"You were probably too young to remember when I left to Central." The doctor said.

"I remember it." Ed said, his eyes remaining on the mechanical fingers that still gripped his wrist.

Maenz nodded once. "I said that I had heard about a new treatment I was interested in and that is why I left Rizenbool."

"You lied." Ed inferred.

"Yes." The doctor said with the hint of a smile that wasn't really a smile at all on his lips, "I lied. I had been called to Central by a personal letter signed by the Fuhrer himself. I was intrigued by the proposal, but it was more than mere scientific interest. The letter spoke of alchemy and I was interested in the alchemy it spoke of. When I left Rizenbool I was still practicingalchemy. When I left I still had my own two arms. Do you remember that?"

Ed shook his head. "I thought you had always had automail."

The line between the doctor's eye-brow creased, "Of course not." The doctor suddenly released Ed and raised that glinting arm high overhead. Ed followed that arm as though it were a terrible bird high above. "I was not born with automail, of course. What else do you remember about when I left?"

"Mom and the old man were there...Al, too...They said bye to you and Pinako and Winry's parents did, too..." Ed paused, "That was a really long time ago."

"Don't say it like that. You sound too old."

"It was a long time ago. Nothing's like that anymore..."

The doctor shook his head. "Do you remember a woman with red hair?"

"Red hair?" Ed said and his eyes turned distant as he tried to remember.

"A woman with red hair down her back. A smile that made you feel good no matter what. Beautiful and wonderful. That woman with red hair. Do you remember her?" Ed suddenly hesitated, his eyes widened and he nodded.

"Who was she?"

The doctor lowered his arm. "My wife. The mother of my children..."

"You don't have any children..."

The doctor continued to speak as if he hadn't heard Ed, and perhaps he hadn't, "My love," he said, "My Greta and the reason that I left to Central, the reason I lost my arm, the reason I have never done alchemy again, the reason I lost everything that mattered to me."

Ed went silent. He listened to the doctor speak and noted the growing emotion in his voice and felt his heart begin to hurt. Ed knew very well what the doctor was feeling. He suddenly didn't want to hear anymore, he didn't want to feel anymore. He just wanted Al to come home...He just wanted Al...

Outside, the rain continued and in the distance, unnoticed by doctor or patient, a light came on in a house not too far away and a boy who was no longer a boy pulled aside the curtain, a cat cradled in his arms.

"You have never been to Central, have you Edward? Of course not. Trisha would never take you there. It would remind her too much of your father. But, I think you would love Central, Edward. There is life everywhere. It is a big city and that is how big cities are. It took my breath away to be there and for such a purpose...I was such a fool.

"I told you that the Fuhrer himself had summoned me and he did. It surprised me until he told me he had heard of my bid to become a State Alchemist. You've heard of State Alchemists, haven't you, Edward?"

Ed shook his head, he wasn't looking at the doctor.

"I failed the test, of course, but the Fuhrer had heard of a certain submission of mine, a paper I had written on human transmutation." Ed looked up at that and Maenz met his eyes. In the darkness of the room, Maenz noticed how bright Ed's eyes were. "Yes, Edward. Human transmutation. You never knew that about me, did you?"

"No." Ed said quietly.

"It is how I became such close friends to your father. You must have read some of his papers on the subject? I imagine were I to check the array you chose I would find that it came from those papers, didn't it? Of course it did. This is Rizenbool and Rizenbool is not Central. Where else could you have read up on human transmutation besides your father's papers? Unless, your master..."

"No." Ed said immediatley.

The doctor smiled. "Yes. Well, Edward, you see, I am the one who researched that array. It took me five years and even in that time, I never perfected it. Your father told me that it was close, but would never work as it was...he said I was missing something that an array could never provide. I didn't believe him... As you can see...But that is why I was called..."

"Why...?"

"What's that?"

"Why did you research it? Why did you even start to make that thing?"

"Why?" The doctor's face grew long, "Why indeed? Edward. You remember I told you I had children? I did. I had two. Twins. Now I have none...Do you understand now why I tried...?"

"You tried to bring them back."

The doctor sighed. "Yes. And no. Greta had always stopped me from trying. She knew alchemy, although she rarely performed it. Preferred to do things like a normal human being...She refused to let me try and Hoenheim...your father always seemed to know when I was about to attempt it. He caught me several times right before I was about to do the deed. I'm afraid when I left to Central I hated him."

"I can understand that." Ed said seriously, gravely.

"But I should have listened to them and I should never have gone to Central, but you see...although Greta forbade me from trying, it was her who most missed our children. She cried when she thought I couldn't hear her or see her. In the end, I think I tried not in spite of her, but because of her...And in the end, no matter how you look at it, I made a terrible mistake that cost me far more than an arm."

Ed wasn't sure why he asked. He had been certain he didn't want to hear this story, certain that he would not like its end, certain he didn't like its beginning, and yet, he asked, nonetheless, "What happened?"

The doctor looked out the window and his real hand touched the false one. It tapped on metallic-alloyed fingernails with a strange, hollow sound, like rain falling on a tin roof. "Nothing...at first...it was going so well...Back then, the military was still marching into Ishbal and there were rumors that that army was after more than a "misguided" people. There were whispers they were after a magic stone."

"A "magic stone"?"

"A stone that would make Equivalent Exchange obsolete. It was a rumor, but, I believe it was the truth."

"Why?"

"It doesn't matter. That isn't part of this story. What is is that because of that war, there was a need for a particular kind of research. After all, human transmutation, would, in the end, mean an army that could never be killed, never destroyed. I worked on that for more than a year. I worked myself nearly to death and to the edge of sanity. I was prepared to give it all up because to me it wasn't a matter of armies or politics. What do I care about anything in the world when all that matters to me is gone? And then, Greta came to see me in Central." The doctor paused and it seemed suddenly that he had changed his mind, that he would not tell this story, but something in Ed's face convinced him and he continued, but his voice had turned dull, brittle, the careful words of a man who tries to present tragedy and horror as objective fact, "I never knew she was coming...if I had known...I never would have done it."

"What?"

The doctor paused, then turned to Ed, "I never would have brought them back, my children...Lian, Jen...I never would have brought them back."

TBC...