I am proud of this one scene. It's one of my better ones.

I watched her sleep next to me. She was in my arms, her expression was soft like her hair, and she selt peacefully. It had made me wonder what she was dreaming about that had put her at ease. I knew it couldn't have been the thoughts of having to leave the country under exile that set her at ease. Since the news she had grown quite quiet, no longer the witty girl that could make me smile and think of a younger me. Brushing some hair from her eyes, I smiled, just glad she was peaceful.

Then there was me with my insomnia and nightmares I still had from when I attempted human transmutaion. I was still plagued with those even though I still managed to get Al's body back like I promised him what seemed like a lifetime ago. There had been some that jerked me into reality, face drenched in sweat, heart pounding, blood pressure spiking to inhuman measurements, making me tremble and shake with tears in my eyes, and others that just happened. It was those I had lived with for a long time. I tolorated those. The intense ones scared the living shit out of me. Ever since we got to the hotel since we left Briggs, all my nightmares had included Kenzi. The worst one yet was the first night we were here...

Darkness shrowded the room I was in. I knew it was a room. The mildew smell asulted my nose. But the place wasn't damp. It was merely old. The worn, weathered, wooden flooring creaked and clapped under my weight as I walked through this room, looking for a way out in nothing but darkness. A black abyss that could make you think you were hillucinating things that weren't there. Things that didn't exist.

As I turned, I saw a small light. It was a pale, yellow light that shined through a keyhole to some door I didn't know existed until that moment. It just appeared like the Gate had when I tried to bring Mom back. I could vaguely hear voices in my head as I approached the light. One of them was Alphonse.

"Brother, don't look there. You don't know if the homonculous is behind that door waiting for you."

Al, I am not scared of anything, I thought casually, as I usually said to him when we traveled the country together.

It wasn't long in my endless steps toward the light that I heard Mustang's voice in my head.

"Fullmetal, I could site you for insubordination if you don't follow my orders of going near that door." There was a typical sigh in his voice.

"Hawkeye, you tell him!"

Like I would still listen to you, old man.

"Edward, I swear, if you break your automail again, I am tearing off the matching limb with my bare hands!"

My thoughts scoffed for me at the sound of Winry's pissed off, annoyed voice with my record of breaking automail. She wouldn't be able to go through with that threat even if she wanted to.

As I reached the door with the yellow light still shining through it's keyhole, I could hear a muffled voice. It was a woman's voice. But something was obstructing her voice. I wanted to hear her voice. What was going on with this woman. She sounded scared and distressed. I knelt down and looked through the small keyhole, barely getting in what was happening to this woman.

There was a figure blocking my view. The figure was a man due to the build of the person. His hair was disheveled and longer than a normal man's cut, not nearly as long as mine. He looked dirty, like he hadn't bathed in a few days. But his clothes were clean. He sent chilled down my spine when I heard him speak.

"Look at you. A beauty like you shouldn't be all tied up like that." The man bent over a little, touching the woman I had yet to see. "But you tried running once and I couldn't let that happen. You see, I was PAID to find you, kidnap you, take you from the face of teh earth, and then kill you. I don't want to kill you yet, but..." his voice grew deadly, nothing like the fake caring voice he had used before, "if you defy me and my trust one more time I will unleash a hell you had not seen yet."

The woman whimpered as the man stood straight and let out an amused sound. He stepped from her after bending over and whispering something to her that made her whimper more. As she was choking sobs, the man moved, revealing the woman. I felt my weight collapse onto my knees when I saw her.

Her soft hair was matted a little, frizzed out in a few places, and messy. She never kept her hair messy. Laced in her hair, upon a closer inspection, was dried blood. I tensed up as my gaze went to her face. Tears had streamed down her face, creating streaks and evidence that tears were shed. Her ivory face was dirty with dirt and blood ground into her soft skin. Splotches were found all over her body that showed skin. There were bruises covering her body. On her forehead was a cut that started from above her eyebrow and disappeared under her bangs, that were cast in front of her eyes. Fresh blood still dripped from the wound, sliding over her skin carelessly. There was a wound that looked like a burn mark on the space where her neck met her shoulder. Her shirt and jeans was torn in various places, the edges of the tears were wet with blood with the cuts on her skin to match. Her arms were tied tightly behind her back and her legs bound to the legs of the chair she was placed in. Her boots nowhere to be found, leaving her bare feet exposed and cut up. There was a gag in her mouth, preventing her from getting a sob or words out.

The sight shook me inside and out. I felt hot tears pool in my eyes as my body trembled with fright and shock. Her eyes looked so defeated. So unlike her. I used one of my hands to cover my mouth as it uttered one word, "McKenzi."

The man stepped back into the view. "My contract was for me to kill you," he said as he ran a knife's blade across her cheek, creating a new cut. Blood pooled at the surface and slowly dripped down her face like a red tear. She cried a little more. "It's a shame I have to kill you. It's a waste of beauty if you ask me. But, orders are orders, and that is still embedded into me from when I was a military hound."

The man faced toward me, shadows covering his face so I couldn't identify him if I tried. I could tell he smirked at me before turning back to Kenzi, who trembled more in her chair. The man rose his knife and brought it down toward her with force as Kenzi screamed at the top of her lungs through the gag.

The world went back but I could feel something wet and heard silence.

That dream had jerked any form of sleep away from me that night. But tonight, I was just enjoying looking at Kenzi, watching her sleep. She was snuggled close to me, lost in her own world as I stayed up. I cupped her cheek where the killer had sliced through her flawless skin and rubbed my thumb across it, savoring the feel of her skin against mine.

It was moments like this that made me hope that tomorrow would never come. That she wouldn't leave me in the morning. That the world was gone and all that was left was her and I. But nothing liked going with what I wanted because as I looked to the window, the sun was coming up and her cousin would be in town soon to take McKenzi away from me.

"I didn't want you to show up so soon," I muttered toward the sun that was slowly creeping over the sky. "I just want more time with her."
More time to say goodbye. More time to tell her that I could possibly love her.

Just more time.

Kenzi's tears were slowly killing me. It was a painful death as Taylor told her what really happened. Kenzi had had her face buried in her hands for a few minutes, trying to comprehend that her father had been out for her and hired a known contract killer. Not that they'd be able to trace that transaction. I wrapped my arms around her and my old coat. I kissed the top of her head before resting my chin on it.

It was me who broke the silence between us after Taylor had gathered Kenzi's things and loaded them into the car for transport to the train station. They were heading east, and that was all Taylor was going to say to me.

"Hey, Kenzi," I said in a soft, easy tone, "look at me."

Hesitantly, Kenzi looked at me with those intense, luminous eyes. Tears were still falling down her soaked face. I wiped them away with my thumb. I gave her a small smile. "I want you to take my old coat with you. I don't wear it, and I know you will."

She sniffed. "I can't do that."

"I am insisting," I said to her, trying not to show her that I wanted to break down with her. "Besides, I know you'll want it later. Just take it."

She nodded silently.

I smiled a little wider. "Good," I said before I kissed her one last kiss goodbye. My hand disappeared into her soft hair that felt like silk against my fingers as they laced through it. She kissed back immediately, sending sparks with more intensity than transmutations through my system. Her arms tightened around my body; her body pressing against mine.

It made me depressed when we broke the kiss, and she was forced onto the train after a final goodbye. All I could do as she rode away on that train was watch. I couldn't perform any alchemy to stop her from leaving me. I couldn't do anything to make her stay. She had to leave or it would be her life.

Just as I saw the last of the train carrying Kenzi into the distance, I heard myself utter, "I love you, Kenzi. I will never forget you."