Chapter fifty-nine: Heartbreaking flashbacks

Connie coughed. "Daddy? Don… DONNA!"

Donna coughed. "I'm here, sister! I'm here!"

"Where? I can't see you! I can't see anything!" Connie cried. The room was full of smoke that hung heavily in the air.

"Connie! Donna!"

"Daddy!" The girls called unanimously. "Where are you?"

Connie felt a hand grasp her ankle. It was big, and warm. "Daddy! Is that you?"

"Yes. Where's your sister?"

Nigel felt a tiny hand wrap around his finger. "Donna?" He stood up, coughing. The smoke began to clear. He could see the faint forms of his two daughters below him. "Girls! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." They both said.

The smoke cleared away. "Oh, good God." Nigel muttered. His two daughters looked exactly alike, with blood red hair that fell to their ankles in two knotted heaps. "What have I done…"

"What do you mean, daddy?" Connie asked. She looked at her sister. "OH GOD!"

"Eek! Connie!" Donna pointed. "Your hair!"

"YOUR hair!"

Nigel's wife rushed downstairs. "Nigel! What…" Her gaze fell on Connie and Donna, then lifted in anger to Nigel. "Nigel Tommy, what have you done?"

"I… I do not know…"

END FLASHBACK

"Those were the good old days." Coniniaue sighed, after writing all of this down. "We were a tight family. My father kept researching how to get Connie and Donna back. Because he wanted us to be different, he renamed us Coniniaue and Dominique."

"That's… Mean…" He sighed. "So what happened next?"

"Well, mom and dad went to work as doctors and automail technicians for the Ishbal war and died. When the news reached us…"

FLASHBACK

Dominique sat up in bed, looking at the nearby clock. Three in the morning. "Coniniaue, what are you doing?" She asked when she noticed her sister packing her bags.

"I'm leaving, Dominique." Coniniaue replied coldly. She was packing her clothes into a bag. "I'm going to join the military and avenge my parents' death."

"Coniniaue, you are far too young! You're thirteen!"

"Yeah, but I'm an accomplished alchemist. I heard they accepted a twelve year old boy as a state alchemist, Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist." She replied. She pulled out a pistol from her back and shoved in the bullets, holstering it at her hip.

"Daddy's gun…"

"For protection."

Dominique was devastated. "So you're leaving me here? All alone?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. Please, please say you will come with me to Central City?"

"…No. It was your choice to even go for this job, and I don't want to follow. I'm going to stay and protect our village, whether you like it or not!"

"Suit yourself, Dominique. Love you." Coniniaue pulled the back pack onto her back and left the room, the house, the city, the county. She left Dominique's life once and for all.

…Or so they both thought.