Chapter Eight

Ruby sat by the window of the room she shared with Winry, staring out at the soggy ground, flooded with puddles. The rain had finally stopped, after eight days, leaving the river that lead to Resenbool dangerously high. She couldn't go anywhere until the water receded, which could take days. She sighed, her face blank and expressionless. She was finally free, but she couldn't be any more depressed if the house should fall around her.

Someone rapped gently on the door. "It's me," Winry said quietly from out in the hall. Ruby didn't make a replying sound but merely looked away for a moment. "May I come in?" It was Winry's room anyway, why couldn't she? Ruby stood up and opened the door. Winry looked her over; her hair was the messiest it's been since she was little, her clothing was askew and she all around looked like a manikin that just survived the apocalypse. "Ruby, it's been days. If you were planning on doing something, you should do it, the longer you wait the-"

"Shut up!" Ruby cried. Winry tensed at the sudden hostility. "You don't know what this is like; I can't just go back there! They... They'd kill her for sure if I go back!" With an exasperated sob, she collapsed to her knees.

"Then get up and continue on with life." Winry said firmly. Ruby looked up at her, eyes brimming with anger and sorrow.

"I can't! Don't you get it? I can't... I need to find them! I can't let her go like that!" Ruby grabbed her head in frustration. "I can't!"

"Then do something about it, will you? You can't spend your whole life regretting thi-"

"Damn that word..." Ruby grunted. She stood up, pushing Winry away from the door. "Move!" She stormed down the stairs, brimming with anxiety and anguishing amounts of stress. She passed by Ed, who was sitting in the kitchen, his left arm in a sling and his chest to his hips bandaged tightly. His face was still swollen and bruised, but he had improved greatly since the day it all happened. She looked around the room, trying to see where she had left her daggers. "Where the hell..?"

"Do you mind telling me what you're doing in such a huff?" Ruby turned around to see her aunt Pinako.

"I'm getting her back. Where are they? Damn it all, I'll go without them." She said, turning to the door. She opened it and took a few steps out, then stopped. The afternoon sun wasn't doing a very good job of drying the ground and her feet were getting stuck.

"Need a hand?" She looked up. Envy stepped forward. "I'm sorry about what happened. I assume you were coming to get Amber?" Ruby twitched. Was she that easy to read? No, he just knew her well. Maybe too well? After all, what he knows he can pass on to his "master", the one who had her child, who could at that moment be trying to take her place as Amber's mother.

"Where is she keeping Amber?" She asked, getting straight to the point. Envy smiled.

"She's not. At least, not my master, if that's who you mean." He said. Ruby looked confused.

"Then who is taking care of her? Where is my little Amber?" She came closer to Envy. He took her hand.

"Let me take you, not tell you." He said. He helped her through the mud, taking her farther and farther away from the house. The mud seemed to thin out a little after a while, and Ruby realized where they were going. A couple miles away there was the train station.

"Why are you taking me here?" She asked. Envy spun his head around to face her.

"You want to get her back, don't you?" He asked. Ruby shot him an icy glance.

"Of course!"

"Then follow me." He said. Once they had reached the train station, he went onto the tracks. "Come on," Ruby hesitated. "We don't have much longer to wait, you know."

"Why don't we just take the train? It's a lot faster." She asked. Envy sighed.

"Because we're not going far from Resenbool." He grabbed her arm and pulled her along with him until they had reached a bridge that crossed the river that was still swollen. He stepped off the tracks. "Over here," Signaling for Ruby to follow, he ducked under the bridge, his legs dangling in the water as he held on to one of the wooden support beams. Once Ruby had gotten down to where he was, he climbed down until he was halfway in the water.

"Are you trying to drown me or something?" Ruby asked, suspicious that he might not be trying to help her after all.

"If I wanted you dead I would've killed you by now instead of wasting time. Now come on!" He jumped into the water and began swimming toward the closer of the shores. Ruby followed, struggling to catch up in the river's current. She crawled up on shore next to Envy, who let her stop and catch her breath for a moment. "In case you're wondering, she's fine. Right now Sloth has her. She seems to be unsettled about a child being taken from its mother, so she agreed to help when I told her I was going to bring you here." Envy said somewhat quietly. Ruby looked up at him, pulling her dripping hair behind her ears.

"Sloth?" She questioned. Envy realized Ruby had never met Sloth before, so he quickly explained she was also a homunculus. "Well," Ruby sighed. "When will she get here?" Envy pointed to the water, a small bundle floating on the top and an odd trail of water going against the current.

"She's here now." He said as the water began to take the form of a human, the bundle that had been floating now resting in the woman's arms.

"Sorry it took me so long, I almost couldn't make it. Wrath was trying to follow me." She said, walking over to them. Ruby stood up, examining the bundle with her eyes. She looked questioningly at the woman called Sloth, wondering if that method of travel was really suitable for a small child. She reached her arms out to take the bundle, but Sloth turned away.

"Ruby," Envy said warningly, "we know you want her back, but you know that we need an exchange. Equivalency." Turning sharply to see if he was serious, Ruby reached for her dagger, but remembered she hadn't found any of them earlier.

"I thought you were going to help me!" She cried in anger. Envy sighed.

"If we just handed her over do you really think we'd still be alive, or whatever we are, tomorrow when our master finds out?" Sloth said. Ruby walked up to her, pulling one of the warm blankets off the bundle to make sure this wasn't a trick, and saw her baby's face. It was no trick, as far as Amber being there.

"What is it you want?" She asked, not taking her eyes off her sleeping child.

"We want you to kill Edward." Envy answered. Ruby began to shake. It was starting all over again.

"But, I..."

"We'll give you Amber now, but one of us will always be keeping an eye on you to make sure you go through with it. You have until tomorrow morning or we take her back to our master." Sloth said in a demanding tone. Shaking, Ruby took Amber from her.

"And I won't have to loose her again..?" She inquired, being sure there were no other strings attached.

"Amber will stay with you forever." Sloth replied. Ruby looked down into Amber's face as she began to wake up. She smiled as Amber began to laugh.

"Alright, I'll do it, but you will never come near Amber again." Agreeing to kill Ed was almost as hard as when she had originally agreed to leave Amber with Dantè. Almost as hard as when she had been ordered to kill him before she knew he was Fullmetal... It would be almost as painful as the day she didn't follow through with her orders…