DISCLAIMER: I don't own FMA and I'm tired of saying that. Maybe I'll just not say it for the rest of the fic and have this be the disclaimer for the rest of the fic? Idk. All I know is, is that Del and all my OCs are mine, but all the canon characters aren't. Yup.
Fourteen
The first thing that Delilah managed to do in Rush Valley was get lost.
On any other day, she would've tagged right along with Winry to look at all of the automail (of course, she wouldn't have the same gusto about everything like the mechanic did). However, Delilah's mind was still stuck on her first task from her teachers—to figure out the phrase, "All is one, and one is all"—and she had ended up wandering in what she supposed was the opposite direction the others had taken. She couldn't be sure, though, because the thick crowds kept her from being able to see even Alphonse's tall figure.
Rush Valley was a hot place. Unlike Central, which had cool, pleasant breezes, the air was dry and left her feeling thirsty. The weather wasn't so hot that it negatively affected everyone with automail—the heat wasn't as bad as it could be in, say, the desert. In fact, the warmth seemed to attract a wide variety of those people both with automail limbs and without, and everyone scurried about among the wooden and mud-made buildings.
She was jostled a bit, and she put a hand on her hat to keep it from falling off. Perhaps it would be best if I went back to the hotel, she mused, but she couldn't remember which way that was. Having a plan of action kept her from worrying; so long as she was able to keep the goal of getting to the hotel in mind, she wouldn't start thinking up terrifying probabilities of what had happened to the others (namely, she didn't want to think that Envy was in Rush Valley, too).
After asking directions from a rather nice-looking shopkeeper, she headed south, keeping an eye out for the general store. Once there, she glanced around, trying to remember if the man had told her to take a right of a left—
"Delilah!" Out of nowhere, Alphonse appeared, brandishing a piece of chalk as he rushed up to her. "Where have you been?" he fretted. "I was worried!"
Delilah felt immensely relieved, and she relaxed the muscles that she hadn't noticed were tensed. "I got lost," she admitted. "I am glad I found you."
"Brother went into this crowd to take on an arm wrestler, and I was so distracted that I didn't realize you were gone for a while. I'm sorry."
"No harm done," she replied, lightly smiling at him. She knew that he wouldn't have let her get lost on purpose.
"Oh, there you are, Delilah," Winry said, hurrying up behind Alphonse. She smiled warmly at the younger girl. "We were going to look for you, but Ed pulled us along in trying to find some pickpocket who stole his watch. He's still chasing after her. Some girl named Paninya, I think."
Delilah tipped her head. "His watch?"
Alphonse laughed a little. "Some people stripped Brother down to his boxers so they could see his automail, and Paninya stole it."
"He obviously isn't very happy about it," Winry added.
"I can imagine." Delilah took note of the chalk in Al's hand. "Are you drawing a transmutation circle?"
"Oh, I need to finish," he realized, now sounding pressed for time. "Mind giving me a hand?"
She agreed, taking the chalk from her dress pocket and hurrying to help him draw the rather large circle. "What is this for?" she asked when they were finished.
"Just trying to help Brother out," was all Al said on the matter.
Delilah dusted her hands off on her dress. "So where is Edward now?"
Al pointed, and Winry handed over a spyglass that the younger Elric probably transmuted. Before Delilah even had a chance to look, the sound of a scuffle distracted her to glance at the roof of the general store in time to see the light of a transmutation fade. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, but suddenly there was a very loud crash and a few seconds later, a brown-skinned teen emerged from the shop, whistling innocently. Lost in her carefree ways, she managed to walk right into the center of Al's transmutation circle without noticing.
"I've been waiting for you," Alphonse told her, activating the circle. Tendrils of the ground rose up around the girl—presumably Paninya—in the shape of a large cage, effectively trapping her.
Delilah had seen the boys transmute before, but never something so big. "Amazing," she breathed. She might be able to do it, but definitely not as quickly as he had, nor would she made it look as elegant.
"Ah…it's nothing," Alphonse replied.
Winry lightly elbowed him in the chest. "Of course it is."
Edward suddenly slammed open the door of the general store and marched out toward the cage. He was chuckling evilly. "Now you'll pay, woman!"
Alphonse's mood plummeted. "Brother, you're talking just like a bad guy!"
Paninya tapped at the cage, ignoring the brothers. She grinned. "Take a step back if you don't wanna get hurt," she warned Ed before suddenly making a kicking motion. There was a glint as a blade erupted from her shin, cutting the bars of the cage and setting her free.
Delilah was startled, but her reaction was nothing compared to the sudden jerk that Winry made.
"Automail…"
"What're you staring at?" Paninya asked smugly. "This is Rush Valley, remember? By the way," she went on, lifting the knee of her other leg, "this one has a 1.5-inch carbine in it."
Something shot out of her knee. Delilah let out an "eep!" and ducked behind Alphonse, but luckily Paninya didn't seem to be aiming at any of them.
The force of the blast caused Ed to fall flat on his back. His eyes widened considerably. "Both her legs are automail and she's that coordinated?"
Delilah peeked out from behind Alphonse. "Really?"
Paninya ignored their conversation and started to run away. Ed scrambled to his feet and shouted, but before he could really do anything, Winry reached out and grabbed Paninya by the wrist.
"I'm not letting you get away," Winry said darkly before her expression suddenly lit up. "Not until you let me get a good look at that automail up close."
Ed and Al fell over.
()()()()()
Apparently, Ed had caused a lot of damage to the town, so the citizens quickly came to drag him off to fix all of it. Delilah wanted to help, but Alphonse stopped her and said that Ed needed to learn his lesson. While he was gone, Paninya and Winry made a deal: the pickpocket would lead them into the mountains to get to her automail outfitter (since Winry was adamant about meeting him), and once there she would give back Ed's watch and be let off the hook for the trouble.
Ed was not happy when he learned of this deal, but as Alphonse pointed out, he had little say in this matter.
That was how the five of them found themselves walking down a mountain path, the sun beaming down relentlessly. Thankfully, they had decided to leave their luggage back at the hotel, and therefore no one had to carry anything; the heat itself was just barely manageable, and lugging around things could have been suicide.
"Why does your engineer live out in the middle of nowhere?" Delilah asked between pants, genuinely curious.
"He says he can find better ore this far out," Paninya replied. "Well, and he also didn't want to live in town. Too many people. He's not what you'd call the friendly sort."
"Will you just give me back my watch already?"
"We made a deal, remember?" Paninya said in a sing-song voice. "I guide you to the engineer and you let me off the hook. I'm keeping this watch hostage until then!"
"I'm not the one who made a deal with you," Ed grumbled.
Luckily, it wasn't much longer before they came into sight of a house built into the face of a cliff. Paninya happily marched right up and barged in, calling out a greeting and introducing everyone to each other. Dominic LeCourt, who was busy working in another room, was the one who made Paninya's automail. His son, Ridel, also made automail, and his wife, Satera, took care of the household chores. It was obvious that she was heavily pregnant.
"Would you like to join us for tea?" she invited.
They all readily agreed, and Delilah helped the woman deliver the tea outside to the plain table where Dominic, Winry, and Paninya sat and talked about automail (although the only person there with metal limbs seemed pretty uninterested in the conversation). Delilah was about to head back inside to help get more cups when Satera heavily sat down in a nearby chair.
"Are you all right, Mrs. LeCourt?" she asked, seeing the slight discomfort on the woman's face.
"Oh, I'm fine," she replied as Ridel hurried over. "I'm just pregnant, that's all. It's so heavy that I'm always tired."
"A baby?" Ed asked, as if he hadn't seen the woman's enlarged stomach. "Congratulations!"
"That's amazing," Alphonse put in.
"The baby's due in about two weeks," Ridel informed them, looking proud.
"Can I feel your tummy?" Ed asked excitedly, sounding as if he were ten instead of fifteen.
Satera smiled. "Go ahead. You all can."
Alphonse understandably stood back a little as Ed and Delilah each put a hand on Satera's hard, round stomach. Hardly a few seconds later, Delilah felt something.
She blinked in surprise. "I think it kicked me."
"Aw, you're lucky," Ed said, pulling away from Satera and smiling. "That's cool. That's the first time I've touched a pregnant lady's tummy."
"To think we were inside Mom's body like that too," Alphonse said, awed.
Ed chuckled. "Kinda weird, huh?"
"I know." Satera placed her hands over her stomach as Delilah pulled away. "It's even strange to think there's another life in me."
"A baby spends roughly two hundred days inside its mother before being born," said Ridel, and Delilah found herself nodding, having read that as well.
"Giving birth is truly a miraculous thing," Satera added. "No one has to tell the baby anything—after two hundred days, it just knows that it's time to come out. Even though its never been outside the womb, it just knows."
"Amazing," Delilah breathed, fascinated.
Satera smiled at her. "Perhaps one day you'll have a child too."
Delilah stared at her. "Me?"
The woman chuckled. "Not for a while, of course. Ridel and I always wanted one, but we weren't exactly planning. You never know."
"No one would want to have a child with me," Delilah replied, trying to sound modest. However, her voice came out rather flat.
The males didn't quite know how to react to that, but Satera seemed to understand perfectly. "That's what I thought, too."
()()()()()
Delilah decided to give Satera a hand in the kitchen while Winry showed Dominic Edward's automail (much to the displeasure of the alchemist). After only being at the house for a few hours, Delilah decided that she liked the woman and wanted to help her with whatever she could since Satera was so heavily pregnant.
"We're hoping it's a boy," Satera was saying as she washed the dishes, handing them to Delilah to dry. "Even after all this time, we're not quite sure what to name him yet. Or her."
Delilah took her time to dry the dishes. "What does it feel like?" She had been around pregnant people before back home, but she had always made them uncomfortable, so she wanted to take the opportunity to ask all that she could from Satera.
The woman smiled softly. "At first I didn't feel much coming from the baby. But it kicks me every once in a while. Sometimes it hurts, but not usually. And now he usually sits right on my bladder, and that's not very fun. But honestly…I've never felt happier."
Delilah stared at her hands as she worked. "It takes a lot of work to raise a baby, right?"
"Of course. I don't know if Ridel and I will ever be one hundred-percent ready, but we'll do our best and we'll always try to support it in whatever decisions it wants to make."
Delilah felt a twinge of relief for the child, but also a speck of jealousy. She willed the latter emotion away quickly. She opened her mouth to speak, but never got the chance.
Satera suddenly gasped, dropping her dishes in the sink with a loud clatter. She clutched at her stomach, an intense pain on her face.
"M-Mrs. LeCourt! Are you all right?" Delilah let go of what she was doing and put a hand on the woman's shoulder.
"T-the…"
By chance, Winry chose that moment to come into the room. Delilah looked to her for help, and the older girl immediately saw that something was wrong. Quickly, she called for Ridel while Delilah helped Satera sit in a nearby chair.
Ridel rushed over. "Satera? What's wrong?"
A morbid, pained expression transformed the woman's face. "The baby's coming."
Ridel stuttered protests about how the baby wasn't supposed to come for several days, but Satera pointed out how that didn't matter since it was coming now. Dominic burst into the room, followed by Ed, Al, and Paninya; upon seeing the situation, mass hysteria broke out as they all ran in separate directions, not having any clue what to do.
"We have to get her to the hospital!" Ridel insisted.
Dominic took one look outside; the hot weather had transformed into a thunderstorm in a matter of hours. "I'll ride into town and get the doctor. She can't go anywhere." With haste, he grabbed his raincoat and rushed out to the barn where they kept the horse.
"We need to get her to a bed," Winry said nervously. Al managed to gain enough sense to help Ridel carry Satera to a bedroom and place her on the mattress.
While they did that, Delilah tried to remember what Marcoh had done back home during the few times she had helped him around pregnant women. She searched the bathroom for towels; she ending up throwing the larger ones on the floor in her haste until she found smaller cloths; she wet several of them and wrung them out before hurrying back to the bedroom. She was stopped when Ed, Al, and Winry rushed past her, explaining that the bridge was out and Dominic needed their help.
"Good luck!" Delilah called after a moment before hurrying into the bedroom and putting one of the compresses on Satera's forehead. "I wish I could make you feel more comfortable," she said, noticing how Satera was wincing in pain.
Paninya looked horrified; the girl was standing by the wall, as if she wanted to be as far away from the whole situation as possible. "T-the sheets are getting wet."
Delilah saw that she was right, and she didn't have to guess twice where the liquid was coming from. "Please get another sheet," she asked Paninya, and the girl scampered off. Delilah's tone had become distant once more as she recalled what she was supposed to do, but Paninya seemed grateful to have orders. Delilah instructed Ridel to help Satera lift her dress away from her hips and to take off her underwear. Paninya came back and helped Delilah drape the sheet over Satera's legs for privacy. All the while, Satera moaned in pain.
Ed, Al, and Winry came back several minutes later, soaked by the rain. Delilah went out to meet them at the doorway to the bedroom, and Ed suddenly clung to her arm, his golden eyes wide. "Dominic has to go the long way around. Please tell me you know what to do."
The pressure of being relied upon weighed her mind, and she replied carefully. "I have not been present at any births, but I have helped prepare, and I have read about it."
Paninya peeked out of the room. "You never told me why there was so much water." Her eyes were wide with panic. "Why was there so much water?"
Winry's face well. "That means the baby's ready to be born."
Delilah looked to Winry (everyone else had fallen back into frenzy). "Do you know anything about this?"
The blonde nodded nervously. "I've read some of my parents' textbooks. I don't remember much, but…"
A loud moan from the bedroom interrupted her, and Delilah glanced inside. "Can you get everyone to get what we need?"
"R-right," Winry stuttered, but her expression turned serious. She was about to start barking orders when Ed and Al stopped her.
"You guys can do this," they both said.
Winry was surprised, but a determined expression settled across her features. Delilah could only nod and say, "I hope you are right."
()()()()()
Delilah wasn't sure who helped Satera more: herself or Winry. She supposed it was equal. Watching the miracle of life was both "miraculous" and disgusting, but thanks to having seen a fair number of diagrams in textbooks, Delilah was probably a bit more prepared than Winry was, honestly.
Still, Delilah didn't know if she had ever felt so tired in her life. She felt lucky to have had Paninya and Winry there with her, and to have had Ed and Al provide some of the things they needed (like boiling water and rubbing alcohol). Somehow, after all those hours of pain and screaming, Satera LeCourt had safely given birth to a healthy baby boy, and all was well, at least until a trained doctor came back with Dominic.
Winry and Delilah instructed Ridel to wash the baby, and it was at this point that Ed and Al came in and cheered excitedly. Their enthusiasm somehow made Delilah feel a little less tired. Satera and Ridel also voiced their thanks to the young girls, and though Delilah felt that Winry deserved a large portion of the gratitude due to her skill at giving orders, Delilah couldn't help but feel a bit of…pride.
She felt…important. And helpful.
After the height of the excitement was over and Ed, Winry, and Paninya had left the room, Delilah took it upon herself to help clean up the blood off Satera's legs while Ridel and Alphonse doted on the baby. While she was working, the new mother expressed her thanks once more.
Delilah smiled at her, unaware of the fact that there was a smear of blood on her cheek. "I am just glad that you and the baby are all right. And that I had Winry and Paninya to help me…." She glanced to where Paninya was collapsed in the doorway. "…Well, Winry was the bigger help."
"Like Brother said, I think it's amazing that you were able to bring life into this world," Alphonse commented, still awed.
Ridel smiled. "It feels amazing. I mean, we've changed the world a little bit, just by adding this little one into it."
Delilah froze, although no one noticed, as she was done cleaning Satera and the baby was taking up all the attention, including hers. The baby let out a small cry, and she noticed how the action was both important and…insignificant at the same time.
All is one, and one is all, she thought; it was the only topic that had stuck in her mind since she had first been introduced to it, and she had questioned it that entire train ride, that entire time they were in Rush Valley. Like Alphonse said…and that means…
She felt humbled at her epiphany, but now that she knew it, she wondered how she had been stumped in the first place. This, along with the relief from the stress of the past few hours, made her laugh.
Satera and Ridel were a bit too wrapped up in their own conversation to notice, but Alphonse looked back at her, a question in his red eyes.
"Alphonse," she said, the laughter still pervading her voice, and at this he came closer to her. She smiled, her blue eyes alight and completely and utterly present with the world. She pointed to the baby. "He is one, and all." She pointed to herself. "I am one, and all." She pointed to him. "You are, too. And we are insignificant compared to the universe, but we are still a part of it, no matter what. This baby is going to benefit from the world and the world will benefit from him, just like the rest of us. But in the end, he is small, and I am small, and you are small…. This understanding…is how we deconstruct and reconstruct, isn't it?"
Her mind was spinning with the information, but somehow it rooted her to reality rather than her thoughts, and she suddenly discovered a newfound fascination with the world around her.
Alphonse would've smiled at her if he could. "There's still a lot more, but you're right."
She laughed again and wiped some sweat off her forehead. "I suppose I passed the first test, Teacher?"
He chuckled. "No need to call me that. And I guess you did."
a/n: Last chapter was short and filler so I went ahead and made this part as "original" as I could. I hope you enjoyed~ Anyway, I think updates might come slower now, I have to get ready for school, it starts next week. Ugh.
I would really, really appreciate some reviews. 8D I mean, I love you, so why wouldn't you love me back? /ignore my shameless asking, it's 1am and I'm tireddddd. XD