Before October

Chapter 13 is finally here! Cute Roy and little Ed interactions are the sweetest thing, I swear.

Thank you so much Ace for your beta work on this chapter as usual ;)

Montage of Memory

The man trudged up the hill – his academy uniform covered with the mud that sloshed against his boots and made the country path he was currently traipsing more like a river. Roy lowered his head, following the vague directions he had been given by the station master. Ed had given him directions to his house the time that they had met over winter (had it been that long ago?) but the boy had been distinctly vague.

Roy didn't consider, "turn left at the first hill and keep going past the sheep!" to be clear instructions. He rolled his eyes in annoyance.

It was strange to think that he had been accepted onto the S.C.A.P. after receiving full marks on his written and practical assessment. When he had obtained the results, he had been in disbelief (he had even beaten the famed Basque Grand with his score) and that immediately threw him into the spotlight at the Academy. Master Hawkeye's rough tutelage had paid off. Equivalent Exchange, perhaps.

Riza was still at the forefront of his mind. When he had completed the first term at the academy, he decided to return to East City, but Riza had suddenly been called to the west of Amestris for a family gathering. Roy had grown accustomed to the spontaneity of the Hawkeye's travel arrangements (which were rare and far-between as it was). But something about this was…off. Riza had sent him a postcard informing him of how her trip was going, also noting that she hoped that Dapple was doing well.

However, even if Roy had his suspicions, he knew that his Master's daughter was able to take care of herself; he expected nothing less. He had to trust and believe in her. She would return to East City and he would see her again very soon.

And so Roy had come to Resembool.

He gazed tiredly out at the expansive horizon. The fields were endless, and for one who had grown up in the city, not seeing a building or hearing the drone of an engine was alarming. It was so quiet; he didn't know if he liked that yet or not. He would have to wait and see if he became accustomed to it. What had been minutes of walking had trudged into what he imagined to be hours. He squinted in the dimming light, and there, he spotted lights.

Civilisation! And coffee! His mind cried delightfully, but Roy quashed the outburst of positive thoughts flowing through his brain. His recalled the directions the station master had given him, and with an affirmative nod of his head, he continued along the path that would lead to the Elric household.

Moments later he arrived at the front door. There was one light on – the one that was in the bedroom towards the front of the house. That was odd. There should have been noise of some sort. The swing in the garden tied to an aging tree should have been occupied with playing children. To be honest, he felt that he was the doorstep of an elderly household and not one with two young boys that lived within. As he surveyed the garden, waiting to pluck up the courage to answer the door, he noticed several key things: the vegetable patch was withering as though it had not been maintained in a long time; there was dust collecting on the swing, an unused object hanging there limply, and leaves were scattered across the earth; nobody had thought to clear away the debris that had fluttered down from the tree.

The twisting in his gut intensified. It was the same feeling that had been occupying him since before he had entered the academy and met the elder Elric brother. He could only describe it as an intense urgency and pull, as though he was performing alchemy. But the fundamental truth behind that feeling was that he was running out of time.

He didn't understand.

He wanted to understand.

Should he knock on the door?

If he wanted to understand, he had to.

He breathed in deeply and went forward to knock on the door. Before he could move; however, the wooden door and its hinges squeaked, being forced open with a heavy tug. Roy didn't have a second to comprehend as a small body wrapped around his legs tightly, refusing to let go.

"I knew you would come. You wouldn't come before but now that Mum is sick-" Edward paused midsentence as he looked up at the man he had clearly mistaken for his father. The boy's eyes, once filled with desperation, turned into sorrow, before reverting back to a reluctant curiosity all in the space of a heartbeat. There were too many confused emotions etched on his face, emotions that adults still found hard to comprehend (Roy couldn't agree more with that).

Another boy came running out afterward and even though the boy was taller than his brother, the innocent expression on his face (in comparison to Ed's iron stare) told Roy that this was the younger Elric brother. Alphonse.

"I have your letter," Roy answered, and pulled out the thing from his coat pocket. Even though the paper was crumpled, Ed snatched the letter from his hand.

Roy had received another letter shortly after the original one addressed to Berthold Hawkeye. Except that the second one was addressed to Hohenheim and had the address for the Hawkeye's estate listed on the envelope.

"This has my handwriting on it, but it was addressed to Dad!" Edward cried, and he showed the note to Alphonse, whose shocked expression caused him to look up at Roy anxiously. Roy sighed – he was tired and grouchy: that did not make him scary.

"I'm not sure how I came to have this, but I returned home-" Roy started but he was interrupted by a loud Ed talking animatedly to Alphonse.

"I put the address clearly and the stamp at the top! This is the address the bastard left for Mum to contact in case of an emergency! The address isn't from his house. He lied to us, Al. He's such a bastard and I hate him," Edward's fists were clamped and sweat was beading down his forehead. The boy looked like he would break out into a fever at any instant. When the hope of innocence and dream of naivety blew up in front of a child's eyes, there would be repercussions.

Edward's was that he wouldn't let himself cry. He rubbed his eyes and wore the serious demeanour of an adult having to take care of his little family. The one time he had allowed himself a glimmer of hope that his father would return and resume his position as the head of family…that was a dream that was not meant to be according to fate…God…or whichever damn entity ruled this earthly realm.

Edward had to keep himself strong for Alphonse.

Like how Roy had had to keep himself strong for Harry-

It's not the time to think about that, Roy shook his head lightly, so lightly that the boys did not notice his movement. Roy remembered the night as clearly as if it was yesterday before he had retreated to the Hawkeye estate. Harry had been screaming…there had been so much fire and Roy had cried out in anguish as he watched the flames burn and his father, usually so composed and level-headed, shrieking in delight. It had been a night that he wouldn't forget. Why had it not rained damned earlier? The flames would have been destroyed and sent back to the Hell where they would have come from…

And he had run away from home. He had run from his Master. He had run away to Resembool… His life was one of running and mistakes…

"Hey, Roy?" a voice below snapped his mind away from the darkness and flames. Edward's liquid golden eyes were staring at him, and Al beside him was watching on confused.

"Hmm?" Roy relaxed his clenched jaw. It clenched again.

"Do you know where our father is?" Edward asked. It was the last string of hope that the boy had. If Roy didn't know where his father was, there was a list of contacts still to try, but the exact location of Hohenheim would be unknown. The man was a rogue – and why had he given the Hawkeye estate as his contact address to his wife and sons?

"Wait, is your mother here? Did you say she was sick?" Roy realized, and when Alphonse started crying, Edward trying to soothe him and the hallway lights turning on, Roy knew it was a sensitive area. His own mother had been weak from the moment that he had been born (which his father never let him forget) and so he understood a little of what the brothers were enduring.

At the top of the stairs, a silhouette appeared, casting a shadow down towards the front door. Feet began to patter downwards, and the shadows gradually parted to reveal the figure of the dressing gown-clad Elric siblings' mother, "honey, is that you?"

She was calling for her husband. The desperation in her tone rang like a bell throughout Roy's soul. The call was gentle and summoning as if Trisha Elric wanted nothing more than to take her children and husband into her arms and hold them tight until the morning light. Roy saw her clutching to the bannister, her arms a clammy white. Her legs were shaking like the branches of the leaves holding the delicate autumn leaves; no matter how hard they tried to hold onto their precious load, in the end, they had to let go. Winter always won.

"Mum, you need to go back to bed! You know what Granny and the doctors keep saying," Ed mumbled the last part after realizing that he had raised his voice at his mother. He shuffled on the balls of his feet and gave a quick glance at Roy before rushing after Alphonse to help his mother. She took another step down the stairs and she misjudged her footing and began to tumble forwards. Roy acted on instinct, and before she could fall, he managed to hold onto her arm.

"Oh, thank you," she muttered, and her fever-glazed eyes appeared to clear; clarity flooded into her grey eyes as they regained their sparkle. Roy knew without a doubt that she was a natural mother and that her sons loved her adoringly and unconditionally.

"I'm sorry to intrude, Mrs. Elric," Roy moved backward to give the woman her personal space. He had done exactly that: intruded into her home. He had followed the rough directions given to him the previous winter and a return address on a letter that was not meant to him.

The inkling in his gut had been so strong it had manifested into a pulling force that would not leave him alone if he had not journeyed to Resembool. It was something that was age-old as if it had seen too much…

"What brings you out to the countryside?" Trisha coughed, moving her hands to her lips to brush away the phlegm that had congealed. Roy saw red, but he pretended like he noticed nothing. Edward did the same. Trisha smiled, "would you like some tea?"

"Coffee would be wonderful if you have any," Roy commented as he entered the threshold of the house, leaving the bitter outside behind him. The door squeaked tightly.

The house itself was quaint (now he could see something). Portraits hung up of a young Hohenheim and Trisha. As he moved towards the kitchen, the pictures in the hallway gradually change: there was a swollen belly, a baby boy, and another swollen belly, and then two boys beaming at the camera. There was a short woman with glasses as well as a young blond couple with a little girl the same age as the Elric boys. Other people made one or two appearances in the photographs but not as often as the blond family and the Elrics themselves.

"This is the last of my husband's favourite brew, so I hope you enjoy," Trisha had turned the gas on and the kettle was beginning to boil happily on the stove. Roy gasped as he ducked to enter the kitchen – all around the room was alchemic sketches of complex arrays (not the rudimentary sketches he sometimes conjured even now). They were pinned to the cupboards, above the stove, on the door, the coat rack, except on the windows looking out across open country.

"Did Hohenheim design these?" Roy awed, feeling the inky touch of the paper as he brushed an array gently with his finger. The arrays were clearly invented; they would not be found in any textbook.

"These? Oh no, my husband kept his arrays in his journals in the study. My boys gave these to me as presents – after a while, I did not know what to do with them! I don't understand much of what they're about, but I know they're talented," Trisha blushed as she stared at the work of her sons and began to cough into her dressing gown sleeve. The coughing then intensified.

Out of nowhere, the Elric brothers stormed past Roy. Trisha was gripping violently to the back of a wooden chair. Ed had shoved the contents on the work surface of the kitchen and was struggling to reach for the top cupboard. The kettle whistled loudly as the water boiled.

Trisha fell to her knees, her face turned purple from coughing. Blood dripped onto the floor. Al was rubbing her back with strong strokes. Ed was still struggling to reach for the handle to open the cabinet. Roy hurried over and opened the cupboard only its contents to spill out across the floor. The glass case containing the all-important medicine smashed into a thousand pieces. Edward gasped, and dropped off the counter onto the kitchen floor straight into the glass strands-

Roy gathered the scant knowledge he possessed on geology and scrambled in his pockets for the chalk that he kept there out of habit (he would be ordered to draw a transmutation circle randomly by Nassor – it was a habit in preparation for war). His mind was roaring and his eyes squinted as he drew the line, letting the image of his transmutation burn in front of him. The chalk moved smoothly across the kitchen floor and without thinking, Roy slapped his palms to the ground and allowed the alchemy to fix the broken glass shards.

Edward's arms were scrambling wildly on the kitchen counter, and he grabbed a couple of pills. He handed them to his mother, but she nearly dropped them by coughing so much. Her grip on the back of the chair weakened and she collapsed on her hands and knees on the ground, her breaths coming short and sharp.

"Please, you've got to try and take your cough medicine, it'll make it all better," Edward murmured, almost self-assuring. Al was shaking and the fear that radiated from the Elric family was painful to witness. Roy went to pour a glass of water for Trisha, and she took it gratefully as the coughing fit subsided.

"Thank you," Trisha was able to splutter, and she swallowed the pills with a small sip of water (not enough fluid to make up for what she must be losing on a constant basis). The gratification was simple but heartfelt; the mother did not have the strength to utter another word. In union, Edward and Alphonse helped their mother to her feet and they shuffled into the living room, slowly and sluggishly, and Trisha fell onto the sofa, a blanket brushed over her sides, and the rise and fall of the blanket indicated to Roy that she had fallen asleep straight away.

"Sick" was perhaps the biggest understatement he had heard in his life. Roy watched the boys starting to clear up the now-useless medication from the floor, using a broom that was nearly twice Ed's height.

From their expressions, Roy knew intuitively that this incident had become routine. But where were the people in the photographs to help them? Where was Hohenheim?

Anger burnt through Roy's veins. What if he had not come?

The gut feeling wallowing inside of him like a pit intensified and he succumbed to a series of flashbacks:

Roy saw the world through another set of eyes. He saw the world's future.

He had to save the world before October.

He remembered chaos and havoc, flames spurting into the sky, of a world soaked with ruin. But like bombs scattering to their targets, he could not for the sake of him remember any other details as their traces shattered out of existence. He was watching some mysterious future prophesied by fortune.

Roy was older. Amestris had become an apocalypse. The Homunculi and Father had wrecked his home (and stolen so many lives).

He was Fuhrer. He was the one who had soaked the land with blood. Him. And he had promised he would save it! Everyone who was precious to him…he had lost through his bitterness and greed.

The Homunculi had twisted him and warped him.

…

He was at the Portal. He had seen the past and future of every timeline. His future was one of the worst. And Truth was giving him another chance to make things right.

He was given a chance to change the world's timeline. Roy would go back to the beginning – where this mess all started – on the 3rd October 1910. On that day, the Elric brothers had not performed the human transmutation.

That was where the timeline split.

And that was when everything had gone horribly wrong.

The memories faded as quickly as they returned. But what remained was the sense of urgency that had been increasing inside of him for the past few months.

However, instead of just the word "October" being etched in his mind, the whole date remained in his memory bank: 3rd October 1910.