After 27 chapters I still have to say that this is my personal favorite chapter. So uh, yay!

And yes, the beginning is a dream. I just felt like it. And that setting is actually a place/event I used to dream about often, only without the...well, there was no talking involved in the real life dreams, just the place, the people, the 'war', and the brief feeling of terror. I still don't know what it is. :D

I was in that white place again, my unnatural Gate standing tall behind me. The Gatekeeper was nowhere to be seen, but I still got chills with the nothingness - or maybe that's what caused the chills...

I just stood there, unmoving, for a few...breathless seconds. I didn't move; I couldn't move... Then, suddenly, a hauntingly familiar voice echoed throughout the whiteness: "You're dead..."

I whirled around, expecting to see The Gatekeeper pulling some sick prank on me. But the Gate wasn't even there anymore; it was just whiteness that was slowly morphing into a familiar background - yet so foreign now. It was...a twisted version of...home.

The voice spoke again. "You left and died to us; why are you even trying to come back?"

'No, no no no, this...isn't real' I thought to myself, knowing it was true. I've always had a good intuition for dreams and reality, but that doesn't mean I knew how to control the dreams.

Another voice spoke, but this time it was muffled. Although, regardless of the muffled sound, for some reason I understood the voice. It said something like: "Stay with your friends; you're happier, aren't you?"

The world completed its morph, becoming a strange backyard. It looked like the one in my old home...the house I lived in before the one I did now - I mean, before the one I...lived in before coming here. Only it was twisted; there were hedgerows instead of fences, and the house was huge, but I knew this place. It was the place I dreamed about when I was feeling nostalgic or when I missed something. Great. It usually ended with me waking up crying or something... 'Geez, I haven't been here in a long time...'

"You're happier there, leave us alone!"

I spun around to see a group of kids, blurred by the dream-scape. I couldn't tell how many there were, or who was talking, but it made me feel sad that they wanted me to leave. "But you're my best friends!" my detached mind screamed, in character with the dream. I wanted out; I knew where this was going, and I didn't feel like going through it right now. "I want to stay; I don't wanna go!" Tears filled my eyes, and I hardly noticed that I was at the age and size of a four year old.

One of the kids - I couldn't tell which - stuck their tongue out. "No we're not! You hurt us, and now you're going to pay!"

'Pay?'

Everything turned fuzzy and chaotic, as dreams tend to do, as the kids rushed forward. Next thing I knew, I was in the middle of a heated water-balloon fight with snowballs and rocks mixed in with the enemy's ammunition. Some part of me noticed my own voice shouting "No fair, that's cheating!" but I could only really be aware of my own terror as one of the cold, hard projectiles made contact with my face.

The kids laughed sadistically, and one spoke. "Get away from us, you're only hurting yourself!"

Another stepped forward: "Yeah, you've always been an annoying third wheel! You've never had friends!"

"I have too!" More childish tears played on my cheeks, threatening to spill, but I wouldn't let them; I wouldn't let them win!

"No you haven't," the kids snarled. "Now go back to your precious other world; if you do, we'll be happy again! It's not like no friends there will be any different from no friends here."

Another rock was thrown, and this time it made its mark. Everything went black...

"I wanna go home..."

I took a deep breath as I slowly came back into consciousness, the rumbling sound of a train fighting against my efforts to not drift off again. My dream was fading fast, but I briefly wondered why that place had come back... I hadn't had a dream with those kids for a long time... What had they been saying? Something about home?.. 'Uuuhhgh, it can't have been good, whatever it was. I feel sick...' I groaned softly.

A metallic shift to my right alerted me to Alphonse's presence. That, and the sudden movement of the comfortable metal surface my cheek was resting on. "Felicity?" Al spoke softly, refraining from making any more movement.

I was still tired, but in the time I'd spent with these two I'd pretty much mastered getting my mind to wake up fast. "Yeah?" I mumbled in answer, the word hardly distinguishable beneath the sleepiness. Okay, so maybe not mastered.

The metallic shifting sound reverberated slightly, but Al's arm didn't move. "Are...are you awake?"

I grunted, not really awake. "More-er less," I yawned. 'Ugh, come on, daily memory, retuurrrn to meee...' Everything was silent for a moment, then my eyes snapped open at remembrance of the last few hours.

After 'Selim''s house, Edward had payed for us to travel by train up north, the farthest stop in that direction being a little town called 'NorthCity'. I hadn't said a word since we'd left that awful place, so Ed of course had to get suspicious.

"Something on your mind?" he'd said, hands in his pockets as we walked toward where the train would be leaving. "You've been acting weird since we met Selim in the library."

I blinked in surprise, raising an unwilling eyebrow at his statement. 'Has he been paying that close attention to me since then?' "Have I?"

"Yeah, you wanna tell me what it's about?" he looked suspicious.

I looked off to the side in obvious thought, slipping my own prosthetic hands into my pockets. I didn't want to lie too much anymore, I had to remember that. "Well...I just recognized who Selim was, and, to be honest, I was kind of scared to be close to a powerful Homunculus like that - you know, 'cause..." I let my voice trail off in an uncertain tone, taking some sort of sick pride in my new ability to deceive without lying. I inwardly snarled at myself and squashed the feeling.

Ed watched me from the side of his vision, calculating whether or not to believe me. I decided not to fake a look - just let my face do whatever - and found satisfaction in the way Edward smirked slightly as he looked away. "Alright, it makes some sense at least."

He didn't say anything after that, but I could tell he wasn't sure what to believe.

FLASHBACK END

I wished I could make Ed trust me more, but I had to be realistic; Edward isn't the kind of guy to easily forgive someone lying to his face like that. And I couldn't think of anyone - who wasn't an idiot - who would trust a liar easily anyway. And I think we all know that Edward Elric is not an idiot.

And neither is his brother - Alphonse was suspicious of me too, I could tell. But at the same time, Al was a good judge of character, and he knew I never wanted to hurt them. The armored boy was kind and smart, the perfect combination. For, um, a good person. Yeah.

I sighed loudly, shutting my eyes again, then struggled to sit up. But Al's arm was so comfy! I didn't want to move...but I couldn't lean against him forever. I ended up flopping over to lean less heavily against the side of the train we were in. I cracked my eyes open. "How close're we?"

Al's armor shifted again. "Not far. I think the stop is just ahead," there was a pause, in which I was unwilling to bother looking out the window for what he was probably trying to point out. "It looks really pretty..." his voice finally reverberated softly, sounding awed by something.

"Huh?" I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and pushed off the window, mouth gaping as I looked out. "Wha-woow..." I couldn't believe it... It was snowing! Soft specks of fluffy white coldness floated to the ground in a slow rain. There was what appeared to be a small town a ways off, and between here and there was a blanket of pure white. "Snow..."

I hadn't seen snow in a long time, and the last time I'd seen it was in the suburbs, so...yeah. This was breathtaking.

Al chuckled. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" I nodded, and Al sighed contently. "I guess we should wake Brother now; we're nearly there..." I nodded again, a beaming smile unknowingly plastered to my face.

So Al woke Ed up - who'd been drooling on the side of the other seat - and the midget joined me in staring out the window as we drew ever closer to the distant town. The snow was amazing.

When the train finally pulled to a stop, we all bustled out with our new warmer clothing - Edward with his re-transmuted cloak-thing with ruffles and thicker fabric; me with a big, fluffy, purple jacket with ruffles around the hood, the sleeves, and the bottom that Ed had been forced to buy for me 'cause I have no money. I pulled the hood up comfortably as we ran out of the station and stopped at the top of a small flight of icy stairs, looking out across the snowy landscape. It was really beautiful; the houses and shops stood around the... I guess the right word for it is 'square', and the frost-covered statue of a man on a rearing warhorse with a sword aimed at the sky lay proudly in the center of it all.

"Look at all this snow!" Ed laughed happily, reveling in the beauty of it. I smiled, agreeing with his spontaneous joyful demeanor.

"I haven't seen this much clean snow in...Well, I don't know if I've ever seen this much clean snow!" I turned my smile to Ed, who's own expression of happiness just got bigger - but he didn't look at me.

We started down the stairs, my new brown boots crunching on the tiny bits of snow that had survived all the other stamping feet that had come across it before. I was just remembering that Ed would be slipping on the stairs here - if things somehow magically kept going like in the anime - when my right foot caught on a chipped part of the icy stone and shot forward, leaving me to bump painfully down the rest of the way. "Ow, ugh, ow, ack!" I grunted as I reached the bottom and fell into the snow. I groaned and sat up on my knees. 'I guess I took the fall for him...'

"Felicity! Are you okay?" Al rushed to my side, a tone of amusement in his voice while Ed was outright laughing. I smirked up at him but didn't answer, too busy trying to block out the bruising sting in my bottom. The armored boy helped me up, but I found myself doubling over in pain. "What's wrong?" he sounded actually worried this time.

"I, um, my injuries..." I muttered, rubbing my side gently. I'd almost forgotten that I was injured; it had been mostly numb for while, and I'd gotten so good at ignoring when it hurt, that I just forgot about it. But I suppose getting thrown into a wall of concrete at fifty miles an hour isn't something you can get over in just a couple days...

We made our way over to a bench nearby - one standing against a light green building - so I could sit down. After a moment, Ed sat down next to me and watched the snow fall as I tried to use my coat to warm where I was aching. "You know," he started, and I looked over to find him smiling slightly. "this reminds me of that one big snow back in Resembool - remember, Al?"

Al sat down on the other side of him, looking up at the grey and white sky. "Hmm...maybe..." there was a pause, then he suddenly looked over with an "oh!" and clenched his fists excitedly. "Yeah, I remember! We had a really big snowball fight!"

Ed laughed. "Yeah! And we made a snowman!" he leaned back, a nostalgic smile gracing his lips. "That was awesome."

I smiled too, humming slightly. "Sounds like a fun time."

Ed's grin widened; his eyes closed too. "Yeah, it wasn't bad..."

Al's armor shifted to look at me, then his helmet turned back to the sky. "Back then, I never imagined we'd come this far north. It was just impossible..."

"Hyeah, it was," Ed half-chuckled. "We never thought we'd be coming out here to meet a military General either, that's for sure."

"Mm."

There were a few - long - moments of silence after that with us staring peacefully at the falling snow. I recalled silently my own childhood winters back home, and how they mostly consisted of hot cocoa and building a snow-house alone in the yard - or at least that was the most recent stuff I remembered; a long time ago I used to have snowball fights with my dad and brother, setting up weak little forts and playing double-agent spy to beat them both as a secret third team.

Yeah, that had been fun.

I sighed at the fond memory, leaning back in my seat; Al noticed and turned his helmet to look at me curiously. "What about you, Felicity? Did you have some good times in the winter when you were little?" Mind reader!

I looked over in surprise. "Uh, yeah, I guess..." I paused. Then, seeing the brothers gazing at me expectantly, I sighed, a smirk-smile creeping its way onto my face once more. I looked at the snow on the ground. "I, um... I remember this one time when I was, oh... three or four, and I had this long snowball fight with my dad and older brother..." (Well, you don't expect me to repeat that whole sentence, do you?) "...I think our dad ended up surrendering before I could hit him." I chuckled and closed my eyes softly, smiling in that...anime way - you know what I mean.

The others stayed silent for a while, and I had to open my eyes to see a reaction. Ed was giving me a weirdly sad-yet-curious-and-suspicious look, and Alphonse was just staring - but I'm sure there was some kind of emotion in that armor. I blinked. "What?

Al spoke without moving. "I didn't know you had an older brother." his voice sounded soft.

"Uh," I shifted my gaze between them. "Yeah, I...did."

Aahhh, they wouldn't stop looking at me that way. Should I not have mentioned my past? I never had before; I guess it was only natural for them to be curious - but still.

Ed finally looked away, a strange tone in his voice. "Did you...have any other siblings?"

'What? Oh, right...I told him that I 'lost' my family; he's probably feeling sorry for me now, or... something. Dang it.' I gently rubbed my freezing legs - uh, leg - as I thought. "Yeah, two."

I wasn't looking, but I heard Al's helmet move. "Would it be alright if we asked how you lost them?"

"No," I grimaced, still rubbing my leg; I was starting to get really cold sitting here. "I'd prefer if you didn't."

We sat there in silence for a little longer, then my peripheral vision caught Ed looking at where I hadn't stopped trying to get more warmth into my single limb. Then he sighed, standing up. "We should probably get moving; it's not good to stay still in the cold for long."

THE NEXT DAY AFTER LOTS OF HOURS BEFORE NIGHT

Am I allowed to time-skip this much with one line-break? Hmm...

There we go.

We didn't stay in NorthCity for long. We grabbed the next train out two hours later, and I fell asleep again that night (Loong train-ride); I think Ed did too. It was morning when I woke up, and there were only three more hours until we got to Briggs.

Briggs...And Olivier Armstrong. I wasn't sure if I wanted to meet that lady; she wasn't an alchemist, so I had no fears about whether she would hurt me for feeling weird, but she was definitely comparable to Izumi in some ways...

Anyway, now we were riding on the back of a little wooden cart; Edward had bought the ride from a man in town to take us to Fort Briggs - but of course he'd refused, so we opted to have him take us as close as he was willing. I was sitting between the Elrics, legs folded to try to conserve heat; unfortunately, my right leg was made of metal, so it only made it worse. I remembered how having automail could be dangerous in the cold, and how I had more automail than Edward, which meant I would probably get frostbite if I couldn't get warm soon. I shivered, unconsciously leaning against Ed - as he was the only source of heat here right now.

Then I felt Ed shivering too through the artificial nerves in my shoulder, and I realized I was probably just making him feel worse. I was sitting up straight again just as the midget suddenly tensed, leaning back. Then of course I had the misfortune to glance over at the exact moment he sneezed, getting Ed-spit all over my face. "ACK!" I coughed, frantically rubbing the droplets of grossness off my face with a cold glove. "G-groooss..."

Ed chuckled. "Sorry." Yeah, right.

Al's armor clinked strangely in the cold as he looked over at us. "Catching a cold, Brother?"

"I h-hope not..." I muttered, impulsively licking my glove before wiping it over where I thought the saliva was. (Fun fact about me: I actually do that if there's something on my face.) But of course that just made me colder. 'Idiot...'

Ed's voice shook as he shivered deliberately harder than necessary. "W-well, I'm d-definitely c-cold, but that's Briggs for ya," he looked at me with narrowed eyes. "Are you okay?"

I pulled my hood closer to my face, wriggling my frozen nose just for good measure. "N-no, I'm d-dying of fr-frostbite. Why couldn't we g-get wa-armer c-clothing?" My voice went up into a whiny tone at the end, and I found my face getting hotter in embarrassment - which felt really good for about two seconds.

After a tiny, hesitant pause, I felt Ed wrap his only flesh arm around me; I unconsciously leaned closer again as he spoke. "I'm sorry, I didn't think about the fact that you don't have real arms to help warm yourself..." he sounded slightly embarrassed, but I was grateful.

"Thanks."

It was only two or three minutes later when the cart pulled to a stop. "Alright, this is where I let you three go." the driver announced; Ed and Al turned to look at him, but I didn't bother. My shoulders ached too much.

We all slid down off the cart - except Al, who just stood up - and stared at the spindly wooden archway that served as a kind of door to the inside of where all this fence surrounded. Then I took a breath as I followed the brothers closer to it, doing this thing I figured out a while ago where if I focus on my internal temperature - which I know is a lot hotter than outside - I can ignore how cold I am. (After the first time I'd ever done it, I started hating summer because I could feel heat more.)

"If you follow this mountain road-" the dude helping us gestured down the path beyond the archway. "-it'll lead you straight to Fort Briggs."

Ed waved his hand backwards at the man. "Kay, thanks."

"And you in the armor," we all turned to look at the guy; he wore a strange expression as Alphonse pointed uncertainly at himself. "Yes, you. Is any of that automail?"

Al shook his head. "No..."

The man frowned. "Oh, okay; you should be alright then." I shivered some more as we watched him drive away, wishing for some hot cocoa or a warm shower. Or a fire. Yeah, a fire would feel nice.

"I wonder what that was all about..." Ed murmured, hoisting the luggage that, again, held everything we had. (Whoops, I forgot to mention it was there the entire trip.)

I closed my eyes against the cold, pulling the coat's hood up and squeezing it around my face, muffling out sound and the cold breeze that was barely noticeable. 'Ah, damn it. I need warmer clothing...The only thing warm inside my head right now is my brain! And I think that's starting to freeze too... Stupid automail.' "D-damn, frozen automail." English words.

"Felicity?" Al's muffled voice reached my ears.

I opened my face-bag to find that the man had driven away, and the brothers were both staring at me worriedly. "Yeah?"

"Are you too cold?" Al tilted his head slightly. "If you're too cold then we could always go back and drop you off at an inn..."

"N-no w-way!" I scowled, rubbing my aching left shoulder before standing forcibly tall (ish) in front of them. "I-I'm fine. Just a l-little cold is all; Ed is t-too anyway."

The Elrics looked me over with concern for a moment longer, then Edward sighed and turned. "Well, alright, if you're sure. Come on, guys, let's see what kind of 'military men' are lurking over there."

"Military men?" I repeated, confused for a moment. Then I remembered: our transport would've warned us about the dangers of that place. The sound must've been too muffled for me to hear.

And then...there was the bear with a mohawk. I really hoped he would have something against attacking young girls... Ha, who am I kidding? I was going to have to dodge him like I'd never dodged before.

"I-I n-know the w-weather he-re is s-sup-posed to ch-change k-quickly, b-but th-this is r-ridiculous!" Ed's shuddering voice cut through the frozen flurry of wind that threatened to deafen me. I shivered mercilessly and lowered my head - even though Alphonse was blocking the wind from me at the time; I'd actually collapsed in the snow a little ways back when the snowstorm started, and now I was piggybacking Al's armor, a part of Ed's coat that he'd transmuted from the rest held between me and the freezing metal.

"Yeah," Al agreed, his own voice shuddering inside his armored body. "What are we going to do, Brother? We can't see the road anymore, and I don't think Felicity can't take much more of this!" I grunted in response, huddling closer to the semi-warm fabric. My pride was snarling at me for giving into the cold so easily, but I beat it back with shivers and shoulder aches.

"I-I'm s-sure we'll be f-f-fine..." Ed paused to gasp. "A-at l-least whe-ere d-direction is c-con-concerned...I m-mean, T-Teacher said she s-spent a..." another gasp. "m-month out here one-once - f-for her t-training." I almost smirked, remembering that - what was it called - OVA I'd seen about that. I guess no one told Ed and Al that it was all a misunderstanding.

It was Al's turn to gasp. "What? No way could she have done that! Not for an entire month!"

Ed chuckled humorlessly. "You b-bet she did! It's Teacher, remember? Anyway..." pause. "I was g-gonna say...I d-don't kn-know about F-Felicity. I guess it's h-her autom-mail; m-mine is h-hurting like..." gasp. "hell!"

My hearing went out suddenly; there was a loud CRUNCH/BOOM!, and everything just went silent. For a moment I feared that I'd actually gone deaf, but then Alphonse stopped, and turned...

'Oh, shit.'

I couldn't see from where I was, but I heard the brothers both shout in surprise - feeling Al take a step back - and the sound of Edward performing alchemy. It was only a moment later when something threw Alphonse backwards, leaving me to start falling off of him without the slight forward slanting of his back. "WHOA!" I yelped as I hit the snowy ground, then looked up to find Alphonse covered in netting and tumbling over me. My eyes widened in fear and I rolled to the left, scrabbling forward to get farther from the spot I'd been at.

"Alphonse!" Oh sure, Ed, Alphonse is the one to worry about right now; not the frostbite stricken girl who almost got squashed!

"Felicity!" Al looked over from where he now sat, covered in nets. "Are you okay?"

I rolled over and sat up, groaning as my joints protested. "M-more-r l-less-s." I sneezed. Then I looked up farther to find the mohawk dude standing with his automail raised high - which, admittedly, looked very cool (pun intended) - over Edward, who's own automail was in the famous knife-mode.

I squeezed my eyes shut as a few snowflakes flew painfully into them, so I could only tell what was going on from the sound: "Hey wait!" I identified that as Ed's panicked voice. "Is that a military uniform you're wearing?!"

"Huh," the bear-with-the-mohawk completely ignored his comment. "Well, it looks like some pretty mediocre stuff, but you have automail too, huh?"

"Mediocre?!" Ed's voice snarled. "Just 'cause mine's not tacky like yours? You didn't answer my question!"

I blinked open my eyes slightly around then, trying to spot Alphonse. I knew he was still caught up in the net - which was proven by the image I got in the snow of him struggling to get untangled - so I decided to try and help him out quickly so I could warm up before I died of frostbite. This in mind, I ignored the rest of the two Amestrian soldiers' pointless argument and crawled over to the armored soul. It took a surprising amount of time to move three yards, but on the way I realized I couldn't just stand up and pull it off of him, so on yet another impulse I stopped and slipped my left hand under my shirt, digging a finger under the bandages over my wounds. I hissed as the scab reopened painfully, then yanked my right glove off with my teeth and sat up, bringing out a bloodstained left glove.

"Brother!" Oh great, they were fighting now.

When I made it to Alphonse, my right hand had a four-blade knife on it; I used said knife to slice as big a hole in the net as I could. "Al!" I shouted to get his attention, shaking horribly from the cold.

The armored boy gasped, noticing his hand had just fallen out of the net. Then he looked at me. "How did you..." his voice trailed off as he noticed what my hands looked like. I smirked, realizing I probably looked like hell with blood on my hand. Then I slashed out with my knife once more. "Go save Ed!"

"O-okay!" Al used the holes I'd made to quickly tear through the net, standing up and running at the two battling soldiers. I watched as he got there just as the mohawk-bear-man grabbed Ed's arm and tried to rip it off, but Al sucker-punched him and pried open the clamp around Ed's arm. I heard Ed thank him before they both ran at the man.

At this point, my vision started to go fuzzy; my shoulders and leg-stump were aching so much! I closed my eyes and tried to crawl onto the bunched up netting to get away from the snow a bit. Not that it helped much, but when I couldn't hold myself up any longer it was good not to have my face in the cold stuff. I pulled the jacket around me more as the sounds of battling stopped, and then there were a bunch of clicking noises.

There was a pause, then: "Felicity!" Al's voice cut through the silence that was clouding my mind. I heard his loud footsteps, then squinted open my eyes as he picked me up and the ground got farther away.

"Is she okay?" Ed called over, sounding slightly panicked. (Aw, he cares about me.)

"Who is that?" the bear-man demanded, his voice sounding incredibly rough.

I opened my eyes farther to see Alphonse looking down at me worriedly. I blinked, then he turned around; the breeze created by his movements brushed against the top of my head. "I think so, Ed. And this is our friend," his voice turned harsh suddenly as he spoke to the mohawk man. "She could've died just now, you know that?"

'I could?' I closed my eyes and shuddered visibly. 'Damn, my extra automail must've...But Ed seems fine! Maybe it's because I'm just not as strong as he is... and...I'm already injured... Why did we come here when I was still hurt again? I guess I haven't been acting like it's been hurting me much...I guess showing weakness can be a good thing.'

"You might just wish she did later," the bear man snarled, and I recalled vaguely that he thought we were spies. 'And now he's threatening torture. Oh well, I doubt that'll happen...'

I heard Ed growl slightly, then Al gasped, turning slightly as I felt the wind die down. "Wha-Brother, look!"

There was a pause, then Edward gasped too. "A wall?" Fort Briggs! Alright, so that meant I was going to be warm soon; sweet heaven! I shivered harshly at the prospect of temperature change.

"Buccaneer!"

I passed out right about then.