When I came here, Winry, Ed and Al had always been a unit. Even when I got added to the mix, with children being who they were, once they decided to like me it was an instant click as if they couldn't imagine a life that didn't have me there in the first place. Ed had warmed up to me last though, and because of that, I'd always been a smidgen bit closer to Al and Winry than he had been.

After that afternoon, something shifted.

It was so natural that it was Winry who noticed first. After a solid month – we were now fully integrated into the heat of summer, sweat sticking to our backs and many town-faces gone because they were taking in the harvests or taking care of animals – there had been a distinct change in my life.

"Mal," Winry said, with her eyes narrowed, "Ed's talking to you a lot more recently, hasn't he?"

I shrugged. "I think it's because he wants to bounce alchemy ideas off more people than Al?"

Lately, since Winry was now down the road away with Pinako, she took a little more time to come to our usual haunts than us three, who were still living in the outskirts of the town on the grassy fields opposite the farms. Pinako lived even more far away and didn't usually move from her house, so sometimes Winry wouldn't bother coming around, and I would be the one to trot over to listen to her babble about how Pinako got a whole box of rare bolts that had been shipped specially over from Rush Valley, look, it's so cool.

Some days, I couldn't walk the trip, because of the heat or other reasons, and on those days, I joined Ed and Al mutter over alchemy books. One, because learning alchemy from a book, and not a mysterious fount of knowledge in my brain, was fun (since I understood everything already – if I didn't, I think I would have already flipped all that math out the window), and two, because they would be a great alibi for how I would flourish into an alchemy genius in the next few years.

It had been soon after our conversation that Ed and Al found that meddling with alchemy would make their mother laugh and smile again. Then they quickly shifted into showing us their impressive achievements.

With a sharp crackle of visible energy and an instant shift of the floor's mass, a tiny little wood bird stood in a small indent of the floor. Ed and Al then proceeded to grin smugly at us two girls still standing near the door.

Winry squinted and pointed out that the bird's wings were lopsided, while I was inwardly awed that these two boys, not even in the first year of school yet, could achieve an alchemic reaction that most people would have after 2 years of solid study.

Then I decided to put this situation into use.

"I'll fix it, Winry," I said, walking over to the boys and the tiny little bird growing from their floor. After squinting at the white runes in the circle to see what dimensions the boys had inputted (that's where the calculations went – right inside the white of the circle) I licked my finger to smudge some chalk, ignored Ed's squawk as I plucked his chalk straight from his hand and calibrated the volume, height, and thickness of the bird's left wing tip. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, to analyse someone else's alchemic circle, but I forced myself to look as nonchalant as possible. This is the level of genius you need to fake, Marlon. Get used to it.

Then I clapped my hands to floor, willing it to activate. The source of desire, the miracle of life. The very force of determination for things to change. The only thing that Truth cannot calculate… Free will. I held my breath, not knowing, some nerdy back part of my brain kind of squealing over doing something that was basically a superpower.

In the end, it was easier than I expected.

The energy sparked from my hands to burn around the circle towards the centre as the transmutation crackled in my hands, and the left wing tip grew more rounded, becoming symmetrical.

All three of the children's eyes went wide

"There," I said, clapping my hands as if I didn't manufacture the situation for this exact reaction. "That should do it."

"Mal, you know alchemy?" Winry squeaked, the first one to recover. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Ah, I've never tried it before," I replied, looking at the boys in amusement at their flabbergasted faces. "But sometimes when I get tired, I come back into the house and these books are pretty interesting?" I put a hand in front of my face and did a faintly embarrassed 'hoho' laugh, winking at Al's dropped jaw.

Hohenheim coded his alchemy notes just like any other alchemist, of course, but it honestly wasn't that hard to crack as it was themed on common things you could see in the Elric house. It was a few days' work to get used to his code, and read through his interests – the study of alchemic soul work and the construction and deconstruction of general physical matter. There were also less specialised, printed alchemic journals lying around that was written in plain English too that helped the image that I was trying to create. I had scanned through them, and with a pen had made some random, relevant notes on the margins if Ed and Al ever wanted to check if I've read through them.

"You read my circle!" Ed accused, but his voice was more incredulous than angry. "Wh-wh-what?"

"You're so smart, Marlon!" Al clapped instead, and I suppressed an squirm with a firm hand and cheerfully shrugged, giving the chalk back to Ed and winding an arm with Winry's again.

"Are you mad at me?" I asked Winry, and I think a small thing behind her eyes eased when I didn't go to the boys.

"No," she said, swaying me along with her when she rocked on her heels, "but tell me next time! Don't keep secrets from me," she pouted.

I nodded, knowing at most this promise can be kept halfway. But that fifty percent I would protect.

"Screw that, Marlon!" Ed scrambled up and got in my face then, and I flinched back a little. "Tell me where I drew the circle wrong! I don't get it!" He pulled me forward, and I pulled Winry with me, and us four all huddled over the tiny floor bird. And then I started pointing out the bits I changed, and we talked until Trisha came in calling us to lunch.

Afterwards, Winry always became vaguely suspicious when I went to Ed and Al's house. She always had the funniest I-got-my-eye-on-ya look on her face when I discussed what I did when she wasn't around after her customary automail gush.

"But you're my best friend, got that?" Winry said imperiously, all commanding in her white dress and sun-tanned skin and childish pettiness and I nodded along with a grin. "Ed and Al are best friends too, but we're more best friends!"

Ah kids.

"Always and forever," I promised again. "Anyway, Ed has nothing on you and you know it."

"Duh," Winry laughed back, before leading me to her tiny work room that Pinako had given her with some mechanical puzzles that Pinako had built for her.

…To be honest, I wasn't the best at spatial puzzles. Blueprints are okay, but puzzles boggle my mind more than a little before I could solve them after I analysed them piece by piece. Winry however would saunter over and pick them up and to solve them in a flash, while complaining that Granny wouldn't let her go at the real ones.

"Wow, you're amazing, Winry!" I gushed, picking at the interlocking metal chain thingies that she just twisted apart and twisted together again. She must have such amazing spatial memory and logic. And I don't know. I've only been here for a year, and she's, they've, they've grown up so much. Times were already starting shifting and changing. I was going to move forward with Ed and Al – even try to keep maybe a step before them for as long as possible. But I didn't want to leave Winry behind. I tilted my head up and narrowed my eyes at the ceiling, adjusting my smile while Winry continued to tinker with her puzzles with mulish grumbles. I looked down.

"Do you think you'll go into automail like Pinako, Winry?" I grinned, locking her arm with mine to distract her from the puzzles a little.

"Ummmm…" Winry blinked up at me, startled. "It's interesting but dad always told me to take a little more time before I decide. Automail is really hard but you can still apprentice for it whenever and Granny says she can teach me sooooo…" Winry shrugged. "Dad said to go to school first! I shouldn't just decide to do what I see around me he told me."

Heh. "Yuriy is a good father," I nodded, before leaning into Winry again, watching her tinker with a small clock, falling a little asleep.

"You're still getting over that summer cold, right?" Winry asked me, a small little worrying hen, carefully bumping her shoulder up and jostling me a bit. "I have a few cushions if you wanna lie on the bench!"

Pfft. There was a couch right outside in the living room, silly, with blankets and cushions and a few of her stuffed toys.

"Sure," I rolled along with it, and that afternoon and evening was spent at Pinako's when she tutted at me actually curling up on Winry's bench, and Winry crawled up alongside me shoving all her stuff away talking quite seriously that if she was a Princess, then Al and Ed would argue so much that they couldn't possibly be Princes, and that if I decided that I wanted to be the wicked witch she'd probably just make friends with me and appoint me court wizard after she returned to her castle. That casual dismissal of the boys being any sort of useful to her metaphorical rescue gave me the giggles again.

You do you, Winry.

Dinner was lovelier than usual, with a bit of salted lamb with rosemary and some buttered rolls with Pinako's home-grown vegetables on the side. I practically inhaled the vegetables because both Joy and I were bachelors from the city who knew crap all about growing vegetables. All our attempts died on us despite our friend's greatest efforts. Joy joined us a little later with her contribution to dinner, some sugar-pickled fruits that we had made together a few weeks back trying to make use of the last bits of our sugar. Dinner was a warm affair, because once Pinako decided that you were hers, she'd yell any sort of awkwardness out of you.

In the end, Winry cheered me on as I tried to stuff as many tiny fruits in my mouth as possible, while Pinako just grunted a laugh and challenged that she could totally do more, stuffing her own face, and Joy face-palmed before revealing the second jar she'd brought over (she secretly approved, the enabler).

Then I nearly choked when I tried to chew it all down. Oops.


"You've already missed two and a half terms, Marlon," Joy looked at me from the doctor's office in the clinic, as she inspected my lungs. She listened to the stethoscope carefully before continuing. "The school understands your health problems, and I'm sure you can catch up because I've been home-schooling you when we have time but…"

Since I was five, I should've started school like most of the village kids. But winter brought pneumonia, spring was promising until I keeled over from mild hay fever that wasn't really the problem until it stuffed my breathing, summer brought a nasty cold and who knew what would come in autumn.

"Resembool only has two classrooms for younger and older kids, right?" I asked, pulling my shirt back down with a shrug.

"You thinking to go with your friends?"

Ed and Winry were only a year younger than me, anyway. Al had to wait a little longer, but considering Trisha's single mother status and increased duties, I had no doubt he'll just drag himself along.

"Yeah. Winry will take care of me."

Joy conceded at that. "Winry does care a lot about your health," she nodded.

School in the town had four terms, one for each season, though students usually joined the school either in the winter (there was little to do) or summer (the kids were too small to help with harvest) terms. However, I had missed them both. Baby Marlon's body was definitely much better than when I inherited it, but it was still very weak. Some days I could climb the hill all by myself, before another shift in the seasons came, someone coughed in my direction during a cold snap, or the air got too dry and a whole cascade of irritations would come up and I suddenly had to stay hobbling around the house with Winry, Ed or Al propping me up.

Man. I never really appreciated immune systems did back in my previous life, but I totally do now.

"I don't mind getting home-schooled until I get absolutely better," I added.

Joy gave me an uncertain look before making an inward decision, face becoming peaceful again. Her fierceness and determination that I'd observed from her had never dimmed, only tucked away in this strange period of her life where she had to take care of her sister's child in the countryside. I think she was only twenty-five and I've noticed a few young suitors coming up to be rebuffed by her most professional smile.

Ah, youth.

"I'll make sure you're up-to-date, but the moment you can go to school, you'll enter," she decided.

"Okay," I shrugged, not really having any sort of opinion.

Autumn came, and the cold winds blew in a dry cough that made me hack out bloody phlegm. Winry came down to talk about her joining school with Ed, Ed quibbled alchemy with me, and Al made a point to hunt around the fields to bring me something cute each time he visited while we rode this bout of sickness away together.

School was shelved for later.


Throughout all of this, I kept an eye on Trisha (waned a little but steadied. Pale, but got healthier with time and letters from Hohenheim. With me nagging Ed and Al, she ate better too. All in all, on track), framed my alchemic process against Ed's, and kept abreast of the situation outside of the sleepiness of Resembool as best as I could.

Sarah and Yuriy sent letters that were scarcer and scarcer as the Ishval front grew more brutal. Knowing Dad Alain was also there, I wasn't surprised to see the few letters he sent also slowly trickled down. Since I wasn't actually a child, I didn't worry about him not loving me or forgetting about me (two of Joy's worries) but instead what was happening to him.

Baby Marlon, his child, was his reason to live in this chaotic time. Things must be very hectic for him not to even have time to scrawl out a small note.

I did miss him though. I'd grown out of the small blue dress he'd gifted me before he left, no matter how stunted my growth had been. I wore a light cotton blue dress similar to Winry's customary white now, simple to make, easy to clean and mend. The Floppy books were lovingly placed on the centre of my shelf still, right next to my music collection.

People were still sniffing around to see if Aerugo was supplying weapons to Ishval, Creta apparently broke out into both a civil dispute and a desperate fight against Amestris for a border town all at once. Ishval's fighting spirit only got larger the more time went on, and the battle there was more bloody than the western Cretan war and Aerugo's southern border combined.

I'd heard Creta trying to reach out to Drachma, a huge national power up north, to forge an alliance, but that thankfully fell through.

Ah, politics. I carefully marked down the power shifts and the deaths in my journal, alongside daily anecdotes of my daily life. Ed secretly shucking his bottle of milk into one of the bowls for stray cats in town again. Winry successfully repairing the small clock she was tinkering with for the past week. Al finding me different shaped leaves to press and make into bookmarks.

All in all, I felt like I was living in a slice-of-life story. Nothing was happening. I was growing up so slowly.


I turned six in the winter with not so much as the pneumonia from last year, but the continuation of the racking dry cough that didn't stop from autumn. That stopped schooling, but didn't stop everyone I knew from throwing a rad party for me in the snowy depths of it.

"Happy Birthday!" Everyone clapped around a table with a veritable feast of food at Pinako's. Pinako was happily serving everyone alongside Joy, while Trisha tended to us kids to tuck us in and make sure everyone wasn't quibbling over unequal servings. I asked for a group photo of us all that Pinako proudly stuck onto her photo board. In the dining room with a few handmade decorations, Trisha and Joy stood smiling at the back, Pinako to the left patting a happy Den, and Winry slung on both Ed's shoulder and my own, as Al held my hand.

Time flew. What else was there to say?

In Winter, the kids started school, I learnt at home, and we all did homework together.

Spring came, summer came. Ed and Al complained about how easy the work was and did secret alchemy circles in class. Winry struggled with English, which I was glad to help her with, but did absolutely amazingly in math. They had funny stories of their fellow students – a few farmer's sons and daughters, townsfolk kids, kids they warned me to be aware of when I went to school with them ('Of course,' Ed would say then, puffing his chest out, 'I'd be there to save you if you did bump into them!') and all and all school sounded absolutely the same as my previous life, only smaller and rural. I was kind of glad I was missing a few years, actually, when I heard all the young school pettiness going on.

Of course, I dutifully cheered Winry on when she reported on how she had an ongoing playground war against this girl called Amy, who had called Winry 'piglike' just because she tussled with the boys one time in the mud. "Apparently," Winry told me, "Amy has a crush on Ed." She looked so aghast as she said this that I burst out laughing.

Wait until you're married to him, darling.

Country life whirled on its routines, waking by dawn, sleeping by night, and the more time passed and saw Trisha fine, the more I relaxed. The more I wondered - Truth had mentioned Fate, and its course having changed. Maybe... maybe fate had changed enough, that Trisha did not need to die. That Ed and Al wouldn't do human transmutation, and I...

I would need to face Father alone with Hohenheim. Without them. Without all the allies that they made. Mustang's team. The Armstrongs. The whole Northern Army. Izumi, Ling, Mei, Greed.

(and my heart twisted, selfishly, selfishly scared).

So we lived, healthy, happy. Golden days that would be recollected with absolute surety of our happiness.

Then, in a muggy late summer, a plague broke across the country.

Something eased in my chest when the first card of fate fell.


It started small, apparently. On the Southern Eastern border, near the Aerugo conflict.

"Cole's cousin, you know, the one living in Shefford… he caught that fever."

Accompanying Joy to the markets, the aunties there usually gossiped about that baby, or this family's kid, or the fluctuation prices of food nowadays. Mundane stuff I would hear in my old world too, whenever housewives got together. But this week it was completely different, it was all hushed, worried whispers instead.

"Yeah, I know," said Mrs Cooper, who ran an inn that kind of had an atmosphere of a pub or a tavern since they served most of the alcohol to be found in Resembool. She had large lips that only helped her smile to become more welcoming. "Marie's kid, sweet little Shelly, you know how she moved west to avoid the conflict… Her daughter was the one that always wears her hair in pigtails…" After a murmur from her companion, she bobbed her head. "Yeah, she died just a few days ago. Marie was distraught."

The next week, there was an influx of people on the trains, staying at the few inns and hostels near the station. Bustles of packed, relatively well-to-do looking families who moved in droves down the train-line, Resembool only one of the many stops on their journey to East City, which was apparently still clean.

Joy watched with cold eyes, grasping my hand and walking me quickly away from the increased hubbub of the town. We picked up some of the fruits available from some extra cash Joy had, before rushing back.

"People are scared," Joy just said tersely, as she ordered more expensive stocks of medical supplies. "They're just spreading the disease by moving. Idiots," she scoffed, slamming her ledger down and pulling her hair back. "Plagues sometimes only become plagues because people react this way. What absolute idiots. Why isn't there quarantine yet?"

Then she rolled her eyes to herself while I kept myself still, sat on the bed of her clinic. "Of course, not enough deaths. Urgh," she grumbled, before promptly calling Trisha and Pinako to not go near the town as much as possible for the next week or so.

"Just in case," she assured me.

The next week, Trisha had to accompany a supplier to another town. Ed, Al and Winry had all heard of the 'killer disease' that's blown around Central, South, and the East at school, children happily sharing exaggerated stories. Ed and Al even had this half gleeful gossipy, half horrified awe when they told me all about how everyone who contracted this disease had a fifty fifty rate of dying!

The rate wasn't actually that high, but it was risky enough.

Trisha came back after a few days, looking fine. A few deaths had been reported in the inns in Resembool. Some of these cases had been transported all through town into Joy's clinic with harsh raps on our door. Joy promptly banished me to Pinako's house, who gladly took me in. Deaths were reported in some of the Resembool townsfolk, while newspapers had glaring titles like 'Plague spreads across East City!' and 'Death toll of Mysterious Disease Rises!'

The next week, the consequences of so people's sickness started showing – a lot of farm hands and helpers couldn't help with the last harvest of the season, leaving farmers like Trisha to have a greatly increased burden.

Ed and Al tried to help, they told me over the phone in our chats, but they couldn't reach many of the ones on top of the vines. Trisha looked increasingly harried, making Ed and Al worry as well.

My account of all of these were only through word-of-mouth. I wasn't allowed anywhere near the situation because of my immune system.

So I sat and felt helpless. Helpless, powerless, alone, relieved, and selfish.

Then, after a whole torturous month, my worst fears arrived.

On the last week of summer, Trisha Elric contacted the Great 1904 Plague, one of only many thousands of victims.

And I knew, as sadness took over me, as relief mixed through it all.

On the first day, Ed and Al panicked and immediately ran down the hill to call Joy, who had already been overworked. Joy had rushed up as immediately, setting the collapsed woman back onto her bed and rousing her into consciousness. She immediately gave Ed and Al prescriptions, and called Pinako over to tend to Trisha while she continued to work in the clinic, promising to rush back up with any changes. I wasn't allowed over there, told to 'take care of Winry' while Pinako pulled on a determined expression and rushed out.

On the second day, Ed and Al visited us, saying that all Trisha had been dreaming about was their dad. They planned on hitting the post-office for all the places where he'd sent letters, planning to send their own to track him down.

"Here's a list of numbers," Ed had run over on the third day, a mask covering his face. "Al and I are going to send letters. Can you help?" His golden eyes burned over his surgical mask, little hands leaving the papers he shoved in my hand sweaty and creased. I forwent all the warnings Joy gave me and hugged him, tugging his face into my shoulder even if I was still the scrawniest of them all. I made a point to keep hugging him until he relaxed.

"I'll call every single one of these people," I replied after I released him and Ed did his usual complaining about 'not needing hugs!' "I'll call you after I finish, okay?"

That whole day, I spent racking up Pinako's phone bill. Number, after number, after number. I sat there from breakfast to dinner, dinner until sleep, dialing for even a shadow of their father.

"Did you see this man?" I would ask after perfunctory greetings, before describing Hohenheim's appearance.

"No," they would invariably reply, "I don't think so."

Some would say yes, before saying, "He left a few weeks back, so I'm not sure."

One person replied, deep into the night. "Yes, but he left yesterday."

I promptly scribbled down that name (all the way in the west, literally across the country) and thanked the man.

Al squealed on the phone next morning, excited at my news.

"Thanks, Mal!" He yelled excitedly over the phone. "I'll tell Brother right away! At least we know where he is now, we'll send a letter everywhere around there!"

In the end, all I could do was watch the two boys slowly grow less energetic. Slowly sadder, more desperate, as letter after letter was sent, and after a week, letter after letter was returned.

Trisha held on for a week and a half, before Joy ran up the hill on Wednesday, at sunset. From 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM they managed to get her fever down to a manageable level, but she was already too burnt out. The fever had taken her exhaustion, her stress and used it as fuel to burn away her way to live.

'Hohenheim', she would murmur under her breath, looking out the window towards town.

Apparently after saying her goodbyes to Ed and Al, she looked out the window and apologised to Hohenheim. For not being strong enough. For not living.

Then Ed proceeded to smash everything breakable he could reach in Hohenheim's study while Al cried over Trisha's corpse. Pinako found the boys and gathered them, and now Ed and Al were in her house for the night, red-eyed, disbelieving, forced into a hot bath with a new set of clothes.

I wasn't really sad over Trisha's death as much as I thought I would be. I heard the news of course, in a distant sort of way. Seated at Pinako's living room, after Winry had rushed to bawl into Pinako's arms. I didn't even tear up when I hugged Al, because Ed had locked himself away in his given room, and Winry wanted to stay with Pinako.

Maybe it was because I'd already known.

"Mal," Al asked that night, as I hugged him to sleep. His arms were pudgy in a child's way, warm and lively, and Al had always been much nicer to hug than Ed. "Mal," he repeated, a small croak of a noise.

"What is it?" I asked back, quiet as I watched the moonlight through the window. Al wanted light today, so I didn't draw the curtains.

Al didn't say anything more except squirm until my arms loosened, drawing his borrowed blankets over the top of his head. Through the bed, I could feel him shivering.

I lay beside him, extending a hand underneath the covers that, a few seconds later, Al grasped tightly. Rearranging myself so that I was also warm, I kept holding Al's hand while pretending to sleep.

I was six, Ed was five. Ed joined the military at 12. He took a year to adapt to automail. 11. Mustang took half a year to a year to arrive at Resembool to find the Elrics. 10.

Despite everything I tried to do as a six year old, Trisha still died. Do I feel responsibility? I reflected.

No, not really. Circumstances dictate, and all. I could easily argue that, back in my old life, if I didn't donate or change my lifestyle or support some political reformation that millions of children would die of starvation. Was I responsible?

Most people would say no. Some would say 'generally speaking, but what can you do?'

What can I do?

…What do I need to do?

I looked at the Alphonse, hidden in his huddle of blankets.

I could stop Ed and Al from doing human transmutation.

I needed to rescue my mother's soul.

'…Sorry, Al'. I gently kissed the blanket where the top of his head would be and closed my eyes. 'I'm not strong enough to do this alone'. His palms were sweating uncomfortably now, and I could feel tears dropping between the clench of our fingers, warm and sticky. We lay next to each other, neither sleeping until dawn came and Al slowly creaked his fingers away from mine.

A new day had been born and in the next room, Ed was scrolling through all his memories for a solution, a cheat to this game, a way he could win, a way to get his mother back

And remembered human transmutation.


Still struggling to plough out writing, but here's my effort ohoho. I think writing is starting to get a litttlle smoother. Ish. Nothing much was happening, and I really needed to move forward. I think though, things will start moving very soon.

Marlon has a very practical view on morality and how much one person can go. She's going to try her best but love and duty has always been an interesting subject in FMA, ahaha. The boys are going to feature a lot more prominently from now on, and I'm personally very interested in how she, and in extension, Winry will fit into a lot of this.

Next chapter: school.

'things will start picking up' author-kun said, only a few sentences before. (lies)

Why do I always spend ten or so chapters to start a story, I have no idea ._.

Thank you for the reviews last chapter! It really did make me happy. I spotted some old readers too :3