Amaya: Sorry about the late update! Hazuki and I have been pretty busy and will continue to be busy for a very long time! So please bear with us! :) We'll try to update when we can. Anyway, this chapter is basically what happened to Katherine during the mysterious attack! I hope you enjoy it! :D

Disclaimer: We do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.

Chapter 6: My Past Still Haunts My Present

I don't know what it was that woke me up that night. Call it woman's intuition or all those nights running from men with guns, but I was awake and ready when that alchemist walked through my door.

"Glad to see I'll actually have a bit of fun with you," she said, smirking in the moonlight.

"Who are you?" I questioned, trying to figure out why her face seemed familiar. "I know you…"

She scowled, anger flaring up in her eyes. "Figures a brat like you wouldn't even bother remembering what lives you destroyed," she spat. Then she was grinning again. "But don't worry, I'll make you pay for what you've done."

There wasn't any time to be confused, because the next second she was upon me, striking me across the face. I gasped at the burning sensation. Then her fist was in my stomach, and there was fire in my gut.

"How-" I gasped. "How…"

She chuckled by my ear, her hand still on me. "I specialize in humans… and pain. How does it feel? Being burned from the inside out? In fact, I think I'll take out one of your eyes. You're too pretty for someone so… rotten."

I couldn't move when she placed her hand over my left eye because the pain in my stomach was getting more intense with every passing second. It was all I could do to keep breathing in and out.

"Get ready for more of what you deserve, you little thief," she said, venom dripping on the last three words.

That's what got my blood boiling. I finally collected myself and grabbed her wrist that was causing the pain in my midsection and yanked it away. I stumbled away from her, clutching at my face and stomach, trying to ready myself for another attack.

"You're pitiful, you know that?" she said in a sickly sweet voice. "You're just like your mother, she didn't deserve to be in this world. She didn't deserve the power she wielded. But when she was dying before my hands, she used the last of her strength to prevent me from getting to you. As you can see now though, it was all in vain. You're still going to die. The day you were born, your fate was sealed."

I pulled my hand away from my face, my mouth turned up in a half-smile.

"You… wouldn't believe how often that very concept makes my life miserable," I responded, a bit out of breath. "I think I was born with the stars against me, it wouldn't surprise me if there are people out there with the same idea. But… if what you say is true…" I swallowed, getting ready to strike. "Sorry mom."

The floor we were standing on cracked open and the earth came up to swallow her, but she managed to escape its grasp at the last second. I frowned and tried to focus, shifting my feet a bit so I could stand on the earth properly to transmute.

"I see you still have your father's gift," she commented from the other side of the room as she dodged another attack.

My eyes widened and I paused in my barrage for a few seconds. "How do you know about that?" I asked as I blocked a dagger thrown my way with a wall of earth.

She grinned. "Let's just say I know your father very well."

Noises came from outside the house as we both stopped in our fight to listen.

"Those idiots can't handle anything," she muttered under her breath.

Suddenly she was smashing through the window in the room and the pain had finally gotten to me, causing me to collapse onto the ground.

"Katherine?" I heard come from the hallway. "Are you okay? There are other alchemists in the house."

Al was through the door and on the floor next to me in a matter of seconds.

He gasped. "What happened? You're hurt!"

"Sorry about the floor," I muttered under my breath.

"Somebody was attacking Alex too. Brother went to help her," Al explained. "What did they do to you?"

"Just alchemy… I'm fine. It'll heal," I said, struggling to stand up.

"Come on, let's let Granny have a look at you," he helped me to the living room, and much to my displeasure I needed his help all the way to the couch.

Mrs. Rockbell came over to the couch and put her hand under my chin, tilting my head this way and that to look at my face.

"There is a burn on your cheek in the shape of a handprint, almost as if you were slapped. Is there anything else injured?" she questioned.

I winced as I raised up my shirt a bit, exposing the burn across my stomach.

"I find it strange that your skin is burned but your shirt is fine," she pointed out.

"She had this strange kind of alchemy… It was almost as if I got the burn from the inside of my body." My brows creased in puzzlement as I thought about it.

"Well, just ice the burns and they should clear up," she said as went to the kitchen to get the ice.

The front door opened and Al met Ed and Alex at it, then began pacing around.

"First Katherine goes off and gets herself hurt-"

"I told you Al, I'm fine." I said flatly. I was still thinking about what the woman had said about my parents and I didn't feel like dealing with Al's dramatics.

"Still… I don't like seeing you hurt," he murmured, his voice filled with concern as he sat down beside me.

I looked over at the other two, noticing the glass shards and cuts all over Alex's body. …And the blood.

I immediately looked away and began taking deep breaths, trying desperately to think of something besides the liquid that made my stomach churn.

As I attempted to plan out my next session with Princess to keep my mind off the nighttime visitor, I saw something glint out of the corner of my eye. I automatically looked over at the source due to my special training. It was Ed's right arm. I began to study the auto mail. It was a good distraction and an amazing example of auto mail. A few men and women I worked with in the past had limbs of it, but it normally would get in the way of a heist and I had to think quickly of a way to get them out of the place without being spotted.

Cold ice in a bag being pressed into my hands brought me back to the present. I looked up at the person offering it to me and smiled, glad to have some relief for my pain.

"Thank you, Winry," I said sincerely. I pressed to my face and let out a happy sigh. I sat with Al on the couch, relishing in my small comfort, as Mrs. Rockbell finished working on Alex. Then Ed helped Alex up the stairs to the bedrooms.

"Um… Mrs. Rockbell?" I asked hesitantly. I continued speaking when she looked over at me. "I can give you the money to repair the room I destroyed. I'm really sorry about that by the way…"

"Thank you for that, but we'll be fine. Ed just came in to get his auto mail repaired a few days ago, so we got a nice bundle of money from that," she laughed.

"Oh, about that, are you the mechanic? That's the most amazing piece of auto mail I've seen in all my life!" I exclaimed.

"That would be me," Winry informed me from the other room. "I'm glad to see my work appreciated for once. Ed always tears it up."

"I could set you up with a bunch of clients if you're ever in need of one. I can think of about ten people who need their auto mail worked on," I offered.

"Well, it is a bit expensive," Winry murmured.

I laughed nervously. "Money's not much of a problem for them…" I yawned loudly. "I guess I should have had a few hours of sleep those three nights before I got here…"

"Come on, I'll take you to my room," Al said, standing up. He walked over to the stairs and I followed suit.

"But what about you?" I asked.

"I don't sleep," was all he said. I decided not to pry since everyone had been so generous to me today.

I yawned again as I sat down on the bed and pressed the ice against the wound on my stomach. The dull pain I felt from the wound had me thinking about what the woman said to me. So I jumped a bit when Al addressed me.

"Why didn't you call for help?" he demanded.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, still lost in my thoughts.

"Before, when you were attacked. Why didn't you call for us? We could have helped fight them," he said, a little bit of anger in his voice.

I scowled at him. "Why does it matter? I just didn't, okay? It didn't cross my mind."

"You're lying. You kept quiet on purpose! Why?"

"Stop it, okay? I don't want to talk about it, Al! It's none of your business! Quit being so nosy!" I said, my voice slowly rising and getting more dangerous.

His voice suddenly got soft, and it almost seemed like he had shrunken. "I'm sorry… I was just worried. …Good night, Katherine."

I opened my mouth, an apology hanging at my lips. But it never came out and he was out the door, and I was alone again.

I looked down, guilt bearing down on my shoulders. I promised myself that I would apologize first thing in the morning, considering how heavy my eyelids were. And so, I laid down and put off my worries until sunrise.

You know how royalty have servants that do their bidding? And how they do demeaning things like… calling them with a bell? Guess what I woke up to on that sunny morning.

"SHUT UP PRINCESS!" I shouted from the window on the second floor at the neighing horse. "I get it, you're hungry! Eat some grass like a normal horse, you worthless piece of meat!"

I stormed down the stairs, collected myself, and walked into the kitchen.

"Sorry about her. She's a picky horse, do you have any apples?" I asked sweetly to the room.

"Sure, catch," Winry said, picking up a few and tossing them at me. I stuffed two into my backpack for later and went outside, giving the whining thing only one of the fruits.

"Pig," I muttered under my breath and she ate the thing in one bite. I turned around to go into the house but she grabbed the flap of my backpack, ripping it off and causing all of my things to go flying across the yard. My eyes widened in horror and I hurried to pick up all the items I'd prefer to keep to myself, particularly the diamond that I had snatched the same time I got the gluttonous horse now stuffing itself with the other apples.

"I'll pretend I didn't see that," I heard a female voice say from behind me.

I scrambled to my feet and turned around, glaring at Alex.

"I still don't understand why you didn't turn me in the first time we met, but I'm not about to let that one act of kindness sway my opinion of you, state alchemist," I said to her.

"Seeing as how I couldn't care less about your opinion, I'm not too concerned," she replied, glancing at my horse. "Do you keep all your possessions in such a bad state?"

I looked Princess up and down with nothing really popping out at me as abuse.

"I don't see what's wrong with her," I countered.

"You mean besides the fact that she used to be white?" (A/N 1) I scowled at the comment, refusing to acknowledge that she had a point.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"We're going to Central," she said simply.

My eyes widened and I took a step closer to Princess, preparing to make my escape.

"Relax, would you? I'm not turning you in, I just need to check on something," she rolled her eyes at me.

"Why didn't you anyway? You had a perfect opportunity. I was sleep deprived with a new horse," I questioned.

"A person with a strong influence on my decision making happened to sway me over to letting you go. That's why you're still standing free," she explained.

I frowned, thinking it over as Ed and Al walked out the house with bags in their hands.

"Ready to go?" Ed asked.

"Yep, we're both ready," Alex responded, and began walking down the path with them

"Hey, hey! Who said I was going? I don't remember making the decision!" I yelled after her.

"Apparently your horse did," she called back, pointing at the horse trailing right behind her.

"Traitor," I muttered, and picked up the last of my things, catching up with the group.

"Thank you for everything!" I yelled back at the Rockbell house.

"Sure, come back anytime!" Winry replied. "And Ed, don't break your auto mail again! I worked hard on it."

"Bye Winry!" he yelled back, ignoring her remark on his arm.

Last night's adventure came back to me as I got lost in my thoughts again. Then I remembered all that I had said to Al. I glanced over meekly at him, wondering if he was still upset over that and annoyed that I couldn't read his face.

"So, um, did anybody figure out why those alchemists attacked us?" I asked aloud.

"Well seeing as how I'm a target for most criminals, it wasn't hard to put two and two together," Alex answered.

I scowled at her back. "Well that doesn't explain why I was attacked," I argued.

She shrugged. "You were with me, that's reason enough. They probably weren't sure which room I was in."

'Yeah, that's why she knew my mother,' I thought wryly to myself. 'Is she always this full of herself?'

After a few more hours of walking and me trying to figure out why I was attacked and a good apology for Al, we stopped for a break by a river.

Alex began to wash the dirt and mud off of Princess and I glared at the two of them as my horse neighed happily.

"What's her name?" Alex called over at me.

I pretended that I didn't hear her as I pulled a deck of cards out of my pack.

"Princess," Al answered for me.

She smiled a bit. "It's befitting."

"I'm going swimming, anybody else want to cool off?" she asked us.

I rolled my eyes and shuffled my deck. "No thanks, I don't care much for getting wet."

"Sorry, I can't get in the water, Alex. My blood seal might wash off," Al explained.

"Ed?" she looked at the state alchemist expectantly.

"Uh… No thanks," he said nervously.

"What's wrong, can't swim?" she teased.

I blocked out their conversation, not particularly caring about why Ed refused to go in the water.

I played solitaire, thinking back about all the times that I took money from poker sharks in the past. I forgot about where I was and began humming, completely at ease with the sun shining down on me and the sound of the water in the river trickling along its way to the ocean.

I finally came back to earth, and looked around me, calling Al over to me when I saw he wasn't doing anything.

"Do you know how to play poker?" I asked.

"No," he responded. "Will you teach me?"

"Sure," I said, smiling. Then my smile dropped. "Oh… and Al? I'm… sorry about last night. I just can't tell you everything. Not yet. I don't even understand most of it myself."

"It's okay Katherine, I understand. If you ever want to talk, I'm here," he told me seriously.

I smiled again, happy that I had run into him and Ed in the woods. I began to explain the rules to him, going into more depth when he didn't understand something.

"Oh, and one more thing," I interrupted, before we started a real game. I grinned widely and winked. "Don't feel bad when you lose, because you have no chance of winning."

Amaya:

(1)- Just wanted to share with you guys that this conversation between Katherine and Alex is one of my favorites! XD Just the bickering back and forth amuses me, especially while I'm writing it. But that one line is just SO Alex (and Hazuki, she is also very sarcastic ;) ), and I can just see Katherine giving her a smoldering glare! What do you guys think?

Anyways, I hope you liked this chapter! :D Review please! We love constructive feedback! XD