A/N: I know this took me like…FOREVER! Sorry to whoever is reading this…I love you. The song I picked for today is Sing for Absolution by Muse. I highly suggest listening to it while you read this; it's a real mood setter. Plus the lyrics go GREAT with this chapter, TWO POINTS FOR ME!!! Anyways! I do not own Full Metal Alchemist and all that glorious legal stuff. Enjoy, mis amigos.

"Lips are turning blue / A kiss that can't renew / I only dream of you / My beautiful
Central
Roy had his men lined up in his new office. His men, along with their Fuhrer, stood quietly dressed in all black. As he listed their names, Roy's men bravely saluted and kept their mouths quiet, "Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc. Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda. Lieutenant Colonel Alex Armstrong. Chief Warrant Officer Vato Falman. Master Sergeant Kain Fuery. You five men are my go to men right now. This mission is completely off the grid. We're taking a train east. Then we're taking a boat across the bay. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate the Rockbell residence and check up on Riza Hawkeye. I, along with you, Havoc, will stay behind to investigate this address." Roy handed Havoc a manila envelope. "Don't open it. Once you have, burn it. Be ready at exactly 0600 hours. Dismissed."

The men silently left the room, but once they were in the privacy of the subordinate's quarters, they voiced their opinions. "Why can't he just ask us to check on Riza for him normally? I mean, who does he think he's fooling?" Havoc asked. He opened his envelope in plain sight of the others. He was a great soldier and normally took his job very seriously, but if Roy wasn't going to take his job as Fuhrer seriously, why should he? "The Sugiyama Estate, huh?" Havoc read while keeping his cigarette lightly balanced in between his lips.

"Maybe once the Fuhrer sees that Hawkeye is alright, he'll quit all this and return to normal," Fuery stated hopefully.

The giant mass of muscles and sparkles that was Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong looked over Havoc's shoulder at the address, then quickly covered his eyes. "I shouldn't look, it's strictly confidential."

Havoc rolled his eyes, "Don't tell me you're taking this thing seriously!"

"I believe in our Fuhrer. Besides, what if Hawkeye isn't okay? We can't just leave our comrade stranded without the help of her beloved men." The men were used to Armstrong's overly dramatic speeches that he belted in between flexing his biceps. This time was no different. The men would accept their mission, but the verdict was that they would never accept Roy's need for deception and drama. If something was going on, as Fuhrer, he should tell his men, and as a friend he damn well should tell his men.

Tiptoe to your room / A starlight in the gloom / I only dream of you / And you never knew
Rockbell Residence
Riza woke up after a long strange night in a never-ending daze. Everything seemed blurry, like it had been covered in foggy glass. Nothing she touched seemed to connect to her brain. She knew the table was supposed to feel smooth, but she couldn't connect. She could make out her hand resting on the oak table, but she couldn't feel a thing. Riza stumbled around the living room trying to make out what things were. Carpet – soft? Dog – fuzzy?

The sound of Winry's voice didn't break her stupor, but it did distract her from it for a moment. "What are you doing, Riza?"

"I…uh…" suddenly sparks shot off in her brain. What was she doing? Riza traced her shoulder with her eyes, down to her elbow, past her forearm, and to her fingertips that sat rubbing the white wall as if she didn't believe it were really there. "What are you doing?" Riza asked, trying to move the subject somewhere else. "Did you ever get to bed last night?"

"Nope, but I have got great news! You and I are going to a party in three days."

Riza placed her forehead in the palm of her hand and stroked each temple with her thumb and middle finger. "A party? For what?"

Dark circles hung heavy under Winry's eyes. Her skin was obviously void of nourishment. "Yes ma'am. Because I am the one who discovered how to open the Gate again, the Sugiyama family has invited me over to what they referred to as a 'gala event' to unveil my findings."

"Your findings? What exactly have you found, Winry?"

Winry was oozing with hubris as she explained her discovery. If only she had known that all of it had already been discovered and she had just been lured into a trap. "Well, you see, there's a form of alchemy called cerebral exchange. It takes memories from one person's brain to pull another person back from the other side of the Gate." Riza almost lost balance as Winry continued to explain things about memories and the Gate opening and alchemy she had never heard of.

Riza stumbled backwards onto the couch. Thinking about opening the Gate and all the horror that came with it this early in the morning after the night she had was difficult. "Winry, you don't even know alchemy. How do you plan on doing this?"

"Mr. Kimblee, of course."

The name sent shivers running all through Riza. "I don't think he's all too trustworthy. Something about him gives me the creeps. And I don't necessarily approve of all this. Have you tested this theory? It doesn't sound like you discovered anything."

"Listen, Riza, I know you and I aren't really that great of friends so much as we're acquaintances who became roommates, but who are you to say what I know." And that was all Riza needed to hear to put her back in her place. They weren't friends. Did Riza Hawkeye even have friends? Yes! They were Havoc, and Fuery, and Falman, and Breda, and sometimes Armstrong, and Hughes…and Mustang.

Hawkeye looked around her at the house that was in no way her home and at the girl who was not her family. Was this why I felt so foreign this morning? Hawkeye thought. Was it because I am? This place was a puzzle to her, and she was simply a piece that did not fit. I want to go back... … … … … but I can't.

Sing for absolution / I will be singing / Falling from your grace
Train
The train ride east was silent most of the way. The subordinates avoided all eye contact with their Fuhrer. Only Armstrong was brave enough to sit across from him and attempt conversation, "Sir…I'm sure she's fine."

Roy didn't look up from his newspaper as he spoke, "You don't understand, Armstrong, no one does. I made a promise to her a long, long time ago that I intend to keep."

There's nowhere left to hide / In no one to confide / The truth burns deep inside / And will never die
(Flashback) Outside a Bar In Central
With a half conscience Mustang dropping his whole weight against her side, Hawkeye tried her hardest to keep the pace up as they ran as far away from the bar as they could get. Everyone expected Roy to have one too many drink, but they didn't think he'd get into a fight after doing so. But Hawkeye, who couldn't fall asleep knowing Roy was somewhere unprotected while Scar was out, came as soon as she heard that familiar snap from her post in the nearby alley.

Roy glanced over his shoulder before dropping to his knees. Through gasps and half drunken laughter he looked up at Hawkeye and said, "I think we're safe."

A smile stretched across her face when she noticed that he was the one out of breath after she did all the running. There were moments when Hawkeye hated her job. Those were the moments when she sat in alleys waiting for that gunshot or waiting for that knife to his heart. But there were moments when she absolutely loved her life and couldn't imagine herself anywhere else. Those were the moments when she looked down at Roy Mustang laughing like a madman in the middle of a rundown playground in the middle of the night after being in a bar fight. Those were the moments when she knew she had done her job well and Roy was alright.

The dew that coated the blades of grass licked at Roy's face and intermingled with his dark hair. "Who knew I could be such a light weight?" Roy spat with a slight slur.

Hawkeye collapsed next to him. Her lungs were burning and it was a weak moment for her. If Roy had been sober, he would have reprimanded her for blatantly displaying any form of flaw, but she thought he would never remember. "Sir, you certainly keep me on my toes."

Roy rolled over to face her. "This is what we hired you for."

"I'd be here anyway, Roy. I promise to always be there for you," Hawkeye whispered. She expect him to ever remember. But a year later, on a train ride east, he would remember, and he would remember quite well. Roy would remember the way the moonlight brought a slight glow to her already illuminated face. Roy would remember the way Riza's thick eyelashes bowed and blanketed over her beautiful eyes, then lifted back up as if they were small children stretching as soon as they awoke. Roy remembered wanting to hold her hand.

Roy remembered what he did instead. He took off the glove on his left hand, grabbed her hand with his now naked hand, and placed her palm gently on his chest. "So long as there's a beat in there, I promise, if you ever need me, or even if you're lonely, or you're just thinking 'Gee, that Mustang was a character,' whatever it is that you're thinking about me for, I'll come running. And if there's ever a moment when I'm just watching from far away, wishing I could go to you, and I see you need help, and you reach for your guns, and you think you can handle it, I'm gonna steal your moment and save you."

"Come on, sir, let's get you home. You're delirious."

Lips are turning blue / A kiss that can't renew / I only dream of you / My beautiful
The Sugiyama Estate
Kimblee sat across the table from Bella with his napkin sprawled out in front of him and a pen in his hand. She was dressed in her usual drab chic. He longed for the days of his notebook, when he could scribble his fantasies and keep them for his own amusement. Now he drew his visions on the napkins, and then left them for the maid to pick up to be sent to the wash. One napkin caused a maid to quit when she cleared the table and found her head drawn on one of the beige napkins…without a body. Some people just didn't appreciate a good caricature. Tsk tsk.

Tonight he found himself basking in nostalgia. Without thinking, he sketched a page that he assumed sat somewhere in Central along with a dozen other things that straight laced commanders would never understand. Hawkeye was such a muse. He missed those three weeks straight that he spent following her. She was so busy watching Mustang that she never knew. He knew it was impossible for her to watch her own back when she was watching Roy's. Oh, and how she watched. At restaurants she watched the chefs out of the corner of her eye to make sure they weren't adding anything dangerous. At bars she always kept an extra eye on the tattooed men who she assumed carried a switchblade somewhere in their leather pockets. In the office she always stood between him and the window just in case something came crashing in. But she never noticed that man with dark hair and obsessive eyes sitting two tables over, or the man with dark hair having a drink just at the other end of the bar, or the dark haired man spying passionately through the crack in the door.

"Explain this all to me one more time," Kimblee said while finishing his doodle.

"The exchange?" Bella asked. Kimblee confirmed by nodding silently. "Do you know how much energy the brain uses to remember something? Phenomenal amounts. Even the minutest memories, such as the stone in someone's engagement ring of the color of a little boy's shirt are caused by exceptional amounts of energy being passed through the brain. Now consider how many memories we as humans have, masses upon masses. With my unique practice of alchemy, my gift from God for defeating the grave, I can exchange those memories from one person to bring another to life."

Kimblee thought of Hughes sitting dead just on the other side of the house. It sent chills running down his spine even though only moments before he had been drawing Riza Hawkeye with a gash that ran like a seam down her chest. "What's the Gate have to do with this?"

"The Gate seems to have a reaction to reanimation. It's a phenomenon that has existed since alchemy first began. It opens at the first sight of reanimation. This energy that I take from the brain opens the Gate so quickly and with such force that that it brings the parallel soul of the deceased from the other side the Gate. A lost soul's automatic reaction is to find a body. We lead it to into our cadaver, then, voila, welcome back, Mr. Hughes."

"That doesn't make any sense, if we bring in a parallel soul, it won't be the same Hughes." Kimblee had heard cerebral exchange explained one hundred different ways by both Bella and Shall, but he still felt as if it were all smoke and mirrors, and that the exchange wasn't complete. Even though Bella and he were living proof that cerebral exchange worked, he refused to believe it worked.

"When the parallel soul searches for the body, it only enters the body to bring life, to bring a pulse, to bring breath, the brain simply restarts where it left off. Eventually the brain dispels this new entity and returns to normal. Hughes will appear split because the two souls are sharing one body, but after a while the brain will straighten itself out and he will return to normal."

Bella had thought of everything, and it seemed that Kimblee had been outsmarted, but he always had a question for retaliation. "Alright, smart stuff, what do you plan to do with Winry and Riza, exactly?"

"I assume you mean our scapegoat and our specimen? Well, we need to use someone's memories, don't we? Then, when the Gate opens, we'll send the memoryless Riza through and we'll be rid of her for good. Whatever happens to her from then on, who cares? I highly doubt she's smart enough to pass through again. As for Winry, when Riza passes through, all memory of her will be completely erased from the minds of everyone. That is until the parallel Riza dies on the other side, then she will return to this world with some explanation. I'm sure she'll reappear on record as dying that night from a gun wound or something silly like that. It's a shame you don't remember your mother, it was quite exceptional the way her face disappeared from photographs."

"I don't remember a thing about her. Does that mean she's alive on the other side?" Kimblee asked with a hint of hope in his voice.

"Of course."

Sing for absolution / I will be singing / Falling from your grace

Riza's Dream That Night

"You've made up your mind then?" Hughes asked. Riza nodded. "I can't say I agree with you. I remember Kimblee being quite the nut job. But, if you want to go check out what's going on, I can't stop you."

Riza laughed a little at his comment, "You couldn't stop me anyway. You're dead." Hughes raised a warning eyebrow at her, as if to say watch it. "I'm sorry. I really do miss you. Everyday. I miss Roy too. Sometimes I remember his moonlight promise. I know it's silly to call it that."

"It's silly to think of it at all. He was hammered. And if I know Roy, once he's gotten himself good and drunk, there's nothing to look forward to but a hang over and a blurred memory of what he did the night before." Hughes could tell that his words saddened Hawkeye a little. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that...because I also know that Roy keeps his promises. If Roy said he'd be there if you needed him, then he's already on his way right now."

Our wrongs remain unrectified / And our souls won't be exhumed."

-Muse

Holy friggen crap! I just totally filled your head with a ton of information about 'cerebral exchange' and hopefully you understand it. If not, you can stick it in a review and I'll keep it in mind in the next chapter and see if you can grasp it. It's really quite cool. And if you haven't noticed, I forshadowed the crap out of this chapter, so if you can't guess what's gonna go down in the next chapter, then...you're silly. Anyways, pleeeeeeeease rate. I need commitment from you guys to use as encouragement. Don't make me go emo on you guys!