Some nights, when I sleep, I can hear that sound. That baby.
She screams at me, incoherently, from beyond a white, painful light.
If I think about it, my body burns. It's like déjà vu, only I'm not sure what it is that I'm supposed to be remembering.
Once in a while I can place that feeling somewhere between the church hall and that bedroom.
Some afternoons, when I'm frustrated with the heat and the English language, I think about it too much. About how he told me not to go there, and I went anyways.
Occasionally, after thinking about that, I remember hearing that old man's voice echo in the hall. I know I meant to look at him, but I can't remember if I did or not.
Yet…
I do remember waking up on the floor with some little girl looking over me. For the first few moments she looked at me, I thought she was terrified of me. I think I ended up being terrified of her.
She clapped her hands and things happened; things that I can't explain and have never seen before. It's like that alchemy Mr. Elric spoke about, but alchemy is impossible.
Some times I tell myself that Mom was wrong, the English are nicer than she said they were.
Both Mr. Elric and these people are English.
And these people aren't that bad and I hope they let me go home some day. I can't run away because I don't know where I'd go, so I figure, if I do what they ask, then maybe I'll get home sooner. It's not as though they're hurting me, or abusing me, or mistreating me. I get food, clothing, water, and shelter; lots of it – I should be thankful for that.
Whatever the rest of cruel Europe might has convinced themselves my Germany is, I'll have them know that I'm different than what they think of me.
Some day, maybe that'll do me some good.
Chapter 73 – Upon the Doorstep of Revolution
"Edward!" the voice bellowed from another room, "answer the phone."
He poked his head out of Charles Wilson's kitchen. With the morning coffee in hand, narrow, gold slits darted up and down the hall, searching for the direction the sudden incurrence of sound came from, "Why do I have to answer your phone?"
"Because it's ringing!" the doctor's voice hollered once more, "hurry before they hang up."
Stumbling out into the hall, crutch beneath his arm, Ed stomped his way towards the never-ending telephone bell, "This isn't my house, what the hell am I supposed to say?"
"I'm quite sure 'Hello' would be sufficient."
Ed stopped in his tracks, suddenly tempted to let the phone ring until it died.
From his study at the top of the stairwell, Dr. Wilson once again tossed his head out the door, "EDWARD."
"HOLY SHIT, I'LL GET IT!"
Standing within Dr. Wilson's main study as he bellowed the commands, Winry's expression fell, watching uneasily as the doctor turned back into the room and approached her. Winry'd concluded long ago that this man and Edward couldn't exist twenty minutes in the other's vicinity without some sort of clash - be it a glance, a quip, a shot; only the doctor didn't outwardly react as explosively as Ed did.
But the yelling was neither here nor there, and Winry hooked the tip of her screwdriver in place. With the firm jerk of her wrist, she put the final twist in the ankle of the prosthetic leg she'd battled with for weeks.
She'd found it hard not to refer to any prosthesis as AutoMail since she'd arrived in the English speaking environment. She was lucky in Germany; no one knew what she was talking about when she'd naturally refer to artificial limbs as 'AutoMail', and in the case of Ed's leg, 'temporary devices' or 'AutoMail substitutes'. Though she'd initially been focused on creating a more durable arm for him, as events unfolded she'd changed the course of her constructive urges and opted to create a high-end 'temp-leg', rather than paying an outrageous amount for a domestic prosthesis. She was convinced that she could create something more durable at a far lesser cost.
In the recent days she'd begun to harbor a sinful little secret; she had not expected it and couldn't help but enjoy it, but the attention she'd begun to receive for her archaic device tickled her pink. She'd shown it to the Hylands, but it was Dr. Wilson who was up in arms over the leg. The man had even gone so far as to call several of his colleagues over to examine her work, something Winry was more than willing to discuss with anyone who'd listen.
'Just you wait until you see Ed's AutoMail arm when I'm done with it,' she thought, feverishly struggling against divulging what was to come.
She was somewhat disappointed that Ed said he was fine with her not creating a truly AutoMail leg for him. There had never been any question that he'd wanted the functional arm for his upper body, but she'd hoped to challenge the leg as well. If that was not to be the case, she'd present him with the next best thing a seventeen-year-old mechanic had to offer with only substandard parts available.
Taking the leg by the ankle, Winry smirked and picked it up off the mat on the floor. Her hair fell over the old, dusty blue dress shirt Hohenheim had picked from a thrift store for her to work in. Swinging her ponytail over her shoulder, Winry straightened her back and held it out proudly before the doctor of the house, "It'll be better than anything he's had since he started staying with his dad."
"Good lord child," Dr. Wilson chomped down on his pipe stem, "let me see that."
"He's going to be so much more comfortable with this," Winry kept a protective grip on the prosthetic, allowing the doctor to play with the ankle, "with this he's going to have much better movement from the moment he steps down until he pushes off again. The way I've wound the ankle… there and there… will let him have a bit smoother roll-over to mid-stance plus it'll give a bit of cushioning to the foot and be more comfortable. The coils there help levy control between roll-over to forefoot; I was able to wind the coils tight enough that I really didn't have to do much to the spring's stiffness to facilitate it."
Without realizing it, Winry had left the doctor in her dust.
But she just couldn't help herself and the beaming grin slapped onto her face, "It's great that it works like this, I can't believe I got it to turn out so well." It was hard to be modest when she'd not only surprised herself, but had far exceeded the level of expectation among 'the professionals'.
"That, Miss. Rockbell…" the doctor let the young woman have her creation back, "is a work of art. I am astonished to say the least. I have seen some fine work done for transfemoral amputees, but watching you fly through the construction with such ease has me in awe. I have contemporaries who've been working their whole lives for a success like this."
"Are you kidding me? This was so much harder than it looked," the girl squeaked, "you can't call this 'easy' and it's defiantly not as good as it could be. It'll at least do the trick; I can't wait for him to try it on!"
"Who's trying what on?" Ed's voice pushed into the room from the top of the stairs.
Winry's eyes flew wide, beaming as he approached, "You are! I finished it!"
"Great," Edward gave his head a shake, pulling his crutch-aided self into the room.
The doctor slid the pipe from his lips, tapping the ashes into a tray at the corner of his desk, "Did you get the telephone like I asked you to?"
Plunking himself down on a wooden stool in the room, Ed rolled his eyes; his voice dripping with distain, "Yes sir, I did."
"Did you say 'hello' like I asked you to?"
"Yup," Ed lifted his head high, the trail ends of a sneer catching in his lips, "I said 'Hallo! Vielen Dank für Ihren Anruf!' and they hung up."
Winry wasn't sure if she was supposed to laugh or smack Edward on the back of the head with his new leg. More concerning than making that choice was the sudden aura of annoyance that emanated from Doctor Wilson. She watched in relative silence, leg cradled in her arms, as the doctor slid his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other and walked out of the room without a word to either of them.
Watching the doctor vanish down the tight flight of stairs, Edward snorted and stretched out his tired right leg.
"Ed," Winry slipped a hand to her hip as she handed the leg over to him, "you didn't honestly…"
"Huh?" he cocked an eyebrow, looking up at her with a surprisingly blank expression.
"I-", her voice caught; the hand on her hip went up to her chest and Winry folded her arms with an exaggerated sigh, "never mind."
A curl found its way into the corner of the Ed's mouth, deliberately allowing her comment to blow right by him. Reaching out, Edward hooked his index and middle fingers around the handle bar of his crutch and pulled it around, "Please tell me I came up here to hear you say I can toss this away?"
"How about just put it in the closet?" Winry shook the previous conversation away and sat down on her knees in front of him.
Letting the crutch fall from his fingertips with a clatter, Ed's left hand took hold of the wooden calf of the artificial limb. Reaching out, Winry gripped the cuff of the prosthetic and held it steady as he examined the knee joint, "It moves really well, no wonder Charles was all over it this morning."
"You're going to have to manually lock the joint yourself if you're ever driving or standing for long periods, you don't want it to collapse on you suddenly. I wanted to see if a slight hyperextension of the knee would lock the joint but then I realized that it was too easy to hyperextend, especially if you're walking fast… you'd end up falling over," shuffling on her knees to his side, she put her finger over a deliberate imperfection in the back of the leg, "you can feel the notch just above the back of the knee, there's a pin you put in it. The knee joint itself only has a 90-degree flexation angle. I really wanted at least 100 but that wasn't happening. And there was no way I was getting in any shock absorption so there's extra padding in the cuff, hopefully it'll help."
"That's fine, it can't be any worse than the last one," Ed scratched his cheek, recalling how his left leg stump swelled up after extended and continuous walking.
"I improvised all over the place," Winry was tempted to throw her arms up into the air, entangled in her element, "Ed, AutoMail technology is so much simpler, I had to completely re-think how I was going to approach this. In AutoMail, the mechanics and wiring pick up on the signals and you don't have to fight so hard aligning the pressure, tension, weight disbursement, strength and everything else. There's no user or muscle control in a prosthetic leg and I haven't made one in years, not to mention I couldn't even find half the right parts to begin with. I can't remember struggling so much with the tension in a single-axis rotary like that in all my years as an AutoMail mechanic!"
"Winry…" Ed paused as he caught her attention, somewhat hesitant, "it's better than the crutch."
The response was satisfactory and Winry rose to her feet with a huff directed not at him, but to the scope of the daunting situation she had every intention of tackling next: his arm, "You know, I brought up stuff like 'myoelectric signal' when the doctor and his friends were around, and no one knew what it was. This poor society."
"Its an electric signal that controls muscle movement in the nervous system."
"Thank you!" Winry raised her hands for Hohenheim, who was suddenly standing in the doorway of the office study, a grin on his face as he threw a chuckle at the heir to the Rockbell family business.
Ed's eyes narrowed curiously, eyeing his father in the doorway; he watched as the old man's interest shifted from Winry to him.
"Edward…"
His head tilted.
The old man's left eyebrow rose, "Do you know the reason behind Charles telling me that I'm supposed to lecture you about 'telephone manners'?"
Resting the leg in his lap, Ed wrinkled his brow and took a quick, annoyed glance around the room, "What kind of shit is he telling you this time?"
Straightening the collar of his dress shirt, Hohenheim leaned his shoulder into the doorframe, "Well, just after I finished with the phone call downstairs he came into the room and told me to 'deal with your telephone etiquette' because he'd had it up to 'here' with you this week."
Edward's expression remained stone cold and unimpressed, catching the sudden quirk of his father's eyebrow and recognizing the aura slowly flaring up around Winry at his side, "You know what dad, he's your friend. Considering you were the one who answered the phone, maybe you should ask him what he's going on about."
Having not honestly expected any answer other than the one he received, Hohenheim shrugged, reluctantly satisfied with the response. What he wasn't so reluctant to accept was the grossly unimpressed look that had fallen over Winry. His face twisted curiously as the girl stiffly exhaled and rolled her eyes with the shake of her head.
Still not noticing any hint of reaction towards her behaviour on Edward's part, Hohenheim allowed his reaction to soften, cautiously speaking, "… Did I miss something?"
The question was all Winry needed to throw her two cents onto the floor, "Your son is going to be held responsible when the roof comes crashing down around us!"
Ed finally reacted, "I'm what?"
Winry sent his eyes flying wide with her finger suddenly pointing in his face, "Put your leg on and go for a long, long walk outside before you drive everyone insane!"
"Well you need to get out of the room," Ed's arm swung towards the door, "I have to take my pants off to put this on, and that's not going to happen with an audience!"
She hadn't needed his prompting to make her exit. A curl found its way onto Edward's cheek by the time Winry had made it to the door; his father was already well down the hall, a hand to his slowly shaking head.
The aging creak of the cupboard door, the hungry sound of a mug touching the counter, and the lazy sweep of footsteps across the hardwood floor raged with volume at quarter past five in the morning. No amount of care could change that within a silent night. A cup of coffee had been the goal upon entering the kitchen, but a cold mug of water had been the option Mustang abdicated for. As it was, the water was far less intrusive than the noise and effort required for the first pot of morning coffee; he didn't want to disturb her.
Mustang never made it out of the kitchen; he stopped in the red mist brought on by the first rays of sunlight sneaking over the horizon. Izumi still sat at the wooden table, her head propped up in her left hand. Scattered across the table was a mess of paperwork. Pencil strokes depicted formulas, clearly alchemical, and rested upon the table as the base for three photographs that sat atop the pile. In the previous day's discussions, those three images had become momentarily inconsequential.
Curiously, he stepped up to the table's edge and with the smooth sweep of his hand, pulled one of many hastily scratched formula sheets towards himself. Even with his years of expertise in the alchemy field, Izumi's work was something to behold. Placing the cup down with barely a sound, his hands held tight to the table's edge as he tried to follow his way around the mismanaged formula.
The officer's lips slowly parted, "What on…"
"It's incomplete."
Mustang raised his eye towards the origins of a groggy voice.
Izumi let the hand that had held her up drop to the tabletop with a dull thud; with an emphatic yawn she slid another sheet towards the Brigadier General, "This has a sounder theorem on it."
Taking the new sheet of paper, Mustang eye narrowed at a piece far more convoluted than the last, "What were you doing?"
"Those three photographs your Lieutenant Havoc had developed from Brigitte's camera," another yawn momentarily interrupted Izumi, stretching her arms out across the table as she did so, "I can't figure out what that circle was meant to accomplish."
Mustang gave a shake of his head, snatching up a photograph lying atop the pile, "It wouldn't accomplish anything. It doesn't even warrant the right to be called a transmutation circle as far as I'm concerned," the photograph swept down to the tabletop from Roy's fingers, "this is why amateurs get hurt when they play with complex alchemy, that 'floor etching' would rebound on any alchemist long before it would come close to doing any good."
Pushing up from her seat, Izumi gripped the table as she stretched out her back; sore from being hunched over and half asleep for the last few hours, "It could tear someone apart."
"That would be an understatement," slipping his fingers into the water mug's rings, Mustang reconsidered the option of a morning coffee.
"What I'd like to know is…" Izumi's arms slowly folded across her chest as the man slowly made his way back to the kitchen sink, "from looking at that 'floor etching', what do you suppose was that circle's original purpose?"
With the flick of his right wrist, the water faucet was on. Without missing a step, Mustang snatched a pot from one of the cupboards and slipped it under the running water, "I have no idea what something like that was meant to have been used for."
From the menagerie on the table, Izumi's thin index finger slipped out the pen she'd molded to her hand for the greater part of the previous evening. Lightly, she tapped the fine end against the table top, "What if it wasn't supposed to be used for anything?"
The faucet squeaked as Roy stopped the water flow, "It's a decoration, as I said."
Slipping the photograph between her index and middle fingers, Izumi held it up for Mustang to see, the luminosity of the early morning hour barely strong enough for the officer to make the image out, "What if this isn't meant to aid the transmutation of anything. What if it's deliberately constructed to degrade into a rebound?"
The pot of water landed with a much greater clatter on the stove element than Mustang had intended, "I assume you realize how dangerous that is? No person in his or her right mind would construct something that would perform that way and then etch it into the floor. The entire floor."
"Yet, that's what this circle does."
The thought made Izumi uneasy, though not as outwardly uncomfortable as with Mustang. Any attempt at an alchemical reaction in the vicinity would trigger it, any unfortunate soul that didn't realize what it was would fall victim to it; however, not any artist could have possibly manufactured it. Sometime between dusk and the first peak of dawn, Izumi deduced the circle's balance was not simply a miscalculation; it was a sequence of miscalculations. Each disruption had a corresponding event that seemingly created another disruption or redistribution within the circle, deliberately offsetting the delicate balance required to complete any given transmutation and causing the cascading transmutation breakdown.
Mustang's fingers hung onto the curved, black handle of the pot of water upon the stove, looking back into a set of eyes that had beaten sleep into submission and gazed upon him with inarguable ferocity.
"Are you certain?"
"You're right, it doesn't deserve the right to be called a 'transmutation circle', but it's masquerading as a glorified one. Even the most basic hexagram is balanced, but the more lines you add for complexity the greater assurances you need that all of the elements in your equation are balanced," Izumi flicked the photograph back to the tabletop, turning away from Mustang as she cast a harsh gaze of the material she'd dissected until the wee hours of the morning, "Anyone with half decent training would look at this and shiver. The power flow starts and never finishes because of power divergence; it was built to rebound. It looks disorganized, but once I took it apart, it was anything but that."
Giving a flick of the switch to the stovetop element, Mustang walked back to Izumi. His forearms came to rest of the high back of a wooden chair and the officer leaned into the table, "Can you hazard a guess as to why?"
Izumi released a hefty sigh, "I have no idea. There are easier ways to kill yourself."
"Indeed," Mustang nodded and slid his way back to the pot on the wood burning stove element.
Izumi watched from the corner of her eye as the officer walked off. Her hand came up and swept over her face, a thumb and finger pushing into her eyes to massage the soreness brought on by an evening of confusion and frustration. She had expected, but never heard, the sound of cloth-covered fingers igniting the element. Blinded by her own hand, Izumi's ears instead picked up the sound of heavy feet thundering along the wooden floor towards her. Her hand fell away from her face with enough time to catch the aggressive look flooding into Mustang's eyes as he dropped his cup down on the table.
"Is our theory that Brigitte is from 'beyond the Gate' correct?"
Izumi gave the officer a slow nod.
"If something like that is so asinine on this 'side' of the Gate, why would someone construct it on the other? Wouldn't it be as foolish?"
Sitting back in the chair, Izumi's exhaustion burdened concentration latched onto the intensity growing within Mustang.
"And what in the world is a child doing taking a picture of it?" from within the pile of paperwork, Roy withdrew the other two photographs that had kept Izumi up for so much of the night, "in a room like that and with a camera of that type she'd need a manual flash; potassium chloride and magnesium powder would be the easiest. The circle causes enough problems on its own, but if you throw in an uncalculated element like magnesium and who knows what might happen. Why wouldn't anyone have stopped her from taking photographs? Wouldn't it be too dangerous?"
What would…?
How could…?
Shouldn't this…?
Why is it…?
Izumi wished for a fresh mind to understand why so much nonsense surrounded the situation. It wasn't as though the alchemy made no sense; the alchemy, although egregiously bastardized, ultimately made mathematical sense, it was the common sense that refused to surface at any point. The 'whys' and the 'hows' were questions that demanded logical answers, not open ended speculation into an unknown person or society's mindset. The 'maybe' clause seemed to attach to every possible answer, as well as an answer as nonsensical as any she'd asked herself thus far.
"Maybe no one perceives it as a danger?"
Mustang hesitated before answering, "That's absurd."
"No," Izumi corrected him, snapping up one of the photographs, "this is absurd."
Reaching out, Mustang took the image from Izumi's hand, gingerly holding a picture that had captured another time. Without a word, Izumi stood up from her seat and gave a withering exhale; her hands swept over her hair and she slowly pulled herself away from the table. In her place, Roy sat down; his arm slung over the back of the chair and the image falling from his fingertips into the paperwork before him. The craving for an early morning coffee had soon been lost as he tried to wrap his mind around the boggling notions that sent the alchemy teacher down the hall to her bed.
It was a two way rush. As Edward pushed open the door he could feel the heat escaping and blowing past his body. In turn, the warmth beyond the door was accosted by the outdoor chill. Not wanting to disturb the balance any longer, Ed quickly slipped inside, setting off the perky jingle of door chimes that danced near the ceiling. He looked up almost sheepishly at the noise; the unnoticed entrance he planned on making had been thwarted.
"Good evening, Sir."
The Elric's golden eyes drifted over to the heavily set man, grinning at him heartily through his beard, "The same to you."
"Is there something I can help you with before I close up shop?"
Ed opened his mouth to speak but found himself cut off by the first cuckoo clock to announce that five o'clock had arrived. The walls on each side of him rose above him, decorated by some of Europe's finest time telling instruments. The bird's music-box song, the high bell chime, and the deep gong of each handcrafted clock, grandfather and miniature, joined the 5PM choir in gleeful disarray. Unable to intrude into the mismanaged sound, Edward strode across the muddied floor, soiled by the boots of every winter-ravaged soul that had walked through the shop.
His head held up a little higher than normal as the clatter faded, he had not been able to walk so comfortably, so fluidly, and so powerfully since his last lifetime.
"Is Benjamin here?"
The final reminder of time slipped away; the tiny doors of the chirping clocks snapped shut as each crafted bird vanished for another half hour.
"Oh goodness," the man's thick lips fell downwards, his voice reclaiming the space where the declaration of time had momentarily occupied, "Ben hasn't worked here in ages."
Ed's hand slipped into his jacket pocket, brow knitting into a tight frown, "Dammit. Do you know if he's at another shop in the city?"
The puffy white beard swayed as the man shook his head, "Benjamin took his family out of town for some reason or t'other. I can't say that I recall what for. He left me to look after his shop and I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since."
"Shit," Ed's nose wrinkled as he momentarily grit his teeth.
Slowly folding a thick pair of arms across his wide chest, the shopkeeper couldn't help his curiosity and pried a little further, "Were you looking for Benjamin himself, or his craftsmanship skills?"
It was all the prompting Ed needed to elaborate, "My father commissioned Ben to craft a watch for him about four years ago," his hand moved swiftly; dipping his hand into the jacket's pocket, Ed's thumb slipped into the loop at the end of a silver chain and produced a watch that carried a nostalgic burden, "It's been loosing time for the last few months and I haven't been able to use it. I just wanted to have it adjusted so I didn't have to reset it every second day."
The man's hearty laugh bubbled up and the keeper's stance relaxed as the Elric placed the bottom edge of his silver watch down upon the counter top, "I'm certain I can look after Benjamin's handy work for you, I've done it for many before." The old man waited until the young man allowed the forged keepsake to slip from his gloved fingertips.
Ed watched as the man treated the silver shell of the watch to a visual inspection and listened as he quickly gave an impressive whistle, "This is some fine silver and engraving young man. Definitely one of Ben's better works."
With a casual shrug of his shoulders, Ed glanced back towards the door, "My father said he was the best in town, that's why it was done through him."
The vibrant golden eyes snapped back to the counter once hearing the watch lid flip open. He'd made the sharp reaction on instinct but stopped himself before speaking. Watching without a word, Ed relaxed his shoulders as the man continued the inspection, knowing he would not be asked any question about the date on the lid… since he hadn't etched one into it.
"Yes, in his day, Benjamin was one of the best this side of the city had to offer," reaching beneath his counter, the caretaker of the watch and clock shop produced a receipt booklet and a sheet of carbon paper then dropped it onto his countertop, "If I can get your name, I'll leave you with a ticket."
"Edward Elric," he shifted once more glance back towards the door.
"Alright Mr. Elric, you can probably pick it up later in the afternoon tomorrow," emphatically stabbing the paper at his final pen stroke, the burly man handed the blonde a white receipt, "I have a few more knickknacks that need tinkering with beforehand but it should be finished by the end of the day."
Ed smiled and once again shrugged his shoulders, "That's fine, take your time," he gave a firm yank of his jacket collar and with his copy of the receipt in hand, he turned towards the door, "if I'm not by tomorrow I'll definitely be by the following morning."
This time, no five o'clock chorus would serenade his path to and from the door. Once more, Edward took his strides towards the door; it was a short walk that took forever.
He wanted to run out the door.
Dig his toes in and run.
No particular reason for it, he simply wanted to do it.
It had been years since he'd been able to run without falling apart in some manner. His leg stump would blister or a rash would fester, joints would come loose or couldn't take the pounding, hell once when he'd been scrambling the bloody thing popped right off and he'd found himself face first on the cement walkway. And all this came from a State Alchemist who used to wander around Amestris by train and foot, his new constraints frustrated him endlessly.
Though, if he damaged Winry's leg in any way, she'd kill him.
If he couldn't bring himself to run, then he could stride. There was an unnatural compensation he used to have to make for his body with other devices; he'd once found himself walking with a slight limp, hip-hike, although mostly it was merely cautious care and it slowed him down.
Winry's leg was imperfect, that was for certain, but even if he couldn't feel the power in the tips of artificial toes, he certainly knew he moved forward with it. It was a type of artificial, natural motion he never believed he would find beyond the Gate.
Evidently, it had found him.
Instead of running out the door, he stopped; his golden eyes catching the outline of a figure only seconds before it burst through the door with the loud scream of entrance bells to interrogate him.
"What are you doing in here?" bundled tightly in all the winter accessories she'd been able to find, Winry held the door open wide as the breeze blew shavings of snow off her shoulders, "You're supposed to be picking up spices."
Ed slipped the receipt into his pocket and swept his hand to the left-side wall as he once again approached her, "What? You don't want a cuckoo clock?"
It was probably the most emphatic 'no' he'd heard from her in weeks. Pushing past her with the shake of his head, Ed stepped out into the streets behind her and popped his knit hat out from his pocket.
"Well that's good, because neither do I," he pulled the hat down, half crooked over his head before he continued to walk along the snow covered side walk, away from the expression that questioned his sanity, "last thing I need is some noisy bird-in-a-box waking me up at three in the morning."
The soft, smooth flesh of Nina's chin rested in the bed her arms created on the dark, oak desk. Her socked feet were hidden away, tucked beneath her on the velvet covered, four-legged chair while her wide, blue eyes watched the phone came to rest with a clatter upon its cradle. She shifted her childish eyes, glancing between the two men within her 'adopted' father's office. Earlier, the concern in their voices echoed off the walls in this vast, uncluttered space of the prime minister's office.
"It's been three days since I first tried reaching their number. I can't tell you how many days it might have gone unanswered before that," the prime minister swept his hands over his chin.
His companion, General Hakuro, sighed, his arms folding across his firmly pressed uniform, "I can investigate if you want. I don't know enough about the paperwork involved with Mrs. Hughes and Alphonse to tell you if she had authority to go out of town with him or not."
Mitchell shook his head, "I can't imagine she'd be able to do that for more than a 24-hour period without having to inform someone."
Nina's eyes flickered up to Hakuro as the man gave a slow nod in agreement, "I'll check with the department as well as with Lt. Colonel Armstrong, I remember something about one of the secretaries under him having ties to the Hughes family, she may know if they've had to head out of town on short notice."
"Armstrong…" tapping his pencil against the polished desk surface, Mitchell's gaze trailed towards the drape-sealed window that looked out upon the southern half of the government complex, "I think he was around for Brigitte's reunion with her mother. Wasn't that man part of the State Alchemist regime?"
"He was," catching Nina's gaze from the corner of his eye, Hakuro flashed a thin smile for the child as she sunk back into her folded arms.
The end of Mitchell's pen continued to fly off the desk, "As was Brigadier General Mustang."
Hakuro's brow rose curiously, "Yes, Sir."
Leaning back in his chair, Mitchell sighed, looking to dispel some stress bearing down on his shoulders, "Speaking of that office, have you dealt with that officer mismanaging the organization in Mustang's division?"
"Ah," Hakuro rolled his shoulders, stiffening his posture, "after I'd consulted with Lt. Colonel Armstrong about the issue I decided to give Lt. Havoc a grace period to clean up his management of the section. Armstrong was quite adamant that the workload may have been too much for the Lieutenant while Major Hawkeye and the Brigadier General were on leave."
"Is Brigadier General Mustang a friend of Elysia's?" Nina perked up; gazing into her 'fathers' eyes, she pulled her face up from her arms.
After the seconds of uncertain delay on Mitchell's part, it was Hakuro who answered the child's question, "Brigadier General Mustang was a close colleague of Elysia's father."
"Oh…" Nina nodded, her eyes looking to the chandelier dangling above the center of the office, "cause I think Elysia or her mom mentioned him before. Maybe when me and Aisa bumped into them that day Brigitte had to leave… or… oh no, that's not it…"
Mitchell's brow tightened as the child slowly spoke as she carefully placed a scene together for her listeners.
"I met him when Brigitte got all upset when we were walking in the military building a while back. Al and Brigitte went away with him somewhere and we went downstairs to wait. Elysia's mom said it was alright to let him look after them for a little bit because he was a friend of hers."
The pencil the prime minister had tapped so vigorously on his desk found its way into the menagerie of pens in the top drawer of his desk, "Hakuro, a while back I was perused by Mustang's office for full control of the market incident where Alphonse and his companion were found. I had to tell his office numerous times that the children were not an issue within their jurisdiction. If he has relationships with the Hughes family and is that concerned with the child's welfare, he may have some insight into their where abouts."
"Mustang's on leave at the moment," Hakuro's words stalled for a brief, hesitant moment as he caught an unsettling glance from his prime minister, "but I can recall him if you wish."
"Do that," Mitchell pushed up from his leather chair, straightening his vest as he moved to Nina. Smiling down at the girl, he gently placed a kiss on her forehead as he slid his arms around her waist and removed her from the chair she'd claimed.
"I'm sorry I can't tell you today where Elysia and Alphonse are, but we'll find out soon enough, then everyone can have lunch together again, alright?" the man's hands swept around, pulling the child's pigtails over her shoulders.
Nina giggled once again, a hand cupping her mouth to muffle the sound as Mitchell took her by the other and led her to the general, "But for now, I'm sure General Hakuro's family is looking forward to having us over for dinner again."
The impish fingers changed possession as Hakuro gently took the hand his compatriot offered him, "My wife is making roast beef for everyone tonight."
"That sounds good," Nina grinned up at him.
Hakuro could only smile as he turned with her towards the door, "My wife and I will take Nina out to our place for the evening. You'll be joining us around six?"
"Between five and six, no later," the prime minister moved back to his desk.
"Papa?"
The child's voice froze the man; it was not the delicate sound that immobilized him, but the word itself. His heart ground to a halt for eternal seconds until the drumming between his ears boiled up; his heartbeat racing faster than the two syllables had been spoken. He had never asked for the child to refer to him with such a beautiful courtesy.
"Hm?" he would say nothing about the title bestowed upon him, unwilling to discourage the sentiment or tamper with the sweeping rush of utter glee it left him with.
"When you find out where Mrs. Hughes and Elysia and Alphonse are, can you tell me too?" the child looked over her shoulder at him, the braid on her left shoulder slipped off as she tilted her head, "I haven't seen them in a while and I want to play with Alphonse again, it's more fun when he's around."
A quirky curl found its way into the corner of the prime minister's lips, "Of course, Nina."
Dante smiled wide for the man, tying an extravagant bow at the end of each marionette string she dangled from the government ceiling; all the while, her rotting soul cursed in frustration that she was scarcely able to do much more.
Patience would have to be the only virtue allowed to mingle with the curator of seven sins.
"Do you think you'd be interested in attending?"
Giving a blank look at Thomas standing in the doorway, Winry found that his invitation left her with somewhat of an uneasy feeling in her stomach. She slipped her hair over her shoulders as he shut the front door of the Wilson home.
"I don't think I have anything nice enough to wear to someone's birthday party, especially something that sounds so extravagant."
"That's fine," Thomas grinned, tapping the toe of his shoe on the mat, "I'm sure we can find something for you, one of Patti's sisters is around your size, I can ask if she has something."
She couldn't prevent the light sigh that slipped out, and soon folded her arms across her chest. It was rude to refuse the invite, but…
"Thank you for the invite, I'll run it by Ed and his dad and see what they have planned, I'm not sure what they're both up to this week. I don't want to say yes for them and then find out there are complications."
Thomas's grin grew, smirking as though he were wiser than Winry had considered him to be, "Well I'm quite certain Hohenheim knows its coming up, Edward may not have been apprised though. But, he's been to my grandfather-in-law's birthday before."
Winry's tilted her head with amusement, "Ed went to these kinds of parties with you?"
Thomas chuckled at her sudden interest, "Yes, he has. He was a little skeptical, but Patricia's grandfather is quite the character in his old age, he's been having masquerade parties since his seventieth birthday; he says it makes him feel young. A few years back, several of us rented out a hall and hosted it with a royal theme; Edward ventured out that night with the title of 'King Edward the Eighth'. He uh…" the man tapped his chin in thought, a nervous laugh entering his voice, "well, I think we were more amused with the escapade than he was, but in the end it's a fond memory. Edward returned home as the 'Pauper King', though he wasn't too pleased with that."
"The 'what' King?" Winry couldn't help the foolish grin on her face, leaning against the corner of the wall as she allowed Thomas to continue.
"King Edward the Eighth, the Pauper King. Charles said that 'ill-tempered monarchs did not deserve to be called 'King' and told Edward it would have been more becoming if he'd gone as a pauper. Julie pronounced him 'Pauper King' sometime that night. It was all in jest, mind you, but Charles doesn't always leave Edward in a very whimsical mood, he can be very cynical when he wants to be."
"I've noticed…"
"I know Charles means well," Thomas gave a shrug of his shoulders, "but he can't shake the notion that Edward lacks respect. He's stormed out of rooms wanting to paddle Edward for something or other and has flown off the handle with Hohenheim more than once. As far as Charles is concerned, Hohenheim does nothing to discipline his son."
This was bizarre, Winry thought. For the time she'd existed in Germany, she'd barely conversed with anyone. She had wandered around as though she were some scared, fascinated child, and had spent the entire time trying to evaluate the Edward Elric she'd known against the man she was now faced with.
It was stranger yet to hear Thomas speak of Ed, because it was like learning about someone new. There was no one to tell her any stories in Germany, no one to remind her that by his perception, five years had passed since he'd left. Edward wasn't forthcoming with information, neither was Hohenheim, and since neither party brought up the past, she felt as though it was too intrusive to ask. It had become a non-issue for her and she'd easily forgotten that his perception of the passage of time was not the same as hers.
So, there actually was a story, something she had been too busy feeling disoriented to even consider. A fascinating story of a place she didn't understand, a time she knew nothing about, and a friend unwillingly living a life within it. Again, the world beyond the Gate felt unreal, like a miserable book someone had written and she was skimming through the pages at top speed. It was an existence nothing like the one that shaped her and with everything she'd learned, there were times when she had to remind herself, 'yes, this fictitious life is real'.
Her mind's eye took a fleeting glance towards the looking glass.
"I've always found Edward to be more or less amicable though," Thomas slid the fur hat off his head, feeling the warmth from the house heat up beneath his winter attire, "he was kind towards Julie, and I have no idea how I would have passed my first year in sciences without him."
"Was Julie a friend of yours?" Winry took a glance up the stairwell, hearing the sound of movement from above.
Thomas shook his head, "Julie was my little sister."
"Oh, I haven't met the rest of your family," her expression grew sheepish, "sorry, I didn't realize you had a sister."
Once again laughed and adjusted the collar of his coat, "No, no, don't worry, I haven't mentioned her, I wouldn't expect you to know."
Winry slapped her hands together, searching for anything to continue their conversation further. The curious twinge behind her poignant blue eyes wisely withheld a barrage of 'so what else is there about this life of Hohenheim's and Edward's that I know nothing about?' The last thing she wanted was to pry and come off as a snoop, but the questions suddenly itched.
"Did you want to come in for a bit? I'm sure Dr. Wilson wouldn't mind me inviting you in."
The invitation was the notice for Thomas that he'd lingered within the warmth of the house for too long and the young man reversed and pulled his hat back on, "No, that's quite alright. I have errands I need to finish before the sun sets and if I spent too much more time here I may never leave." Once again, the man gave a laugh, something Winry and begun to realize was highly contagious when around him, "Give my regards to everyone, and pass on the invitation when you can."
"No problem," Winry's half crooked, awkward grin reemerged as he pulled the door open, "stay warm, alright?"
With a thank you and the nod of his head, Thomas ducked out of the house. Winter's bite crashed against the door the moment it cracked open and Winry quickly pushed it shut in the man's wake, slipping the chain-lock in place with the whip of her wrist.
She took a slow step backwards from the door, a hand coming to her chin as she considered the missed opportunity that had just walked out into the elements. Suddenly, spending time with the Hyland family seemed a little more intriguing than it had minute ago.
"Winry?"
The sound of heavy feet echoed from the stairwell. Sliding in her stockings along the hardwood floor, Winry gazed up into the curious expression Hohenheim wore with his beard.
"Was someone at the door?"
"Yeah," she gave a nod, slipping her hair behind her shoulders once again, "Thomas just left. He should still be outside, did you want me to grab him?"
Continuing his decent, Hohenheim gave a shake of his head and slipped past the girl en route to the tea pot he hoped was still warm in the kitchen, "Did he need anything?"
"Not really," she followed Ed's father into the kitchen, not bothering to pick up her feet as she moved; her mood felt more jovial than anything and she found it oddly amusing how nicely her stockings slid over the floor as she shuffled along, "but he wanted to know if we wanted to go to Patricia's grandfather's birthday party over the weekend."
Hohenheim wrapped his hand in a dishtowel as he reached for the potentially hot handle of the metal pot, "This weekend you say?" he took a quick, curious glance over his shoulder.
"Yes."
A suddenly perplexed expression flew over the old man, "Already? Where did the time go? Of course it's this weekend, I should have known better…" faint strands of white steam lifted from the elder father's cup as he slowly refilled his mug, "Did you tell him we'd love to go?"
Winry answered with a nonchalant shrug, "I told him I'd check with you and Ed first, but yeah I said it would be alright."
With his tea in hand, Hohenheim headed back towards Winry with a grin, "I think it'll be good to go out and have a fun evening like that," his strong hand landed atop Winry's head of hair to give it a playful scratch.
She laughed at the gesture and slowly trailed behind him as the man returned to the stairwell.
"Um…"
Stopping on the carpet covered stairs, Hohenheim looked back to a blonde whip of hair accompanying childish, blue eye gazing up at him from below, the uncertainty in her voice catching his attention.
"If you have time this week," Winry's hands gripped the knob at the end of the stairwell banister, "would you be able to show me the neighbourhood that you and Ed lived in while you were here?"
Of all the things he'd considered she might say, that had not been one of them. Hohenheim's brow rose, intrigued by the request, "I don't see why not."
Yet again she was childish in her response, giving a jovial grin to the answer and giggled her 'thank you' before vanishing back into the lower floor of Charles Wilson's home.
Hohenheim remained on the third stair from ground level, pushing the last few moments through his mind again. Finally, the warm rim of his steaming cup came to his lips and Hohenheim stole a sip of the British world's tea before ascending the staircase once more.
Al stood in the doorway for only a few seconds; a tall glass gripped tightly in his right hand, filled half with water, half with ice. The delay was long enough to cause him to twitch and roll his shoulders as a trail of sweat slid slowly, unobstructed down the back of his neck. He intruded into the room once again.
The curtain drawn bedroom in the Ross cabin was a nice recluse from the relentless summer heat, for him anyways.
Brigitte, however, could not find enough relief in the cooler ends of the home. Her body continually catered to the endless pools of salty sweat that insisted on dampening her skin, soaking the roots of her hair, and discolouring the back of her dress. Rarely did the German girl emerge for much action before the sun dipped low enough behind the trees to provide a welcomed sanctuary. By that time, only a scarce beam of gold could find its way through the trees, and that was all she wanted to see of the inferno in the sky.
Nestled away in the corner of the room, sitting in the most un-lady-like position, Brigitte's tired blue eyes looked up to the young Elric as he knelt down in front of her. The glass of water Alphonse held out had grown a layer of as much cold sweat as its recipient had.
"Water?"
Carefully taking the slippery flask from its bearer, Brigitte wiped the moisture off on the end of her dress and gently set the precious, chilly column against her cheek, "Danke…"
Slipping down from his knees, Al pressed his back against the wall and his arms wrapped around to cradle his legs as he drew them to his chest.
"Are you feeling better?" his chin came down into the crevice of his knee caps.
The chilly glass at her lips, crystal blue eyes looked back at him at a loss. Tilting her head back, she let the bitterly cold liquid flow into her body without offering a response. The burn for air grew worse than the need to sully the effects of the intolerable day, and Brigitte's head snapped forwards as she took one last swallow and quickly gasped for breath. Her forehead once again pressed against the cool surface of a near-empty column of ice water.
Al's free hand came up and swept through his hair and he soon pushed to his feet. His interests took him towards the bed, which had become covered in the childish materials the two of them had used for some of the most astounding revelations. Alphabet, numbers, calendars, points of reference and a disastrous assortment of translation sheets were thrown everywhere. 'Yes,' 'No,' 'Hello', 'Good bye', 'wall', 'window', 'bed', 'sand', 'lake'… or at least, he hoped it was 'lake'. It might have been 'water'. He'd ask if it was 'water', but if he pointed to the glass she might think that the word was 'glass' or 'cup'. If he put his finger in the water she might think he meant 'cold'. Both the lake and the water were cold…
Alphonse's eyes crossed as one train of though tripped over the other. The potential frustration was eased by the sound of slow movement filtering from the corner. He glanced back to the wayward girl, a relaxing sense of relief sweeping over him as he watched Brigitte come to her feet.
His eyes traipsed back to the bed; sliding up on top of the sheets covering the creaking, oversized mattress, Alphonse slipped out one of the more vibrant pages within the pile. Pushing the remaining mess of near incoherent ramblings to the pillows, he left a clean sheet of paper to accompany the decorated one he'd kept and placed both of them in plain sight. He flopped on his stomach and the aching sound of rusted springs accompanied him.
Placing her hands against the soft sheets, Brigitte dropped to her knees at the side of the bed, folding her arms across the bedside and tucking her chin into the soft surface.
A pop echoed off the wooden walls when Alphonse pulled the cap from one of their many pens. His strokes were nearly silent as he sketched an accompanying piece to the colour-filled diagram the German child had provided.
"So this…" Alphonse stopped mid-task, opting for the more curious artwork at his side, "this is a map, right?"
Brigitte pulled her arms away from the growing heat of the bed, wiping her forehead on the thick comforter as she repositioned herself on her knees, "Mmm… Map?" she repeated, unknowingly.
With the dull end of the pen, Alphonse tapped the corners of her sheet, "This cross with N, S, E and W is for north, south, east and west, right? These are countries, these are cities and these are oceans," Al gave a slow nod as he reconciled the image in his mind, "the place with the star could be the capital city, but how do you say that again? Deuch…tsche…"
"Deutschland," the girl's hand swept back into her hair, giving a feverish scratch to a pesky itch. The palms of her hands came around; pushing harshly into the caves of her eyes she tried to rub away the exhaustion the heat bore down on her with.
"Well… I know the 'land' part," switching the positions of Brigitte's scribbled image and the sketch he'd begun, Al placed his outline of Amestris in front of them, "this is map is where we are now."
Brigitte's attention refocused on his image, again coming to the edge of the bed to see what was on display. She watched curiously as Alphonse marked his map similar to what she had done; writing the name of the country, "Amestris", through the center of the image. With the swift strokes of black ink, Alphonse left a star at the center of the sheet and marked "Central City" above it.
Questioningly, Brigitte's focus changed from the intolerable atmosphere to Alphonse's actions, "Are you copying how I did my map? I took geography in school, there's no place called Amestris in Europe. That's not right."
Brigitte's voice was merely background noise as Alphonse continued to sketch in the world surrounding Amestris. Readjusting the pen in his hand, he decided to give his world some meaning and added dots of life to the country: East City, Lior, Ishibal, Xenotime, Dublith, and lastly, Resembool. With a quirky turn of his smile, Alphonse gave the cities a few inhabitants. Next to a box with a sharp, triangular lid drawn by Central City, 'Maria', 'Riza', 'Roy', 'Nina' and 'Brigitte' were written in with blue pen. For the box at Dublith, 'Izumi' was the resident. And in the last pointy box next to the Resembool township, 'Ed' and 'Al' were written.
The blue pen was turned over to Brigitte, who took her visual cue and marked her own two house-boxes next two the only two cities she'd labeled. The first city that had its mark was 'Berlin'. Alphonse nearly found himself giggling as the German child wrote her name at that house and trailed a dotted line down to 'München', whistling as she did so. The house in München was nearly as crowded as the one in Central with 'Brigitte', 'Edward Elric', 'Hohenheim', and 'Oberth'.
For a moment, Brigitte considered adding the names of classmates, friends, and others, but didn't have the energy to go through having to explain them. These people were already names known to the people around her.
"So…"
The pale, blonde German child fixated her attention upon the steadfast Elric look; a suddenly powerful, aggressive and determined desire manipulated the fire that fueled the young man's determination. An almost smug, yet proud grin hit the boy's face for a moment, and the endless hours of curious work allowed the sense of accomplishment to flow with the blood in his veins.
"My brother's in a place called München? Hmm…" pushing up from his stomach, the crumbling springs of the mattress withheld their cries as Alphonse came to sit cross-legged above their support. Silver eyes, shining with a moist, glossy coat, continued to absorb the heaps of information his displaced companion continued to present him with. The last Elric reached out for the German map and circled the city that would become his goal.
"That's the place I need to find."
To Be Continued...
Author's Note:
This chapter was originally posted 02/10/06 at http / www . livejournal users / yuuki / 101297 . html
München is "Munich"
Cuckoo clocks are amazing and everyone should have one.
AutoMail should seem harder than traditional prosthesis. However, in Winry's case, her technological knowledge starts at AutoMail, so she doesn't have strong knowledge of what came before because technology has made life easier on her. Similar to how most people today can run Windows XP just fine... but DOS? Windows 3.11? They may be more basic and simpler by comparison, but if you don't use them on a regular basis, you're not going to be proficient with them
Random note on myself - I'm in my last 6 weeks of school before I graduate, it's absolutely HECTIC. The next chapter might take a while in coming because I want to devote this time to school/graduating/etc. If I get some writing in then great, if not, you know why! I'm not forgetting about the story though.
... You know, originally I planned to finish this story by the time the movie'd come out - that didn't happen. So I said "by the time I graduate!", well, that won't happen either. So, I plan to finish this story by the time I turn 30, that should give me enough time.