Chapter 79 – At Crossroads

"Does summer NEVER end?" Russell whined, slouching down in the rotting wood pew as the day's sun showered the roof above their heads. The old church the Tringham brothers sat in was bathed in colour, created by the multi-coloured stained glass windows high above their heads. The boys baked in the sweltering room. The summer day was quite nice, but there was practically no draft in this building, even with the multitude of broken windows – not like there was any wind outside to stir things up anyways.

Not unless you stood by the basement entrance.

"We were this close to getting our job wrapped up," Russell whined, pouring a bit of his bottled water over a rag and slapping it over his face as he dumped himself back into the old wood again, "if that angry little ankle-biter hadn't buggered things up we could have just gotten it all done and booked it out west again, but NO. My life isn't that easy."

Again the voices within the old abandoned church fell silent; nothing moved and nothing stirred. Both boys listened to the silence, waiting for the sound of footsteps to return. Russell was right, they had been 'this' close to getting their job wrapped up, but their designated assignment from Izumi hadn't been completed as ordered. The escort mission past West City had been short a few bodies, through no fault of the boys, and the pair had to make a choice: stay beyond the country border as ordered with the Hughes family, or go back and retrieve what was left behind. The brothers chose the latter, and the decision was proving problematic.

"You're awfully quiet, you know," Russell finally spoke up in spite of the moment.

Laying down against the seat board of the pew in front of his brother, Fletcher shifted a bit, his eyes staring ahead to the roof above, "I'm just thinking about it, that's all. I'd never seen it before."

"Yeah," the elder brother drew out slowly, "that empty city is terrifying to look at, especially from above," pausing a moment at his last word, Russell sat up, ripped the moist towel from his already damp face and looked around the building sharply, "why did we get roped into coming here again?"

"You're here to see Dante too!" a little voice chirped.

The moments of hesitation were followed by the scream both boys let out as they scrambled from the pews and fell into the isle.

"Oh, shit," Russell stood, wide eyed and squared around, his brother tucked in behind him as he stared back at Wrath, standing at the other end of the long length of seat.

Taking a little bit more than a moment to assess the situation, it was Fletcher who realized something was a little odd with this frozen situation, "Are you okay, Wrath?"

The little creature's face twisted; his expression mild and aloof, "I'm hungry, do you have food?"

"Uh huh?" his expression soaked with suspicion, Russell straightened himself as his younger brother stepped out from around him, "why, you can't feed yourself?"

"I'm tired of garbage," the little boy whined as he hopped up onto the rickety seat and began to walk the length of the pew, his arms suddenly fanning out at his sides, "and I have to do sooo much first before Dante says she'll give me any red stones, so I'm hungry! Red stones are tasty, but I'm hungry for anything."

Exchanging glances, the brothers eyeballed the scrawny, auto-mail equipped, bushy-haired homunculus as Wrath lazily walked himself towards them.

"When you don't have any red stones, then you're not violent," moving up next to the bench's ending arm, Fletcher leaned up against it as he waited for Wrath to finish his approach, "I think that's what we were told. Have you run out of red stones, Wrath?"

"Loooooong time ago," the boy drew out his words as his head and chin swung from one shoulder to another, his words almost musical, "and Dante won't give me any more."

"Good," Russell snorted. Coming up next to his brother, he placed one hand on the boys shoulder and another on the back of the seat, "we don't need to be worrying about you too. Where did you come from?"

"Downstairs in the city," the little monster answered frankly, without care to the importance of his answers, "Dante wasn't home, so I guess I have to go and do things," the creature's arms bounced off its sides as he hopped off the seat, jumping over Fletcher as the young brother ducked and landed on the dust ridden floor, "I'm really hungry though, do you have something I can eat, please?"

Again the bothers shared an exchange of befuddled glances before Fletcher moved to retrieve his bag, "I have a bun you can have, I guess."

Quite put off by the beaming smile the homunculus gave, Russell kept a wary eye on both Wrath and his brother as Fletcher fished around in his bag, "You said Dante's not here?"

"Oh no," Wrath shook his head, wrinkling his nose with a pouting lower lip, "she had to go do things. So you can go do your other things too."

Bringing a hand to his forehead, Russell swept away the sweat trailing down. His attention followed his younger brother as the boy handed Wrath a soft bun from their bag. Both boys took a sharp step backwards when Wrath ravaged, and almost instantly devoured, the bun with savage glee.

"That was yummy! Thanks!" he beamed.

"… Yeeeeah, um, no problem," Russell gave a few flicks of his wrist to tell his brother to get over to his side, now.

His attention and head swinging between both boys like a little puppy as they moved, Wrath tilted his head and asked a curious question, "How come you two came to see Dante?"

"We didn't," Fletcher answered, "we're waiting on a friend."

"Oh! Well okay then I hope you have fun waiting," nodding carelessly and suddenly rocking sharply on his heels, Wrath turned. With sudden disinterest in the Tringham brothers, he made his way for the door, "I have to find a friend too, so I have to go!"

An alarm suddenly went off in Russell's head as he watched Wrath make an abrupt exit, "What friend are you looking for!"

"What friend are you waiting for!" Wrath called back, not stopping his hurried pace as he took off.

"Right," Waving a dismissing hand, Russell let the creature go, "whatever."

As Wrath left the building, it was Fletcher who curiously followed the path the homunculus took to the only outside door this building had to offer. With his hand clenching over the warm door-handle, he watched Wrath meander away into the township that surrounded them.

Folding his arms and coming up to stand at the back of his younger brother, Russell cast a narrow gaze beyond the doors, "That was unsettling."

"Yeah," Fletcher turned from the door and slipped around his brother to move back into the core of the religious oven. The younger boy didn't get back to the seat he'd intended to sit down at; the sound of echoed footsteps caught the attention of both brothers.

Swiftly walking past his younger brother, Russell made his way to a makeshift archway that had been constructed. It burrowed down, deep through the floor of the holy structure. As though it would bite or burn if he weren't careful, the elder brother gingerly placed his hand down on the dirt arch and peered in, "Did you find anything you were looking for, Roze?"

An answer was not immediately forthcoming. And Russell took a step back to allow her to come out. Lowering her head to clear the arch, Roze dusted her hands off on her dress, "I don't think so."

Russel's shoulders fell as the woman and her words re-emerged, "Then we came here for nothing."

"Oh no," Roze shook her head, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, "coming here is never for nothing," raising her smile, she turned to Fletcher as he joined his brother, "you can close it now, though. It's been exposed to fresh air long enough. We have to get going."

"Surprise!"

Winry stepped back from the door she'd opened, a grin splashing over her face, "Well, hello there!"

"Winny!" Margaret scampered past her mother and into Winry's legs as quickly as she could muster, "Hi Aunty Winny!"

"Hello there, little Margaret," Winry crouched down, glancing up to Patricia as the mother closed the Wilson's door behind her, "look at you, all bundled up in your winter coat and little boots. I bet you were the cutest thing that anyone saw the whole way here."

"Yay!" the little girl chirped and Winry started to unbundle her.

Taking off her own coat and slipping it into the closet, Patricia looked down to Winry, "Don't worry about that, Love. I can take care of her."

Dismissively, Winry waved her hand, "Naw, I'm fine! Doesn't take a lot of Aunty Winry effort to unwrap a little girl, does it Margaret?"

"Nope!" the little child bounced.

Hearing the commotion, Ed poked his head around the corner from the top of the stairs. Gazing down the stairwell, he called out, unable to clearly see the front entrance below, "Winry, who's at the door?"

It was Patricia who stepped forwards, sticking her head into the landing at the bottom of the stairs, "Good afternoon, Edward."

"Oh," his brow rose, not expecting to see her, "hey, Patti. Um…" he looked back down the hall and suddenly vanished, "hang on."

Tilting her head, Patti left Margaret to Winry and took a few steps up the stairs, "Are you alright, Edward?"

"I only have one leg on!"

The absurd sounding statement from Ed tumbled down the stairwell and it made Patricia laugh. The woman shook her head and climbed the remainder of the stairs, "I drew a very funny picture of you in my mind just now, Edward."

"Sorry! Winry was adjusting the leg when you knocked, what brings you out?" Edward's question came out from the room he'd ducked into.

Patricia moved towards the sound, peeking in around the corner of the doorframe to see Edward sitting on the corner of Winry's bed, his white dress shirt hanging down long around a pair of black shorts and his faux leg on the bed. It was odd to see Ed without two legs and then to see the bare stump of his left leg was even stranger.

"Well, since we're sitting," Patti turned to close the door to Winry's room and reached out to collect the stool that sat below the window, "I wanted to talk to you."

At those words, Ed grew suspicious, and his suspicion came out clear as day in his words, "You wanted to talk to me, or Thomas sent you to talk to me?"

The young woman ran the words through her mind as she sat herself down upon the stool, deliberately placed between Edward and the door, "Thomas did ask me to talk to you, but the words are my own," watching as Ed opened his mouth to voice a protest, the mother raised her hand and requested that he hush his voice from the air, "Please, just listen to what I have to say."

Casting his gaze around the room, Ed found a growing desire to groan in frustration, "Alright."

Properly placed upon the stool, hands daintily clasped in her lap, Patricia took a breath and began, "Do you remember a few years back when we took two weeks and went to Scotland?"

Ed ran the memory through his mind, "Yeah, I remember."

"I remember you said that you liked Scotland; there were wider spaces and fewer people. You'd said it reminded you a bit of some places you'd been to as a child," the woman's hands slid out to rest over her crossed knees as she drew in a deep breath, "you'd also said you wanted to go back someday. So, I was thinking that if you and Winry would like, I have some friends who could find you somewhere nice up there…"

"No Patti," Ed raised his hand to bring an end to the conversation.

She ignored him and continued, "…And you'd find it calming, you could relax in the countryside, and let all of these worries go…"

Sitting forwards, unable to approach while not dressed with both legs, Ed stiffened his tone, "No Patti, I'm sorry. I'm going back to Germany."

"But why? I honestly don't understand," the properly poised woman seemed to come undone from his response. It was apparent in her collapsing posture, in her pleading voice and in her knotted expression that she simply could not understand Edward's reasoning, "You could have so much going for you if you could just stop and think for a while. What good do you do for yourself, Winry, or your father by running around the continent so aimlessly?"

His eyes having already dropped away and his lower lip being ground down by his teeth, Ed couldn't even begin to properly answer her, "I'm sorry Patti," he reached around sharply for his leg, "I get that everyone is worried about Englishmen in Germany, but that's just-."

"That's just it, Edward," Patricia interrupted him, her voice pleading, "You say you're English, but you're obviously not."

Ed found himself stopped by her statement.

"And you're not Scottish, Irish, French, Spanish, Danish, German or anything else for that matter," she sharply let go a sigh that was more frustration than exasperation, "I can't place you anywhere; you're quite to the contrary of every walk of person I've ever met. No one can ever figure out where you're coming from or where you're going to. I'm certain you must worry everyone you meet."

At the edge of Winry's bed, Ed tightened his jaw and sat without any verbal response to her. His gaze carried down to examine the faux left leg in his lap that he used his good left hand to fondle. Between his thumb and index finger, he repeatedly unsnapped and re-sealed a fastener. He had wanted to reply with something like 'well that's their problem' but couldn't bring himself to give her that quip.

Having not received any type of retort to her statement, Patti continued, "Before you'd arrived, your father had called us. He was so worried after what had happened with you and your arm; truly worried, Edward," the young woman stood up and, with the sweeping motion of her hands over her backside to smooth her skirt, sat down next to him on the bed, "he knows that you and Charles don't exactly see eye to eye, so he arranged for their trip together – just to give you and Winry some time to find something comfortable about being here. We had hoped you would find some kind of peace here on your own, without persuasion."

With his eyes cast down and away from the side she sat at, Ed continued to withhold any reply. What a difficult sound to argue with – his mother's voice.

Reforming her proper posture and setting a composed tone back into her voice, Patti continued, "Then you started playing with alchemy again and the things that everyone wanted for you came undone, because now your head is full of foolish ideas and you're going to go back to Germany," the woman ran her hands over her skirt as though to smooth it more than it already was, "And I'm sure alchemy is fun and all for you, but you could be doing so much more with yourself than playing with impossibilities."

A grin came over Edward as she said that, and he put the spare leg aside. Pulling up the good right leg to his chest and wrapping it with the good left arm, Ed put his chin down on his knee and gave her the courtesy of looking her in the eye as he handed a smile over to her, "I like impossibilities; they make life interesting. I'll take them any day over what my alternatives are. I don't want the life that everyone seems to think is best for me; I am not willing to accept this as my life. I belong somewhere else. Your intuition is right; I don't have a place here."

"Don't twist my words like that, that's not what I meant," though her words were scolding, her voice was tempered. Patti's shoulders slowly fell, as did her voice, "I cannot find a way to see things from your perspective, and I just don't want to see you being so narrow and stubborn. What will it take for you to draw the line with all this?"

Wrinkling his nose at the question, Edward didn't want to think of that – he'd never allowed himself to think of that, "What would it take…?" he spoke his thoughts aloud, trying to refuse himself the opportunity to even entertain any idea to what that might be, "I don't know, I'm not sure."

Patricia examined the look that grew over his face as he fought away any potential ideas, "And what happens when you do know?"

"Well…" Ed rocked his chin atop his kneecap, trying to shut the valve off to his flow of thoughts. There was nothing this world could offer him that could ever convince him to back down and there would be no guessing to what might dissuade him either, "I guess I'll call you about Scotland if that happens."

Lowering her head, the woman swallowed the response most unwillingly and pulled herself to her feet. She responded to the statement with a quietly disappointed word, "Alright."

There was a stagnant and stiff aura in the air. One by one, as the day's clock wound down, government officers and the highest-ranking military officials left the Prime Minister's office. The official office room had finally been completed only a few days prior, and it had kept a constant stream of visitors from all angles and walks of authority. Beyond his direct aids, General Hakuro had become a constant fixture in the office, practically having the title of military liaison shoved down his throat.

As one of the last aids departed from the room in the later day, Nina slipped in around the exiting man. Standing just steps inside the door that swung shut behind her, she looked between her 'father' and Hakuro; both men seemingly shrouded in clouds of frustration and exhaustion. Hands were at their heads and their noses were deep in paperwork.

"Are you okay, Daddy?" Nina asked, stepping into the dimmed room.

Both Mitchell and Hakuro lifted their heads from their paperwork, looking surprised at the unexpected intrusion.

"Nina, darling, how did you get in here?" Mitchell asked, clearing away a few sheets of paper in a rush.

Looking back to the closed door, Nina answered, "The officer who just left let me in, but the secretary brought me up. Aisa and Diana are downstairs," she turned back to the two men, "Daddy your work should be done by now, we were supposed to go out for dinner."

Running his fingers over his eyes to wipe away a blur of paperwork, Mitchell looked to Hakuro; the man remained silent in both voice and demeanor, "I did say that, didn't I?"

The wide set of the imposter's eyes again looked between the two remaining men in the tired office, "If you're busy, we don't have to go out. We can play games when you get home, maybe?"

Sighing, Mitchell shook his head, "I'm sorry to disappoint you dear, I'm not even sure when I'll get home this evening. You might be fast asleep by then," looking around at the mountains of responsibilities surging upwards; he could only focus on the growing stress he was being buried under, "we're going to have to reschedule entirely."

"Paddy Cake will make you feel better," Nina smiled, walking over to his desk, casting a glance over to Hakuro, "Paddy Cake always makes Daddy feel better. We're practicing for Diana. You should play too."

"Aren't you a little old for Pat-a-Cake?" Hakuro responded to the little girl as she walked past him, "I don't think your father has time for games, Nina; I certainly don't."

Sauntering around the large desk her 'father' was at, Nina threw a pout-face back to Hakuro, "That's too bad, Mr. Hakuro. I think Paddy Cake is a lot of fun for everyone," putting her hands down on Mitchell's knees, Nina looked up at the man pleadingly as he reached down to pick her up and place her on his desk.

"Hakuro, I'm sorry, would you please excuse us, I need to have a word with my daughter," Mitchell looked seriously into the eyes of a little girl who batted her eyes too sweetly, "she needs to understand a few things about wandering about in this facility."

"Of course, Sir," standing, Hakuro gave a curious eye to the little girl and made his way out of the room.

As the door swung shut, Mitchell took a deep breath, pulling himself up close to the desk in his office chair, "Now Nina…"

"Daddy I'm sorry, I just wanted to practice playing Paddy Cake, so I can teach Diana properly when she's bigger," the little girl's face pouted, swinging her legs freely over the edge of the desk.

The child made the highest-ranked person in the country sigh, and look upon her with a touch of guilt in his eyes, "I understand that, but you need to understand that sometimes this office is not a place for little girls to come in and out of whenever they miss their daddy," he took a gentle hold of the girl's two hands, "There are some very important things that go on here, they aren't places for little girls."

"Important things like what?" she asked innocently.

Sitting back in his chair, letting the girl's hands go he folded his arms in thought of how to explain his statement, "Hmm… legal things, military things, government things, safety things…" he gave a laugh at a passing thought, "things that require a lot of years of education that don't always do you any good."

Pursing her lips and running her hands over the ends of her dress, Nina continued to swing her legs freely, "I heard on the radio that some bad people broke out of jail. I feel safe here with you."

"You're safe at home too, dear," Mitchell reached out with his left hand and gently took her by the chin, "We have one of the safest homes."

Twisting up her face with a frown, Nina wasn't interested in that response, "I'd feel safer if the bad guys were caught. Do you know where they are?"

Patting her on the head, Mitchell sat back, "I'm sorry to say that I don't. Though a couple of the criminals that escaped have been caught, so that's good!"

"Yes, it's good!" Nina grinned, though she allowed it to slowly fade away. Huffing out an elaborate sigh, the little face frowned at the man she called father, "How come it's so hard to figure these things out? Is it really that difficult to catch criminals and find missing people?"

Running his hands over the leather arms of his chair, the Prime Minister sat back and lounged in thought within the chair. He looked to the ceiling as he composed his thoughts for a response, "People are devious, honey. Some people are even evil to the core," he shifted his weight to his left side, leaning into the strong arm of the seat, "Those types of people are the hardest to find and sometimes the smartest out of everyone. We just have to find a way to become smarter."

Nodding sagely as though to accept the response, Nina shuffled herself along the desktop and suddenly grinned wide to her father, "I promise! One quick game of our nightly Paddy Cake practice and I will go home and stay there safe and sound. I bet you'll feel better too."

Relenting, Mitchell held up his hands for her, "Alright, one round of Pat-a-Cake tonight."

Eagerly, Nina flew into a collage of smiles and gleefully clapped her hands and grabbed her 'father's' fingers, "Yay."

The child's limerick sung in the voice of an adult and ancient child echoed within the room. The words matched harmoniously with the electric sound of the child's exuberant handclaps, so rhythmically that Dante could have purred along to the beat. The witch had to focus though; so carefully, so delicately and so precisely for this child's game. If even one touch of her hand wasn't done just right, she would only be a farmer of vegetables, when the song was meant to be about a baker and his oven. She gleefully exchanged a round of silly hand motions in her charade to properly prepare this child's dish. She'd taken so much delight that she found herself giggling by the time they were done.

"What's so funny dear?" Mitchell asked, his hands coming to rest on his lap.

"Nothing," Nina continued to giggle, "I just think I'm getting really good at Paddy Cake."

Shaking his head, Mitchell patted the girl atop her head and pulled her off his desk, "It's not a game that's hard, Dear. Hakuro is somewhat right; you are a little old for it."

"I never played it when I was little, so I'm playing it now! Even an old dog can learn a new trick," Nina announced triumphantly as she skipped around in a circle next to the man. Executing a triumphant pirouette, Nina clasped her hands in front of herself and looked up with a smile to the Prime Minister, "Daddy, what were you so stressed about earlier, exactly?"

Suddenly caught in with honest confusion, Mitchell looked down to the child, "I can't recall if I was stressed about one particular thing; I just have a bunch of signing left to do."

"Oh," Nina twisted her face playfully, clapping her hands like a giggly child, and reaching up to take hold of her father's hands again. The child's touch bled with raw electric power that she'd ensured his body was too numb to feel. She would be the conductor or an orchestra wrought with intangible power, "I thought you were upset because escaped detainee Lieutenant Jean Havoc murdered Winry Rockbell and nobody can find him. That is what happened, isn't it?"

Involuntarily, Dante stopped Nina's heart with anticipation, but only for the moment it took the man before her to pause. She withheld the urge to widen her eyes in curious fascination at whether or not she'd accomplished anything. Alchemy, on a human body, no matter what it was – the Elric brother's notion that they could reclaim their bodies, Tucker's idea of memory implantation, or her own methods of soul suppression & transplantation – always required the most precision, the most expertise, the most concentration, and above all else, most importantly, the Philosopher's Stone.

Mitchell's brow rose with an honest display of amusement and intrigue at Nina's words, "Of course it is, dear. Everyone knows that."

If you wanted to ensure it was done right, any type of human transmutation, irregardless of what it was, required an egregious amount of Philosopher's Stone…

Holding tight to his hands, the little girl bounced her undeveloped hips from side to side, her voice ringing with childish delight, "And doesn't it make sense that Mustang, the former Flame Alchemist, must have covered up his comrade's horrid crime by burning her body into an unrecognizable crisp? I mean, he did kill her parents after all."

… And Dante loathed using what little she had left of it so frivolously, so she'd do her best to use it to place her cards just right…

"Of course, it makes perfect sense," he said with a laugh, as though there had never been any doubt to that fact. Withdrawing his fingers from her grasp, his hands came down to her shoulders and turned the little girl around and began to usher her out of the room.

… She'd convinced herself that some things were necessary. She would pay that price begrudgingly; she was too close…

"Oh goody!" the little girl beamed, skipping ahead at this man's prompting, "I'm so glad to hear that, because when I was playing with the chief of Enforcement in the halls earlier, he said the exact same thing," her tiny hands flared out into the air playfully as she walked up to the door, "I hope you find her charred remains really soon!"

… And once she reached beyond the Gate, she doubted she'd really need to rely on cuts of a red stone any longer.

The charm of the hours after sunset most nights was that no one's voice was heard yelling, talking, or interrupting. The evening and overnight darkness would court the silence and dance about freely in the wind until the sunlight rose to chase the darkness into the corners of the world and told silence that it wasn't allowed to entertain in the day. Because of that, Edward was careful – well, only as careful as his creaky bedroom door would let him be. Each step he took down the hall was as quiet as the next. He had no problem letting silence gleefully wrap around him; he preferred this house when it was quiet. Sliding into the bathroom, and picking a glass from the counter, Ed excused himself from silence to run the faucet, only enough to fill the lower third of the glass.

As the glass tipped back to his lips, Winry's hand came out of the darkness and to his shoulder, "Ed?"

The glass very nearly came crashing to the floor as Edward not only spat out the water in surprise, but inhaled most of it first. Bobbling the glass in his hand, he ended up bouncing it into the sink where it clattered around as though it were trapped in an oversized oil drum. The noise was ridiculous and silence was none too impressed with either of them. His flailing left hand finally trapped the noisy, but unbroken object in the sink as Ed bent down at the knees, coughing to expel his drink from his lungs.

"Not supposed to breathe water," Ed's hand left the glass and came down clenched as a sharp fist against his chest.

"Sorry," She apologized as quietly as possible, requesting a hurried return of the silence they'd chased away.

Coughing, and straightening up, Ed looked over to her sheepish expression and whispered, "I thought you said you were going to bed?"

Winry could only shrug, shaking her head in response, "I couldn't sleep. I'm a little anxious about the trip back. I heard your door open, so I came to see if you were up."

Ed looked back to the sink and the glass that had made a ton of racket. Picking it out and setting it back to the counter ledge, he ushered himself and Winry out of the bathroom, "I never went to bed, just dimmed the light," sighing, then coughing once more, Ed turned towards his room, "I've been trying to convince myself I'm wrong."

Wrinkling her expression, Winry cast a curious gaze to him, "About what?"

Ed's hand came to Winry's shoulder and gave her motion to follow, "Come here, I'll show you."

Tailing along behind Edward, the two slipped silently into his room and Winry quietly shut the door behind him, "Show me what?"

Amidst the mess of his belongings, packing and bed sheets, Ed had pushed his bed against the wall and built a nest of new paperwork for himself. Crawling onto the bed and back to the epicenter of all things, Ed reached under the comforter and produced a sheet of paper with the alchemy sigil from the Thule Hall floor. He held it up with the etching facing her, "This. I know what this is supposed to do… and I wish I didn't," he refolded the sheet along the four seams creased through it.

Winry hesitated before replying, her eyes drifting around in thought. Crawling onto the bed and up next to Edward, she sat down at his empty right shoulder and put her back against the wall. Ed handed the sheet to her, watching as she opened it back up.

"What's it do?" she gave it an unknowing stare.

Ed cleared his throat, "I've told you how a rebound works, right? The alchemist isn't able to perform a transmutation properly, so part of the alchemist is used as a substitute for the missing portions," he watched as Winry gave a slow nod. Ed reached across and gave the sheet of paper in her hands a flick, "This circle uses inverted components of some markers used for human transmutation. It rebounds almost instantly, because there is insufficient life energy from the Gate to draw from here, and the equation is designed to seek out an energy source. Ultimately, it deconstructs your existence to try and create the missing energy and cannonballs you into the flow of life traveling to the Gate," he took a moment to take a deep breath before continuing, "When you get to the Gate, the Gate is tripped up because the only thing that should be there is your soul. The mind and body would be kind of like pollutants; they don't belong. So, the Gate is forced to reconstruct you to extract the unnecessary components, finishing the transmutation processes that the sigil doesn't complete."

Winry slowly slouched down on the bed, stretching her legs out over the mattress and sheets, shooting her toes out over the side. Her arms folded tight against her chest as she scrunched up her face as she tried to add alphabetized numbers.

Swallowing, Ed looked down to Winry's questioning expression, "So basically, this transmutation circle uh… kills you by ripping apart your existence and then it fires you in a big, messy ball of 'existence stuff' to the Gate," he cleared his throat, not certain what to make of Winry's slowly evolving expression, "then the Gate puts you back together when you get there," his eye shifted sharply, his words suddenly hesitant, "that's how I've theorized it."

Through a tight brow, Winry rolled the idea through her mind, all the while gnawing on the inside of her right cheek. Startling Ed a little as she finally stirred from her sloppy position, he leaned away as she bounced to her knees, slapped her hands to her legs and threw a very perturbed glare into his path.

"That's sick! I don't want to do that! What kind of sadist is Dante to think this bullshit up?"

"No, Dante's not responsible. She couldn't be," Ed shook his head, drawing his hand up to dismiss her name, "It has to be Envy; he's the only one of them that could know enough about how this world works."

Winry sat back a little, her expression remaining twisted.

"Even with that, it has to be activated from the other side," his left hand rubbed over his face, slowly pulling down to his chin, "but, if anyone at home is standing at the Gate, it will cause feedback to the circle because the doors are open. If you stand on or near the sigil, you should be able feel it," the Elric's hand came down, pushing himself up straighter where he sat, "I swear I've felt something out of that thing before, but the people at home would have no way of knowing that you're standing there waiting unless you have a way to send a signal."

Sighing, Winry crossed her legs as she slipped back into the hole next to Ed at his right shoulder space.

Ed gave one final qualification to his statement, "And THAT is also dependant on if they know how to establish a connection with the sigil in the first place… I haven't a clue how you'd actually turn it ON from the other side."

"Are you going to try and use it for anything?" Winry dropped her anxious verbal bomb without hesitation once it was clear to her Ed had finished with his explanations.

"Hell no! I don't know if it even works. If that thing ever activates, and it doesn't go right, you become a lot more than dead…" he gave a short, poignant laugh to the idea, "There's no word in any dictionary I've seen to describe what's happened to you, and I can't imagine how much it'd hurt," his eye twitched at that passing thought, "but, I want to know if there's a reason it's in the Thule hall, if I can take any properties from it and modify it, and if I can trace Envy's path to figure out how he came up with it," reaching over, he took the sheet with the transmutation circle back from Winry, "if he's managed to construct this there might be other clues we can uncover to find out where his sources were for this. We can use the information to find a way to send a message home."

Winry gave her consent away with a quiet voice, "Alright…"

The ensuing silence in the room was suffocating and the both of them seemed to quietly suffer from it. For his part, Ed was more than ready to dismiss the thick black cloud he'd created. Suddenly he shifted on the bed, rolling up his left pant leg and pulling off the fake leg, "Yeah, hey, um, I still don't think it's right."

Giving the object a serious eye, she took it from Ed's hands and turned it over, "That's stupid! Your leg is fine. There's nothing wrong with it."

"I'm telling you, it's still not right," Edward plead in protest and shrugged his explanation – he was not the mechanic, "maybe something compressed in the socket when I landed on it?"

"It shouldn't have, but I'll take a look at it later," Winry wrinkled her nose and took an eyeballs glance into the leg socket, "I bet there's just something wrong with you, 'cause I am an artiste. I don't do shoddy work. I swear there is nothing wrong with this leg."

Ed slapped a hand to his face, rolling his eyes beneath it, "Just fix it, please."

Jean Havoc's roar of laughter was too much to contain in the hotel room everyone had jammed into, so it forced its way out into the hallway as well, where there was far more room to scamper.

"That is excellent, it's even a decent picture," Havoc held up his 'wanted' poster next to his head and, with a saucy grin and devilishly narrowed right eye, he asked the room, "I think Central did a pretty good job with it. Should I frame it?"

The collection of people in the room rolled their eyes, sighed or shifted awkwardly in their seats at the Lieutenant's poor attempt at lightening a heavy situation.

"You could do better," Riza gave a straight-faced, entirely unimpressed stare at her co-worker.

Maria cleared her throat, stifling a laugh for the situation, "I think it would look better on you if it didn't say you were wanted for abducting an under-aged girl."

Dropping the sheet of paper down onto the table, Havoc shook his head, trying to give some kind of positive spin on a frustrating situation, "Thanks ladies, I really appreciate the support."

Entirely unimpressed with the Lieutenant's behaviour, Alphonse kept a stone cold face throughout the quips, "Does anyone even know where Winry is? I mean, she's missing! Hasn't anyone-"

Izumi's hand came down firmly atop his soft head of hair to silence him, while her gaze canvassed the room for an answer, "Well?"

The only one who'd had ties to Central over the last while had been Havoc and all he could do was sigh and shrug, "Sorry kiddo, when I could look into it, all I got was dead ends or road blocks. Nobody gave me the time of day on this one," the liberated officer's attention moved from Alphonse to Mustang, "which is strange on its own. Usually when you try and pass on the buck, people just take it and put it at the bottom of the workload. No one would even take it. It was like they either knew the axe was falling on me or they were told not to take it," with the drift of his hand, Havoc cast his attention to Izumi first, to see the annoyed look in her eye, before giving his attention entirely back to Al, "I honestly don't know."

"Alright," Mustang's arms folded as he shut his eye and began to run a thought, "which jurisdiction oversaw the proceedings against you?"

Havoc rolled the unlit cigarette through his teeth, "The military court had to be involved because I'm an officer, but it was a federal investigation – it was taken from the military's workload and given to the government's law enforcement division."

Lifting his eye open slowly, Mustang unfolded his arms, sliding one hand into his pocket and the other held to a point directed at Izumi and Alphonse, "Dante has had her own seat near the top of this country's political throne since her last mule was removed. But, for at least six months, she has had access to every government department and position because she sits next to the man controlling our 'democracy'," the officer's words came out with mocking disgust at the term, "she has had uninterrupted time to weave herself into everything this country does under the act of a new government. The only department she has lost access to is the military, because her footholds were removed," Mustang carried his words straight to Alphonse and his teacher, "If we are hitting a wall on Winry, and its coming from within the government, then Dante must have something to do with it."

"What'd she do with her!" Alphonse's voice rose again, despite his teacher's hand, "she can't be dead!"

"She isn't dead," answering a scared child's panicked question quickly, Mustang finally withdrew his pointed finger, "Dante likes to leave bodies lying around as a display of her power and control over us – like what remained of Lyra and Tucker once she was done with them. Winry would be a trophy she'd mock us with if she'd had reason to kill her."

"Where is she then?" Havoc asked the question, since ultimately it was going to be him who'd have to fall on the sword if she turned up in any state other than conscious and breathing one.

Mustang couldn't answer that question; his arms just came to refold across his chest as he stared back at his Lieutenant.

"So, what do we do about it?" Hawkeye's voice came up with the question this time and, for this question, she would receive an answer.

"For the moment, there's nothing we can do about Winry's case," came Mustang's absolute response, and he turned his words to his military comrades, "But, there seems to be this larger, growing problem of this corrupt government. Dante lost her connection to the military, so she established the next best thing to rise up with. Since her sphere of influence is not over us, the military is going to have to step up and have it removed."

"Oh, that's rich," Izumi blurted, disgust bleeding from every word, "you are going to use your almighty military prowess and band together whatever you can of this shambled excuse of a military organization, which by the way, the people are quite disgusted with after the reports on Lior and Ishibal were made public – that's how the title of State Alchemist was expunged from our vocabulary," the aura Izumi carried about herself flared up as she approached the military official at the center of the room and threw her tirade at him, "And you're going to bring down the entire establishment that has spent months and months throwing false hope at the average citizen; convincing them that 'this' is better than an authoritarian military state?" she gave a sharp, disdainful laugh in his face, "When you emancipate that lovely delusion right in front of their eyes, and break spirits again, do you understand the social disaster that'll be left behind?"

The military crew within the room seemed to shift silently in place. Throats cleared, postures were adjusted, lips were bitten and all eyes drifted between Mustang and Izumi. Havoc chuckled as he took the cigarette from his mouth and tucked it behind his ear.

"Ms Curtis," Mustang's eye canvassed over her as his body straightened to perfectly square off in front of her, "Nobody deserves to exist in a delusion of false hope. If our people are living in a fantasy, then we do them a greater crime by not telling them, than we do by allowing it to continue. If I chose to go blind to reality, I should turn in my resignation right now, because I would not be doing what my service in this army is meant to."

Alphonse glanced from the officer and his teacher as she stared back at him, stone solid in her stiff and unresponsive expression.

Mustang's voice rose like a foreboding shadow swallowing the landscape while continuing to address her, "I want to understand the mess that the Elric brothers, Dante and yourself are mixed up in, I really do, but I've been coming to the realization that I'm constantly five or ten steps behind wherever you are going. I am not your decorative caboose," the unchallengeable tone swelled through his voice, "and Dante seems to think that it's fun not only being five or ten steps ahead of you, but also adding all sorts of things externally around everyone to push us back. None of us will ever find ourselves walking in stride with her at this rate," the man scoffed at his own forthcoming thoughts, "that is part of her game: to see how fast she can make these little mice scurry through the maze and catch the cheese she leaves around for them. So, we change the game."

Taking a stiff inhale, Mustang's shoulders rose and he slipped his thumbs into the belt loops of his trousers and continued to stare right back into the eyes of a woman who showed no fear standing right in front of him.

"I can lead."

A singled eyebrow on the most learned alchemist in the room twitched at the suggestion.

"I can lead people to break down the walls of the maze, bring down the game and flush out this parasite leeching off our nation. Then perhaps we will have slowed her down enough for you to catch up in some way. Ideally, it'll give you time and space to find a way to figure out the information you have and reach beyond the Gate, or stop Dante from doing the same. Regardless of what you chose to do with the opportunity, it will be there. That's how I'm playing this game from this point forward."

There was a moment of silence where the alchemy teacher and former state alchemist stood face to face, separated only by the solidarity of principles both of them held steadfast to.

The moment broke when Izumi started to laugh. She threw her arms up and roared with laughter, eventually slapping her hands down over her knees with a thunderous clap. What an asinine dilemma. The worst part, which she hid behind the laughter, was that he was right – disgustingly, horribly right. It was a good idea. Their group, on the whole, was just one easy target stumbling along.

The government couldn't be trusted; individual people could be trusted but not the establishment on a whole. There would be no way to extract what cleanliness remained within the infestation, Dante had a web and knew what every string was to pull plus how and when to do it. Because of that, there was no way they could properly do anything. To get anything at all accomplished, everyone would have to rely on a loyal pack of military hound dogs. They were the only establishment that remained relatively unscathed, standing at the fringes of the web.

Snapping her fingers, the teacher repositioned herself in the unmoving officers path, "I can see how you piss Ed off so much," turning on her heels, Izumi walked away from Mustang, a humourless grin scrawled across her face, "you can't act until we know exactly which one of the two Dante is. You have no rallying cry if you can't identify the corruption properly. Any one of your pawns screws up and every single one of us is expendable."

"I'm well aware," Mustang remained standing at the center of the room, refusing to release the woman's attention from his grip.

Clenching her fists, Izumi gave a begrudging sigh as the strength in her voice backed down, "How much do you want to bet that there have been men before who've learnt about Dante's secrets? What do you think happened to them, if no one has ever really known about what this woman is capable of until now?"

Mustang's sneer came well equipped with a sarcastic reply, knowing he'd won the debate with this wretchedly intelligent and frustratingly headstrong woman standing five steps ahead of him, "Batter up."

The sun had barely awoken and did not have nearly enough strength to take away the overnight chill just yet – the light was still trapped behind the silhouette of the boat in the harbour. Why ferries had to start running so early in the day was beyond most anyone, but it always seemed to be full of early morning risers; willing or otherwise. As it was every morning, a crowd of travelers and a crowd of well wishers had gathered at the docks to bid adieu to their loved ones, comrades and companions.

Crouching down, Ed got as close to eyelevel with the child as he could, and put his hand on the head of the baby Hyland, "Alright Margaret, I need you to do me one favour in your life!

The little girl's eyes widened, "Okay Uncle Edderd!"

A childish and fun smile for the little girl formed throughout his face, "I need you to grow up and be the prettiest little Hyland there ever was, so your dad ends up staying up all night stressing over what kind of trouble his pretty little girl is getting into, while his hair turns grey and falls out."

"Hey!" Thomas barked as Patricia and Winry both burst out laughing.

"What kind of request is that, Ed?" Winry giggled, a mitten hand covering her mouth.

"It's a request to give Thomas bags under his eyes," Ed nodded sagely, pointing a wary finger at Thomas, "it'll serve you right."

The young father could only respond with a very blank and unimpressed look, "She's only two years old, she doesn't need your bad influence. Unhand my child and be gone with you!"

Patricia crossed her arms over her chest, though one hand continued to flutter around her mouth, "You're so mean to him Edward Elric."

Shrugging, Ed rolled his eyes. He reached his only hand out to pat the giggly little girl on her head before pushing back to his feet. His gaze looked over to his father and the doctor that were coming to join them. Out from beneath him, Margaret gleefully scooted towards the two senior men, followed closely behind by Winry. Ed smirked, laughing to himself as Winry snagged the little girl under her arms and carried her the rest of the way.

"So, my wife tells me you again have no plans on returning to grace us with your presence ever again," Thomas's words were sarcastic but playful, though the man still received a smack on his upper arm from his wife.

Ed continued to hold his smirk, knowing enough to tell when Thomas's words weren't meant to be taken too seriously, "Absolutely none. So, good bye, Thomas Hyland and Patricia Hyland; I hope we never meet again."

It was one of the few times Patricia would ever roll her eyes at someone, and the woman gave a 'tisk' at the toying grin Ed held as she stepped forwards to give him a hug, "You take care, understand? Write to us once in a while."

"Yes ma'am," in the back of his mind, it felt so odd for him to hug her, but strangely welcomed at the same time. Her hugs were exactly the same.

As his wife stepped back, Thomas held up his right hand next to his head, "You still haven't a right arm to shake with, Edward."

Shrugging, Ed offered his left hand with a grin, "I wouldn't give you my right hand, anyways."

"Now, that's just strange," Thomas laughed, accepting the inverted offer.

As the two men's hands met to shake, both found themselves caught off guard by Patricia's laughter, and the woman shuffled her way towards Dr Wilson, Hohenheim and Winry. Both younger men glanced to the ridiculous face-making competition going on between Winry and Margaret that the two older men had begun to laugh at.

"I respectfully request to have my daughter returned to me, Winry Rockbell!" Patti called out.

Pursing her lips and wrinkling her nose in the little girl's face, Winry hollered back, "Can't I keep this one?"

"You may not!"

The shoulders of the 20-something men fell, Ed rolling his eyes while Thomas shook his head. Sighing, Ed went to take back his hand, but had it quickly claimed by Thomas as he gripped Edward's only hand tight.

"You take care of yourself and make sure to take care of Winry as well, understand?" Thomas instructed.

"I already got that lecture from your wife," Ed narrowed an eye, taking as firm of a grip as Thomas gave.

Nodding in agreement, the young father conceded that fact and released Edward's hand, "Yes, and now you're hearing it from me, because this time I'm here to see you off properly."

Reclaiming his hand, Ed could only give a reluctant grin to the statement before turning his attention back to the crowd that had come to gather with them on the docks.

Folding her arms, Winry spun away from Patricia as she gave up Margaret and came to stand next to Ed's vacant right shoulder, "I think I want one," she announced, picking up her suitcase.

"One what?" Ed blinked.

Pointing to the mother and her child, Winry looked up to Ed entirely unimpressed, "A baby, you ditz."

Ed crossed his eyes, lightly wincing at the thought, "I don't think there's a world out there that could handle two of you."

It took a moment of dead silence and dangerous glances before, in the blink of an eye, Winry had swung her oversized suitcase up and snapped it down overtop Edward's head, bringing the man and her collection of personal belongings and equipment crashing down to the ice cold cement in a heap.

Grinning maliciously, Dr. Wilson put a hand down on Hohenheim's shoulder, "Unlike Edward, I do think Winry would make a perfectly sound parent."

"Thank you," she beamed.

"Hey!" Edward's voice rose, snapping to attention, and lurching to his feet - dangerously wielding a pointed finger to the doctor, "I'll have you know that I'd make a damned good father."

It was the second time in the last minute Edward had wished he'd had the foresight to keep his mouth shut, or at least have said something different, because there was a chorus of 'you would?'s that came from every single person he stood with, each instance spoken with some level of fascination or intrigue. All eyes full of amusement and wonder looked back on him, pinned him to the ground, and demanded an elaboration.

Ed's hand ran over his slowly flushing face, "Uh…huh…"

With a bemused grin eating him up and a teasing jest in his tone, Wilson patted the young man's father on the shoulder as he spoke, "Edward, to be a father, you first need to be aware of how a child is conceived. As you are nearly twenty-two and have been celibate and single since the day we met you, I'm of the opinion that you're quite ignorant to the process. You might want to consult Winry for some clarification."

"Excuse me!?" Winry squawked, "he can go buy magazines for that."

The dangerous arrow of his left index finger swung out, nearly taking off Winry's nose as Edward barked at the doctor, "You know, I could kill you, throw you off these docks and, before any authority finds your dead body, I'll-"

With a hands raised, Hohenheim stepped into the middle of everything to stop this portion of the world from imploding on itself. With the wave of a few hands he directed final hugs and handshakes, though Edward was far more interested in waving a deliberate finger in the doctor's direction as opposed to anything else. The oldest man in the gathering ushered the two young figures he'd escort through Europe onboard the ferry, remaining behind as the two found themselves snagged by the stream of people boarding.

"Your son is an idiot," Charles proclaimed, a defeated grin worn on his face as his hand slapped into Hohenheim's for a final handshake, "To an extent, I can understand why you have to return to Germany, but why in God's name did you not just burn their passports and force them to stay?"

While giving a firm shake of the hand he held, Hohenheim laughed at the suggestion he had seriously considered, "Because Edward would have just hitchhiked his way back to Germany and Winry would have followed. That would have been a bigger nightmare."

Rolling his eyes, Charles Wilson took his hand from his companion and slapped it to the man's shoulder, "You really need to have a serious talk to that boy and set him straight. Talk to him like you're actually his father for a change. Your young man is full of potential and alchemy will get him nowhere. Allowing him to wander around aimlessly as a lone soldier without a proper cause doesn't do anyone any good. He'll be lost if he ever has to submit to reality."

"Edward is fine as he is," taking a deep breath of the cool morning air, Hohenheim gave it a few moments to warm in his chest before responding, "you know full well that I have no opinion one way or another on the subject. But, what Edward does, or what he thinks he's doing, gives him hope."

Wilson's brow rose at the seemingly odd statement, "Hope? Might I ask, for what?"

Folding his arms, Hohenheim looked over his shoulder to where Ed and Winry stood, peering down over the ferry's edge to the group standing seaside, "Hope for a better future. He's already had a lot of important things taken from him; too much for someone his age. I don't want to be the one to take that prospect from him. He wouldn't have much left to him if he lost that."

The doctor stood for a moment, facing his companion, trying to determine the seriousness of the statement. Withdrawing his hand, Charles folded his arms and raised an eyebrow at Ed's father, "That wasn't the answer I was expecting."

The grin returned to Hohenheim's expression, "I know it wasn't. I have to keep you thinking, Charles. There aren't enough challenges in your life if you don't have my son around to completely throw you off."

"Confounded old man," Dr Wilson twisted his face, choosing to laugh away the statement as he smacked Hohenheim in the shoulder.

With his grin unwavering, Hohenheim took his final round of hugs and handshakes from everyone. As the departing well wishes passed from Thomas to Patricia, the old man took a final, selfish moment to look into her eyes one last time before leaving a kiss on the cheeks of a beautiful woman and her baby girl. Stepping away, the old father scaled the ramp leading up to the ferryboat shielding the rising morning sun from everyone's eyes, and allowed the return trip to Germany to commence.

To Be Continued…

Author's Note:

- Don't mess around with Roy Mustang… he hates taking shit from people.

- How Roze wound up with the Tlingum boys will be explained at a later point.

- The game Dante played is called "Pat-a-cake" (I'm sure you've played it) but Nina/Dante is speaking with a deliberate inflection, so it sounds like Paddy Cake (I spelt it that way for emphasis sake).

- I can't recall if I've mentioned this previously (its been a while), I'm pretty sure I have, but just as a reminder for you and I, Dante does have some Philosopher's Stone in her possession. Not much, but some.

- I just want to make note that Winry has only had time so far to work on dealing with Ed's prosthetic leg, and not his missing arm. Because of the type of, er, upper body 'amputee' (lol that just doesn't sound right) that Ed is, its been too difficult for Winry to do both limbs with the time she's had, and low-quality materials available to her. Ed's previous right arm was unsalvageable.

Comments (from last chapter):

Aw hell, I did this years ago, I'll give props to replies. I do love comments, as selfish as that sounds, so thanks everyone.

DrAgOnNeKo567 – Sounds like you had fun reading through it. Glad you enjoyed it!

Keahi Spitfire – Actually, I did think about having Ed just not come back for like two days or something lol. Spiteful bugger.

Miss Woodford – Dr. Wilson just completely underestimates Ed's… well, thickheaded determination. Wilson can't think outside the cultural mold of his world. That either makes him well raised for his time or narrow-minded. Ed is a master at pulling not only Wilson's strings, but his father's strings too. Ed probably caused a few veins in his old man's forehead to snap at the very least. Just imagine how much grief he caused him four or five years ago!

ObsessiveAlchemist – The writing snowball is rolling, so I'm chasing it! Thanks, and I'm glad you're enjoying it :)