Well, it took me who-knows-long to finally get over my writer'rs block and make another chapter, but it has been done :) Enjoy!

Chapter 4: Sunrise

Cynthia twitched softly, but it was just enough to wake her up. For countless minutes, she just kept her eyes closed and pressed herself just a bit harder into the mattress. Once she had settled down enough, she opened her eyes to survey the room. It was dark-probably very early in the morning. An unfamiliar, dark shadow on the ground caught her eye and she flinched. But then she realized it was just the little fox.

"It's okay, Thia… you just had a little bad dream again. They can't hurt you. The lady isn't real. You were just super exhausted, that's all."

…Yeah right. The girl wasn't stupid; she knew that something was up. She had always had the nightmares-couldn't remember a time when they weren't there. However, it was getting completely out of hand. She'd only have maybe three nightmares that were sort of like the one last night a month; the ones that were sort of like visions… and dreams that took her to the Gate almost never happened. Those were so few and far between that they could easily just be passed off as eating too much sugar before going to bed or something stupid like that. But lately, starting over two months ago, they had taken a turn for the worst. It had gotten so bad that she was lucky if she had one peaceful night's sleep in a month, and she was brought to the Gate about once a week.

Of course, she had one rule about the nightmares: never tell Mom and Dad. She hated to flaunt that stupid weakness. Besides, it wasn't like her parents could just make her nightmares go away; that was impossible. It would just stress them out, and sometimes Cynthia felt like she was a burden enough without revealing her secret.

Almost unconsciously, she pushed herself out of bed, sat on the floor next to the fox, and began to stroke his head.

"What should I do?" she muttered to herself.

To her surprise, she was answered with a quiet whine. She looked down and was greeted by foggy eyes.

"So you're finally awake, huh? It's a good thing. I was getting pretty worried about you, little guy." She started rubbing his neck, eliciting an odd hum, almost like a purr.

"Oh, do you like that?" she smiled, relieved. "You really did give me a scare earlier, you know."

The purring stopped, and the fox gazed at her intently. At that moment, the sun began to rise and light filled the room. Cynthia couldn't hold back a quiet gasp as the fox's eyes glinted amethyst in the dawn.

"I know I'm not an expert on animals, but I'm pretty sure that foxes don't have purple eyes…"

He just heaved a sigh before dragging himself into her lap, disused muscles shaking from the effort. The feeling of his bony rib scraping across her leg made her wince, but she pulled him closer.

"What the heck did you do to get like this?"

No answer.

Oh yeah. Talking to a wild animal. Oops.

"Well, at least I can get you some food now." She paused. "Hopefully Mom and Dad won't ask why I'm up so early. Maybe I can tell them that you were whining and it woke me up?"

She heard what sounded suspiciously like a grumble.

"Okay, okay, fine. I'll find a different excuse. C'mere."

Cynthia gently scooped the fox into her arms, nudged the door farther open with her foot, and walked down the stairs.

-*FMA*-

In the kitchen, the girl kept musing to herself as she went through the different cupboards, different objects rustling at her touch.

"Maybe… this? No… not enough fat…"

The fox interrupted her thought process by growling. She turned around.

"Hey, I'm hurrying. I'll be done in a second. I just need to find something for you."

The fox lowered the volume, but he continued to growl. He looked down at the blanket he was on in disgust. Sure, it was comfortable, but…

"Why the hell did it have to be pink?" He thought in annoyance. Pink was such a girly color… If only he could tell her that, or at least have the strength to be able to get away from it.

"Hey, does bacon and eggs with cheese sound good to you?"

The fox immediately shut up and yipped in approval. Hey, he didn't know exactly what the stuff was, but he was positive that he had heard it was good from somewhere. Where, he honestly couldn't remember. Which was the same with just about everything else… He shifted with discomfort, head already beginning to ache. No matter how hard he tried-in fact, the harder he tried, the worse his headache got-he just couldn't recall any memories. It felt like trying to empty a lake with a bucket full of holes.

-*FMA*-

Not too much later, possibly the most amazing scent in the world flooded the fox's senses. He gave a whimper full of anticipation, and his tail wagged with all the strength he could muster up. The girl laughed and looked back from where she was making the heavenly smell's source.

"You're really hungry, aren't you, little guy? Don't worry," From his viewpoint, he could only see that she was holding something up, and he heard the sound of scraping dishes. Eventually, she walked toward him and set a plate on the ground near his head. The fox eagerly scooted towards it, but when he saw how little food it held, he looked up at her in anger.

"I'm starving! Literally!" he thought.

Understanding his glare, she crouched down beside him.

"I don't know if you knew this or not, but if I gave you a bunch of food all at the same time, you'd get really sick. Just eat this nice and slow, then in thirty minutes I can give you more. We have to repeat it four or five times because the amount right there is only a quarter of what you would normally eat."

He gave a final, complaining whine before snapping up a mouthful of the eggs. Instantly, he was rewarded with pleasure. He barely chewed the rubbery substance before swallowing. Despite the girl's earlier warning, he began wolfing the whole plate down. Oh, and the bacon-! The meat tasted so good! The fat just melted in his mouth, and it was prepared so well that it wasn't too crunchy or too soft. It wasn't long before he had finished up every last bite. As soon as he had finished, she took the plate off the ground, and replaced it with a bowl of water.

"Drink plenty of water, okay? Your body's going to have a super hard time digesting right now, so the more you drink, the better."

He obediently followed her advice. Despite claiming that she didn't know very much about animals, she was a pretty good veterinarian.

"I've been thinking, little guy."

The fox, fortunately, at least knew the customary comeback. "A dangerous habit," he thought in amusement.

"And yeah, you're probably thinking, 'It's a dangerous habit'…"

He was rather surprised by this. How did she know?

"But then again, I don't know what goes on in your head. Anyways, I was thinking that you need a name, instead of me just calling you 'little guy' all the time."

Now that he thought about it, he was getting pretty annoyed at the nickname. He didn't know his own name, so it would be good to find a suitable replacement, even if it was temporary. He did plan on getting his memories back, after all.

"How about… Clyde?"

The fox weakly shook his head.

"Ginger?"

"Really?" He responded with a low growl.

"Red?"

He almost snapped at her, but settled for a louder growl. "God, kill me now."

"All right, I'm sorry that I'm not good at picking names. How about," she paused for a few seconds, "Helios? It relates to the sun, and… well, yeah…" She trailed off uncertainly.

He almost instinctively growled yet again, but he stopped and thought. Actually, it was a pretty good name. The longer he thought about it, the more perfect it sounded. After all, the first thing he had seen when he woke up by the river was the sun. And then a large shadow had landed near him, golden hair glowing like fire…

The fox gently nudged her hand. "It'll do, for now."

Cynthia smiled. "Well, at least I found something you like. How about you rest for a while, then I'll feed you once the thirty minutes are up?"

In reply, he buried his face in the warm blanket, momentarily forgetting his dislike of the "girly" color.

"Helios, huh? Not too shabby…"

I know the name is probably stupid, but it's the best I could come up with. Oh well! *shrugs* But I have news: I won't be updating twice a week for this story any more. It kind of put a lot of pressure on me, since it takes longer for me to write this story than any of my other ones... But I'll update on Wednesday :D Thanks for reading! Please leave a review!

BabyBlueBeluga: STOP. No more banging your head on the wall, even if I do have a tendency to torture my characters... But so do you, Ms. "I'm going to torture all the Maximum Ride characters, especially Max and Angel" XP

Harryswoman: Welll, this update wasn't exactly "soon", but... Thank you :)

Lotrprincess: Well, if you write the crossover, I know I can die happy :D And yes, in the ordinary storyline, Cynthia would have an older brother, but I couldn't figure out a way to really write him in, sooo... NON-CANON ALERT! RETARDED AUTHOR ALERT! XD

Griz Lee: -_-" Dragon hugs aren't painful, unless I'm trying to kill someone... But another reason I don't want Cynthia to be a Mary Sue is that I constantly make fun of them and stuff, so it would be really weird and stuff if I introduced one... *sweatdrops*

KKitten1313: Well, let's just say that Helios's secret identity is going to be a real shocker :)

-Dfire