Part XXIX - The Orchestra's Conductor – Chapter 80

The loud crashing boom of a metal slider on the filing cabinet hit carelessly, and Hohenheim flinched at the noise he'd allowed to echo in the empty school halls. Sealing up the finalized semester of schoolwork and papers in the cabinet within the desolate educational building, the old man couldn't help but turn the tight expression he wore into a grin when he heard his companion's bemused reaction to his earlier statement.

"Wait… Edward did what?" Karl Haushofer gawked through a choked laugh.

Hohenheim shook his head and caught the contagious laugh. Turning around, he tossed the desk keys into the air and, snagging them with his other hand, said "He and Winry got home, did laundry, and Edward shrank the majority of his good clothing in the wash."

"With money so tight now-a-days, how does he expect to replace his wardrobe?" with his hands raised, entirely amused by the failure, Karl looked to the ceiling, "And that is why women do laundry! We men just don't have the skill for it."

"Trust me, Winry has been letting him hear about it," Hohenheim's stifled laughter continued through his words, "his pants can be hemmed and his shirts… well, some fared better than others, so it's not that bad there. But he came downstairs completely oblivious to the length of his pants, and Winry and I had to point it out – he wasn't impressed," his eye twitching at a subsequent thought, "as long as he keeps wearing his winter boots, no one will notice while he's out, though I wish he'd shrunk those God-awful slippers he came back from France with."

Waving a hand to clear his thoughts, Professor Haushofer gave an intrigued response, "I'm assuming Edward and Winry didn't venture off into France just for bottles of wine and a pair of fuzzy slippers?"

With a prevalent sound of disgust, Hohenheim narrowed his eyes to his friend, "He won those at some ridiculous carnival," sighing, the father could only shrug his shoulders, "he met some gypsies in Belgium who gave him some crazy ideas that he wanted to look into outside of Paris. He invited Winry along and told her she could see the grand city of Paris; which she saw and wasn't too impressed with. It was too busy for her," he chuckled, though entirely unimpressed with the two of them as he let a displeased tone of voice crawl out, "Winry doesn't know a thing about France or French and Edward's language skills are somewhere between non-existent and poor at best. Apparently, that made things difficult when they lost the gypsies," Hohenheim rolled his eyes to the ceiling, "now they're home and in one piece, thank God."

Karl's hand ran down his face, sputtering as he began to laugh at the situation drafted up in his mind, "Good Lord, that boy."

Raising his hands in defence, Hohenehim's unimpressed expression prevailed over all else, "I honestly don't know sometimes."

Clearing his throat and leaning a shoulder up against the wall of the office, Haushofer's sideways grin wouldn't be undone, "Speaking of Edward and Winry, may I ask you something about Winry?"

Hohenheim's left eyebrow rose curiously, "She's not my child, so I might not know the answer… but yes?"

"Is she involved with Edward at all?" was the curious question.

The question brought both of the father's eyebrows up, "I'm going to take an assumption on what you mean by 'involved' and respond with 'not in a way that I've been made aware of'. Why?"

Haushofer waved away his question with the flick of his wrist, "I was just asking as a concerned citizen, and that's all."

Hohenheim replied with the fakest and most contrived laugh he'd given in weeks, and he continued to hold his inquisitive friend in the crosshairs of his line of sight. His tone bottomed out sharply, "Why?"

"I just told you why," was the sly response, "now forget I asked and hurry up. We have dinner in under an hour."

Wagging a finger, Hohenheim warily returned to his attention to his office, "I don't like it when you put me off like this, Karl."

"I'm not 'putting you off'. Now, lock this nonsense down and we'll get going."

Hohenheim flipped through each key on the heavy ring as he looked for the one to the cabinet. His thoughts suddenly changed to a more pressing concern he'd been withholding, "Say, Karl, did you notice anyone come in or out of my office while I was away?"

The companion wrinkled his face in thought, "I don't believe I noticed anyone down this way. Why?"

Hohenheim shook his head, snagging a sliver key in his fingers, "I just found some things out of place when I got back, and one item was missing altogether. I was just wondering if maybe someone came through my office."

"Are you certain you just didn't forget where you'd left things? You were gone for some time," Haushofer questioned.

Hohenheim gave a deliberate laugh to his words, "No, I'm not senile just yet."

"Who would do something like that?" Karl Haushofer frowned, looking rather disgusted with the idea that someone would rummage through another professor's office, "your office remained untouched the entire time you were gone. I have to pass by it every day and I never saw tampering. I don't know how anyone would have gotten into your things if you had the keys."

"I'm just saying, Karl, that someone went through my office," Hohenheim nose wrinkled when he turned to the man, "things are missing and things are out of place."

With a hand to his shoulder, Haushofer wished for the man to let the issue slide, "Yes, and things are also locked and secured. You have the only set of keys to those cabinets."

With a deep breath and heavy sigh, Hohenheim let the topic slide, "Quite. Very well then."

"Hey, now that's your voice putting me off," Haushofer clenched Hohenheim's shoulder, grabbing on to his dress jacket and pulling him towards the door, "there is no sign of the locks on either the office door, the cabinets, or the desk drawers being picked. You would think that a thief or rabble-rouser of some sort would leave some kind of evidence that would show a break-in – beyond missing papers."

Hohenheim withheld the urge to respond that he already had evidence to the contrary, but figured that discussion of the thick book of theories was too much trouble to engage in, "Perhaps you're right."

With less force this time, Haushofer's hand patted over Hohenheim's shoulder, "Come on now, it' s Christmas season, and Christmas break begins the moment we walk out that door. We don't need to engage this building for another three weeks. It's time to humour the dean with a post-semester engagement, and then spend time with the family."

Hohenheim opened the door to his office, pushing it wide, "This end of term event the dean hosts is so horribly dry. I hope I last the night."

"Just think," Haushofer grinned, "you are not paying the bill. Take it for all it's worth."

Hohenheim reached back to pull his office door shut, firmly ensuring the latch had clicked behind him before inserting the key to lock it for the remainder of 1921. He gave the knob a firm jostle with his left hand to ensure it was secure before following Haushofer down the hall.

There was a constant and endlessly reverberating ring of gunfire for background noise. It had gotten to the point where the gunfire was nothing more than a sick sound that carried in the air and a resonance that would be heard through the night that completed week one.

It had been one week since two regiments of troops had been dispatched to the east to fight off a swell of insurgence at a location in the remote foothills.

In Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong's eyes, the confrontation was a pre-arranged engagement that both side had been lead into. For the most part, the fighting remained at a stalemate, though the front line tended to shift by portions of a kilometre over the course of each day – either forwards or backwards. The exchange of unpleasantries seemed to continue on only because that's what they had been told to do, not because there was any meaning to it. Over the course of these endless, sleepless days, the major watched over a troupe of nameless, unmarked soldiers fighting a purposeless battle; dying for no viable cause.

There was the itch that bothered the major again. The one that made him clench his fist and wish he could slam them full force into the earth and, with the rip of an alchemy current, end this ridiculous fight and get these boys home to their families. But, that action was forbidden. It was written into law that the military would no longer engage alchemy as a source of fighting power – it was overwhelmingly accepted after the calculated display of 'atrocities' committed by State Alchemists that had been shown to the public by the establishment that eventually came to power.

The towering officer glanced to the poster tacked to a corkboard in this makeshift field hut. Lt. Havoc's face stared back at him, surrounded by bold letters; most predominantly were the words 'WANTED'. Absurd! It was absolutely absurd, as far as this man in the Armstrong family was concerned. And, although there was no poster for it as of yet, every man knew of the judicial Order to Appear issued for Brigadier General Mustang. Every man knew why and, slowly, men were questioning it.

"Sir?"

Armstrong's tired and frustrated thoughts lifted at the familiar voice calling his name, "Lieutenant?"

Breda stood in the doorway, a cockeyed and bemused expression to him, "I got them thinkin' about it again."

"I'm sorry," the man's deep voice rumbled low in the air, "who's thinking about what?"

With the sweep of his hand, the fabric 'door' swung shut and the lieutenant slipped into the hut, "About what's going on with the Brigadier General. The boys are smart and they're listening. Now, they're thinking about it," Breda sat down in a folding wooden chair within the light of the lantern-lit enclosure, "you're right, you can see it in them when they think about it."

Clasping his hands and resting them down against the top of a sorry excuse for a worktable, Armstrong nodded at the young man's assessment, "I appreciate how you're handling this for everyone, Lieutenant. Everyone does."

"Naw, don't worry about it," Breda gave a laugh to the compliment, "I'm just planting the seeds for you and letting the guys make their own conclusions. It just takes a while to get ideas to grow."

Armstrong smoothed a hand over his chin, "There is an Armstrong family technique passed down through the generations that's said to aid the acceleration of thoughts in the mind. Typically, it's used for school, but perhaps that can be applied to expedite the process."

Grinning nervously, Breda tried to wave away the Major's 'helpful' suggestion, "No sir, I think that might be a bit extreme. You'll want them to see on their own how they're using Havoc and setting up Mustang for the fall, and come to basically the same conclusion."

"Which is how it has been going so far, correct?" the major asked.

Breda nodded, "Everyone's kinda talking under their breath, sharing their thoughts, asking who's heard what. I didn't have to spread the suggestions to everyone, just the right people."

"Very sly, Lieutenant," Armstrong tipped his hand to the young man.

"Thank you, Sir," he laughed a bit, "I learnt from a girlfriend in high school about spreading gossip."

Sighing, the lumbering major took a glance to the waving light of the lantern, "These men will only be able to take so much before they see through the futility of why we're out here. Once they're able to see that, the cards will fall in the Brigadier General's favour."

The lieutenant's voice lowered to a hush, "Mustang wants to speak with them eventually, doesn't he?"

"He does, yes," Armstrong brought his deep voice to a similar key, "he thinks that's important. But it won't be much until we can rendezvous at Central."

Breda perked with curiousity, "What's he going to say?"

"The facts, most likely. The truth as best he can," Armstrong nodded, folding his arms.

"Will he tell them what he's told us about Dante?"

"That depends on how much of the Dante story is believable by that point. If you were approached by anyone that you did not know as well as we know Mustang, would you have believed him?" the major watched his conversation partner look to the corner in thought, "what is believable is that no one is leading us properly anymore. Men who sign up for the military sign up with the expectation of being lead responsibly. There is a powerful, driving force behind a man in uniform – not only the force in your soul, but the force that guides and moulds that soul to evolve; to become more," the huge man spoke with a firm and powerful jaw, "that's responsibility to guide and shape the world is part of what a leader does, and trust me when I say that the Armstrong family knows this power well. But what's going on here? This is not leading. This is nothing more than a distraction to thin out the power. The further apart the ranks of the military are placed in this country, the weaker the military become as a whole."

"You know," the lower officer spoke carefully, "you can end this stupid stalemate we're stuck in."

"I know I can," came the solemn reply.

"Will you?"

Armstrong looked up, his ears catching a change in the normally consistent ring of gunfire. With his hands firm on the table, he pushed to his feet, nearly sending his head through the canvas ceiling, "When I have the earnest support of these men around me and Brigadier General Mustang tells me I can. I have to show my respect for his judgement if I expect anyone else to."

Standing as well, Breda closed the folding chair and tucked it away at the corner of the tent, "The men are going to get restless fighting this battle. It's not winnable," his eyes turned over his shoulder to the towering superior officer, "they'll eventually see that."

"I know," a grin broke through the steadfast Armstrong, "and when they find that point within themselves that this order we are withstanding is not an order worth fulfilling, they'll be shown a leader and given orders they can follow," again Armstrong's attention was diverted by a change in flow from the world outside of this tent, "I just hope that point comes sooner rather than later."

At five thirty in the afternoon, dinner is usually being cooked, the kids are being told to do their homework, or general chaos is ensuing for the hours that exist between 'after work' and 'dinner' served promptly at six. But, none of those sounds existed in Hohenheim's German household. The only interruption was the sound of the fireplace crackling in the back wall of the home, and it was running low.

Ed and Winry had passed out on the couch hours ago – each claiming an opposite arm of the couch to curl up in. Ed's forehead was shoved into the space where the back plush cushions met the soft couch arm, the seat cushion beneath him had slipped out a little over time as he'd slouched further down and the collar of his partially buttoned dress shirt had slid up to his ears. His feet were on the coffee table, something his father vehemently disapproved of, but the old man wasn't home, so who would know? Besides which, Ed had on the most gaudy looking pair of orange, green, brown and purple-spotted fuzzy slippers he'd ever seen. He didn't think that people could make anything that ugly until he saw them, and they amused him something fierce – perhaps only because his father hated them so much.

Winry wasn't quite so decorated, though she was just as dead to the world as Ed was. Her hair was wrapped atop her head in a white towel – still damp from the shower she'd taken at noon. She'd wrapped herself up tight in a robe, made hot chocolate and sat down in the corner of the couch to blissfully empty her head and vegetate. At some point she'd stuffed her feet in between the seat cushions for support as she snuggled up with the arm of the couch and buried herself in the corner long before Ed had sat down. Only a third of her drink had been tasted, the rest had gone cold.

Neither one of them heard the knock at the door. Or the second one. Or the third.

Every house had a bell, but it always seemed rude to use it. However, the party knocking at the door chose to use the bell and Ed cracked an eye open.

"Son of a bitch," he murmured. With only one eye open, he slid to the floor from the couch, dumping his feet to the floor. He gave a wary look to the opened and mostly finished bottle of red French wine, which was adorned with a label he couldn't exactly read properly, that had been forgotten on the centre table. Edward didn't have a clue about the time of day and he didn't particularly care. Couldn't people just leave him to sleep in peace? Barely awake, he dragged himself to the front door, half heartedly straightening his shirt as he walked, and removing the hair tie from his mangled head of hair. Looking like a dishevelled mess, Ed threw the door open, completely disinterested in the December chill in the air.

"What?" he demanded.

Albrecht Haushofer and Rudolf Hess stared back at him rather dumbstruck.

"What do you two want?" he asked through half opened eyes.

With a raised brow, Hess spoke first, "… Nice slippers, Edward."

Ed glanced down to his multi-coloured footwear, "Thanks."

"You should get your pants altered," Hess pulled his lower lip through his teeth, trying not to show a laugh, "your ankles are showing."

Still staring at his feet, Ed rolled his good ankle a little, eyeballing his white-socked foot that was stuffed into the fuzzy slippers, "Whatever."

The two men shared a number of uncertain glances before Albrecht finally spoke, "Um, well I hope your day is going well. Did you have a good trip to England?"

Ed smacked his lips, trying to remove the taste of sleep from his mouth, "You two stooges came all the way out to the house and woke me up just to ask how the trip was?"

"Something like that…" Albrecht replied cautiously, "uh, I heard you went to France after you'd been to England. How was that?"

"It was French," Ed replied flatly.

"Yes, of course," the young Haushofer gave a nervous glance to his companion.

The heavy weighted eyelids Ed fought against held up just high enough so that he could scan the two of them: the young Haushofer looked as sheepish as ever, and Hess came off like he was trying too hard to look average.

"Look, I have a spitting headache," Ed's hand came up into his fallen hair, "don't you two have better things to do?"

"Actually, if it's possible Edward, can I speak with Winry?" Albrecht gave the reason for their arrival, "is she around?"

Edward's face suddenly clouded over with suspicion, abruptly more awake than he was before, "Why?"

Like a young pup requesting the ball to be tossed, Albrecht looked to Edward and asked again, "If I could Edward, is Winry around?"

"She's sleeping on the couch in her robe, and probably isn't up for talking with you in your semi-coherent textbook English," Ed took a moment to glance over his shoulder to see if she'd stirred or not before readdressing the group with only his suspicious eyes, "Again… why?"

Albrecht took a glance to Hess before shrugging, "I had a question for her, that's all. Perhaps I'll stop by later after dinner! Go… do something about your headache. Sorry we bothered you."

Edward's face twisted into all sorts of pretzels, not awake enough to draw a conclusion to what was going, "Alright…"

With that, the duo backed away, each giving him some sort of 'good evening' well wish that Edward could have cared less about. He remained standing at the open door a few moments after the duo had vanished from sight. His eyes slowly falling shut, though squinting as his tired mind tried to connect the dots. Ed finally gave up on that, stepped back, and shut the door. Returning to the living room, Ed dragged his feet along the floor and back to the couch. Stopping before he sat down in his corner again, Ed's slit of vision slipped to Winry, now fully occupying the couch that she'd stretched out along.

"Move!" Ed barked.

"You left, couch is sacrificed to me," her words were lazy and muffled, caught up in the fabric of her robe and arm of the couch her head was nuzzled into.

Rolling his eyes, too exhausted to either be annoyed or unimpressed, he sat down on her feet. Winry squeaked and withdrew her legs, giving him a sharp kick to his right side with her bare foot in retaliation.

"Who was at the door?" Winry sat up a bit, pulling her feet under herself and adjusting the robe.

"Nobody important," Ed mumbled while trying to re-establish the strangely awkward, yet perfectly comfortable, position he'd been in before having to get up. He kicked his feet up onto the table again and slouched down. From the corner of his eye, he caught a disgusted look cutting through Winry's face.

"What?"

She gave him a pointedly revolted look, "You look like you crawled out of a barn. Go take a shower or something."

Ed rolled his eyes before closing them, grumbling something that didn't sound either English or German, but ultimately resulted in him completely ignoring the suggestion and attempting to go back to the afternoon nap.

Izumi's fingers rattled off the table top in the room she and Alphonse sat in. She played her rhythm as though she'd once been some masterful, one-handed piano player. The tune she played was aggressive, frustrated and angry; it came with no lyrics. Across from her, Alphonse sat, watching his teacher's free hand scratch through her scalp.

"Sensei…?" Al prodded, quite concerned with how dark his teacher's face grew.

"Something about that just doesn't translate right," both of the woman's hands became fists, and came crashing to the table where they exploded open again, "the part where it's a baby that communicates with the Gate, okay, I buy that. An infant's connection to the world around it is weak, practically non-existent if it's young enough – far easier to get to the Gate that way. But the need for the baby to be a hermaphrodite just seems… strange."

Straightening up in his seat, Al stretched his arms out over the round table the pair occupied as Izumi continued her rant.

"The factors for a situation this complex for alchemy purposes should be fundamentally unadulterated. It doesn't make sense that you'd use such a bastardized ingredient like a ruined infant. The baby is called 'a hermaphrodite' but the qualification for that is that the baby contains properties of both sides of the Gate. What kind of properties? Is it the biological properties of the hermaphrodite child that sets Diana apart, or something else? It's not definitively specific, because the term 'properties' isn't qualified."

If anyone could successfully kill someone by glaring bullets, it would be Izumi, and she defaced the table with intangible shots from her eyes.

At least this table was theirs. It was theirs, it was private, and it contained some type of relative security. Through a tight connection Mustang had, the second floor of a two-storey hotel, tucked away at the disinterested edge of Central City, had become their own. Inside, along with the military crew setting up their operations, Izumi and Al had set up for work. The sanctuary was nice, but the longer they seemed to be there, the less sense the mountain of information the teacher had gathered seemed to make. Which either meant that she didn't have all of the information, or the information was not entirely correct. She was generally leaning towards a huge gap of information, most likely deliberately withheld by Dante to get them scrambling again, but there were some disturbingly odd references going on that she wasn't entirely sure could be explained in the first place.

"You place an infant at the Gate, with a poor connection between its mind, body and soul, fused with properties from both sides of the Gate, and both worlds become available," she looked at some of their written material with gross disgust, "So, how do you steal an infant from the other side, bring it to this side, and then perform a human transmutation on it to fuse it with another infant… when the purpose of the child is to get to the other side of the Gate, because you don't have access?" she rolled her eyes to Al, "which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

"If the 'Diana' in the Prime Minister's home is the Diana in the reference, then what's Dante done to get a child from beyond the Gate to fuse with it?" Al threw some more fuel to the verbal puzzle.

Izumi's frown worsened, "She must be using a substitute of some kind… since she doesn't seem to actually have gotten beyond the Gate yet," the teacher sat back in her seat, throwing an arm over the back of the chair, "the theory doesn't mention anywhere if it's important if it needs to be a boy or a girl taken from beyond the Gate. I'd think that something this complex… it would be specified which side of the Gate is equated to which gender, since everything else is full of detail."

Folding his arms, Alphonse slouched down in the seat he occupied across from his teacher, "Dante did get Brigitte from beyond the Gate."

Izumi's face fell, "Yeah, and she doesn't seem to work in with any of this. It's like she was something else entirely that came from beyond the Gate," a scowl suddenly ripped into the teacher's face, "why the hell wouldn't Dante be fighting tooth and nail to get Brigitte back? She's the first concrete thing that's ever come through the Gate in any of our lifetimes."

"I don't think Dante was ever interested in Brigitte. Both Nina and Aisa didn't really fawn over her, more like they poked her with a stick to see what she'd do. I don't think Brigitte was what they wanted," Al raised an eyebrow at his own statement, passively wondering where she was at the moment – Lieutenant Ross was given the task of guardian for her again, "and Dante couldn't have found the picture of my brother in her bag, or she would have taken it."

"Interesting…" Izumi's voice trailed with a glowing thought that began to grow bright at the back of her mind, "she doesn't know for certain that Ed is even beyond the Gate. She's running on assumptions from the theory that Ed is alive and well, but we have the proof that those assumptions are fact."

Al's face twisted up with concern, "There's a lot of 'assuming' going on with this theory."

Izumi expelled a harsh sigh, "You know what's terrifying Al, she might want to believe the things in that theory so badly that in her mind it's already true. After four or five hundred years thinking about something, you're bound to start losing judgement on it – it's just so familiar to you, it feels like fact. That makes her more dangerous than we could possibly imagine."

Alphonse slumped down in his chair until his eyes were level with the table top. He projected his gaze into the collection of books and paperwork the pair had amassed, and looked at it as though he could burn it up with his eyes.

"Al…" Izumi's tone was cautious and questioning.

"I just wanted to find my brother," he mumbled, "I wanted to find my brother and now there's this crazy lady trying to get to the same place I want to get to. If she gets there first, or if I manage to do it and she finds out, we're all in trouble… and my brother won't matter anymore."

"Ed always has, and always will, matter, Alphonse Elric," with a grin, Izumi shook her head, "this 'crazy lady' would have come all the way out to Resembool for us if we hadn't stopped by first, it was just a matter of time," the teacher stood up and walked around the table, "and it's not an 'I' thing, it's a 'we' thing. Accessing the Gate is not just your responsibility."

Al cranked out a deliberately childish pout, holding his teacher in his eyes as she sat down next to him, "I know, I know. I'm just frustrated, that's all. This is a lot more complicated than I thought it was going to be. I barely know who Dante is and she has it out for me and everyone else. All I want to do is get my brother back."

"Well," Izumi pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. Lacing her fingers together and putting her elbows down on the table, the teacher put her chin down atop her hands and spoke straight ahead to her now vacant seat, "Up until about a year ago, I'd thought I'd known who she was, then I found out I didn't know that woman at all. I'd say I'd gone so far as to have idealized her at one point, before we fell out of our relationship. Now, none of us knows which one she is. So, you're not entirely lagging as far behind as you think."

"Alright," the youngest Elric pulled out a grin for his teacher's words, "pick-me-up time is over. I'm done sulking; you can stop with the 'cheer up Alphonse' thing. We have things to figure out."

With a mocking beam across her face, the teacher's hand came down into the fluffy mat of hair on the young man's head and roughly messed it up as she stood up again, "That's a good boy."

Al rolled his eyes, pushing away his teacher's hand and resetting his mangled hair, "I'm not a puppy, Sensei!"

Izumi hadn't finished reseating herself before a knock came to the door. Both occupants of the room looked over as Maria Ross pushed open the wooden door with a creak, "Sorry guys, are we interrupting?"

"Hi Brigitte," Al beamed, looking at who accompanied the lieutenant, and received a light wave in response.

"I think someone's bored," Maria patted her hand down on Brigitte's shoulder, deliberately addressing Izumi, "I'm wondering how tied up Al is, and if he wants to give a shot at entertaining her for the afternoon."

"Yes, I can!" his chirp was suddenly silenced by the blank expression his teacher buried him beneath, "… if it's alright for me to go?"

After pausing the room, Izumi eventually gave a careless shrug of her shoulders as she looked harmlessly over to Ms. Ross, "Sure, I'm sure his head needs something else to chew on for a while. He might explode if we keep on this much longer."

"Thank you!" Al chirped, coming out of his seat and making his way over to Brigitte. He grinned, took her by the hand and tugged her out of the room behind Maria.

The officer watched the two children disappear into the second floor of the hotel before turning her growing curiosity back to Izumi, "How's it going?"

Izumi scoffed at the question. She rolled her eyes and dropped a heavy, worn-out look over the lieutenant's head that didn't require any verbal response from the teacher beyond the 'ugh' she gave.

With a few final words from Hess, and the clap of his hands at the centre of the Thule Hall, the congregation was joyfully told to break for the Christmas holiday weekend. The receptions held before and after Christmas were always a little lighter than any other. Round table discussions were held about holiday plans, family members, gift ideas and which relative would be the most dreaded to show up. Hohenheim always took the moment to share with everyone how Karl Haushofer paled at the idea of his mother-in-law and her family showing up to ruin the season. The statement always drew a laugh because the senior Haushofer never denied the fact that he couldn't wait for the crotchety old woman to pass on. This year, as he did the prior year, he gave a warning to his son that if the words spoken in this hall were ever mentioned to his mother, the boy would find himself drowned at the bottom of the North Sea.

The only snag to the evening, as far as Hohenheim was concerned, was the late arrival of Adolf and the delighted introduction Hess gave him. Never missing an opportunity, the devilish man always took these moments to preach his position to all the ears he could gather, and everyone seemed to eat him up. Strangely enough, anytime he arrived, the members would always be instructed to never make mention of his presence in the hall, ever.

Even after the evening dismissal, the gathering lingered for quite some time, all of them amused and delighted by the cake someone's wife had prepared for the meeting. Christmas cake couldn't be had without drinks to wash it down, so a number of the men remained long after they normally would have.

"Professor!" a young man's voice called out.

In the middle of a rowdy conversation with any ear that would entertain his banter, Hohenheim's attention was diverted.

Coming up to his side, the young Albrecht Haushofer grinned ear to ear with a juvenile and foolish smile, "I have to thank you, Sir."

The sudden statement completely confused Hohenheim, "I'm sorry Son, what am I being thanked for?"

"For not objecting," his sheepish grin continued to glow.

Still confused, Hohenheim's eyes canvassed all four corners of his visual plane in thought before a few passing ideas seemed to connect, "Oh that!" he started to laugh, "Edward mumbled something to me in passing that you showed up after dinner last night and asked Winry to a Christmas Party?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I did," quite proud of himself for the accomplishment, the young man had no intention of denying that, "so thank you for not objecting. I'm glad to say all the English classes my father forced on me actually seemed beneficial for a change."

Grinning, Hohenheim patted the young man on the shoulder, "I am not that girl's father, so I don't have a veto in her life. So, if she's confident enough in herself to go out with you for a party, I don't see why she can't go out a bit," playfully, Hohenheim's expression darkened and his voice took on a deep undertone, "but let me warn you, if Winry comes home in any less of a condition than she left in, it won't be me you'll be dealing with."

"Yes, I've already been warned," Albrecht rolled his eyes, his words sticking with disgust, "I'm to be stripped naked and strung upside down by my ankles in a desert. I will have my fingers cut off so I may I slowly bleed to death or be picked apart by scavengers as I boil in the sun."

Hohenheim cleared his throat, quickly stripping the perturbed reaction from his eyes, "I see."

A voice from behind the group rose up, and the pair's attention fell to Adolf as he walked up, arms folded and brow raised, to join the group, "I find that an admirable quality of your son, Professor, that he's so conscientious of the foreign girl."

Hohenheim's expression remained stagnant, "Welcome to the man of the hour."

"Man of the month," Albrecht corrected, "Professor, you missed all the fun while you were off being a continental traveler."

"If I recall, Professor," the most powerful man in the room drew up his voice, "I did request you attend the election and you were unfortunately not in town for my ascension," his tone fell a little, almost toying and whimsical, "I haven't had a chance to tell you how disappointed I am that circumstances have kept you at a distance. You constantly seem out of reach."

Sighing, Hohenheim kept his composure calm and collected amidst the congregation, "Yes, Adolf, and I have told you, I do not involve myself in politics any longer. I teach young minds ways to expand, and that's all I'm interested in."

"Ah yes, and at that, I think we should have a discussion, Professor," Adolf's hand rose to Hohenheim's shoulder and the man turned his attention to the young Haushofer, "If you'll excuse us, Albrecht."

At Adolf's prompting, both he and Hohenheim turned over opposite shoulders and stepped away from the younger Haushofer without objection.

With the only exchange between them for a few moments being the echo of the soles of their shoes on the cement floor, Adolf's cold words rose up from between carefully placed footsteps, "I was under the impression that your interest in young minds was never for procurement, rather quite the opposite."

"What do you want?" Hohenheim's low voice was harsh and forthright.

Adolf responded, sounding bored and aloof, "Why did you return to Germany?"

Hohenheim's gaze narrowed, eyeballing the man of smaller stature, "Because someone tempted my son with a taste that I had no hope of washing from his mouth."

"Did you try using soap? Bleach perhaps?" he laughed at his own statement. A hint of curiosity and intrigue tingled in Adolf's voice, "I do believe, before his right arm was lost again, you'd sent your son searching for something particular," the walking pace slowed the further they moved from the general crowd, "a bottle of wine, wasn't it?"

"Yes, and you know as well as I do, that brand of wine doesn't exist. Isn't it odd that you would know that Trisha and I drank a brand wine that doesn't exist anywhere in Europe?" stopping, Hohenheim's arms pulled up and folded across his chest, "do you enjoy having that voice in your head telling you odd things, Adolf?"

Snorting, the man's grew a sneer into his face, "I haven't any voices in my head, Professor."

Chuckling and struggling to hide his distain in the darkness of the far reaches of the hall, Hohenheim cast his gaze over the man who strove to be king, "Indeed, you don't. You have a cancerous tumour growing in your mind, feeding you ideas, passing on thoughts in your sleep, while its voice remains dormant. It's smart: if it directly conversed with you, like it had with Reinert, you'd probably outcast it for fear of lunacy."

The frozen gazes the men held each other in were complimented by the winter chill that was so hard to chase from this occult gathering place.

Adolf shifted his posture, flattening his tone to near disregard, and diverting attention to the previous topic, "Yes, your wife and two children that you abandoned, like you abandoned the prior family you had. I've learnt a lot of things in the last while, Hohenheim – about things, places, and people," his attention lifted, sounding somewhat fascinated by his own words while his eyes sliced into the dwindling crowd mingling in the hall, "I've learnt about man and how man's will can be tempered, channelled and directed; how they are much like sheep. I have been shown that I have the potential to be prolific, and how I have a way with not only my actions, but my voice as well, to lead. I have been made aware of so much potential within myself and I have never before felt so empowered," with a fierce change in his tone, Adolf returned to addressing the ancient man before him, "I've also learnt a lot about you. Every day that passes by, you become more transparent to me and I can feel the hate bred from an unnamed envy grip my soul. I've come to despise you and everything around you for no reasons I could have ever come to know about on my own. Logically, I should find your motives and idiosyncrasies you do in this Germany commendable, but I do not. Right down to the most insignificant aspect of my being, I despise you."

His expression unchanged, Hohenheim responded promptly to the nerve-rattling statement, "If logic is telling you that something is wrong, perhaps you should listen to what you know in your heart is right."

The man laughed, much louder than he'd planned, giving the odd indication to the interested persons watching the engagement that the conversation was not as dark as it appeared, "Oh no, Hohenheim, I am not done using this tapped resource."

The old man snorted, accepting how futile this conversation would be, "It's using you, Adolf. Don't kid yourself on that fact."

"I can expel it at any point," the man's crass voice became low, but intensely shrill as it tore strips through the darkening corner, "it is here with me because I allow it to be!"

Hohenheim's voice never rose as he spoke with clear, melancholy truth to his words, "That's true; you can expel that sin if you chose, but envy for the world is a poison that will destroy you over time."

"Something you are acutely aware of," the tactless voice bit back, irritated by Hohenheim's disinterest in a verbal sparring match, "I certainly hope Winry enjoys the Christmas party I'm hosting tomorrow night."

There was poignant a moment of silence at Hohenheim's sudden recognition of what had just been said. His eyes shot towards the figure already walking away from him, drilling through the back of the man's skull who did not bother to look back at him, "Your what?"

Adolf raised a dismissive hand as he stepped back in to join the social gathering, "Have a Merry Christmas, Professor."

A debate was raging on in everyone's absence. All the adults had other things to do this evening and none of those things involved either Alphonse or Brigitte. So, the two children engaged in a fierce, mostly silent, debate. Which number was more important for this childish engagement: seven or eight? Alphonse narrowed an eye at his own questioning thought.

"Can I have six?" Brigitte asked.

Alphonse raised a finger to correct her, "Do you have a six."

Begrudgingly, the girl repeated, "Do you have a six?"

"No, go fish," Al grinned.

"Stupid boy!" souring her face to an extreme, Brigitte threw a stray card at him, "making me repeat myself when I didn't have to. I don't care if my English is bad. I don't even like English!"

"Sorry," completely understanding the reason behind the card being thrown, Alphonse laughed at her reaction before straightening himself out with the serious inquisition of his playing hand resuming, "… Do you have an eight?"

Brigitte's grin beamed with hints of deception, and she was delighted to say: "No, go fish."

Al narrowed an eye at her, the pair sitting at the center of the king sized bed in the bedroom, "Are you lying?"

She pursed her lips, slitting her eyes as she shuffled her focus between Alphonse and her cards, "I think you think I'm lying…" her eyes shifted hastily from left to right, trying to decide how to proceed. The moment her gaze snuck into the right corner, the girl's head swung and her eyes flew open wide at what she saw in the hotel room window. Dropping her cards, Brigitte began to slide herself to the other end of the bed.

Leaning in to look at the cards she'd dropped, Al picked up one she'd discarded, "You lied! You DO have an eight!"

Brigitte slapped her left hand down over the bed repeatedly as she spoke, "Al! Al! Al!" she continued with his name until he looked to her. The moment she had his attention, her finger swung to the window and her voice chirped, "What?"

Turning, Alphonse began to sit up straighter, his shoulders stiffening as he looked into the face staring in from their second floor window, "… W-wrath?"

The young homunculus clung to the window's edge, his wide eyes looking into the room wondrously, "Hi, can I play?"

"No," Al answered abruptly, sweeping the cards into a pile at the centre of the bed, "What are you doing here?"

Pulling himself into the room, the golem's rusted AutoMail clattered through the window's frame as he fell in and landed square on his backside. Entirely unfazed by his actions, Wrath's fascinated grin flew wide, as did his eyes, when he raised his head in awe at the hotel room, "Wow, nice room. Who sleeps in here! You two or other people?"

Brigitte slid herself up onto her knees, sitting up taller so she could see the thing sitting on the floor. She would have assumed something with a metal arm and metal leg like that would frighten someone, but Alphonse didn't seem as frightened by this as she was, and she couldn't figure out why. It was strangely reassuring.

"Whaaaat?" she drew out, probably the most accurate explanation for her confusion at the moment.

Wrath giggled at her voice, "Your friend is funny!" pushing to his feet, he scampered to the other side of the bed, "I know a lot of people Al knows, but I don't know you!" he grinned for her, and gave an introduction, "My name's Wrath, what's your name?"

Brigitte beamed, having heard enough versions of Wrath's statement, she'd known almost exactly what had been said, "My name is Brigitte!"

Al paled, running a hand through his hair at the cordial introduction going on between the girl from beyond the Gate and the homunculus, "Uh, Wrath, what are you doing here?"

"I came here to see you!" Wrath climbed onto the bed, much to Al's disapproval, "Dante wants me to talk to you about things, but I'm hungry. Do you have food?"

"Dante what?" Alphonse's voice cracked as his eyes widened. Swiftly, he reached out to grab Brigitte's curious hand as she tried to reach out and poke the AutoMail at Wrath's shoulder – he pulled her away. His words were suddenly rushed and came out in a flurry, "tell me what Dante wants and I'll feed you anything I can find."

"Deal!" Sitting up and crossing his legs to sit perfect and proper, the young creature with a black mop of hair grinned with delight at the trade off, "Dante wants you to come and talk to her. Do you remember where the underground city is? You woke up there."

Swallowing hard, Al returned Brigitte's hand and placed it in her lap, sliding up beside her on the bed, separated from the homunculus by a deck of 52 cards, "I remember, a little. Why does she want to talk to me?"

The homunculus spat out information like the words had as little meaning to Alphonse as they did to him, "She wants to talk to you about finding your brother and things beyond the Gate. She said she misses having you around to talk to."

Alphonse moved to give a reply, but stopped himself. Something about how Wrath's statement had come out flared up within his minds eye. He'd never really talked with Aisa…

"Wrath," his words were far more eager than he'd ever expected the question would be, "is Dante shorter than me?"

Wrath narrowed a single eye in thought as he sized up the youngest Elric before him, "Yeah, a lot shorter. Longer hair too," he wound up a chunk of his messed up hair around his index fingers and batted his eyes as best he could, "she does them in braids sometimes, so people thinks she's cuter."

Uncertain if he was supposed to gawk in terror or delight, Al's eventual grin tried to swallow his face and his eyes would have been wider if his cheeks hadn't gotten in the way, "Wrath, I could kiss you!"

The creature made an alternate request, "I'd prefer red stones, please."

Slipping from the far side of the bed to the floor, Alphonse grabbed Brigitte by the hand again and pulled her towards the bedroom door with him, "You stay here and I'll get you an entire buffet!"

The boy's eyes widened with fascination at the prospect of a line-up of food.

Wagging a finger at the homunculus, Alphonse reached for the door handle with his free hand, "I need to get money from Sensei, so I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Oh!" the golem child's eyes suddenly widened, realizing something important he'd forgotten, "it's a secret!"

"What's a secret?" the tips of Al's fingers slipped from the handle as he turned back.

"Dante says that these things are a secret and the adults can't know," wiggling himself off the bed, the young creature twisted his face at the notion, but still dropping his words casually, in a matter-of-fact way, "so if you tell anyone, and if you don't come to visit, you'll ruin the secret, and as punishment Winry will die."

"WHAT?" Alphonse's hand lost the door entirely and his other hand lost Brigitte's grasp, "Dante really does have Winry?"

With a flash of delight, the homunculus's grin flew wide, "AH! You're upset! I get red stones now!"

Wrath bolted from his spot towards the window, Alphonse scrambling after him. Colliding with the creature's legs, Al screamed at him to stop as he wrapped his arms around Wrath's knees. The homunculus took the moment to squeal, joyfully and playfully, as though the entire escapade were only a game. With the might of Winry's mechanical talent, he gave Alphonse a swift kick to the face with the foot of his AutoMail leg. Thrust backwards, the young Elric lost his grip and fell against the side of the bed before hitting the floor. Dazed only for a moment, Al scrambled to his feet, nearly falling out the window as he threw himself half way into the frame, resting on his arms as he frantically looked out, but Wrath was gone.

"No…" Al looked around in every direction he could bend, but continued to see nothing. With a few deep breaths, he finally let go of the window and fell back inside, sliding down the wall beneath the window until he sat on the floor, "No… this just can't…" he mumbled to himself, looking over to Brigitte who continued to stand confused and frozen up next to the frame of the room door. His wide eyes looked at the displaced girl, who was now far more frightened about the events within the room than she had been at any point previously.

Alphonse's hands swept up and ran over his face for a moment before they jetted sharply up into his hair, clenching tightly as his jaw stiffened and arms tensed, "She just can't do that!"

To Be Continued…

Author's Note:

- Reading and reviewing is loved, appreciated, and makes for happy authors :)

- No, I have no plans to cover the expedition to France LOL. Your imagination is free to do whatever you want with it!

- Poor Al. Just can't get ahead.

- I had some fun doodling up a few artworks for this chapter (I have an icon somewhere that screams 'someone has too much time on their hands' – it's aptly appropriate). I've also posted art from prior chapters as well. They're all available in my DeviantArt account. My handle is, always, yuukihikari :)

Comments:

ObsessiveAlchemist – I really enjoy writing Hohenheim :) he's a strong character. And the only kind of father I can picture Ed as (right now, anyways) is bumbling, confused one LOL. Thank you!

Miss Woodford – Winry kinda had short notice for what she was doing, so she didn't have time to go all-out AutoMail style. She kinda ended up giving him something akin to the "spare" she had back home (the spare leg Ed got for a bit in the series when they were back in Rizembool was entirely wooden). Winry took a little from column A, a little from column B, a lot of improvisation, and made something for Ed to stand on :).

S J Smith – I'm glad you enjoyed your read through!