Chapter 1 is a sort of intro and I used the lyrics from Natalie Grant's song "Held" because they fit into this fic nearly perfect. Written between me and my husbandbecause he speaks English andso thisis being translated through him into readable English, so cut our grammar some slack please.

The characters from Fullmetal Alchemist belong to the people that created it and not my self. Hey if they belonged to me then I wouldn't result in writing measly little fan fictions now would I?

Prologue

Equivalent Exchange. The age old concept that one thing can not be obtained with out some sort of sacrifice. But how great can the sacrifice be before man kind raises up to challenge it?

Chapter 1: Held

Two months is too little …They let him go …They had no sudden healing…To think that providence would… Take a child from his mother while she prays…
… Is Appalling

Annaliese picked up the baby and held him in her arms. He was perfect in every way except one. He slept. Annaliese brought the child to her face and kissed his tiny forehead gently and wondered "Is this all that life has to offer?" and still the baby slept with out a single tear or shiver. Annaliese wrapped the child in a knitted blanket she had made for the occasion of her son's birth and pulled a small cap over his bald head and held him gingerly. She wanted him to cry, to scream and need her loving touch; but he still slept in silence with no movement and no mother's call. Annaliese let her tears fall onto the child's small cheeks and let her body shake the baby's as she sobbed tears of want and need. Need for the child she would never watch grow up. The baby slept still in her arms. There was no rise and fall of the gentle breath of slumber and no slow eye movement of dreams. The child was perfectly still. Annaliese had never seen the baby alive and for that she blamed her self. She gently lifted him to her chest once more, and then laid him down on the wicker bassinet next to her birthing bed. Annaliese left a small kiss on the baby's cheek then turned her back on him, never to lay eyes on the lost child again.

Who told us we'd be rescued..? What has changed… and why should we be saved… from nightmares..? We're asking why this happens …To us who have died to live….
…It's unfair…

Hein Decker carried the body of his infant son to the child sized coffin and laid him gently down on the soft bedding within. Hein was careful to support the infant's head like his wife had showed him and was careful to handle the baby with care and love. That is what parents did; they held their children with care and steady hands. He almost felt a faint smile turn the corner's of his mouth but then he remembered; Hein was not a father of a living child. He nodded to him self, trying to remind himself that this boy, the boy he had wanted for so long, was dead. The thought brought Hein to tears, but he knew that the tears he shed could never match those of his wife, Annaliese. She was laying in her bed, tired and guilt ridden from the long labor and tragic stillbirth of their first child. She had labored for 20 hours and Hein had been by her side the whole time, holding her hand tenderly and whispering soothing words into her ear as the pain racked and tormented her body. Hein knew something was wrong but he held his wife and soothed her anguish as best as he could. When the child was born and there was no cry Hein knew it would be the end of a dream he and his wife had held for years past. And now, as he placed the wooden lid on the small coffin, sheltering the baby's face forever from light, he felt all his hopes and dreams for the future wither away and die. Hein's Dreams died with the baby.

This is what it means to be held …How it feels when the sacred is torn from your …life…
…And you survive…

Annaliese watched from her bedside but spoke no words or made no movement. Hein nailed the coffin shut and leaned back as if to observe his work. The coffin looked lonely stting in the one room cabin where the couple lived. And their home was lonely as well. Annaliese was in her mid-fourties and was beyond her prime for childbearing. Hein was a poor farmer and could not afford to pay fees to adopt a child from the city. The day Annaliese found she was pregnant had been both a godsend and a last grace for the couple that had been childless for so long. But Annaliese had been ill throughout the pregnancy. She was already a sickly woman but being with child took an unusually large toll on her body. She had been bedridden for months. But all was well. This was goig to be their miracle child. Annaliese stared at the coffin with her eyes empty.

"Hein."

Her coarse voice managed to say. Hein looked up from the coffin at his wife and spent no time rushing to her. He knelt beside the bed and took up his wife's hand.

"Hein, I'm sorry."

Annaliese whispered to her husband. Dread overcame Hein's face and he took his wife into his arms, and burried his face into her nightgownd. The smell of sweat mixed with the fragrance of Rose petals filled Hein's senses with love as he cradled his wife next to his heart. She had no reason in the world to ask for forgiveness. Hein wanted to tell her this but no words could to found in his hear to explain his feelings. Annaliese continued with a steady flow of tears running down her cheeks.

"For not being able to bring you the son you so desprately wanted. We needed that boy to work on the farm when you got older and to carry on the family name. I wasn't strong enough to give you that child and I know that now you think less of me."

Annaleise said. Think less of her? Hein thought the world of his wife and much more. He wanted to bring her to his face and whisper words of love and forgiveness into her ears. He wanted to proclaim his love to her and share his sorrow, but Hein remained silent.

"I shall no longer be the same woman now that we have lost the only child we were ever able to concieve. I have been a useless wife and for that I am truly sorry."

Hein tightened his grip on Annaliese. His wordlessness was his own way of showing his sorrow, even in a time when words were needed. Hein just Held Annaliese to him hoping his actions would speak the words he could not manage.

"I should have been the one that died. All these years my weakness has been a burden on you. I should be dead and our child should have lived. I love you Hein. Will you say nothing to me? "

Annaliese broke back into silent tears and pushed her husband away from her. In her mind he had rejected her as a wife and lover. Annaliese laid her head back onto the pillow and turned her back to the world.

This is what it is to be loved…And to know that the promise was… When everything fell..

...We'd be held ...

Hein lost everything the day his infant son died. The child had no name and so the stone where the boy was laid to rest simply read: Baby Decker. Weeks past and a dark cloud decended over the home of Hein and Annaliese. Anniliese never moved from her bed, never spoke never made eye contact with Hein or anyone else that came to try and lift Annaliese from her shell. She grew thing and pale and her hair and body fell into disrepair. She looked like death. Hein had lost his child and was now loosing his only real love.

Hein sat on the grass before his son's grave half a year after his death and looked out at the horizon. It was a calm place under an oak tree with a view of the western setting sun. Hein sat in the grass and ran his fingers over the soft green blades. It was a little over grown where the grave met the ground but soft none the less. Hein sat next to the small stone after hours of working on his little farmstead. Sometimes he brought with him stories from his childhood to share with the tiny headstone, other times he brought memories of better times. But this day he brought saddness and grief to the little stone of refuge. The grass and dirt next to the little stone had been cleared away and was prepaired to receive another body. Hein lifted his head to the clouds and let out an exasperated cry to the heavens.

"WHY?"

He yelled. Hein didn't want to return home for his wife's body was resting like a distant ghost on her bed; Shrived and worn away by the clutches of grief and loss. Hein didn't know what to do, how to think, what word to say to bring his wife back from the grave. She had laid ill since the death of her son and Hein had said nothing to comfort her, nothing to ease her sorrows. Annaliese had died because Hein had said nothing. He lost everything the day his son had died; not only the child itse;f, but the mother who had bore him.


This hand is bitterness …We want to taste it, let the hatred ……NUMB Our Sorrow …
…The wise hands opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow…

"I'm sorry sir, we have no work here. You might want to try the Military employee Aide office over on Twelth Street. I hear they are hiring janitors or something. If you have a strong back and a nack for hard work I'm sure you'll do just fine."

Hein nodded and pulled up his coat collar. He had been turned down from jobs all day and now he was exhausted and put out and all he wantd to do was drink the pain and sorrows away. Hein had been out of a job since his wife had passed away and Hein had left his little Farm Stead in the country for the big city of Cenetral where he thought he could escape the ghostly memories of his once happy life. The city had little to offer and Hein had fallen into dispair. He slept at bars too drunk to move, scaming alcohol off of others and money when he could. Hein had become a bitter man, one who had the tale of loosing everything and life to cicumstance.

Hein stiffened his shoulder and trudged his way thorugh the streets of central. It was raining that day, the perfect backdrop to fit Hein's dismal mood. He hadn't had a drink or set foot in a bar for over a day and it was beginning to irratate him. Hein didn't really want a job or a life but the people at the homeless shelter where Hein sometimes live said they were going to give him hell if he returned jobless the next time he couldn't find a bar that would put up with him for a night. So Hein was in a rut and it was a depressing one. He slowly made his way through the rain towards the Military Employee Aide Office at the center of the city. Maybe his luck would change that day but Hein didn't keep his hope risen to a high enough standard. The people at this office would probably smiled and turn him away like so many had before. Hein just had to make it his same old routine and come out empty-handed. He was a washedout man with nothing to gain and nothing to lose. Hein often repeted this to himself and it knocked him down time after time. .

If hope is born of suffering… If this is only the beginning …Can we not wait for one hour Watching for our Savior?

Hein found the building just as the rain began to fall harder from the sky. He stood in front, hesitating to enter the building He had no idea that this was going to be the day where fate brought him what little luck he could muster and reawaken an old gift Hein forgot he possessed: Alchemy.

When the sacred is… Torn from your life… and you survive…The promise was…

…when everything fell…we'd be…Held…

Author's Note: Next chapter we enter Edward and The gang as they help their old Friend back into flow of life. Hein takes the Alchemy exam and passes with flying colours, but for what purpose?