Alright, I know I haven't updated in a long time. I say blame my boyfriend XD. It's all his fault, always. I got lectured on how I ignored all my friends and responsibilities to be with him. I have to say that I'm incredibly sorry, and here's the incredibly short update to chapter 8 (?).

Is he Gone?

"Where's The Colonel?" Ed demanded as he entered the house, brushing passed Riza and staring in wonder. Winry looked to the child in her arms taking a deep breath as she faked a smile to Riza.

"He's sleeping; he's been working a lot lately. What do you need, Ed? Besides what happened…I mean, how did it happen?" It wasn't often that Riza had to stop and think of what she was going to say, but now that everything had fallen from her grasp, she felt hopelessly lost.

Winry looked over to Ed with a questioning glance, smiling lightly as the child calmed and began to sleep.

"Umm…how about you two come in and have a seat? Roy should be up soon, so you can talk to him later…" Riza whispered to them. Gently taking the child from Winry's arms, she laid him into the crib for her unborn baby, and then looked back to Ed and Winry. Smiling a bit, still confused, she pulled away a chair for herself as Ed helped Winry. Winry kissed his hand lightly with a bit of a smile.

"See, Riza, the reason why we didn't ask for your help was because it's an alchemy problem, and as far as we know you don't know alchemy." Ed whispered a bit.

Riza nodded lightly, her hair falling over her shoulders. "This is true, however my daughter and sister can. My sister is an ice alchemist…Dallas…she's a sweet girl if you can find her. Jasmine is more of a healer, but it's still an alchemist. I know that probably doesn't help…"

Ed sighed and looked to Winry, then to the child in the corner. "No, probably not. See, Winry and I decided to find a way to get Al from that suit of armor and still keep his soul intact…but we messed up somewhere…"

"Yeah, we…Ed put a line where he should have put a squiggle line. Who would have thought that was all it took to mess up an array?" Winry added with mild humor. Riza sighed and folded her hands, leaning against the table a bit. "So he went back and tried to fix it but it was too late, he'd already initiated the circle…"

"By the time we got to fix it, we'd already lost Al. In a last minute panic I made another array and captured his soul, but unfortunately we weren't fast enough…" Ed mumbled under his breath as Winry hit him in the side.

"HE caught Al's soul, but we had nothing to bind it to, so we used…" She sighed and looked down, looking up as Roy entered the room, rubbing his eyes, with a very sleepy Jazmine in his arms. Winry then immediately silenced and looked to the table.

"…We couldn't find something to bind his soul to, so we bound it to our unborn son…" Riza blinked her eyes wide as she coughed lightly to hide her distraction.

"I thought that was impossible? I thought you couldn't bind a soul to a living human being…?" Roy asked as he made his way over to Riza's side, sitting beside her and taking her hand, holding onto it.

"Well, technically it is, but since our baby died, we decided to use him as a force to hold him…" Pointing over toward the small child they carried along with them, he sighed. "So in a sense, Al is now our son…"

Winry looked down a bit, thinking about it absently. "Please don't say that, I don't want to think about my closest friend being my son."

Roy sighed, laughing a bit as Riza looked to him seriously. Ed blinked his eyes fiery. "What are you laughing at, Colonel Shit?"

Roy sighed and looked to Ed. "Relax Bean. I'm sure Alex can help; he's good with that kind of thing. If all his soul is bonded to is another being, Alex can find a way to bring him back."

Winry looked up to Roy smiling a bit as she then became serious. "It wouldn't matter; he'd still be a little child. He's barely even two months old; he's got to learn everything all over again."

Riza sighed and looked down with a nod. "True, but at least he can have both "parents" now…I mean, he did lose his before, and so did you Edward. At least now he can have what you didn't."

Ed nodded, looking to Riza with a sigh. "Yes, but he's still my brother. I'll never be able to look at him again without being ashamed. He's done everything for me, and I let him down. How do you tell your little brother that you failed him again? How do you tell your son that he's your brother? How do you do it, Riza? How do you tell people all these horrible things and keep a straight face?"

Jazmine looked to Roy then her mother with a blink. "What serious things, momma?" Roy brushed back Jazmine's hair with a sigh.

"Nothing, baby. Momma can't tell you right now." Ed looked up at them, Winry blinked, her eyes wide as she stared at Roy.

"Are you afraid to tell your daughter that you're a murderer? That you slaughtered my parents in cold blood? That you didn't even once say sorry to me for it?" Ed wrapped his arms around Winry and drew her into a hug to calm her down. "You murdered my parents, you murdered many innocent Isvalens, and none of them did anything to you."

Riza glanced up, glaring at Winry with cold eyes. "If we were given orders, we were to keep them. If we didn't keep them they would have executed us on the spot. Not that either of us had anything to live for. You think we don't think about it, Winry? You think we don't regret everything we did in the military? You think he doesn't have nightmares over his decision? He hasn't even slept in nearly a month, Winry, he's constantly thinking about what he did to you."

Ed looked to Winry sighing softly. "Excuse her, she's had a rough time, Riza, she's going to be a bit testy for a while…especially since we just lost our son. We're coping as best as we can, though."

Jazmine climbed from her dad's lap and went over to Winry, hugging her gently. Winry smiled and hugged back. "Thank you…but…who are you?"

Jazmine smiled and pointed over to Riza. "I'm her daughter, Jazmine. I won't hurt you, I promise." Winry nodded and looked to Roy.

"How can we find Alex…?"

I won't make any promises on Update information, but I'll try to make it consistant. Thank you for reading. – Jazmine.