Chapter Twenty One

Toronto

It just so happened that Al was having one such downtime as Edward had spoken of only earlier that day several hundred miles away. He wasn't expected anywhere today, which was a first. Ever since his fourth day here he'd been kept absurdly busy between interviews, research, phone conferences, and other various tasks. It had usually been wake up, work, sleep. And so he planned to make full use of his unscheduled day.

Which was how he had ended up back at the bakery he'd discovered that was owned by yet another reflection of this world.

"Well, well, look what the cats dragged in."

Al smiled at her as she came over to the counter upon his opening the door. "Sorry, I meant to stop by again sooner, but it's been very busy." And he had wanted to see her again, for many reasons. Nostalgia among them.

Marta smiled back, and shrugged. "It's why I'm not a reporter. The only rules I have to follow are those of how long something needs to rise."

Alphonse chuckled, and came over to stand across the counter from her. "That does sound much more relaxed I admit. But unfortunately for me, I like my job well enough."

Laughing, Marta straightened, and brushed her flour-dusted hands on the blue apron she wore. "You British are just a touch strange."

"Ah," Al held up a hand, "but I am not British. I just live there and leech off of the benefits."

"And how many more benefits do you get?"

"Because of my brother?"

Marta nodded.

"None." Al shrugged and shook his head a bit. "He's the special one, not me. I'm only special to those who don't know any better. Like my coworkers. But that's the way I want it."

Marta smiled at him. "You are special, just in a deceptively charming reporter way."

Al laughed lightly, smiling back at her. "Deceptively charming?"

"Yes, for all I know you're a food critic."

Al's smile softened, "then you're getting five gold stars in my book."

Marta rolled her eyes in amusement, and put her hands on her hips. "See what I mean? Deceptively charming."

Al chuckled, and raised his hands off to the side a bit in a gesture of impartiality. "I'll take your word on it. But thank you." He replied as his head tilted to the side a bit. "It really is good to see you again." And he knew she would never understand just how much. Or just why he felt such a strong attachment to her. But as long as he never forgot just what they had been through together. Or, at least the Marta he'd once known.

"Of course it is." She replied with a wink.

Alphonse laughed, "listen, I find myself with a lot of time on my hands today. Is there any chance I could coerce you with my charming deception into joining me for lunch or something?"

Marta considered him, slowly smiling. "You must make a very good reporter."

"Why do you say that?" Al asked her with a curious little frown.

"You're easy to talk to." She explained, and as the door to the bakery was opened, looked over along with Alphonse as a mother and her two children came in the door.

Al nodded to them, and winked at Marta. "Just ignore me." And he wandered away from the counter to wander along the cases of food and racks displaying the freshly baked breads.

He loved the smell of it all, and for some reason this life suited the Marta he'd known. She had been a kind person underneath the hardened criminal exterior. And personally he never wanted to encounter a baker when said baker was angry, rolling pins weren't exactly child's play weapons.

Marta finished the purchase for the mother, and gave the children both a cookie much to their delight. Once they had left with their mother, she looked over to where Al was browsing the sourdough breads. "I close in an hour for lunch." She smiled, leaning up against the counter. "You should have come earlier during the rush and I would have put you to work for stealing me away for lunch."

Al smiled, and chuckled softly to himself. "Next time I have a morning free, I will." He promised, looking over at her. "I love how it smells in here, it reminds me of home." That and he still hadn't gotten over the novelty of being able to eat again.

"Your brother must be a good cook."

"He is, when I go over." Al said as he walked back over to where she stood by the register. "He eats so much that it rather forces the good cook to come out. I'll be the first to admit that my own cooking could use work. I'm not nearly good enough. Give me a story to break, or something metal in nature to fix and I'll amaze. But sometimes I forget what a spatula looks like."

Marta burst out laughing, and rolled her eyes. "You can't be serious."

"Oh I am." Al grinned at her jokingly. "Nah, but it gives you an idea."

Marta chuckled, shaking her head in amusement at him. She had no idea why it was so easy to talk and laugh with someone she'd only met a few times. But it was. It was the strangest feeling… almost like she'd known him very well at one time but somewhere along the line forgotten. "Definitely not a food critic then."

"No." Al smiled.

"Well," Marta stood up from slouching against the counter, "you say you're good at fixing metal things?"

"Call it a strange affinity." He had, after all, spent much of his life as a suit of armor. It had forged a link between he and the stuff that had been rather unbreakable. From the short time he'd spent using his alchemy to control similar suits of metal, to being sent here where his hands worked a different magic.

Marta glanced back toward the kitchen before looking back at Al. "I have a slicer that is jamming up. Do you think you could look at it for me? I mean, since you plan to loiter here until lunch, I may as well put you to work unless you want me to call the police."

Al laughed at that. "There's an idea, you could bail me out."

"Am I that nice?" Marta asked with a smirk, and waved him back around the counter as she walked back into the kitchen.

Following after her, Al smiled, his hands shoving into his pockets. He could only imagine how surprised she'd be if she knew the extent of things they'd once done for one another. "Oh I'd be willing to bet in my favor."

"I bet you would." Marta agreed wryly and stopped in front of a steel chute with two openings. One for the bread, and one for the sliced end result after it was sent through. "Well this is it, I honestly have no idea where to tell you to begin."

Al smiled at her and walked over to it, leaning down to place an ear to the chute as he ran a hand over the cold metal slowly. "Don't worry. This shouldn't be too complicated, it's a good machine."

Marta arched an eyebrow at this strange method of analysis. "How do you know?"

"Instinct." Al replied, and lifted his head away to look at her. "Would you not say that you have a connection to your dough? Or snakes?"

Marta's eyes widened. "How do you-"

Al motioned to the tattoo of a snake on her bicep. "Took a wild guess."

She looked at it, and frowned before looking back at Al. "Fair enough."

"Leave the slicer to me." Al told her, and put his ear back against it, resuming his petting up and down the chute while he listened carefully. "I'll fix it in no time."

He smiled faintly as he watched her leave, even as he continued to listen to the faint vibrations of the metal as he ran his hand along it. This would hardly be the most complicated thing he'd fixed. As far as he could tell right now, it was jamming because of something to do with the blades themselves. He couldn't hear any anomalies.

So he began.

From up front where she was tending to another customer that had walked in, Marta pondered over the man she'd let so quickly into her life. As this bakery was her life. He put her at ease in the strangest way, and she was seriously beginning to think that maybe she'd met him before and merely forgotten. But then, he didn't seem to remember her either.

After she'd finished the purchase and the customer had left, she glanced over her shoulder to see Al smiling to himself, hand stuck down the chute and feeling around the blades. She shuddered, even she wasn't brave enough to stick her hand down there. But at least he seemed to have unplugged the power, as a large black cable was now visible when before it had been hidden behind other machinery.

Shaking her head, she smiled and turned back around so she could keep working and stop staring at the man. Though she didn't think it was a shame to stare at him. He was more than charming. He had the looks to go along with it. If only she could figure out whether he had asked her out for lunch for purely company, or for another reason altogether.

Well, she had an hour to think about it.

As the minutes passed, Al continued to make progress with his little repair. The only thing difficult about it was that the blades were at an odd angle to work with. Even after he'd pulled off the front panel that gave him access. But finally he was able to move on from the repair, and to actually testing out the result. So he plugged the machine back in and switched it on to be sure the blades were rotating properly this time.

"Am I good? I am good." Alphonse muttered to himself as he switched the machine off and began putting the panel back on.

"Hey, did you get it?"

Al looked over his shoulder and smiled at Marta. "Pretty sure. Could I borrow some bread?"

She smirked at him. "Are you going to give it back?"

"Depends on this beauty." He said, patting the chute fondly.

Marta chuckled and walked over to one of the cooling racks to grab a loaf of bread that had been waiting for the slicer anyway. "Go for it." She said, handing him the loaf.

Al promptly turned the switch and dropped the bread down the slight incline of the chute. Several seconds later the sliced result appeared on the other end without a trace of being mangled.

"You are good." Marta admitted as she stared at it.

"Of course I am." Al replied as he turned the switch off. "I better be all things considered."

"You're one of the strangest guys I've ever met." Marta decided despite the smile on her face.

Al raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't say it like it's a bad thing. Could you imagine if I were normal?"

"I'd still be down one slicer."

"Precisely." Al nodded with a smirk. "But trust me, I'm normal compared to my brother. He has a llama instead of a dog to guard his home. No clue what inspired him there."

"A llama?" Marta had to admit she wouldn't have expected anyone to have a llama to guard anything.

"Vicious little thing if it doesn't like you." Al said with an uncertain sort of smile. "Fortunately he does like me so I don't have to worry about it chasing me into the electric fence."

Marta paled a bit. "Your brother sounds dangerous."

Alphonse snickered, "he'd like to think so." But in reality, he knew his brother was dangerous. It was hardly prudent to go around broadcasting just how dangerous his brother could be though, so he'd play the innocent card.

"Well," Marta shook herself out of that, "I'm ready to close for lunch. Are you ready?"

Al smiled at her, and nodded. "Yeah. You're sure you don't mind my stealing you away?"

Marta rolled her eyes and pulled her apron off over her head as she walked away so she could lock the front door. "If I did, I'd have sent you away."

"Despite being deceptively charming?" Al asked in fake hurt as he followed her.

"Absolutely." Marta chuckled and took her keys out of one of the many pockets of her cargo pants.

Al stepped outside, looking around as Marta locked the door. "So how long have you lived here?" He asked as he began to lead the way.

"Most of my life." Marta replied as she fell in step with him. "And then one day I opened up my bakery, against my parent's wishes. They wanted me to do something with my life that would make a difference in the world. And now I bake cookies."

"Changing the world a cookie at a time doesn't sound like a bad decision." Al told her with a smile as he slipped his hands into his pockets. "Cookies bring smiles, and smiles bring happiness. This world needs more happiness. So keep baking cookies."

Marta chuckled, and shook her head a bit. "You sound like a life coach."

"I've lived plenty of life to agree with you there." Al admitted with a bit of a sigh. "A lack of happiness about how your life currently is always seems to have a link to the greatest examples of unhappiness in the world."

"Are you happy with your life?" Marta asked him. "Are you happy being a reporter?"

"I'm alive." Al replied as he looked up into the sunshine, relishing in the feel of the warmth against his skin. Skin he never took for granted. "After all I've been through, being alive at the end of it all is something I'm very happy about."

Marta considered him for a time, then nodded. "I get the feeling that a cake catching on fire was ever the worst of your troubles."

"Mmm." Al agreed with a snorting sort of laugh. He didn't have enough fingers to count the things he'd been through that had been worse than a cake catching on fire. Such as having the Marta he'd known from the other side of the Gate killed inside of him.

After a while they reached the outdoor café Alphonse had been heading for. It was set on the edge of Lake Ontario, and he loved the view. The cool breeze wafting across the water, and the cries of the gulls. Even the water itself was beautiful to look at.

"So how are you enjoying being here so far?" Marta asked as they found a seat at one of the tables next to the railing overlooking the water.

Alphonse looked away from the water and over to her. "Very much. It would help if I wasn't so worried about my brother, but it's nice. And the company is far better than I'd first thought it would be when my plane landed."

Marta smiled a bit at that. "Why are you worried about your brother?"

"Not sure if he's taken my advice yet on what to do with Roy." Al answered with a shrug. "But that's boring, trust me. I'd rather not bore you."

"Ah, I heard about that story." Marta nodded.

"Neither of us ever thought we'd see Roy again. So it was rather a shock for us as well. Him more than me, but even so." Al chuckled darkly to himself. "But I still wonder just how he managed to get himself here."

"I can imagine he would have been recognized before then. It's shocking he managed to avoid it for so long."

"You have no idea." Al smiled at her and laughed to himself. "Anyway, as a local, mind if I pick your brain about the best places for a tourist like me to go? I'm going to be here for another month and a half almost, so feel free to load on the information."

Marta took a sip of her water as she thought about it. "Well, prepare yourself then."

"Preparing." Al grinned and settled in to listen as Marta began telling him all about her favorite places.

They talked through their lunch about all the best sights to see and things to do. Alphonse wasn't even sure if his order had been delivered correctly, he'd been so focused on listening and talking with her that he'd barely remembered to eat. It had been a while since he'd had someone to really sit and talk to. And it wasn't anything terrible that it just so happened to be Marta he had found yet again.

After lunch, and after Al had paid for both their meals despite Marta's glowering, they left the café.

Alphonse walked along the bank of the lake with her, slowly making their way back. "Do you believe in coincidences?" He asked her conversationally, looking out over the lake.

"Coincidences like what?" Marta asked over at him.

Al smiled, "never mind. Silly question." And he looked over at her thoughtfully. "Could we do this again?"

"Lunch?"

"Or dinner." Al suggested with a smile. "I promise I won't cook it."

Marta considered him for a moment, before nodding. "I'd like that."

Al smiled even more. He wasn't sure what was wrong with him, it wasn't as if he could stay here. But right now he didn't exactly care. Time had been stolen from them before, and he was reluctant to let it be the same way twice. "Tomorrow night okay?"

"I'm a baker, anytime at night is okay." She laughed, "its the mornings you have to watch out for."

"I'll drop by at seven then."

"My house is behind the bakery."

"In the alley?" Al teased.

Marta rolled her eyes, and promptly shoved him so that he stumbled into the chilly water of the lake. "Yes, in the cardboard box."

Al yelped as the cold water splashed all over, and he stumbled out of the lake as Marta laughed. "So not fair."

Marta snickered, and continued to do so as they began to walk back towards her bakery. Any other guy to make such remarks and shoving them into the lake would have resulted in a drowning. But Al was different. She couldn't help but like him. Which only proved that she'd been right, he was deceptively charming.

Al was mostly dry by the time they reached the bakery again, and he waited around to be sure she got inside without trouble. "I'll see you tomorrow night then?" He asked as she got it open.

Marta smiled at him as she propped open the door. "Yes. Just tell me what sort of dinner you had in mind."

"Between casual and overly fancy." Al smiled, "what do women wear to that?"

"You'll just have to find out, won't you." Marta winked at him.

Al nodded in agreement. He would indeed. "I'll see you tomorrow then." He said and turned to leave.

"Hey, Al, hold up." Marta called after him, and when he turned around hesitated before saying, "this is going to sound strange, but have we ever met before that first day you came in?"

Al blinked at her, his face not betraying for once his surprise. "Coincidence or fate… it's a strange question as to which this is." He smiled softly at her. "I once knew someone who reminds me of you very much." And raised a hand in a short wave as he walked away before she could question him further.

There were just some questions that right now he didn't want to answer. Or even face.

But he couldn't help but wonder if it was coincidence or fate that he'd have met Marta, of all people, again.