Whew! That took longer than I had originally planned! And a lot longer, too! 1858 words! Can you believe that! I sure can't... Anyways, that's (part) of the reason it took so long - I found that I had a lot more to say than I had originally anticipated! Haha! That and there was a tornado/severe thunderstorm warning where I live for about 5 hours today... not to mention the fact that it's spring break and my family has spent the last 3 days trying to figure out what in the world we're going to do... I wish we could just stay home... I have homework to do, not to mention an audition to practice for (yes, that's right, I'm a 'band geek' - and proud of it!) Anyway, enough of this, I'll talk more at the bottom! Haha! Thank you for the 2 or so loyal readers who continue to review! It's amazing how many people have read this story so far compared to how few are reviewing... maybe no one is registered? Yeah, I'll go with that... it makes me feel good! Haha! Sorry! Please read away!

I do not own FMA - but I did finally get volume 8 of the DVD yesterday! (I've been a little lazy... but I still haven't watched it becuase I loaned it to my friend becuase I thought that I woud be out of town right now! Grr... sorry...)

Chapter 11: "Taken"

"So," Roy asked her, "what made you decide to etch those transmutation circles into your hand in the first place?"

"I didn't," Trisha responded.

"You didn't?" Roy quickly turned his head around.

"No… They kind of just… showed up overnight."

"When?" Roy asked her, once again beginning to get a serious look on his face.

"The night I first read through my father's journal – it was pretty late in the evening when my mom gave it to me, so I kind of just skimmed through. I think it had something to do with my subconscious, because I had a really weird dream that night about the circles I had just looked at in his notes."

"What kind of dream?"

"It was weird – there would be a flash, like of fire, or lighting, or just a flash of blue light from a typical transmutation. As I saw each flash, I would see the alchemy circle used to transmute it show up on my hand. Finally, after each of the six, there was this massive circle in front of me, but it was glowing so bright it was hard to make out what it looked like – then there was a huge flash of white light from it… and then I woke up," Trisha told him simply.

"Hmm… so you think that there was some seventh alchemy circle you saw in his notebook that showed up on your auto-mail?" Roy asked her as he began to formulate theories.

"Yeah – that's what I thought, too, but there wasn't anything on my hand, and when I went to look back through the book in the morning…"

"Nothing matched what you had remembered seeing?" Roy finished for her.

"Yeah – exactly!"

"Hmmm…" Roy turned away from her, deep in thought. He had been afraid of this… when he had looked through Ed's notes he noticed that there was obviously something missing from one of the pages, and he had a bad feeling about what that something was…

…

"So…" Trisha began slowly, "general… uh, about my State Alchemist title…?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm sorry, what did you say?" Roy asked, snapping out of his trance.

"My State Alchemist title – aren't I supposed to get some kind of second name?"

"Haha – yes, you are, actually. My wife doesn't think that I should give you this name, but there's no way I can't not give it to you!" Roy said laughing, thinking back to his wife's dark prophecies of curses…

"Really? What is it?" Trisha said with a mix of apprehension and excitement.

"Do you know what your father's symbolic second title was?" he looked at her gently.

"Yeah – the 'Fullmetal Alchemist'…"

"Well, you are now officially the 'New Fullmetal Alchemist.'" Roy told her with a smile.

"Really? Wow! That's so cool! 'The New Fullmetal Alchemist!' This is so exciting! I got my dad's name… I got my dad's name!" she cried, jumping up and down.

Roy beamed at her. "I thought you would like it… Oh, and I have something else of your father's that you might be proud to have handed down to you."

"There's more?" Trisha said, eyes wide with enthusiasm.

"Hahaha! Yes, there is! Here," he told her, holding out his hand. In it was Edward Elric's silver pocket watch.

…

Trisha gasped. "Where on Earth did you find this! My mother said that even she never knew what happened to it!"

"Well," Roy said they stopped next to the wall that led between the general's house and the headquarters building, "back before your father went through the Gate the first time – when Al was still a suit of armor – it got lost during a battle in the town of Lior…"

"Lior… I've been there! That's where I met that alchemist named Armstrong – he said he used to be a part of the state military as well," she said excitedly.

"You're right, he did; well, a couple of years ago some of my men found it in an older part of the city that still hadn't been reconstructed. They immediately gave it to me, since they knew that only state alchemists carried those watches around. I knew it was Ed's when I read what was carved on the inside of the lid…"

"… 'don't forget, 3. Oct. 10'…" Trisha finished for him.

"That's right – how did you know that?" Roy asked her surprisedly.

"My mom told me – she said she had looked at it once, even though he never told anyone about what was written there – not even my uncle."

"… Yeah, that sounds like Ed, all right," Roy said tiredly. He ran his free hand through his tousled hair, sighing as he did so, and thinking about all of the "Ed moments" there had been over all those years… and all so long ago…

"You really did care about them, didn't you?" Trisha asked kindly, her head cocked slightly to the side.

"Huh? What kind of question is that?" Roy said in a startled manner, realizing too late how mean he had sounded.

"My mom told me that you always looked out for them – my brother and uncle –Armstrong and Havoc said the same thing, too. I guess I just never saw it before… I couldn't tell…"

"Well… it's certainly nothing I can really explain… Your dad was such a handful, and your uncle was always so kind – he would help anyone of my men out whenever he and your dad were in Central. Didn't matter the job, he'd just do it… Ed, on the other hand, refused to accept any other job than taking care of his brother, and finding out a way to get him back in the flesh," Roy reflected, deeply sighing. He furrowed his brow, thinking even farther back. "I guess that the more I came to realize just how much they had gone through, the more I felt that I needed to be there for them… especially after meeting their father, Hohenheim… After meeting him, and seeing Edward's reaction towards him, I realized something; those boys basically had no father – physically, yes, he was their father, but he never really did anything for them… I felt that I should be the one to take that place – I already had in several ways, but I had never admitted to it. It was so easy to do – after all, Al was so easy to get along with, and Edward… well, Edward reminded me of myself in some ways… his stubbornness for one, I suppose." Roy laughed, thinking back to his younger days in the military… before Ishbal. "Shortly after meeting Hohenheim was when everything with the military and the homunculi really began to unravel; when I realized just how much I cared for those two – as if they were my sons. But of course, the more I opened up to it, the more your father fought me – he had made up in his mind that he would hate me, even though I think his heart told him otherwise – or, at least that's what I would like to think…" Roy looked down at the ground, eye unfocused on anything… except for the past.

Trisha respectfully waited after this confession… It was probably the most the general had said to her at once since she had come to Central. She couldn't help but feel sad and angry at the same time. 'Why, dad?' she thought, 'Why would you hate him? What could he have done to you for you to simply shrug away everything that the he had tried to do for you?'

Roy, sensing her thoughts, looked up and told her, "It was because I didn't tell him that my friend – his friend – Maes Hughes had died. He was angry that Hughes had been murdered, as he should have been, but decided to take it out on me for not telling him about it. I can't say that I was happy with that decision, but I knew that I would rather have him mad at me than try to track down Hughes' killer on his own, which I knew he would – he would've abandoned everything that he and his brother had worked so hard for. Instead, I went after the Fuhrer – he had had a hand in the entire thing… and that's when… well, that's not important right now," Roy said softly as his left hand brushed gently over his eye-patch while his right hand still held Ed's pocket watch. "What is important," he continued with a forced smile as he tried to forget the past, "is that we're late – my wife might kill me if we're not home soon." Roy smiled at her as he turned to continue walking down the path along the wall, knowing full well that what Trisha had heard as a playful joke would very much be a reality if he and the girl weren't to his house within the next five minutes. "Oh! 'Fullmetal!'" Roy said, turning back around. Trisha looked up, surprised, and pointed to herself. "Yeah, you! Catch!" Roy tossed the silver pocket watch into the air, making a graceful arc in the cool night sky as it fell towards Trisha. She shifted the bundle of clothes in her arms, freeing her right auto-mail arm. She extended it, holding out her hand and catching her father's precious watch with a smile.

A flash of blue-white light erupted from the wall behind the two alchemists, blinding them both. A split second later the flash was gone, and so was Trisha.

…

"Trisha?" Roy called out as his eye re-adjusted to the darkness – 'something is wrong,' he thought. "Trisha? Fullmetal? Hey! Trisha!" Roy ran to the wall, watching in a mix of horror and disbelief as a dimly lit transmutation circle dissolved back into the stones of the wall. "Trisha!" Roy yelled, beginning to panic. "Where are you?"

With surprising agility for a man his age he hoisted his torso up onto the wall, which stood a foot taller than him, allowing him to see the what lay behind the wall, hoping that she had just simply passed through it – all he saw where the parade grounds illuminated by the stars and street-lights – and completely devoid of life as far as he was able to see. He jumped back down, frantically searching around where Trisha had been, passing his hands quickly over the stones, trying to bring the transmutation circle, and Trisha, back. "Trisha!" He bellowed, "TRISHA!"

…

"Oh, god," he said, the words catching in his throat as his stomach dropped, "she's gone – she's gone! Shit!" he shouted. "What am I going to do? Ed's daughter – Ed's daughter is gone! Shit!" he said again. "Ed would kill me! – Riza is going to kill me!"

And with that he sprinted back towards his office at headquarters, hoping against hope that members of his unit were still there working late – he needed to assemble an investigation team to find the alchemist – now. It was just what the general had been afraid of… afraid of from the very beginning…

…

HOLY CRAP! Did you guys just read that! WOW! We're really getting into it now, my friends! Please review! Oh, and I'm sorry, but it may be a few days before anything gets uploaded - we may finally leave for somewhere tomorrow! But don't worry, (most of) chapter 12 will be written by the time you get back! Know what's weird, though? I have a bunch of large chunks of the last couple of chapters written out already. Seriously! But nothing is really completed becuase some of it depends of what I write in the middle... but I'm too lazy to do that... I would really rather do eveything from here on out as a movie... Oh, by the way, I hope you guys have brushed up on your Harry Potter, becuase I want to go by the book, but I may not at some points becuase I couldn't find what I was looking for.. I'm going to depend on you, my readers and reviewers, to make sure that I stay on course! Thanks! Please review!