I'm tired of this.
You brought this on yourself.

I want to go home.
That's too bad, isn't it?

What gives you the right...
I don't think you should be talking.

Do you know how sick I am of you?
Well, who's fault is that?

I don't suppose you'd go find something else to do?
I'm appalled you think you deserve that.

I just thought I'd check.
Touché.

I won't apologize for anything.
And this is what you get, little man.

I'm going to get home.
The rock face is sheered off.

I bet you polished it, too.
I might have had a hand in it.

I'll climb it.
There'll be no net provided for you.

That's never stopped me before.
I look forward to the show.

Chapter 72 - Delirium Ghosts

Laughter floated in the air, mingling in the haze created by Dr. Wilson's pipe.

"No, no honestly," Patricia couldn't contain her giggles, "Margaret was running into my furniture long before she could stand on her own two feet. She'd prop herself up on all fours, pick her arms up and scamper across the carpet until she either bumped into the chesterfield or fell down. It was the strangest sight."

"And it's all Thomas' fault too that the child tries to sprint," smoke filtered from his mouth as the doctor spoke, "in the summer he took her to see a friend at the university track while the runners were on the field."

A voice shot out from another room, "Would you stop telling that story!"

Among the giggling adults, the aforementioned child had found herself a new perch, delightfully positioned on Winry's knees. Tiny Margaret may have been most content there because she received the most freedom.

Of the four corners of the cozy family room, Winry occupied the far left while Ed occupied the nearest left. The two had sat down in their respective seats and not moved. Aside from the occasional question thrown Winry's way, neither voluntarily brought conversation upon themselves.

This was day two.

For the most part, people seemed content to ignore their unease, leave them be and continue about their business.

Hohenheim had done his part to relieve some of the tension Ed had created. Earlier, he had stepped aside with the Hyland husband and wife to explain the previous two weeks as well as the night that had just passed beneath Dr. Wilson's roof. The nightcap that evening had included the bitterly screeched argument that had developed between Ed and Winry at sometime past eleven that night, where Winry refused to take up residence in the guest room unless Ed retired for some sleep as well. After a vicious war of words had exploded between Dr. Wilson and Edward over the noise level, the argument of two stubborn, young adults had ended with Winry glaring at Ed as he attempted to read that day's paper.

Winry'd awoken the next day, curled up in a purple blanket in the rocking chair she'd fallen asleep in. Ed still sat in the same chair, his eyes dissecting the new day's paper. Before giving any indication she'd awoken, memories of the previous night's dinner with the Hyland family quickly came flooding back.

She'd sat at the table, across from Patricia, who had her daughter on one side and husband on the other. Ed had sat across from Thomas, Hohenheim from Margaret, and Dr. Wilson had taken up the head of the table. For the next hour and a half, she'd felt as though she'd been the source of all their discomfort.

She'd sat around the whole night at a loss of words: for the life of herself she could barely manage a four-word sentence. Ed would nudge her once in a while, having caught her staring, quite blatantly, at the woman across from her. She'd try to avoid it by focusing on other things: the location, the food, and the bustle around her. As she'd done so, she'd come to realize how it seemed she was trying to avoid being part of the dinner table.

It was embarrassing, it was rude, and she had not been able to figure out how to avoid it.

Winry had vowed before rising: today, she'd do a better job of being social. Patricia announced she'd cook dinner for everyone and it was the perfect opportunity.

That woman was not Ed's mother.

She should have no reason to stare at her with such fascination, wonder, and curiosity like she was some priceless, newly unearthed, artifact.

Winry quickly realized that she'd failed at her attempt to disregard the woman's presence.

But conversing with a two-year-old girl that gave her fleeting reminders of Al was a far lesser challenge, "Are you going to be a sprinter, Margaret?"

"No," the little girl stuck out her tongue.

Winry puffed out her lower lip, "Why not?"

"Splinters hurt!"

Patricia laughed at her daughter's misunderstanding and stepped away from the side of Dr. Wilson's chair.

Winry grinned and glanced over to her mother. Even with all the problems Winry was having with the situation at hand, Patricia seemed to read people like a book and had quickly grown shy because of it. Winry wished she could give both herself and Ed a kick in the ass for making the woman so reserved around them.

Once gathering herself after the initial encounter, Winry quickly came to realize that it was Ed who made this woman uncomfortable. Where Ed had little to say and Winry struggled to converse, Patricia said scarcely any more in their company. She kept her comments short and direct, walked on the opposite side of her husband, and grew obviously nervous when speaking directly to Ed.

"Patti," wiping his hands in a rag, Thomas finally emerged from the kitchen, "I'm going to have to call the repairman."

"Did you figure out what's wrong with the stove?" she asked as the man came to stand next to his wife.

Shrugging with general frustration, Thomas threw his gaze to the ceiling, "I think I buggered the thing up worse than it was to begin with."

"I'm sorry everyone, I thought we'd fixed this problem weeks ago. I was really hoping to have something ready for tonight," her soft hands smoothed over her skirt before placing a hand against her husband's back.

Unexpectedly, Winry's voice broke in, "Can I look at it?"

"Why yes!" Charles snapped his fingers, capturing the couple's attention before either could respond, "I've heard from our good man Hohenheim that young Miss Rockbell is an aspiring mechanic. Perhaps a feminine touch is needed."

Winry's brow slowly wrinkled at the phrasing and tone of the doctor's comment, it sounded more like an insult than a compliment.

Stepping away from his perch, Thomas motioned towards the kitchen, his wife following in stride, "Alright, if you want to take a shot at it. I won't turn down a free offer like that; I certainly cannot afford another repairman."

Placing little Margaret on her feet, Winry tightened her shoulders and once again reminded herself what she'd vowed that morning. She let her attention slip to Edward's distant figure, silently locked away in the corner of the couch. She wondered if, or even how, she was supposed to say anything to him.

"Okay, this is how we'll do it."

Sitting on the rug in the middle of the Ross family cabin, Brigitte looked to Alphonse as the boy rolled up his sleeves. Atop the rug, Alphonse dropped the load of crayons, markers, pencils and pads of paper he had held in his arms. Coming to his knees, Al slid a steno pad between Brigitte and himself then flipped it open. Taking the fattest black marker, he used three lines for each character he wrote down.

Brigitte curiously tilted her head, sliding over to get a straighter image of what he was doing.

"We'll start with this," pausing, he handed her a red marker, "we'll start at the beginning and go from there."

The perplexed expression upon Brigitte's face grew curious the more he spoke.

"I'm going to read these off and write the spelling underneath. You're going to do that too, okay?"

It was going to have to be okay, until Alphonse was done Brigitte would continue to carry her disconcerted expression.

"This is 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four'…" in block letters, Alphonse wrote down the spelling of the numbers as he called them out, "'eight', 'nine', and 'ten'," he promptly capped his pen and quickly found he'd been cut off by Brigitte, who'd started far ahead of her cue.

"'eins', 'zwei', 'drei'…"

From the kitchen, the prying eyes of the adult audience gave a collective brow rise. Alphonse stole a quick glance back at them, quite delighted with the instant progress he'd begun to make.

With her arm slung over the back of her chair at the kitchen table they sat at, Izumi's fingers strummed on the tabletop, "She's very intuitive."

"Al," Mustang called out as Brigitte announced 'zehn' upon reaching 10, "have her fill out the sheet to thirty-one."

Maria gave a curious eye to her superior, "You're going to have her fill out a calendar?"

"Yes," he slowly nodded, "it would be good to know how far off the child's knowledge of time is."

As he'd done most of the day, Mustang's good eye flickered over Izumi. He'd watched her attention continually shift from the adult group to the two children since they'd awoken. He was certain that her thoughts were tied up in the scenario Brigitte was creating for them and was simply waiting for the most opportune moment to discuss it. Everyone had seen it and everyone had questioned it: the dates on Brigitte's documents and the age of the elder Elric in the photo.

"Done!"

Mustang straightened in his seat. At the wave of his hand, he motioned for the boy to join them with the dual-language sheet of paper in hand. As Al came to the table, Roy took the package he'd created of photographs and trinkets collected from Brigitte's bag and slipped her identification card and a train ticket out from the collage.

"The dates on everything Havoc pulled out of her wallet range from 1908-03-17 to 1921-08-15," Mustang extended his hand and took the pad of paper from Alphonse, "I need you to find out what year she thinks she was born and what year she thinks it is now," with the flick of his wrist, he tore off the top sheet of numbers, "let's copy this, and find out if she understands our calendar structure."

Al gave a slow nod, turning to look back at Brigitte as the girl observed the gathering.

"I'd also like to find out who the people are in her photos, as well as her parents names and siblings if she has any. Use the numbers and get their birth dates, ages, and anything else that's relevant."

Alphonse paused at Mustang's long list of demands; to him, it felt like he was to hold an inquisition. Shooting a glance to Brigitte one last time, a hint of frustration crossed his face, "How does that help her tell us where my brother is?"

It was Izumi's voice that interjected before any other, "We need to create some legs to stand upon before we can take that step forwards."

Deliberately disrupting Mustang's intended focus for the afternoon, Izumi left a question open for Maria, "has Brigitte figured out when you're calling her over to you?"

"I think so," with a few waves of her hand, Maria turned her attention to the girl, "Brigitte, come over here."

Rising to her feet, pen in hand, Brigitte marched made her way over to the table, straightening her dress as she stood amongst a daunting gathering of onlookers.

"Al, before you continue with what Mr. Mustang is asking," Izumi's attention drew to a focus, "I want to know something."

Izumi reached out and delicately took Brigitte by the wrist as she pulled the girl towards her. Putting an arm around the child's waist, Izumi sat Brigitte down upon her left knee and pulled the sheet of German and English numbers away from Mustang.

"May I take this?" Izumi put her fingertips over the end of the marker in Brigitte's hand and slowly removed it from her possession, "thank you."

The puzzled frown never left Brigitte's expression as she watched the woman orchestrate the gathering at the table, somewhat to Mustang's dismay.

Placing the tip of the marker down upon the paper, Izumi circled the number eleven Alphonse had written and wrote 'Alphonse Elric' above the printed digits.

"That is how old Alphonse is," tearing out a clean sheet, Izumi turned the explanation into a formula and wrote it out for Brigitte to read.

'Alphonse Elric 11'

Below that equation, Izumi wrote 'Brigitte ?' and returned the pen to the girl's possession.

"Do you understand what I'm looking for?"

Beyond the word 'understand', which came up in nearly second sentence spoken to her some days, Brigitte was at a loss with the verbal question. However, the visual question equation was far more helpful.

"Dreizehn," and with that, she circled and wrote her name above the number 13 and wrote in the answer to Izumi's formula.

The tension rose from the table at the sudden realization of the clear line of communication. The bodies loosened and leaned forwards as Izumi took the pen once again from Brigitte's hand and wrote one more formula

'Edward Elric ?'

Brigitte's nose wrinkled, "I don't know…"

"She doesn't know," Maria spoke up, "Of all the things she says, I'm pretty sure I've figured out that one."

"That's not it," Mustang stepped into the problem, catching something in Brigitte's tone that cause his refusal for a break in the current communication line, "it's Ed's age she doesn't know, Lieutenant. She understands the question," he redirected his speech to Brigitte and Izumi, "narrow it down for her."

Izumi had already taken that step. With the tip of the pen resting on 15, Izumi looked up into the girl's eyes for a response, "Is Edward fifteen?"

"No."

A grin swept over Al's face, delighted by how she'd responded to the question.

Nodding, Izumi's pen slid up a number, "Is Edward sixteen?"

Brigitte's answer did not change, "No."

"Is Edward seventeen?"

"No."

With the grind of her jaw, Izumi raised her number count while once more moving her pen, "Eighteen?"

"No."

Noting the disconcertion that developed at the table at Brigitte's responses, Riza offered an explanation, "Her age perception is going to be skewed. She is a fair bit younger than him, he might seem older to her by comparison."

Izumi continued to hold Brigitte's attention; her pen danced between two numbers, "Are you certain he's not seventeen? Or eighteen?"

With a suddenly ferocity to her behaviour, Brigitte snatched the pen back from Izumi and leaned over the paper, "No, no, no," she struck thick X's through the numbers 15, 16 and 17, "Mr. Elric is much older than that. He said he came to Germany two years ago and has worked with his father at the university the whole time. You have to be an adult to work at the university, so it's not this either," Brigitte's red pen struck through 18 and 19, "no, no."

Fascinated eyes peered in closer to watch the display of swift pen strokes, "Mrs. Oberth told me when we were shopping that she was 26 and that Mr. Elric was a few years younger than her. So, not this," her marker tip struck through 25 and 24, "no, no!"

Below Izumi's equation, Brigitte rewrote the formula, 'Edward Elric 20? 21? 22? 23?'

Capping the pen and putting it down, Brigitte's hands came to grip the edge of the table as though challenging anyone who'd question her.

Amidst the silence, Mustang's hand took up the train ticket he'd taken from the collection of Brigitte's foreign treasures. Stamped in fading, black ink was the date: 1921-08-15. The present information made little to no sense. Yet, late one night after they'd arrived, he'd let his mind run free, creating the most impossible 'what if' scenarios; scenarios that, until that moment, had no believable base to build upon.

Upon arrival of that August ticket date in four years time, Edward Elric would be 22 years old.

Upon arrival of that same August date, it would be 13 years past the date printed on the identification card in Brigitte's wallet.

The only response given to the unarguable insistence Brigitte gave to Izumi's question came from Mustang's lips as he burned the two equations for Brigitte and Ed's age into his mind.

"Impossible."

There was a grey, cloudy-water existence that sat behind his eyelids before sleep. Today, it was a bit more colourful. There was a thin trail of red smoke drifting around, carrying the powerful aroma of a freshly sliced apple. Dancing around the dispersing thread was the whipping talon of a blue ribbon; with every wave of the tail, the loose fibers at the end broke off and added a hint of blueberry to the apple's domain.

"Edward?"

The gentle tips of thin fingers touched his shoulder and Ed jumped violently.

The hand that had wanted to coax him softly from near sleep quickly recoiled, and Patricia sat back upon her knees at the side of his chair. An insecure arm reached across the white apron covering her stomach, lightly holding her other arm at the elbow as she sat upon the floor. Her voice was held at a whisper, nearly devoid of self-assurance, yet remained delicate with enunciation.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

For the brief moment after his head had risen off the chair's arm in alarm, Ed became the one who should have apologized for the startled, golden gaze that he'd looked back upon her with.

His attention quickly turned away. Without the energy to maneuver very far, Edward's gaze shifted to catch what he could of his surroundings. The chair Winry had sat in and the other Dr. Wilson had lounged upon were vacant. The ashtrays, wine glasses, water glasses, and scattering of children's toys had all been removed. The gathering he'd barely partaken in no longer resided in the room. Filtering into the unexpected silence was the familiar echo of voices from beyond the hall. Floating in the air were the scents from the candle arrangement lit upon the mantle, a colourful assortment including the thick wax columns of ripe apple and succulent blueberry.

There was a time, too long ago, his mother use to fill the mantle like that…

"It's alright Patti," Edward's left hand came up to rub his bloodshot eyes.

Patricia tucked her legs beneath her dress as she knelt upon the rug covered floor panels, her fingertips dug into the white ends of her apron, slowly folding it end over end, "Winry's been very helpful, she and Thomas almost have the stove fixed."

"I'm sure Winry will have it running better than it had been before," Edward tried again to unsuccessfully wipe the exhaustion from his eyes and cheeks.

"I'm glad you brought her with you."

"She was looking forward to it."

There was no willing power left that could coax his head up any longer. The lead weight growing in his head connected his forehead to the chair's armrest. He'd feel better if he could get up and walk it off, but the weight in his arm, chest and leg ballooned; the feeling was nauseating.

The rustle of clothing was clear, and Ed listened as Patricia rose to her feet, only to crouch down again and fold her arms over the part of the chair's arm where Edward's forehead resided.

"Edward…"

The last thing Ed should have done was turn to look at her, but it was the first thing he did. He sat in such dangerous proximity to a pair of eyes with an unmistakable look. The lips moved with an identical sound. It was something he could never forget.

"Edward, I know you can do better than that."

No two people in any world should ever be allowed to look at him that way.

"Edward, wouldn't it be best if you lay down upstairs?" brushing a shade of hair that was a little too dark over her shoulders, Patti soon let her eyes mingle elsewhere in the room, "dinner still won't be ready for a while, so if you lay down for a bit you might feel better once things are ready. We have a spare bed that would be far more comfortable than this is."

Ed forced himself up with the shake of his head, nearly intoxicated by the exhaustion he'd been unable to ward off, "No, I'm fine."

"Edward, please," rising upon to her feet, the woman's slender, delicate fingers dug into the chair's arm. Her quiet voice a little stronger than it had been before, "you look frightful."

"I don't want to miss your dinner when it comes."

"Edward honestly, my dinner is not that important."

He hated that look. That expression on her face that was never meant to be cruel, yet it ripped into his heart and crushed down with relentless force. Edward told himself, again and again and again, that he could get used to being around her once more, even if it had taken him months to get used to her presence the first time.

"Patti, it-"

The last thing Ed had been expecting was his father's hand to freeze and silence him. Never once had he turned around far enough to see the man standing at the opposite side of the chair.

"Edward."

Normally, that commanding tone used with his name drew a fierce reaction. But Ed remained motionless, caught between a powerful hand and a pleading presence.

"Listen to some advice and go lay down."

The surreal state he sat in between was unfair. This was not his mother and he didn't want the other to be his father.

Both were behaving as though they should be his parents.

Without a response to either of them, Ed slowly took his crutch from the floor. Using what remained of his strength, he pulled himself up and tucked the wooden prop under his arm.

Edward reminded himself that there was the black escape known as sleep to free him from all this. But getting there… staying there was something entirely different. His mind's eye wouldn't let him arrive and his ears refused to join him, constantly alert and booting him back into some other reality.

Ed glanced absently around the room, not to observe anything, just to remind himself of his surroundings. This house had a type of warmth and it existed with just enough of that flavour to leave him with a finger touching the shell of what it was, but different enough that he couldn't loose himself within it.

He hated London.

He'd tried so hard to convince himself of that.

"It's mad at me."

The artificial child's braids fanned out like a dancer's ribbon as she turned around.

Aisa kept her distance, wary of the monster rising above her, "What makes you say that?"

Barely able to hold the crying infant in her arms, the Dante-child returned to looking into the empty void that existed beyond daunting Gate doors that had opened wide.

"I can finally stand uncontested at its doors, and it doesn't let me see a thing," the woman's soul pouted in a child's voice, "I've brought the most powerful force to its knees, and it still denies me."

It was true. The woman who'd refused to submit to mortality had her greatest adversary by the throat and at the touch of her hands, the Gate opened its doors. Cradling a howling baby in her arms, Dante had approached uncontested. With the silent motion of her final forward step, she stood, face to face, with its aura, it's power, it's rage…

And it refused to acknowledge her.

For today, and the weeks before and those that would follow, the Gate's rage remained suppressed and its secrets carefully tucked away behind the black void beyond the doors.

"Stubborn beast," no naturally born juvenile could have forced so much boiling frustration into such a lovely set of blue eyes.

Aisa attempted to reaffirm Dante's beliefs by deflecting the frustration, "Are you certain that Brigitte came from the other side of the Gate?"

With her head tossed high, an inarguable, confidant grin flowed into her expression. Someone had the gall to yet again challenge her wisdom; how profoundly insulting.

"I have witnessed these doors more times than any man could ever wish to see in his life time. Each time she opens her doors, the visions I glimpse at are unimaginable. The knowledge within is unreachable. The wealth of power is unobtainable. Sometimes the Gate allows me to get so close to understanding something that I feel as though I could inhale the swell of knowledge."

The petite body turned and took her decent of the Gate's doorstep with as much grace as childish legs would allow, the radiating yellow aura of the Gate's presence creating buoyancy to her strides.

"I'd thought, at first, that I'd made a mistake with Diana. When I sent Miss. Rockbell to the Gate's doors I never once considered that the auxiliary feedback within the transmutation I'd initiated was a result of something coming through in return, and not an error in the Diana methodology."

Never would Dante mention how frightened she had been at her first attempt at using the infant to tap into the Gate. Nor would she mention the overwhelming power she'd found herself crushed beneath when the flow of the transmutation felt as thought it was ready to rebound upon her at Brigitte's arrival.

Extending Nina's arms, Dante returned the infant to Aisa, and sucked in a deep, exhilarating breath of the warm air, before the Gate vanished.

"It was imperfections within my Diana that created that misunderstanding." her tiny fingers caught the end of a swinging braid. Sliding it into the tips of her fingers, she slowly untied the elastic at the end and began unraveling the perfect folds of hair, "I'd assumed I would get to see beyond the Gate when something came through, and that did not happen. I suppose, in order to see any of it, I'd need an actual infant from the other side, rather than using one of the Gate's children for Diana. She's quite similar to Wrath in that regard."

The tiny fingertips ran through silk-soft, brown hair; smoothing the waves created from the day-long braids she'd worn. Her hair swayed down her back, and Dante entertained herself with the thought of how nice it felt to have such long hair stream over her back and dance around the base of her spine.

Her tiny, polished, black dress shoes echoed off the floor as her arms flew out to her sides; left over right she stepped, turning herself around endlessly in the darkened ballroom. The waves of hair fanned out around her shoulders and the dress flew out around thin, pale thighs. Slowly, the perfectly taken ballet steps slipped into silence. Both the dress and locks of hair came to rest around her body as the cruel delight flowed into her smile once again. She'd had the fortune of being able to disguise that look with youthful innocence, but it danced into her eyes continuously since she'd come to understanding Brigitte and Winry's transmutation.

"Yes Aisa, she came from beyond the Gate. The only two people who would even have the slightest knowledge on how to create the type of auxiliary transmutation the child traveled on would have been Hohenheim and Envy. And Hohenheim is dead in the Gate."

"This would be the first time we've been contacted from beyond the Gate, it is not?" Aisa adjusted Diana in her arms as the child continued to whine, "no one has ever given us a hint at their existence before."

With the potential for another existence, it was a question she'd thought about for more than half her years. Decade after decade, she'd considered the possibilities, but only one answer came out as the most logical.

"They've had no reason to," a touch of bitterness was thrown into her tone of near admiration, "we are nothing that they would even consider worthy of their time. Their knowledge and abilities far exceeds ours."

The three breathing bodies stood in silence upon the polished dance floor of the underground city's ballroom. Except for a scattering of weak candles to light the entrance path, the hall stood in darkness and Dante never touched her hands to illuminate the room. A chill had swept up around everyone at the change in warmth once they'd left the Gate's presence and Diana finally slipped into silence as Dante rolled a shiver off her soft, smooth shoulders.

"There was a time, thousands of years ago, where tales were told about travelers who'd come from another world in search of wisdom. They searched for something called Tartaros and found themselves here during their quest. They were said to have traveled through an unspeakable hell to obtain knowledge and returned to their world with what we offered them." With the sharp flick of her wrist, Dante used Nina's tiny hand to sweep the hair covering her forehead away, "These stories became etched into alchemy folklore and I've slowly removed within the last several hundred years. But in that ancient time, the secrets of our alchemy had been lent out, developed, surpassed, and then kept from us."

The dull echo that the tiny, black shoes created in the hall carried nowhere near the excitement that they'd had within the Gate's presence. Dante marched forward, her silent assistant and infant tool following close behind. With the slight touch of her hands and the quick, dismissing flick of her wrists, the faint candlelight vanished as she stepped out the doors.

"Before this body is ruined, I believe it's time for the other side to return the favour. I have no intention of surrendering to the curse of my soul's age quite yet. Something must exist beyond that Gate which will give me the longevity I'll need to continue on."

Around the time he had seen Dante for the first time in not nearly long enough, Hohenheim had realized that perhaps he was growing senile. He could not recall, for certain, the exact year of his initial birth. There were people, bodies and personas he'd taken on, names upon names that he'd memorized, countless dates of various people's birth dates, death dates, and dates for all sorts of reasons. Over time, the memories of 100 years ago had fallen into the conglomerate of those 150 and 200 years prior.

Throughout that time, he'd noted a trend in mankind. Long before photography and in a time when the only way you'd retain a portrait of your loved one was through the talents of an artist, Hohenheim noted how granddaughters in life's prime looked like their grandmothers of old and how young sons resembled their fathers before life's hardships weighed down upon them. Even in a vast gene pool where such unique shapes, figures, eyes, noses and mouths were passed onto the next generation, within a hundred or even a hundred and fifty years, two people could come together to pass along the right characteristics to create a near visual replica of someone's long deceased ancestor – someone that only Hohenheim remembered.

It startled him every time.

Once or twice, before he'd given himself five hundred years to cope with such a thing, Hohenheim had called out the wrong name, mentioned the wrong acquaintance's spouse, or forgotten that this friend had no children.

But Patricia had been a far harder existence to reconcile in his mind. Where Edward had done his best to avoid her, Hohenheim had moved closer, if only to uncover everything he could to assure himself that this was in no way the woman he loved. She was taller, her hair was a deeper shade, her eyes were a different colour, and her age was not even close.

At the age of 22, Patricia Margaret Spence had first been introduced to Hohenheim.

Three days after Edward's defiance towards this world's lack of alchemy had resurfaced.

Three days after he'd stated that he'd unearth something, anything to get him back home.

Three days after Hohenheim's son had already been introduced to her.

And now, once again, he moved about trying to re-adjust to the situation.

"You won't wake him?" Patti's hands clasped over her skirt, speaking quietly as she watched Hohenheim cradle his son's head with one hand and slip the hair tie away with the other.

"Patti," his hand pulled away and Ed's head came to rest on the pillow once again. Silent, the son's arm lay lifeless on the mattress at the side of his head, the solitary hand rested half curled in the pillow, "he sleeps like a rock when he's out. Unless I'm trying to catch his attention, he doesn't wake up when I move him."

Rising to his feet, the father's trailing hand swept a few stray strands of hair from Edward's face and stepped towards the door where the young mother stood, "Are you sure this isn't a problem?"

Upon his exit, Patricia pulled the door until only a sliver of space remained, not clicking it shut, "Of course not. I told you, if he was still sleeping when you were ready to leave he could most certainly stay the night," her slippers made a soft pop off the back of her heel with each step she took, "he's been so silent all day long."

Patricia Spence had been raised in a wealthier family with two elder sisters and a younger brother, she'd attended and graduated from all her levels of schooling with strong marks and had undertaken a stint at a local institution where she'd become proficient at stenography and short hand. She'd met her future husband, Thomas, at a presentation given by her father where she'd been employed as the minutes taker. On her more leisurely side, Hohenheim slowly learnt of the woman's love for horseback riding and found out quickly from the girl's parents how 'uncouth' she was for preferring to straddle the horse rather than ride sidesaddle.

For every moment he'd spent with her, Hohenheim would soon uncover just enough to make this woman the eventual Patricia Hyland and not the Trisha Elric he still loved.

And yet, he'd still follow the sound of a lovely voice down the hall, and attempt to deny some part of him that continued to yearn for that sound to be something for him.

The pair stopped for a moment, looking down from the top of the staircase to the solitary figure waiting for them at the bottom.

"Is he still asleep?" Winry tilted her head.

"Yes," Hohenheim waited for Patricia to descend a few steps before following.

A delightful grin crossed Patti's face once more as she cast her smile over Winry, "Thank you again for your help today Winry, the repair man costs so much to bring in. I can't thank you enough."

The tendrils of Winry's hair swayed around her arms as she shook her head, "No that's fine, thank you for dinner, it was delicious."

"I'll save a plate for Edward, for when he wakes up," Patricia slipped the full-length apron she'd worn all evening off of her neck and wrapped it around her arm, "I feel terrible, he wanted dinner and I pushed him to lay down instead."

Hohenheim gave a chuckle at her concern, placing a hand down on her shoulder, "I think we all prefer a well rested Edward over a well fed one."

"After what you told me, I didn't expect him to fall asleep so suddenly once he laid down," Patricia gave a fleeting glance up the stairwell as her fingertips came to her chin, "I was searching for an extra blanket and he was asleep before I ever found one."

Winry's gaze drifted over to her, a smile crawling across her face at the delicate manner in which Patricia composed herself, "Maybe he's a little more comfortable up there than you think."

"I don't believe that's it," Patti gave a laugh at the statement, folding her arms across her stomach with unease once more.

Pausing in thought of the comment, Hohenheim gave a shake of his head, "I'm sorry about him Patricia, I didn't mean to bring him over to make things uneasy for you."

"Oh no," the woman's hands rose in defense, "don't apologize, you were saying over dinner that he's been through some dreadful things recently. Please don't think I'm upset, I'm so glad everyone's here."

Winry found herself needing to shiver to break out of the daze she'd found her way into. She had gotten lost watching, no, staring, at this woman. Her voice sounded of the sweetness of a mother she'd known, her body flowed with a figure she'd recognized, yet her demeanor seemed more timid and submissive than the strong mother she remembered. Winry wondered how many times Ed had been caught 'staring' at her.

It felt as though a ghost drifted about the household.

"Shall we head back into the family room?" Hohenheim offered the suggestion, holding up his arm for Patricia to take.

The woman laughed, taking his arm, grinning enough to wash away the concern, "Sounds splendid, there's still some time left in the evening, isn't there."

"You know what I think would be 'splendid'," Hohenheim stepped forwards along side the mirror image of his wife, "a piano."

"Why on earth would you want a piano at this time of night?"

Hohenheim mused, "When Edward was young, I used to take him and his mother to the hall in our township, it was out near the train station."

Winry's attention suddenly became sucked into Hohenheim's every word.

"There were some nights I'd sit down at the piano and play for her. Those were wonderful evenings."

"Hohenheim," Patricia's steps ground to a halt, "you've never mentioned you played the piano."

A quirky smirk, reminiscent of his son, momentarily showed itself, "I have many years on you Patricia, in there has been plenty of time to learn the piano."

"Then, before you leave England you must play for everyone."

Winry watched the pair move in suspended animation and her feet lost their motion. The woman's arm had been taken by his in a playful, social display through the household. A soothing warmth continued to drift around the house and Winry's fingers came up to rest silently on her bottom lip, watching two figures she had no memory of ever seeing stand side by side.

Her parents used to do that, she recalled: stand side by side or arm in arm. When they were home, they'd head into town and bring her along. She'd play and dance with the other children in the town hall as her parents moved side-by-side, arm in arm, or hand in hand to the elegant sounds of the piano or bouncing tunes of the trumpets. There had been so many memories vanish over time, but she still carried the precious, picture perfect memory of her parents existing in harmony that way. What she didn't have was that sort of clear memory of Edward and Alphonse in that same hall. Their mother never attended the dances. Why Winry could now remember asking her parents why Edward and Alphonse never came was beyond her; but the answer hurt.

Each Saturday night, the two families would leave their neighbouring houses and walk into town. Trisha Elric had always danced and laughed along side her husband. The family always brought their boys along to play with all the other children. However, Trish had no plans to return to the dance hall until her husband returned.

At some point in her young life, Winry must have witnessed this broken Elric family as one; the faint memory of dancing with a round, pudgy-faced Alphonse who bounced around without care for the music's rhythm filtered into her thoughts.

Again Winry caught herself staring and she shook herself from it. Throwing her gaze back to the stairwell, she peered up into the darkened hallway, wondering what Edward's mind's eye recalled each time his unwanted father and incorrect mother stood side by side.

What remained of the day's light gradually became only a sliver of gold outlining the distant horizon. In the country, especially on the darkest of nights, the moon shone down with far more radiance than any porch light could have. The lake's surface continued to reflect the towering presence of nature surrounding it, the white disc in the middle of the lake looked oddly familiar to the one in the sky.

He heard the footsteps approach. There was a way she walked that Alphonse could always recognize. Slowly, the feet scraped to a stop at the tip of the pier the young Elric sat upon. The moon enjoyed pretending it could behave just as its cousin, the sun, did and tossed its soft, night rays off the golden wedding band decorating her hand.

"Did you hear me call you inside?"

"I didn't," Alphonse gave a slow shake of his head, "I'm sorry."

Izumi pulled her feet out of the slippers she wore; setting them behind her, she came to sit upon the final two wooden planks at the end of the pier next to Alphonse. Her bare legs to extend over the water and she skimmed the tips of her toes through the distilled surface, "Did something catch your eye?"

"Not really."

Izumi invited nothing more into the conversation; she'd wait.

The late evening left everything to the imagination. Shapes that had once been so perfectly defined beneath the sunlight melted into a solid mass that swayed within the light breeze drifting in of the water's surface. Izumi looked up to the black, star-speckled expanse above their quiet spot; the decorative ceiling never seemed to look this good in Dublith and Central.

"Brigitte's really smart. We talked a lot today."

"Did you?"

"Well, it was more like a never ending game of charades and pictionary."

Izumi's hands ran over her kneecaps as she slouched forwards, her eyes allowed to relax in the outdoors thanks to the absence of the sun's glare.

Placing his head down upon the wooden deck and clasping his hands across his stomach, Alphonse laid back on the planks. He allowed his mind to be sucked away into the never-ending sky.

"Brigitte has a sister, a mom and a dad. I think she lives in a city that's either called Berlin, München or London. Apparently, she thinks it's September, 1921," Al pulled his feet to the pier's end, hooking his toes onto the wooden edge. Exhaustion was evident in his voice as his syllables slurred out in monotone, bleeding carelessly one into the next, "My brother might be twice my age and the height of the brigadier general. She used a crayon to go on and on about his eyes and how they were yellow. Then she started to talk about his arm and leg. I guess he has AutoMail again."

From the corner of her eye, Izumi caught the muscles in Alphonse's feet tighten as his toes clenched onto the wood.

"When she was trying to tell me about him, she started talking about 'Homunculus'."

Her mind suddenly barricaded the sanctuary of the evening from her mind and Izumi sat without a response, caught off guard buy the statement.

"She even spelt it out."

"… Is that so."

Pulling her gaze over her shoulder, Izumi watched with concern as Alphonse sat up again, stretching out his legs before he extended his feet over the pier's edge again.

"At some point while she was going on about it, she started to laugh," he shook his head, "I don't know why you'd laugh about something like that."

Izumi came to face forward again, folding her arms across her chest, and pulling the toes of her right foot out of the water as she crossed one leg over the other. That was not a word she'd anticipated to hear in conjunction with Brigitte's name, "Did you try to get her to elaborate?"

Al gave a weak shrug of his shoulders and a near roll of his eyes, "I don't think she understood what I was talking about when I tried. It got kind of frustrating."

Izumi's hand swept back over her hair, her index finger hooking around the hair-tie holding her locks back. She couldn't help but ask herself, 'why did both their languages have such a word in common', and 'why did the discrepancy in reaction towards it exist'. Again, the unspoken plea for a significant break in the language barrier came up in not only Izumi's, but Alphonse's mind as well.

"There's a lot we don't know and don't understand about her situation," Izumi gave verbal recognition to the seeds of doubt planted in their dilemma, "we don't know for certain if she even came from the Gate or why her information is caught up in such a huge time discrepancy. Homunculus might mean something else."

"Every time I figure something out, I learn something more confusing," the retort came with bite as the young Elric's fingers twitched into fists, "my brother is in the Gate."

Izumi gave into a lengthy exhale.

"If she's seen him, if she's taken his picture like that, she'd have to have come from the Gate. It makes sense," a faint hint of desperation ran into Alphonse's voice; no one was going to trample upon the swell of hope that his brother may be alive.

Somewhere.

With all the strength and hope he could gather, he wanted to believe that.

"Don't jump to conclusions."

Izumi's responses always seemed to be logical, rational and reasonable. Even if Alphonse did not want to hear this logic, it was there, it existed and he had to acknowledge it. There was very little point in attempting to contest her reasons, engaging in a fight like that with Izumi was like asking to get kicked into the water.

He simply wished she wasn't always right.

"Sensei…"

Alphonse rolled his jaw as he chewed on the inside of his cheek; he'd learnt so much more than he'd wanted to let on.

Conversing with Brigitte was like siphoning in power: the knowledge he gained from her was a power he had, a treasure he'd discovered and a mystery all his own to unravel. The mystery was far more fascinating than any novel he could indulge in, because in some way, all of it related back to him.

"All afternoon, Brigitte drew a bunch of pictures and wrote a lot of things down that I didn't understand," needlessly, Al rubbed his hands over his kneecaps as though he was trying to warm them, "she was drawing pictures for me during super. I'd wanted her to talk more about my brother, so I got her to draw him in the middle and place people around him."

Something in his tone caught Izumi's attention, it carried the undertones of a child's raging excitement; it was that bubbling secret that she realized Alphonse cradled out on the pier.

"She drew two people on one side of my brother and named them 'Tilly Oberth' and 'Hermann Oberth'. On the other side she drew someone and wrote 'Hohenheim' above it."

It felt as though the lake intended to surge up around them and suck them beneath the surface. Izumi looked at the youngest son who'd been handed the name of his father by a near stranger in his life.

"I guess the word 'dad' is something that she was able to recognize."

Izumi had never mentioned to Al the story she's once shared with Ed regarding Dante and Hohenheim's relationship. Nor had the family shared with Alphonse the story of how he'd spent a day last summer with his father for the first time in over ten years. Back then, Al had never shared with anyone what he'd discussed with his father over the course of that night. The memory, what was said, remembered and treasured by the only child Hohenheim had who did not look back upon him with vicious resentment, was lost. The family reached a decision: it was far less damaging to the youngest Elric, who had fresh memories of the death of his mother, the loss of his brother and was fully aware he'd lost the previous five years of his life, to not let him know that he'd lost the only memory of his father as well.

"She identified him as your father?"

Al nodded slowly, "Yeah."

Izumi momentarily wondered why it seemed so hard for her to accept the concept, "Brigitte called him 'Hohenheim'?"

Again, Al nodded, holding back a wistful smile, "She spelt his name right too."

For Brigitte to be able to produce such a name and relate it to Ed was dumbfounding. Even in the height of their fame, the Elric brothers did not acknowledge any relation to their father.

"There's no reason for that man to be involved," Izumi slowly attempted to wrap her mind around the name. For the years she'd spent under Dante's tutelage, the name had been as taboo as human transmutation; she almost wondered if her own teacher's loathing for the name had been passed on to her. All she had to do to reference him with the same bitter tone that Edward spoke with was to look upon the broken Elric family, "And there'd be no way Ed would even-."

"If all these people are in the Gate, I wonder if our mom is there too," his voice sounded lost in a dream, "we didn't realize it back then, but we did try and ask the Gate for her."

Where Edward would outright initiate a change of topic with the drop of a gauntlet, Alphonse had the magic of changing trains of thought with the breeze of a sweeping statement. Mere seconds passed before a strong, left hand came down over Alphonse's slight mess of golden-brown hair.

"Don't you think it's time for you to let the memory of your mother rest in peace?" Izumi realized: this was something that needed to be laid to rest before any mentions of the estranged father could be brought into the light. In the time since she'd laid vicious fists into two boys who'd gone against everything she'd tried to reinforce, it had been something Izumi had firmly believed haunted them, no matter how much they achieved or how far they progressed.

Her hand slid from his hair, coming to rest on the young Elric's shoulder, "Ed couldn't let go of your mother even after everything was said and done, and you would follow in stride."

Not many children are given the opportunity to re-do a part of their life, and because Alphonse had been given that rare opportunity, Izumi wished to ensure something better. The beauty of a child that no longer had the memories of years of hardship fermenting the pain of a lost loved one was enough to tell her that her words were no longer too late in coming.

"I know that you can do better than that."

After all, they were the only two children she could consider 'her own'. With Alphonse, there came times, now and then, when she could treat him as such.

"I'd be too ashamed to see my mom again."

And there came times, now and then, when he would respond.

"I think she's happier when I leave the wildflowers at her grave and I tell her I love her."

In the end, he'd end up reminding her that the second trip down the road paved by an irreparable mistake had started out nothing like the first.

Nothing startled it and nothing interrupted it, the empty existence of sleep simply faded away. There was a nice, warm imprint in the mattress where he lay and a warm bubble within the comforter that he slept beneath, Ed didn't particularly feel the urge to move out from it. He lay, silent and empty headed for nearly 20 minutes before finally the realization hit him that he was in a foreign house. Yes, he wasn't in his own bed. Yes, he wasn't in his German home. Despite realizing these things, he felt somewhat foolish that it had taken him that long to realize he was intruding on someone's space.

Where was he again? How long had he been there? And who put the wool sock on his foot? Where'd the blue sweater he had on come from? …Who's pants did he have on?

Ed quickly found himself sitting up in the bed amidst a slowly growing mountain of questions.

Through the tangled mess of hair falling down his back, Ed gave a lengthy scratch of his neck, all the while squeezing his eyes in hopes of removing the sleep that clouded them over. Fighting through another yawn, Ed gave up on his stay in the odd location and picked up his crutch from the side of the bed.

Oh, this sock was warm, he couldn't feel the chill in the floorboards. For the life of him, once October came along neither he nor his father could manage to keep the floor in their German home warm.

The best Ed could deduce for a time of day was sometime after the sun had risen and sometime before it began setting. Balanced with his crutch, he peered out into the hallway. A strong, white light lit the hall, as well as the room he'd exited; it was natural light from outside, but not quite sunlight.

Ed wrinkled his brow and moved towards the stairwell at the end of the hall.

The house was perfectly quiet, there wasn't a voice to be heard within the walls; Edward was the only interruption of this bright silence as he made his way slowly down the stairs. As delicately as possible, Ed moved from the stairs to the brightened hall at the front of the Hyland home. From where he stood he could peer into the living room, but there was no one to be seen.

With a quirky turn of his confused frown, Ed focused his attention to the lack of footwear on the front entrance mat. His shoe was there, but Winry's and his father's were not. With a wrinkle to his nose, Ed approached the front entrance. The glow from outside coming in through the thin window above the door distracted him from the other thoughts clouding his mind. Curiously raising an eyebrow, Ed paused a moment once realizing that none of the locks on the door had been done.

Ed winced at first as he opened the door, squinting into the bright world that lay dormant beyond the front porch of the home.

The world lay before him, wiped of all its imperfections. The beginnings of a white blanket of freshly fallen snow glowed brighter than the sun, which attempted to light the world from a blue crack in the overcast, snowing sky. The world was smooth, pure, and placed at ease until man returned to scar the perfection.

And the snow continued to fall; plump snowflakes tumbled down from the sky without the curse of wind to distort their decent. The bite of winter's chill lay dormant beneath the growing white bed. For the length of time he stood at the opened door, there had been, and continued to be, no sound.

It was serene. Where was he again?

Ed's attention flickered away as he slipped the socked foot into his shoe. Without disturbing the peace in the world around him, Edward stepped out onto the snow-covered porch and with wide, childish eyes, he took in the surroundings.

He was wrong, because there was noise, faint noise of the world existing; snow slipping from fence posts and tree branches, the birds venturing out into the fresh powder, and the occasional weak gust of wind that altered the course of the falling flakes. Squinting, Ed looked up to the grayish, overcast sky and watched without a word as the heavens buried the world around him.

Do it.

The gentle touch of the chilled snowflake on his cheeks kind of tickled as each melted.

Do it…!

A mused curl came to the corner of his mouth and he stuck out his tongue to see how many…

He quickly stopped when he heard someone giggle from the kitchen window. His attention wasn't quick enough to spy the culprit disappearing behind the curtains, but knew the voice that quickly moved to the open door.

"How many did you catch?"

How embarrassing. Ed's head dropped and he slowly shook it with the hope he wasn't flushed with embarrassment.

"Three? Four?" Patti chewed on her lower lip as she stood in the doorway of her home, "Margaret says that some snowflakes taste like little pieces of ice cream."

"Very funny…" his head continued to shake as he peered over his shoulder, "I wasn't catching snowflakes, I was yawning."

"Oh," the young woman laughed, "okay, if that's what it was."

"It was!"

"I never said I didn't believe you!" her tone deliberately mocked him, they both realized it, and Patti's hand quickly shot out between them to deflect the conversation, "bun?"

Adjusting over his crutch and shaking the snow from his hair, Ed took the dinner bun from her, "Thanks…"

As quickly as he snatched the bun, Edward turned away to stare off into the abyss of white, a far better alternative than looking back and have her continue to giggle at him. The soft, sweet voice insisted on sweeping over him.

"It looks quite pretty this morning, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Ed slowly let his teeth sink into the soft bun, "What time is it?"

"10:30," came the reply of the female voice standing in his shadow.

Ed paused, raising an eyebrow before swallowing his bite, "In the morning?"

"Certainly not at night…"

His face contorted again, realizing how foolish he'd just sounded. Again he stood silent upon the top of the porch step, trying hard to focus on what was glowing before his eyes and not what stood behind him.

Ed wanted to look over his shoulder, the desire made him itch, but the longer he remained silent, the greater the chance that she would go back into the kitchen. Was she going to shut the door? If she shut the door to keep the cold air out then he would know she had gone inside, or did she intend to leave the door open like he had and just walk away?

"Edward I'm going t-"

"Did my dad and Wi-"

The simultaneous statements came to an abrupt halt, both stopping not only their speech but movement as well, waiting for the other to go first.

Ed wanted to sigh in spite of himself. He had tried time and time again to hold a conversation with her but he'd always found himself with a million scripted things to bring up and nothing to actually say. It was rarely a natural conversation.

"Did my dad and Winry stay over last night?"

"Your father left with Charles, but he asked Winry to spend the night…"

Edward's eyes flickered up into the grey and white ceiling that floated down around him. He listened as she shifted against the doorframe.

"She was up fairly early and took Margaret out back to the gazebo about half an hour ago. Did they wake you?"

"No… no," he gave a light shake of his head, "nothing woke me."

The silence crept up between them once more. This time Patricia was unable to hold silent; sliding backwards, closer to the warmth within the house, her fingernails danced over the doorknob of the wide-open entrance.

"Would you like to come back inside?"

Again he shrugged, "I'm alright."

"Do you want me to bring you your scarf?"

She was trying so hard to find some platform for a social conversation with him, and all Edward could read was the undertone of unease in her voice which only made it harder to reply, "It's okay, Patti."

Exhaling quickly, she began chewing on the corner of her lower lip again, "If you don't bundle up, you'll catch pneumonia."

"… it's not cold enough out here to catch pneumonia."

The woman's eyebrow rose, once again Ed gave her reason to pause. This was perplexing; the conversation had developed into the type of conversation she carried on with her daughter day in and day out. Wasn't Edward just a little too old to sound so much like her child?

'If you don't wear your mittens, you'll catch cold.'
'But I don't like my mittens.'

'If you eat any more of that, you'll get sick.'
'But it tastes good.'

'If you sit like that, people will think you have no manners.'
'But it's comfortable.'

So, when mother's wisdom fails, there was the trump card.

"If you don't bundle up, you'll catch pneumonia again and your father will be furious."

"Patti…"

She was taken aback by how quickly Ed turned over his shoulder. His gaze cast downward to the impressions he'd left in the layer of snow on the doorstep. This time, it was only Edward who carried the silence between them, and he finally lifted his eyes. Patricia's shoulders relaxed, reading no aggression in his eyes to the stern warning she'd given. Finally, Edward snorted in jest.

"If that happens, he'd kill me long before the pneumonia would."

The woman's brown eyes flickered skyward for a moment. Patricia allowed herself to become lost in a thought before spinning on her heels and marching back inside, "Then I'll get your jacket too."

"What?" Ed's jaw fell open in confusion. He quickly wrinkled his nose in protest and called back inside, "The scarf will do Patti, I don't need the whole jacket!"

"Alright!" the voice chirped back at him.

Wait a minute, had she just…?

Ed's eyes narrowed as he peered back inside the house, trying to achieve the impossible and peer around the corner Patricia had disappeared behind. Slowly he turned away, moving around to face a world that had its impurities buried beneath a clean slate of snow. This corner of the world would enjoy its moment of tranquility until the first pedestrian, cyclist or vehicle felt brave enough to leave an imprint. Some part of Edward hoped those inevitable events would never come.

The owner of a powerful pair of golden eyes looked up into the sky softly drifting down around him and debated sticking his tongue out once more.

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes:

Just a reminder, the time on the AU side of the Gate moves faster than the other side (I write it at a 3:1 ratio). Brigitte's awareness of the time of year is skewed - she thinks it's still September when it's now November in Europe and May/June in Amestris.