Hey, I updated! Yay! Yeah, I know, it still took a while, but it was loads better than last time, huh? Anyway, not much to say about this except that I'm sorry it's short and it didn't really turned out the way I was hoping. And again, please tell me what you liked and didn't like (especially what you didn't like) and please correct my bad grammar if you see it. Thanks, enjoy.

Allen: You just love to torture me, don't you?

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Chapter Nine: The Price

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Dinner tasted delicious, perfectly seasoned and full of flavor; the atmosphere needed some work, however. Allen sat next to Noah, his sight repeatedly falling on the blond man across from him. He had had a little while to think about his discoveries before Noah had invited him down for dinner.

Noah and Edward carried on the only conversation at the table; the Roma woman occasionally attempted conversation with Allen but always ended up falling silent when he stared at her without response. Of course Edward could've translated, but Allen stubbornly refused to talk to him and Edward stubbornly did the same.

In fact, the man barely even looked at the teen across from him, probably still angry at their previous argument. If he had been thinking straight, Allen might have admitted the hostility Edward was showing him was all due to his earlier outburst, but instead, he simply hated Edward even more.

His thoughts had been in chaos after Edward had left the room; even now, he wasn't sure he had completely managed to comprehend the situation, but there were a few things he knew for sure:

a) as much as he hated to admit it, the man across from him was his father.

b) he was currently trapped in a parallel world where alchemy didn't exist.

c) his only way home was through the Gate - where he would rather not return now that he was starting to remember his time in there - that could only be summoned by the alchemy that didn't exist.

d) whether Edward had abandoned his family or actually been trapped here all this time, it didn't change the fact that he had never played a part in Allen's childhood and wasn't even aware of the fact that Allen was in anyway connected to his previous life in Amestris.

And due to reason D, Allen decided that he would never let Edward know that he was Allen's father.

Noah suddenly hissed at Edward in her strange language and Allen glanced up to see her smack the blond man on the shoulder. 'Wasn't he supposed to be missing that arm?', Allen wondered, trying to recall all the stories of his father. He was quite sure that was the reason he was called the Fullmetal Alchemist in the first place.

Edward narrowed his eyes and the woman, who frowned at him in response, nodding her head towards Allen. The blond man sighed irritably before turning to face the confused teen.

"She wants me to talk to you," he explained with a scowl.

"Why would she want that?" Allen muttered, stabbing the green beans on his plate angrily.

"Who know," Edward sighed. Silence reigned once again, the only sound the clinking of dishes as Noah began to clear the table. Allen stood, grabbing his plate and following Noah to the sink, glad for a chance to avoid Edward.

But upon reaching the sink, Noah took the plate from him, smiled, and sent him back to the still-eating Edward. The two glanced at each other before Allen mumbled something about sleep and stumbled back upstairs to his temporary room.

Upon reaching the room the exhausted teen collapsed on the bed. It didn't matter that he wasn't doing any serious exercise, simply walking up and down the stairs wore him out. His body was still weak and sore from both the car accident and what he figured was a result of the Gate.

His injuries, however, were much better than they could be. After all, after being hit with a car he was lucky his injuries consisted of mostly scrapes and bruises. He figured he also had a broken rib - and possibly a minor concussion from the way his head kept pounding - but even that would heal rather easily. As for the Gate…..

…..he had never dealt with the Gate before, and he hadn't really talked with anyone who had. Except for Edward and his Uncle. Allen sighed, trying to remember all of his Uncle's stories. There were millions of them, dating all the way back to when he was a toddler. He knew some of them had to have been about the Gate, but he couldn't remember anything. And what Edward had mentioned hadn't helped him either.

He had been injured before the accident, he knew that much. How was the question.

Allen rubbed his pounding head, stopping when he came across the bandages covering his eye. Slowly, the teen sat up, still fingering the bandage. Exiting the bedroom he glanced around the hallway for a bathroom; halfway down the hall from his bedroom, he discovered one. It was a simple bathroom containing only a shower/bathtub, toilet, cabinet and the item of his search: a mirror.

Allen's only visible eye widened as he looked at himself in the mirror; his shoulder-length hair was dirty and caked in dried blood. Instead of pulled back out of his face in a low ponytail, it hung loosely around his face. Dirty, blood covered bandages wrapped around his head and covered his left eye. Scrapes and dirt lined his face, a rather nasty bruise off to the right side of his forehead. Slowly and cautiously he began to remove the bandages around his head. Just as he was reaching for the bandage covering his eye, Edward stopped outside of the bathroom.

"Hold on," Edward exclaimed, heading towards him. "I wouldn't-" Allen gasped, the bandage falling from his hands to the bathroom floor as he stared in horror at his reflection.

The area around his eye looked like it had been gnawed at, the skin ripped and clawed off by some creature. It wasn't just the top layer of skin either; it was like it had been clawed to the skull in places, and somewhere in the back of his mind it registered that it would leave a scar.

But his mind wasn't even focused on that. Instead he was staring at his eye.

Or where his eye was supposed to be.

Instead, he stared at an empty socket where his left eye used to be.

"Look kid," Edward began awkwardly, putting a hand on the teen's shoulder. But Allen didn't hear him; he didn't even realize Edward was there.

Suddenly, Allen yelled in surprise, clutching at the sink to keep himself up. His eye….wasn't there….gone…

Allen was in a daze as Edward helped steer him back towards his room and helped him sit down on the edge of the bed. "My eye…" he muttered, raising a hand to lightly touch at the healing flesh around the empty eye socket before Edward pulled his hand back.

"It was your price," was all the older man said, grabbing some new bandages sitting on the dressers. Allen glanced up at him, eyebrows raised in confusion. "The Gate requires a price to get through," Edward explained, wincing slightly as he thought about it. "The eye was your price, and in order to get through the Gate, it was taken from you. I know this sounds harsh, but you're pretty lucky."

"Lucky?" Allen grumbled as Edward began rewrapping bandages around his head. "I loose my eye and you call me lucky?"

Edward frowned. "It's better than an arm or leg. Or something life-threatening. Whether you like it or not, you can live without an eye."

"I gave up my eye to come to a place I didn't even want to end up in. And now there is probably no chance of me ever getting back home. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't call that lucky."

Edward finished tying the bandages and turned towards the door. "It's late and you're exhausted, go to bed, Allen. Besides, I promised. I'll find a way home."

And with that, he left, Allen glaring at his retreating back.