It could only be guessed how tickled Brody was to know he had living family other than his older brother. In the living room he snuggled as close as was possible to his uncle. A good hour went by of the group just talking, both Brody, Mark and the twins filling Steve in on the six years he lost and vice versa. Gox probably had a few permanent bruises from 'welcome back' hugs. Dixie snuzzled on his lap and hummed softly.

"Chanty hasn't come back has he?" Mark said looking around.

"I'll go find him." Ed volunteered. "The rest of you can catch up some more."

A few minutes later the Fullmetal came back downstairs with the report he couldn't find the Dawn.

"What d'ya think he could've done? Climbed down the drainpipe?" Lame asked.

"Suppose it's possible." Ren said.

"Let me check." Annie said. "Men can never find anything if it's not right in front of them, sometimes not even then."

"HEY!"

She didn't bother making a retort and after careful inspection of the upstairs she announced their friend was outside standing in the pool.

"How can you say I didn't look when he was outside?"

"It never crossed your mind to look out the windows?"

"If you'll excuse me for a moment." Steve said, but Brody wouldn't hear of it.

"No, stay."

"I need to talk to your brother alone. I'm sure there are still many things that are unclear to him."

OUTSIDE

The Dawn Alchemist stood waist deep in the cool water and stared at his unfocused reflection, it reflected how he felt inside right now. Turning a chip of brick into a tall stone maiden he used her to get himself out of the house unnoticed. Five sharks made of tightly woven vines circled him, with their gaping mouths full of thorns ensuring no one came near. While trying to make sense of things an hour was only a few minutes, still engrossed in his own thoughts Chanticleer barely heard a door open. Only when the person was close did he hear their footsteps, from there he knew who it was.

"What do you want?"

"What else would I want? To talk to you."

"Unless you've got a good explanation of why you left you better get lost before I turn these sharks into monitor lizards."

"Chanticleer, please don't talk like that…"

"Why shouldn't I!" the Dawn snapped and turned around. "You just had to get involved with Caradon and run away with the prize. Because of you, because of what you did Caradon went looking for you and destroyed everything we had…just to get that stone from you. Did you even know what that thing is capable of! Did you ever think of the leagues Caradon would go to get it back? If you did you could've used its power to fix me then and there, then Dad wouldn't have had to die because of his work after you fled, not caring what happened to us…"

"Don't you dare say that I didn't care! You forget Ukorro was my brother before he was your father. All I could do was pray I could lead Caradon away from you before he found your father thinking he was me. All I can figure is someone gave the description of your father to Caradon and it matched mine so he came to Rellacretac, obviously not informed the man wasn't me and he was already…dead. Do you think it's been easy for me either? After I heard what happened I wanted to go back, good God you don't know how badly I wanted to go back and see if you were all right. But I didn't, why? Because if I was going to have at least one thing left to hold on to it would be that Caradon never received his satisfaction in having me killed."

Chanticleer was silent for a moment, taking in his uncle's word but his shoulder devil was putting all its strength in not letting total forgiveness pass.

"I understand. But you never had to hide in a silo while hearing a man scream as his bones were being broken have you? Every time I hear someone crack their knuckles I think back to that night, that was exactly how his elbow breaking sounded…only louder and sickening to such a degree it would make your stomach churn."

Now it was Steve's turn to be silent. "All I can do is imagine how many scars that has left you. But you need to understand that I've had just as many hard times as you have. All I can do ask that you forgive me."

The sharks used their fins as legs and inched their way on shore as they turned into lizards, shrinking while doing so.

"I'll forgive you, but on one condition. You'd better stick until you're called to push up daisies, even if Caradon comes back."

Steve smiled. "Agreed."

Me – So what do ya think of that?

Chibi me – Kinda short aint it?

Me – I have a hard time keeping my creativity sparked when I'm watching a movie.

Chibi me – Nobody ever said you had to do two things at once.

Me – Keep yer trap shut. (pulls over soundproof cover) Well I know it doesn't piece together too much but better than nothing I guess.