A/N: EDIT--Changed my mind, it won't officially be a series on my interpretation of Greed's history; still, this drabble...yeah, still on his past.

Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist does not belong to me; if it did, I wouldn't be here writing a ton of FMA fanfiction, but a ton of FMA scripts. (Oh, if only...)

Drabble 4: Remembrance the First

Greed's human mother had been Ishbalan. How she had ever fallen into bed with an alchemist like himself, Hoenheim never could figure out. Likewise, he could never truly rationalize how he had fallen in with her--no, she had a name. Ariel. Petname Ari. Yes, that was one of the things he had liked about her, the way her name rolled down his tongue, just as well as her body did. And there were the comfortable silences too; in all his years since murdering her, Hoenheim never found anyone else he could be comfortably quiet with. Perhaps that stemmed from the fact that she had been the most quiet person he had ever met. Dante was sultry loud, Trisha blissfully at a normal volume, but Ari...Ari nothing but quiet ice in Amestris winter.

Even during delivery, there had been a total lack of screams, which ruined his carefully constructed plan of standing stoically in the hall, when instead he ended up tightly gripping Ari's dark hand as he kneeled by her. Odd, how Hoenheim can still clearly go back to that hospital room of tan adobe stone, and smell all the sweat and blood and sand; it was only blurry recollection with Edward and Alphonse, and a dismal black hole of forgetfulness with the child Envy had been...

Yes, there had been no screams, save for the baby's. The doctor, despite muttering before under his breath about giving birth to a lousy half-breed, held the infant quite gently and protectively. Without thinking, Hoenheim had held out his arms for his son; again, that had not been part of the plan, Ari was to hold the child first--

"He is Nicholas."

Hoenheim nodded numbly, humbled by both mother's authority and son's impossibly wide crimson eyes; Greed had been the only son he had not named...and in a way, even as a sin, he was still very much Nicholas. In the aftermath of many experiments, the ancient man still could not understand why that was so with his boy.

A/N: Meh, what can I say, I'm just fascinated with the idea of Greed once being Ishbalan. I hope Ariel turned out well, and not Mary-Sueish; if she doesn't strike anyone as Mary-Sueish, hopefully that will continue on, since she will appear a bit more in the future. (Greed's human mom just had to be an oc, since there's no mention of her at all in the anime or manga...it's up to fanfiction to imagine what she's like.) Also, I've mostly heard second-hand info on how Greed was the ex-husband of Dante, but that's about it; I'll think I'll use that eventually, but add my own twist to it. And, Hoenheim as Greed's human father was inspired by some FMA manga I read on the Internet involving Greed and Hoenheim, as well as a fic by Sinister Tomato called Graves in the Snow, i.e. another bit of suggested reading. Oh yeah, hope everyone noticed the "murdered my sorta-girlfriend" bit from Hoenheim; that is sooo gonna be elaborated later.