~.~

-THE OUTSIDER-

by Iland Girl

'for those in search of home.'

A Fullmetal Alchemist Fanfiction

I don't own anybody but Erin... for now...

Chapter One: Just One of Those Days...

"There is the solitude of suffering, when you go through darkness that is lonely, intense, and terrible. Words become powerless to express your pain; what others hear from your words is so distant and different from what you are actually suffering."
― John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom.

"Did you hear? She got kicked out of her last school."

"I heard she started a huge fight and punched a guy out."

"Really? She's so tiny! As if she could."

"Wait, you guys don't know?"

"Know what?"

"Her face… haven't you seen it?"

I slammed my book shut before slowly turning to look at the students huddle at the back of the library. A single glance from me and the group huddled closer with their backs to me. I looked away before gathering my things and leaving. The bell for lunch was going to ring soon anyways.

School was busy as all the other high school students shuffled off to their next classes. I was no different, falling into line with others as we wandered into our next classrooms. Most people thought sitting at the back was the best place to be ignored, but it wasn't true. That was where the teachers looked to most. If you sat at the front by the door they almost never looked at you. It was where I always sat.

The gossiping gaggle was behind me, and I could hear them muttering under their breath even as the teacher continued to explain quadratics. Simple stuff really, I was already ahead of the curve with my studies, and the only reason I sat in class was because attendance was part of our grade.

"What were you saying? Her face?"

They were starting again.

"Yeah, haven't you seen it?"

I tensed, my shoulders locked up as I slowly lost focus on the white board in front of me.

"I dunno, she might be hot if she brushed her hair once in a while."

"No! The other side! It's all-"

WHAM!

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" I asked after spinning around to slam my hand onto one of the girl's desks. She stared up at me, and had I not slammed my hand down and quieted the room she might not have heard me speak.

I did not shout, I didn't have to. Instead I let my hatred poor into my eyes as I looked at her. She wasn't much to look at, and to be honest if her voice wasn't so nasally I might've been able to ignore her, but dammit she was pissing me off.

Her eyes went from stunned, to completely shocked when her eyes scanned my face.

"Take a good look, make a portrait for me why don't you?" I said in an equally low tone.

"Erin Lallier! That is enough!" My teacher snapped. I didn't really care that she had just scolded me in front of the entire class. I wasn't here because I was trying to make pals. I was here to learn, but I wasn't even doing that apparently.

"Fuck it." I said under my breath before rising from my chair and grabbing my things. My teacher spluttered after me, trying to stop me from going anywhere.

"Young lady! There is no excuse for this behaviour! To the principles office!" She scolded me, so I turned my glare on her instead.

I don't know what she saw in my eyes, but it was enough to make her shut up. Probably took pity on me somehow, at least that was what I thought.

"I know my way." I said again before wandering off down the hall to spend the remainder of my day in the office. I liked the secretary, which was sort of funny since they had a stigma of being very nosy and rude. She was actually quite friendly and polite in an honest fashion. Which was why when I took my usual seat in the waiting room Joanne never spared me more than a glance. She knew it was me and knew I needed a bit of quiet.

After some time she did speak, ever polite and kind to me.

"Should I call home?" She asked, but she already knew the answer. To her surprise, apparently, I let a humourless smile grace my lips.

"Who's going to answer?"

It's not like I was always this way. I like to think I was a clever and very pretty young lady once upon a time. I was popular, I had nice clothes, a big house, a family. I had everything I ever wanted.

Or so I thought.

It's funny how we put life into perspective only after a great change has occurred. We don't connect the dots until it's help up for us to see it. We don't miss something we lost until there's a definite moment that we can't have it back.

I wanted to be Erin Lallier again.

I wanted to be the girl that walked into her school like she owned it. The girl that outwitted adults and tricked her classmates because it was fun. I wanted to be the Erin Lallier that learned to cook with her mom. I wanted my dad to pat my head and tell me how proud he was of me every time that I aced a math test or did advanced homework well beyond what was supposed to be my capacity. I wanted to be the Erin that had a fling but was too good for relationships, who was going to be a lawyer because she could talk her way out of anything in front of her. Who could create elaborate plans to sneak out of the house and not get caught.

I wanted to be her, for every bitchy and rude thing that she did, because she didn't have to face the truth. That without all that to protect her, without all that to cover up the truth was set free.

What was left was an ugly excuse of a human being.

That's right, she can't come back, because that Erin died with her father. That Erin never made it past the horrors that scarred my face. A scar that claimed my right eye and parts of my scalp. A scar that shows everyone the truth, that without that Erin I'm just angry and tired.

She was weak, but so was I.

My house was out in the sub-rural developments of a small city. My father had claimed to have built it from the ground up when he met my mother, but I never got to confirm that before they both died. Now we lived with my Aunt Jenna. We as in my brother and I.

Brayden Lallier, my younger brother. Two years younger than me but twice as snappy. Anyone who met me would think I was an angel compared to him. Granted, he hadn't always been that way. I wasn't the only one to change, though mine was much more abrupt.

Bray used to be a very kind and gentle boy, but after years of the world taking from him I guess he got tired to people taking things away.

We went to different schools because he was in middle school still while I was in high school. He'd be 14 in March, while I had already turned 16 this year in January. We didn't always get along perfectly, but he was my baby brother, like hell I was going to leave him alone in the this.

And in some sad sick way, if I didn't have my brother, I can't say I would've had the strength to simply remain.

Said brother was sitting next to me while I drove us both home in Mom's old beat up sedan. Aunt Jenna had been trying to get us to fix it up, but mechanics were Bray's specialty, and he turned down the idea immediately at the thought of changing anything in that old 90's model.

It groaned and creaked, and honestly I was expecting it to give up on me in the middle of winter. It had been faithful for a short time.

We got home, Aunt Jenna was home too attempting to cook. I say attempt with a finite attitude because while the woman was brilliant with music she was absolutely insane in the kitchen. Often times it left me to do the cooking because if I didn't we would all definitely starve or be living off burned instant noodles.

"What are you doing?" I deadpanned. Aunt Jenna turned to me as I stood in the doorway looking every bit the part of a deer caught in headlights. I said nothing as she jabbered on about her excuses of being hungry and instead eyed the bubbling creation on the stove. It smelled bad, and I wasn't about to ignore one of my few good senses.

"You make it, you eat it." I said before shuffling into the kitchen to clean up her mess. From the weird ingredients sitting on the counter my guess was that she had tried to make soup. I set to make her a proper meal, so that she didn't poison herself, and asked what she was trying to go for.

The soup was made quickly, and we all sat down to an early dinner. Bray wasn't talking much today, and now was no different. Not like he and I spoke much anymore to be honest. Six months and outside of therapy I think we talked about what we wanted for supper. Pretty pathetic if you asked me, but I couldn't think of what to say to him.

What do you say to someone who lost everything you did?

"How was school? Joanne called and said you were in the office a lot." Aunt Jenna said before blowing on her spoon filled with hot soup. I stirred the contents of my bowl, staring at my reflection on the surface. When I didn't speak, Aunt Jenna filled in the blanks and sighed.

"Did you get in trouble again?" She asked in a tone that gave way to the exhausted woman underneath. She didn't ask to be raising her sister's kids, and frankly I didn't blame her for being fed up with us, but in the same breath I hated it. I hated that she even remotely saw us as a burden.

So I snapped back.

"Well forget it then! I guess I'll just drop out of school." I said in a clipped tone before leaving the table. My soup left behind in favour of a hasty exit.

Nobody stopped me, but it wasn't a surprise. Aunt Jenna spent months just trying to get me to eat, then to stop me from leaving the table aggressively. I didn't respond well to being touched and more than once I had nearly smacked her in an attempt to get away. So she stopped making me sit down, stopped trying to make me eat, and part of me was so grateful.

Part of me didn't want her to stop.

I made it to my room and slammed the door. It rattled with the force and wobbled my dresser. A large mirror sat on top of said dresser that once doubled as a vanity for me to twirl around and look at myself in, but now it was covered by a spare blanket. I could see bits of glass dust at the hem of the blanket, giving away the truth of what I had done. If not that, the bandages on both my hands would tell the tale for you.

There were no other reflective surfaces in my room for me to see, but I didn't have to see myself to know what I looked like. I remembered the scar vividly, the way it claimed my right eye and took parts of my hair with it. My ear had been deformed, and even after extensive treatments and transfusions my hair wasn't entirely growing back.

It went from my eye, around my ear, and down the backside of my neck and shoulder where it spidered out. It was all superficial is what the doctors told me, save for my eye, but the wound felt so much deeper.

But ironically, it was almost fitting, that the girl who had everything lost everything.

All because she didn't appreciate what she had.

The house we were currently in was quite large, but it didn't have that many rooms for it's size.

We had my room, our parents room, Bray's, and one guest bedroom which Aunt Jenna was living in. My parent's bedroom had been slowly picked at over the year that Dad had been dead, but between my therapy sessions and the undeniable torture of his murder we had obviously put cleaning out their room on the back burner for a very long time.

Sometimes I ventured in there, if only to stare at some of his things still laying about. Mom's jewellery box was still there too. He missed her just as much as the day she died years prior. We all did, and so we never got rid of her things.

Bray had claimed a few things of Dad's and Mom's. He took the pocket watch that belonged to him which he never really used. He took Mom's diary and some of her knitting stock. He would sit by the window and knit like he had when she was alive. I used to laugh and call him an old grandma, but I was so wrong.

Compared to now, he looked so young back then in that rocking chair. Knitting and pearling.

I had taken what I wanted already as well. Their wedding bands which Dad kept even after Mom's death. He hung them on a necklace along with Mom's locket and wore it until the day he died.

Until he gave it to me.

I wore both the rings now, his band on my thumb, Mom's on my ring finger, and I had the one Dad gave me for my twelfth birthday on my index. Three rings on one hand, but none of them felt heavy or clunky.

Mom's locket remained around my neck, and I told myself I didn't need anymore of them to carry with me. This was enough.

That was a lie though.

Nothing would ever be enough to replace them. Nothing would ever equate what was lost the day they left us behind. That was the truth, no matter how ugly it seemed.

So I found myself in their room again, staring at everything strewn all over, and for a blink of a second pretending that Dad was away on a trip and Mom was in the greenhouse out back. I was just in hear to sneak some candy that they had stashed away in the closet, that was all. I wasn't here to look over the items collected by someone who had no use for them in the afterlife. I was just a kid passing through.

It was a bittersweet second.

Then I was back, and my feet carried me to that closet. I had been in here before, when I was fresh out of the hospital and still in denial that Dad was gone. I had curled up in Dad's coat, ignoring the world because it wasn't fair.

Now I was here without purpose, and so I searched for one. I dug deeper into the closet and found many boxes. Some of them contained items dad never gave away of Mom's. How tragic it was that Dad smiled for us everyday, but everyday he was probably torn up inside about Mom. He blamed himself, I knew that, but he still kept fighting for us.

And look at him now.

I pulled another box down and was nearly knocked out by a very heavy book landing on my head. It hit the floor with a very loud thunk and sent me keeling into the wall. Shit that hurt! I turned to look down at the book, amazed to see it was a large coil bound book that was probably around when the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

"Damn that hurt." I muttered, carefully rubbing my head while also leaning down to pick up the book. It had nothing on the cover, and nothing obvious on the coil or back either. I flipped the first page open only to halt.

The writing was strange, considering it was about fishing and different types of fish. I immediately recognized the handwriting to be my fathers, but there wasn't a doubt in my mind that the man had never gone fishing in his life.

And there was something written on the bottom of the first page in German. My mother's native language before she moved to Canada as a small girl.

The truth of the Truth.

As if my old man could sound any nuttier…. But the words reminded me of the puzzles he would leave me when I was younger. Dad went away on a lot of trips, so often times I would be left bored out of my skull. Bray was a genius with mechanics, but he was boing as hell when it came to puzzles and strategy. Those were my strengths, and so Dad left me papers to solve and riddles to tease at. My favourite was codes, which I became increasingly good at solving as I got older. Mostly because I knew my Dad and how he liked to think.

The truth of the Truth.

He capitalized the second truth, which perhaps meant something smaller inside a bigger picture. It was a place to start, so I shut the book and carried it back to my room.

I had to confess, there wasn't really a point to doing this, but I was honestly just so…

Bored.

Tired?

I couldn't find the right word, but I needed to quell the dull ache inside of me, and if a bit of decoding did that I was all for it.

So I worked on that code for several hours before taking a break. It was a tough one for sure, but Dad had patterns and I knew those patterns well. It would take a few days tops to crack.

I went down to the kitchen to get a glass of water, almost forgetting what I was doing and who I was in the process. I had been so caught up in myself that time seemed to stand still.

Obviously this wasn't the case.

To my surprise Bray and Aunt Jenna were sitting at the kitchen table. Their soup bowls still filled but long since cold. They had taken out a deck of cards and looked up to me as I walked in. My bowl still remained as I left it, as had there's, I think. An instant chord of guilt struck me.

"You were….. waiting for me?" I asked, though it was obvious what the answer would be. Aunt Jenna smiled at me.

"We knew you'd be back," She said before shuffling the cards. "Bray and I are playing Sevens, but it's way more fun with three people. You in?"

I stared at the cold soups, and the half drank glasses of water, and the fact that they looked like they were ready to eat an arm and leg off me because I had them waiting so long.

More importantly, I could tell that they were willing to wait even more.

A tentative smile formed onto my face as I nodded.

"Okay, I'll play a round."

The days got longer, and gradually warmer as spring was approaching.

It took a bit longer than I thought to crack the code to Dad's book, and what I did translate didn't make a ton of sense to me either. Something about compositions, deconstruction and reconstruction. The terms 'alchemy', 'truth', and 'azoth' came up quite a bit.

It had been two weeks, and I was sure I was about to crack the codes. It might've been faster, had I been able to stay home from school, but no amount of pleading to Aunt Jenna would get me out of classes.

Classes were miserable, and some days I didn't even try. I just went and parked myself in the office and stared out the window. Some days I did try, and every time I regretted it. We had partners for Chemistry. All we had to do was a simply experiment, and to be honest the ingredients were so watered down an idiot could make it work. All I wanted was to take notes and leave, but my partner too one look at my face and became a babbling moron trying to speak to me.

It was worse than the gaggle gossipers.

I was, however, trying very hard to do better at home. Auntie and Bray were trying, so maybe I should put some effort in too right? I still stormed off, but once I cooled down I made a point to come right back. We didn't ever discuss my outbursts, and slowly they were happening less frequently.

I didn't feel any better, but the idea that it made Auntie happy had me trying more and more.

When I did finally crack the code I wasn't sure how to deal with it. Part of me expected some sort of eureka moment where I felt triumphant and complete, but instead I was left feeling somehow more empty than when I started.

This was another piece of Dad I wouldn't get back.

The worst part was he was talking about science through the book. Alchemy he called it. A very much dead science that nobody took seriously, except apparently my Dad. It was the last passage in the book, hastily written so quickly that I had an easy time decoding it because it gave away half of the code (much to my chagrin since I had spent so long working on the code before finding this).

I left it in storage. I left it all behind. I can't go back, but she can.

Who was she? What did Dad leave behind?

I knew where he was talking about though. He had a storage container that he claimed held all of Mom's things-

But wait, Mom's things were in the closet? What was in the storage container?

Sometimes the answers weren't what we wanted them to be, because the next day I skipped school after dropping Bray off and went to the storage unit. Dad had a spare key to the lock always by his nightstand. Come to think of it, wasn't that key always there? I couldn't remember exactly.

The storage bin wasn't huge, but the stacks and stacks of books made it feel ten times smaller. This wasn't a storage of Mom's stuff at all! It was entirely filled with Dad's books. More fishing, more notes, and one book had a ton of weird symbols in it. I wasn't sure what to make of it, what to say about it, but I figured the only way I was going to get through it all was if I got started somewhere.

Or I would've, had I not noticed what was painted on the floor.

It looked like it was half attempted to be hidden but not very well. A circle with an insane amount of detailed writing and drawings in it. Some writing went along the rim of the circle, and while I didn't know what language it was, I could appreciate the level of detail that was in it. The symbols for Mercury, Silver, and Sulphur circled around a Caduceus and several other elemental symbols were present too.

I wasn't sure what this was, but it certainly brought up multiple red flags in my head.

So just to recap. My father, a brilliant man whom I loved to the moon and back, was studying an ancient science that was no longer relevant to the world. He had a storage shed filled to the brim with notes on this crap, and he had a creepily detailed drawing on the floor and oh God is that dried blood I see in the corner?

It was. There was blood on one corner of the circle. Nope, fudge this. I'm out. I'm sooooo out.

I spun around- and came face to book. Literally hit my head on a dangling book. Ohhh but not just anywhere did I hit myself! I hit my scar. My achy crusty soft delicate skinned scar. I reeled back, wiping the blood from my wound and swearing at the top of my lungs since nobody was here to hear me before I stomped my foot like a petulant child to try and quell my anger. I wanted to hit something, but all the books were too precious to break. So I punched the floor. I punched the circle again and again until I lost the energy to keep going and stopped.

Taking a breath, I sat down and stared up at the ceiling….

Only to find a second circle there.

"What the Hell Dad?!" I shouted to no one as I got to my feet. Or I would've, but you see, the moment my bloody hand touched the ground that circle did the last thing I expected.

It lit up.

Hi everyone!

In trying to keep the same block for my book I've unfortunately come across an error that doesn't allow me to properly upload one chapter, so I'm uploading both the prologue and chapter one for you right now! Lucky you!

For new readers, welcome! Thanks for stopping by! This is a slightly AU story that I hope does justice to the original plot of the FMA. It will have a mix of both anime's plus my own spin on things.

So as you can see Erin is a wee bit different from the previous version, but I've been working to make her a believable character now. And let me tell you, there is a lot of baggage there. This chapter still felt quick to me, but honestly no matter how hard I try I either drag on a beginning too much or don't finish it fast enough and there is literally no in between. So here you have it! First chapter is up! Next update should be in 10 days!

Happy New Years! And I hope you all follow me into the New Year with optimism!

I hope you enjoy it! I'm hoping to update next Friday!

Iland Girl