Name: In the Shadow of a Doppelganger
Author: Circular Infinity
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist, animeverse
Summary: Completed One Shot. The world is not your own, the dead are alive and someone is wearing the face of the one you love. Hohenheim and Ed post series. Hints of Hohenheim/Tricia.
Category: Drama/Romance
Rating: PG
Spoilers: The entire anime series up to and including episode 51.
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Fullmetal Alchemist. This is intended for fun and in no way intended for profit. All copyrights belong to their respective owners.
Author's Note: I realize that this is a very short piece, however it was intended to be no more than a moment long.

In the Shadow of a Doppelganger

It was Edward who noticed her from across the street. He halted, too surprised to take the next half-limping step. I paused, planning to ask why he'd stopped, but instead followed the track of his stunned gaze.

A woman walked on the other side of the street, gazing casually in the shop windows as she passed. Her hand was poised gracefully on the arm on the man beside her - obviously her husband - and a little girl of ten or eleven trailed after, a fist curled into the woman's skirt. Clearly well to do, the woman's clothes were fancier than the simple garb that one needed in a country village. Part of me took note of how odd the garments seemed on her, but the rest of me just stopped, stunned still by the unexpected sight.

When I first arrived in this world it was odd enough to awaken and find the face of my second born son. This was beyond strange, beyond the wonderment of calculating the chances, even beyond pain. I felt all the air leave me in an involuntary backwards gasp. I was looking at this world's version of Tricia.

For the first few moments I expected to feel jealousy, but all that came was sorrow. Here she was a wife and a mother, but not my wife and not the mother of my sons. She was alive and with her family. Both things I had never been able to ensure. All I could do was hope that I made her as happy as she could be when I was with her.

Leaving Tricia was something that I regretted the necessity of even as I did it. I could not endanger the ones I loved. Not by bringing them to the attention of a woman seeking the philosopher's stone. Not by showing them what I really was.

Over time - and it had been more time then I'd realized - I had grown used to not waking up beside her. There were many years of reaching for her in my sleep only to wake in heart stopping fright to find her missing, but eventually I stopped. When we first began to share a bed I was surprised how quickly I grew accustomed to it. You would think that an old man like me would be more fixed in his ways, but she made me feel young. She made it seem as if the body she loved was the one that I was actually born with. As if I really was alive. When I was with her I was ageless because we were in love and not because I had stolen another's life to prolong my own.

Suddenly, the woman laughed at something her daughter said and briefly turned her face toward me. Her gaze continued past me without pausing or recognition. I hadn't known that there was that much of my heart left to break.

"She's dead." Edward's voice startled me, causing me to jerk my eyes away from the woman for the first time. In the first voluntary movement he'd made towards me in years, my son reached out and touched my sleeve. "She's dead," he repeated, "and staring at a woman who owns the same face isn't going to bring her back."

I looked down, almost surprised by his harshness. I found a hard determination in his eyes and once again wondered what fate the homunculus he'd created had met. My voluntary ignorance was to protect us both. He didn't want me to ask and I didn't want to know. Perhaps she was living, at least as much as a homunculus can live, in relative peace. Perhaps Edward had had to seal her himself. Perhaps someday I would bring myself to voice my questions. However, it was unlikely. If there was anything I learned from the death of my first son it was that the dead and all their secrets should remain in the grave.

I looked again, searching for her face, but she and her family had moved on down the street. All I could see was her hat and the little girl trailing behind her. I reluctantly turned back to find Edward looking at me with something new in his gaze. Perhaps it was pity. Perhaps understanding. I never wanted any of my sons to know this kind of pain.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go."

I took one final glance down the street. She was gone. Tricia was gone, though I knew she hadn't been there at all. I'd seen her grave, I'd seen the homunculus and now I'd seen her double. She'd deserved life so much more than I. In this world she was able to have it. Perhaps I'd be able to take comfort in that.

Edward was already a few of steps beyond me on the street, but instead of immediately continuing on, he waited for me until I was even with him and then started forward, walking beside me for the first time.

Fin

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