I wonder when it is exactly that a moment becomes a memory…memories are so gentle-as fragile as the blanket of ice which covers the ground. It's cold outside but oh-so-warm in here, in these arms. For the first time in days the snow became tired of falling and the clouds wandered west, leaving the night sky clear and crisp and shining.

Our place, our home, is completely dark save the light of the moon and the stars that filters through the window and focuses upon us, and us only. "Skyla," she whispers, "Skyla…" this stranger hums, rocking back and forth in the wooden chair with me draped across her lap like a child's doll.

She is beautiful-her voice and her eyes and the curve of her lips when she murmurs my name. But she is sad. Her bright blue eyes glisten with unformed tears as she gazes down upon me. I don't know why she's sad or who she is, but she's gentle…just like a memory.

"Why are you sad?" I ask her, "Why do you cry?"

My tiny fingers find her cheek and wipe a falling tear away. This makes them fall harder and soon they spill past her chin and drip lightly onto my arms. She doesn't sniffle or so-there is nothing more than the tremble of her lip and the water slipping from her eyes.

I touch her hair, her golden hair-it's just like mine.

"I love you," she murmurs, "I love you so much."

"Please don't be sad." I wipe away another tear. Her arms tighten around me, only slightly, but still they tighten all the same. "I'm sorry…that I can't be a part of your life…but I want you to know that I will always love you, even when I am gone."

"Don't go, you don't have to go."

This stranger is oddly familiar, as if I've seen her in a dream. She smells of those roses that grow in the bright sunshine of a summer day-a smell I feel that I've known since before my memory begins.

"I do…I'm not…I'm not the one he wants. I love him so much," she whispers, grazing my forehead with the tips of her fingers, "but I'll never be the one he truly loves…"

"…my father?"

"Yes," she answers solemnly, staring off into the night sky as we rock together.

In that moment, it dawns on me. That this woman whose voice is but a fading lullaby is more than a stranger-she is a part of me. I look back up at her beautiful blue eyes and her beautiful blonde hair the beautiful way in which her lips curve when she utters my name. And I wipe a stray tear from her cheek as she whispers one last time, "I will always love you."

This stranger is my mother.

"Skyla?"

I can never seem to remember where I am when I open my eyes and emerge from the dark depths of wherever sleep takes you. I blinked once, and then twice, trying to adjust to the harsh light around me.

"Skyla?"

I sat up and blinked again, slowly this time. Something wasn't right.

"Are you okay?"

I was hearing that voice again-the voice from the dream, the voice of my mother.

I glanced around the room at the plain white walls and wooden floor. A desk was cluttered with silver nuts and bolts and wires, the chair beside it empty. I finally focused on the figure that stood before me and I shook my head, clearly still delusional.

I was gazing into the same blue eyes of the woman in my dream-with the same blonde hair and the same curving lips…

"Winry?" I muttered, wiping my eyes in an attempt to make sense of things.

"Oh, thank goodness you're awake," she sighed and plopped down onto her chair. "You kept muttering in your sleep, but I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, Ed used to do that all the time when we were kids."

"How did I get here?" Confused, I peered beneath the blanket that covered me-I was still in the same sweater and shorts that I had been wearing earlier. I twisted to see that I had been lying flat on the couch beside Winry's work station.

"You don't remember? Huh, you must have been exhausted…you passed out on the couch when you and Rolland got home."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Rolland…right. I moaned and fell back down onto the couch, wincing slightly as a sharp, albeit short, pain ran from my shoulder and down my arm. We both remained silent for a moment, digesting the long, eventful day.

"Hey, Winry?" my voice was quiet.

"Hmm?" I could hear her tinkering with something metal.

"…You've never…been to my world, have you?"

I sat up once again, carefully this time, and studied her solemn features. "Oh, um, sorry to interrupt," Ava stood at the bottom of the stairs, her short hair pulled back into a loose bun, "…but Alina is waiting for you."

"Huh? It's…" I glanced at a clock hanging above Winry's work station, "eleven o'clock, shouldn't she be asleep?"

"She's waiting for you," Ava repeated with a shrug before climbing quickly back up the stairs.

I slowly got to my feet, neatly setting the blanket aside as I did so. "No," Winry said quietly and I jumped slightly, startled by her sudden response. Her cerulean eyes were filled with sorrow as she gazed up at me, "I've never been to your world."
She then added quietly, almost too soft for me to hear, "No one has."

My mind was a mass of complete and utter confusion as the dream replayed in my head over and over again, as if I didn't inspect every tiny detail then it would instantly fade from my memory. All Alina had really been waiting for was a bath and she sat contently in her tub of warm water, surrounded by white, glistening bubbles.

"Wait," her voice was hesitant as I grabbed the door knob, "don't go."

I let my fingers slip off of the brass and turned to give her a quizzical look. "I…I need someone else here…to protect me…i-in case a monster crawls up the drain."

I must have appeared unconvinced, because she continued on timidly, "It happened once! A monster crawled up the drain an…"

I leaned against the marble countertop and waved my good hand in the air as a sign of defeat, "Alright."

"So…you'll stay?"

I smiled, "there's no place I'd rather be."

For the first time since I'd met her, Alina smiled in return.

Alina had finally settled down to sleep after her bath and some serious reassurance that no monsters would be creeping out of anyone's closet anytime soon. I was in Pinako's room, gathering the empty cups of tea that littered her bedside table. "You people are too good for me," she coughed, her head poking out from beneath a layer of blankets.

I smiled and lightly pressed my lips to her heated forehead, "Good night Pinako."

She mumbled something in return as I turned out the light and make my way down to the kitchen. It was close to midnight and the house was quiet-every light off and door shut except for the lamp beside Winry's work station. The house was, although fairly large, small for such a large amount of people and the sleeping arrangements were a bit cramped. So I wasn't too surprised to find Winry asleep on the couch.

I pulled the blanket, which had been lying at her feet, up around her and tucked it in at her shoulders. This woman…my mother? …she was once a stranger too.

Dazed and confused, I turned off the lamp at the work station and waded through the darkness into the kitchen, slipping out the back door once I'd cleaned and dried the tea-stained china.

"Oh," I froze on the back porch as the door clicked shut.

Rolland glanced up from an old, warped table.

"What are you doing out here?"

"What are you doing out here?" he countered.

"I asked you first," I replied simply, leaning against the back wall of the house. He picked up a slender rod of steel and held it close to the lantern-his only source of light-for me to see. "Cleaning?" I suggested.

"Prepping," he corrected, "different parts for Winry's new orders."

"Ah," I nodded and hopped up onto a clear, yet wobbly, corner of the table. "I forgot," I began softly, "that this is what you really love."

"Yeah," he gave me a small smile, "sometimes I forget too."

"I guess now isn't exactly the right time to tell your father about your secret apprenticeship either, huh?"

He shrugged, setting down the rod and running his fingers through a pile of screws, "Probably not."

I picked out a cog from the pile to my left and turned it in my hand, "how do you think a parallel universe works?"

"What?" he glanced up from whatever he was polishing to give me a quizzical look.

I placed the cog back down on the table and turned my eyes to the sky above, "I remembered something today…when I was asleep. It was when I was a little girl-four or five maybe, and my mother came back to us. I was sitting with her in this chair we used to have…staring at the stars, the very same ones that are out tonight…it wasn't until I woke up that I realized the woman from the memory had been Winry…holding me as she cried."

"It must have been a dream, you said you were sleeping?"

I nodded, "but I swear it was a memory…something I hadn't thought of in so long…and then I remembered what your father first told me about the parallel universe...that must mean there's two of us-one in each world, right?

"Well yeah," he began scrubbing a patch of oil that had stained the space between two fingers, "but doesn't that sound a little farfetched? That parallel Winry is your long-lost mom?"

"When you put it like that," I leaned back against the wall with a sigh, "…but she said something that I can't get out of my head…she was saying that she wasn't the one he wants' that, he'll never really love her…"

His eyes met mine for a brief moment and a short, brisk silence ensued. "Let's say she is your mom," he began in a quiet, curious tone, "then what?"

I shrugged and counted the constellations that were beginning to appear, "I don't know."

It seemed that despite the differences between our two worlds, the stars remained constant. I knew that if someone else in some far off land happened to be peering at the sky that we would be connected in some small way through the stars-burning giants who are but twinkling lights to our sheltered worlds.

"Ava is hunting you."

He smirked, "I've noticed."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise, "you know about that?"

"Everyone does," he shrugged, "Husband hunting? They all call it that. A bit disturbing if you ask me."

"Tell me about it," I sighed and then giggled, remembering my earlier conversation with her, "she thinks you're a stud."

"Yeah?" he cracked a cocky smile, fiddling with a weather-worn rag.

I rolled my eyes; still doubtful of how she could idolize him to such an extent…I mean it was the same boy who would leave his dirty socks lying about and track mud into the house every evening. I hadn't realized it until I glanced at him, but his deep, dark eyes had been studying my face.

With remnants of that cocky smile still on his face, he asked me in a quiet voice, "and what do you think?"

I blinked, dumbfounded, having been caught off guard.

The rag he had been holding slipped through his fingers and onto the ground below as he moved to the right so that he stood before me. I shifted on the table where I sat, and for once we were at eye level with one another. Before I could react, my nerves sparked with anxiety as one of his oil-stained hands slowly slid up my leg until finally choosing to rest on my back while the other tentatively cupped my face.

I pressed my palm flat against his chest, the heat of his body warming my hand with every breath. My mind was blank, thoughtless. But I was glad-I was through thinking and speaking and acting. We stayed like that for a moment, foreheads touching, our lips but centimeters apart. No words, no sentimental fluff, only the two of us shrouded by the night with the dancing moths casting tiny shadows against our prickling skin.

And then, it was over as fast as it had begun. His hand fell away from my face and my fingertips barely grazed his chest as he pulled back. There had been no kiss, no relief of the tension in the air between our lips. And we both knew why. Rolland stepped to the side and cleared his throat, strands of black hair falling into his eyes.

"It's been a long day; you should go get some sleep."

"Yeah," I muttered softly, hopping off of the table, "guess I'll see you in the morning."

He nodded, keeping a distance as I walked past him to the back door.

I only looked back once as I made my way into the house. He was leaning over with his elbows on the table and his hands in his hair with the rag still lying crumpled in the grass. I paused half way up the stairs and leaned against the cold, dark wall. I thought of Mischa, and what she would tell me at a time like this. She would tell me to kiss him-to take all of my doubt and complexities, kick them to the curb, march back downstairs, and get what I've been waiting for since I first laid eyes upon him.

But instead I continued up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom I was sharing with Ava and Alina. Things were different. Mischa wasn't there anymore, and neither were the children that we used to be.