched his heart... who had managed to find the smallest fraction of himself he had buried all those years ago under the desire to fix his mistake.

"You're up awfully early. Is something bothering you?" that adored voice said around a yawn.

He looked at her over his shoulder, not caring that he was crying. How could he not? It was too sad.

"It's not fair. Why you? I can't act like it won't happen, not all the time. It's a permanent shadow in my mind, waiting until I'm alone to emerge and torment me. When I'm by myself, it's all I can think about. Granny said that crying over dead people makes them sad in the next world. You won't be there to comfort me when I'll start crying, so I'm crying now," he explained, perhaps in more detail than was needed.

Christin hated that look. She hated it so much... it broke her heart each time he wore it. He wasn't angry, or dissapointed, or even confused. He was sad, plain and simple. Nothing more and nothing less. She watched as a single tear tricked down his cheek, glittering in the pale light of the night.

"Do you think it's any easier for me? I might not get to see the kids grow up. I might outlive you, or I might die tomorrow. Not knowing that, but knowing my chance for dying is greater than anyone elses, terrifies me. I hate the fact that this has made me like your mother: I'm going to die and leave you by yourself, not because I want to, but because there's nothing I can do about it. I don't want you to feel the way you do now. I don't want to see you like that. As much as you hate seeing me cry, I hate seeing you cry as well. There's some part of me that wished we hadn't been told about this, so we wouldn't be counting the days or minutes, but there's also a part of me that's glad we know, because it won't come as such a shock. It'll be that, of course, but not as strongly as if we didn't know," she replied, forcing herself to make eye contact. "I can't pretend that I don't know about it, and I can't forget about it."

He looked at her, watching as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other and played with her hair. He saw her scars, all of them. The intricate ones on her left arm, the three parallel ones on her right, and he even saw part of the one on her chest from her heart surgery. Despite all those imperfections, he still thought she was beautiful.

"You saved me time after time after time, and I'm going to try not to dwell on the doom and gloom lingering in the distance. That first time I really died, when my heart failed, it was you who brought me out of that coma. I'm not going to let this life that you gave me go to waste," she said firmly.

"Huh? But..." he started, slithgly dumbstruck by her sudden change of attitude.

"No buts! You are going to snap out of this weird funk you've been in lately and go back to your normal self!" she snapped, whacking him. "For the kids if not for me!"

"Geez, what's gotten into you?" he asked.

"I hate being sad and gloomy. Maybe... you're keeping your promise after all. Maybe you are changing me, little by little. I used to hate people, but now... now I'm the assistant music teacher at the school. I'm a lot nicer than I used to be, and I'm friendlier too," she chattered.

"What promise are you talking about?" he asked, trying to hide the faint blush that crept across his cheeks.

"I know you know," she smiled.

He couldn't help mimicking the action.

Area 51 1/2 12-29-10: four down, who knows how many to go? I'm just gonna write and see where we end up, alright? No specific arc-chapter planning for this book, I'm afraid. Oh geez, near tears here... sorry I'm writing about Rin and Ed so much, next chapter will take us back to Al and Ash, promise. My cat's sitting on my lap and making typing a little difficult...

Continuing from chapter 3's discussion about the Brotherhood anime, I'll try to avoid any spoilers if at all possible. Let's see, what else is worthy of being mentioned in the Area? Definitely the fluidity of the animation, like I said last time. Scar looks really scary this time around... and Basque Grand looks scary as well. I think it's funny that in Japanese Ed is voice by a girl and in English Al is voiced by a girl. Maxey kinda does sound like Aaron, and when I first started watching Brotherhood I was all 'Who the hell is this Maxey? What happened to Aaron?' because I didn't really notice any changes in Al's voice. I'm really sad that there haven't been any miniskirt or dog-love lines from Mustang this time around, yet at least. I only have part one, so... Hughes is as dorky as ever, though, gooshing over Elysia like in the old anime... I'm trying not to grimace as I type this part... Speaking of Hughes (this was mentioned in the episode 10 commentary [yeah, I listen to commentaries] at his funeral) he's twenty-nine in this series! I'll have to watch the old anime to see if the ages match, because on his headstone it said he was bron in 1885 and died in 1914. That mean's Mustang's in his early twenties or something! Early to mid, like... 22 to 26, I should think. But he doesn't die, so I can't check the date on his gravestone. I shouldn't have to comment about Ed and Al's age, because they're still fourteen and fifteen, respectively. And I'm really glad that most of the original voice actors are returning to do Brotherhood.

Speaking of voices, no pun intended, how many of you reader-writers hear the voices of the characters in your head as you write? Because this occured to me when I was wrapping up chapter 3, because I could hear Ed speaking his lines in my head. Then the others started speaking their lines in my head, so I was wondering how many of you have the characters speak what you're writing? It helps me a lot, actually, because I can really get the feel of what the people are saying and how they'd say it.

As for the OC voices... I'll tell you about them since there's no anime (hint hint at any anime producers reading this) you can watch to hear their voices: Rin's voice is actually pretty normal, like mine. Sure, she (meaning me) can make all sorts of strange noises like high-pitched squeals but when she's just talking it's pretty normal. Aislinn, I mentioned somewhere in book 1 (I think), has a bit of a Scottish accent. I always imagine her rolling her R's... and for some reason she keeps clicking her tongue when she gets bored. I don't know where the hell she got that from, but she clicks her tongue when bored. Toby's voice... is like a less squeaky version of Ed's sort of. Take Ed's voice when he was little and sort of... de-squeak it (that's what I keep calling it, but I'm not sure if that get's my idea across) and you'll get Toby's voice. Ed's voice if it was slightly deeper, I suppose. Josie... has just a regular guy's voice. There isn't anything really interesting about his voice, but people tend to obey him when he gets really angry, so I guess a powerful voice would work? But it also has to be kinda goofy... like Abel Nightroad's voice, more or less. Robin... has (had?) a deep voice, but it was kinda scratchy as well... a creeper kind of voice. His brother will have a similar voice, I'm guessing, because they're brothers. Katie and Kelsie had girlish voices, meaning that they were somewhat high-pitched and perky kind of like Winry's but not as annoying. Rio had one of those really annoying anime girl voices, like that blue haired girl whose name I forgot from the Martian Successor Nadesico: Prince of Darkness movie. Man, I hate her voice... Dawn's (Elric, not the girl from the last book) voice is like Hazuki's from Moonphase, more or less, and Dusk's is like a typical little boy's voice. Ai also has one of those annoying anime girl voices, the really pitchy and squeaky ones, and she whines a lot. Marcus... had a cool voice kinda like (I'm not trying to be racist) a black man's voice. One of those really cool, suave, smooth voices like molten chocolate was oozing from his mouth when he spoke (what the hell am I talking about?)... yup. Santi has a bit of an edge to her voice (sorry if this bothers you, but it how she sounds to me) like one of those stereotypical badass girls who are all 'It's that way because I said so. You don't like it, kiss my ass.' Belphoebe... was a less perky version of Winry, like a cool buisnesswoman. Anyone I forgot (you see why I cut the cast way down? That's too many OC's to keep track of!) either I didn't give enough lines to imagine the voice or... I just didn't care about. Toast-loving Caleb had a dorky voice, like a teenage geek that was kinda cool (not the geeks with a lisp or speech impediment, again no offense intended)...

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Roy and Riza don't have any kids because 1) it was too much of a pain to create another OC, and 2) Rin is troublesome enough as it is. She might not live with them but she's still Roy's legal kid. Gawd, could you imagine if she lived with Roy and Riza? I keep picturing some weird FMA version of Ai Yori Aoshi or something... Love Hina, even, one of those manga where five zillion people live in a boarding house and keep getting in each other's way. Maison Ikkoku, even, is a good reference though I haven't seen/read any of it (just trailers advertising it). You know, there'd be Ed and his family over here, Al and his family over there, Roy and Riza over that way, so one and so forth.

More next time! Damn these things are getting long... BUT I'M TALKING ABOUT THE STORY, NOT MY PERSONAL LIFE! THIS IS STUFF YOU NEED/MAY WANT TO KNOW! But these damn Areas are taking up an entire page or more, not what I promised (half a page) at all!

By the way, it's summertime in the story right now. Just saying... see you in chapter 5!...

Oh, I found out Ed's birthday! Yay me!