A/N: Again, sorry about the detailed description in the early part of the chapter. This will also be the only time this level of description happens for a location. And it's actually very important for two reasons besides the fact that Ed hasn't seen it in over 9,000 years.

Sickness

Back inside the house, Ed first grabbed some fresh apple juice to drink, noting his mother in the laundry room, folding the clothes. Those had probably been taken off the drying lines before she'd gone to the Rockbell home to pick him up, and it also told him his trip outside hadn't taken long. Remembering the basin and washboard his mother used to wash the laundry made him feel horrible for not being able to make her a functioning washing machine and dryer—until Reeve and the others got to Earth, she'd have to keep doing it by hand. Alchemy wouldn't help him make a washing machine if he wasn't also an engineer to know how the parts needed to fit together.

In that regard, them having running water in the house at all was actually impressive, even if they didn't have showers yet—a bath and a proper sink and toilet were good progress. In a way, because they had running water and watering hoses, they were only one step away from making showers, and in summer, most of the town had rigged a bucket and hose on a tree branch to create a cold shower. Now they just needed to transfer that to pipes in a house. As much as Winry was an engineer, she wasn't that kind of engineer—she was a technology (automail) engineer—so plumbing wasn't something she could feasibly do, or wouldn't want to do if she 'could'.

When he finished his drink, Ed got up to look around the main room, still not sure if he should be calling it a parlor or a living room. It was like any other such room, with couches and chairs, a coffee table, and a couple end tables. It had been a really long time since he'd seen a wood fireplace, but the fireplace was how they heated the room—and the whole house. As such, there was no furniture between the sitting area and the fireplace. Right then, it wasn't burning, leaving only the wood stove in the kitchen. Which was more than enough in...Late spring? Early summer? He wasn't really sure. After all, he hadn't seen a date since he'd been back there.

There were a couple photographs on the walls, but those were in a sort of gray scale or a sepia color. Officially, the gray scale one would be dubbed 'black and white', and it showed the only real photo they had of all four of them. Trisha was sitting in a chair with Al in her lap while Ed stood beside the chair, his arm on the arm of the chair, and their father stood behind Ed, still beside the chair. Normally, the man of the house would have been just behind the chair, symbolically apart from his family, but in this photo, Hohenheim hadn't done so—he'd been close enough to Ed to have rested one large hand on a barely three-year-old's head. Which he had done in the photo.

Each of the other photos were sepia and showed more recent portraits (or, well, their father's was the same one as when he'd left), but they were all only showing the head and neck, down to about the shoulders. In oval frames, rather than the rectangular one of the family photo, it meant next to nothing of their clothing was visible, though it looked like the boys were wearing suits and their mother was in one of her nicer dresses. Since Hohenheim always wore a suit anyway, it wouldn't have been notable in his unless he hadn't been wearing one—as was always the case, he was in a suit.

What surprised him was that his father's expression showed as mingled hope and sorrow...Or maybe it was depression? Guilt? All of them? At the time of the family photo, Ed didn't think he'd yet planned to leave, so it wouldn't have been that. Why had he never noticed that odd expression before?

Most of the house had cream or peachy colored walls, as those offset the natural brown wood grain nicely, and a few rooms were wallpapered partially or entirely in an offsetting color. With the brick fireplace in the living room giving deep reds to the room already, the rug under the seating area and the upper half of the walls were in medium-dark red with white, leaf-like patterns on them, the rug hemmed with those patterns and the upper walls in inch-wide stripes about a foot apart. The lower part of the walls was cream. That coloring extended up the walls of the stairwell to the second floor, and around the hall walls above, but it wasn't until Ed made his way to the stairwell that he recalled the other hall on the main floor which led to the library. That hall had the same coloring.

While he had no interest in the library currently, Ed knew the room had been wallpapered in blue and white in his mother's attempt to add cheer to the dark wood shelves of the room.

Because he was skipping the library, he followed the stairs up to the second, smaller floor. It had four bedrooms, and the small bathroom Ed had used the night he'd woken, though it still (barely) had space for a tub with the toilet and sink. The peachy and white bathroom was right above the cream and white one on the main floor, and the smallest room filled the space to one side and behind it—that one was a guest room. The walls of that room were peachy colored with white curtains and rug and a blanket in browns, white, and more of that peachy color, though muted because of the many browns on it and around the room.

He had honestly not even remembered this room until he'd opened the door to it. Even his younger set of memories didn't seem to have a reference point to it, which was really odd. Had he really been so blind to the world around him back then?

Beside the bathroom and guest room was his mother's (and father's) room, which had been done in greens to go with the cream walls and wood grain furniture, though several varying woods had been used in the room. There were also splashes of several colors, from blue, red, and yellow to pink, orange, and aqua. Across the hall were Ed and Al's rooms, though they lost space in theirs to the chimney from the fireplace. The fact that they even had separate rooms said a lot about the general wealth of the family who had built their home...but that meant it had been due to their father's wealth. Or just the length of time he'd been alive. Their mother's room, the guest room, and the bathroom were heated by the wood stove's chimney, but the boys relied on the main fireplace for warmth in the cold months.

Their rooms were also very similar in layout and coloring, and it was only some individual things in the rooms, small things like books or the color of their comforters, which separated them. Both had cream walls and mostly blue and green to go with their wooden furniture, though Al leaned more towards greens while Ed had gone to darker blues with some reds to offset. He remembered the desks—he and Al had fought over who had the better desk last year—only because the look of each had been one of their alchemy practices while they had been learning to activate the arrays correctly. Everything on his bookshelf, which also stored many of his toys, he couldn't remember, not even most of the books. His journals had been put on his bed.

Speaking of desk transmutation, why had he once thought skulls were awesome?

Shaking his head, he sighed and called on the arrays he had learned on Gaia to make it look more normal until he decided on something better to decorate it with.

As soon as he did, he knew true alchemy was being blocked by the barrier unless the user knew exactly what they were doing, and even then, it was hard to make it work. The arrays were slow to form, slow to energize, and slow to activate. The alchemic process was slow to reach its end result, which meant holding it longer and draining far more energy than a simple transmutation was supposed to take.

However, doing so also put a hole in the barrier, a hole which caused him to hear a sleepy voice asking in his mind, :Who are you, little one?: The voice sounded...not really male or female, and not really older than Minerva's (maybe even a little younger?), but just worn out.

:I'm Edward Elric. Or, if you know about Minerva, she calls me her Ancient Sentinel,: he replied, not fully focused on his desk anymore. :Who are you? I was never told which of this world's five sentiences was going to be communicating with me.:

:Ah, the Chosen,: the voice mused, then almost seemed to 'nod' into his mind. :The barrier will make things difficult until you are able to remove it, but that is your primary requirement. I am Ishbala. I had hoped my people would help you, but they seem to have misinterpreted my message and now fear what they should have treated with due respect and caution for the harm it could cause if taken to extremes. Though there are a few who are not so opposed to it as the majority, and they may be willing to assist you.:

Ed's mind froze at hearing the name Ishbala for a moment before he shoved that into a figurative box and set it aside. :So the only way I can talk with you until it's gone is if I use the full array and sub-array patterns which limit effects of transmutations?: he asked, just to be sure.

:Such seems to be the case. Our communication must be short, however, otherwise you risk harm to yourself. End this discussion now, Chosen,: Ishbala answered, tone stern with the last sentence.

:Another time, then,: Ed agreed, knowing that tone from one like Minerva meant they weren't going to take 'no' for an answer, and he wouldn't like the result of making them do it themselves. He then turned back to the transmutation, which allowed it to finish and release him from its drain.

He then promptly sat down on the floor, head spinning with exhaustion while he hyperventilated as he processed the fact that Ishbala wasn't a deity, s/he was a planetary sentience! He wondered if the Ishbalans knew that, or if it had been lost since 'Father' had taken over the region. Or maybe it had been lost long before then.

...Did that mean Ishbalans were his world's version of the Cetra?

That was a mind-boggling thought.

Though, after what had happened to that one version of Aeris who had been a rampant murderer and the destruction it had led to, Scar and the results of the negativity he had developed made a lot of sense. Most Ishbalans never got so hateful or angry that they would deliberately kill people in cold blood, just like the Cetra, but if they began...

Then, he looked up, mind mostly clear again after a bit of processing—only to freeze and stare at his desk as he tried to work out what he was looking at. The top still seemed to be flat, and the skulls had definitely disappeared. Instead of the rectangular, box-like form the desk had once had, it had become rounded, covered in bark, and sprouted small branches with green leaves. Some of those had flowers growing on them as well, ones which were bright red, had several petals off a domed, yellow center, and were in full bloom. Slowly, he rose to look at the desktop, and saw circular rings instead of the length-wise wood grain.

Hysterical giggling was all he could manage—he was definitely full-on Cetra now if that was how his energy affected a transmutation he wasn't focusing on.

"Ed?" his mother asked from the door, then gaped at his desk for a moment before asking, "What happened to your desk?"

"It—grew!" he answered, still giggling and not sure how to stop. "I tried to get rid of the skulls—and make it smooth until I decided something else to—to put there—but this happened instead!"

"Oh, my..." she blinked in surprise, eying the new desk for a few long moments. "Well, okay, but there's no sense in having the twigs all over the place. I'll get the shears and cut them off. We can make a bouquet with the flowers and some of mine from the garden for a vase in the...Do you think the flowers would be nicer in the parlor or the kitchen?"

"Um..." Ed had to blink and stare at her for a minute as his giggles tapered off, but then he remembered Aeris' (and later, Nina's) babble about flowers and colors, so he offered, "If you use blues, purples, and yellows, the kitchen is probably the better place. If it's yellows and oranges and white, probably the—parlor. So, where do you want a vase of flowers to look at, Mom?" Damn, that actually still felt odd to say after so long!

The older woman stared at him in surprise as she processed the words, then just gave her head a shake as she gave him a wry smile. "And what would you suggest if I want to use all of those colors?"

The blond boy's look became flat as he replied, "Then make two bouquets."

At that, Trisha began giggling. "How thoughtful! I think I'll do exactly that! Now, I'll grab the shears and a basket. You can do whatever you like now, Ed." She left the room, still chuckling in amusement, and Ed just blinked after her for a moment.

He had never realized before how well his mother took her children's eccentricities, but this had just been proof of the fact that she was shockingly open and accepting. That led him to question why she would be. Even Cetra who were fully active weren't so very open and accepting, they still needed time to adapt to those kinds of changes, even if they tended to do it faster and better than normal people. Since he knew his mother had Cetra blood, but realized it wasn't especially active or he'd be able to tell it was (and she'd have strange abilities or be an alchemist, herself), that couldn't be the reason for this trait.

As he had no way to answer the question, he decided to just be grateful for it and turn his attention to other things.

Like the oddity of what he'd need to do to talk with Ishbala. After his first trial of a transmutation with Minerva's arrays on his own world, Ed now knew the barrier was blocking energy flow, not just communication. Rather, it was blocking the 'Lifestream' from interacting with people who were using arrays, which was probably part of the reason they had all stopped using sub-arrays and created ones which were so variable. Those same variables were the reason they could so easily be misused, and the Ishbalans had reason to loathe those kinds of alchemy arrays—they weren't safe. At all. It also meant he'd either exhaust himself every time he wanted to use alchemy, or he'd have to revert to his old version of it.

A version he hadn't used in thousands of years. Well, the equivalent of lifetimes on the Planet.

Those were also more limited by lack of planetary energy assisting in it, and doing it that way while he had liquid energy for blood might cause people to think he was a Philosopher's Stone. Then again, in theory, he pretty much qualified as one. Self-imposed restrictions so he didn't overdo things and look too impressive were probably a good thing, though, for the purposes of going unnoticed. And that was what he'd have to do on top of the forced restrictions. After all, there currently wasn't anyone else as able as him on Earth, and wouldn't be until people like Genesis and Lakis arrived. Which, of course, made him pine for them again.

His mother soon returned with the shears to cut all the twigs off his new tree-stump desk, then left, so he sat down at it and absently kicked his feet as he thought about what he needed to do, should do, and how he might be able to go about it. Paper from one of the drawers (which were, thankfully, all intact) and a piece of charcoal let him make a few notes about the barrier, but then he made a shorthand list of things he could, or would need to, change.

Illness had come to the town when—wait, was that now?—and that illness had killed his mother. Plague.

The year. Dimensions—was there a way to know if it came at different times in different ones? Because he'd thought it had been when he was a bit older, but some part of him worried it was now, but then—what was the date? He quickly found a calendar and realized it was nineteen-oh-four. About the plague, he wouldn't be able to know without asking Ishbala, and then only in a vague sense, but it was very possible the spread of disease happened in different ways (someone infected traveling in a different direction, for example) in different dimensions. If no illness came this year, then he'd be more thankful than he could imagine. So far, it didn't look like it had come—that would have typically been in spring so fall—now—was the next most likely time...

He couldn't stop the plague from hitting or spreading, but he was sure Trisha shouldn't have gotten so sick she died. He'd always thought she was healthy...But something told him it wasn't that easy, and he'd missed something important. He'd never paid enough attention as a child. There was no way he could deny it now, because if he'd never noticed an entire room in his house, or his father's expression, frozen as it was in two photographs, he'd obviously been too wrapped up in himself.

Getting up, Ed made his way back down to the kitchen and just quietly watched his mother while she worked to prepare a stew. Her movements were precise and used the least effort possible—she was performing a repeated, familiar action with proficiency. But, as she currently thought she was alone in the room, she wasn't smiling. Actually, she looked very tired and worn out. There was no anger or pain that he could see, just a kind of tired resignation.

She was already sick with something. That realization hit him with the force of a sledgehammer, and he fell over to hit the wall at the shock.

"Ed, are you all right?" Trisha asked in alarm after jumping at the sudden noise, rushing over to him to lift him and move him gently to one of the kitchen chairs so she could kneel and look at him at eye level. "Ed?" she asked again apprehensively when he didn't respond to the query right away.

Now, there was no sign of that tiredness. She hid it from them. On purpose.

"You're sick," he told her bluntly. She reared back, eyes wide in shock. "You are, aren't you, Mom?"

"I..." she began, then stopped and just sagged. "There's nothing anyone can do. Even your father can't—I asked him about it without saying it had to do with me. We had been talking about alchemy used for medicine. What I have isn't something that can be fixed. And I need you to not worry about it, because if all goes well, you and Al will both be grown up before anything bad happens."

"Unless something worse than a cold comes to town," Ed answered flatly. "And those journals I've been writing are a different kind of alchemy, and are different from alkahestry, too. I know they can fix things most people couldn't, because the way they're done is different. What's actually wrong?"

The woman sighed faintly and admitted, "It's a form of cancer which has a very slow progression. They'd usually refer to it as being in a 'benign' form because it's only tiring me a bit, not trying to take over my body or kill me right now. It could change on a moment's notice, but for now, it's not much of a problem at all—I've been told a few major signs it's turned malignant include losing my ability to taste food, losing clumps of my hair, or having my fingernails fall off for no known reason."

"Cancer," the blond boy said flatly. "You have cancer. That would make your whole immune system weak to any illness that came around, even if it's 'benign' right now."

In his mind's eye, he was going back over all the data he had on genetics, including what he knew of the degeneration of Genesis' and Angeal's cells, and what it had taken to fix them. And frankly, that meant calling up healing water, since he had no samples of any planetary sentience's genetics to give her. The healing water was something both he and Aeris had managed to create several times before (usually her, though), and it was actually the base process for how Nina's unique brand of healing worked, so it was directly using planetary energy, just not raw or undiluted. Damn, he wanted Ria's help!

"Yes, but that's why I try to make sure we have healthy food—to make up for my weakened immune system, and to hopefully keep you both healthy, too," she answered him with a smile.

"It can be fixed, I just need to work out how to do it here," Ed told her, and she blinked. "It—there's a way of mixing...I guess planetary energy, or alchemic energy, into water and holding it there for cleansing. In a way, I guess it would be a more people-friendly version of my new, clear blood, and it won't change anything else about you except to make your body as physically and mentally healthy as it can be at the time you drink it. Even applying it topically will fix most injury and illness, but for something as deeply rooted as cancer, drinking it is the best option, and it'll fix the cells which were causing the cancer in the first place. Now that I know what I need to fix, I can work on figuring that out."

"Is that really true? Something you can do with alchemy?" Trisha answered in surprise, apparently deciding he was unharmed, giving his head a pat, and getting up to go back to her work on the stew.

"Doing it with the alchemy from my journals, yes," he agreed. "The science is all there, its the elements which relate to energy flows that make my way so different. Working out how to make the two blend is the hard, and lengthy, part, so I should start working on this now. Especially since it sounds like you have a form of leukemia, which was caused by radiation exposure. Not sure how you got that before anyone figured out how to mine or use radioactive metals, but I guess a volcano could have belched some up or something."

"...Ed, you realize half the words you just said make no sense, right?" she asked in dry amusement. "As far as I know, they aren't words that exist right now. Where did you get them from?"

First, he blinked, then he sighed. "You'll find out later, when others who know those words introduce themselves. But, there are some kinds of metal which have traits different from normal metals like copper, iron, silver, or gold, and they're very rare, but very dangerous. Like I said, I don't think we've been digging them up yet, mostly because we have no way of safely handling them. They give off something called radiation, which is like an airborne poison, and causes genetic deformity and illness. Cancer is a genetic deformity, and leukemia in particular is one of the major results of extended radiation exposure. That would usually also mean there's lots of it in the air or ground nearby where the person lives, or lived, when they got it. You didn't always live in this house, so you probably got it when you lived with your parents."

"That makes it unlikely to be the result of a volcanic eruption, then," Trisha pointed out dryly. "That's all very interesting, Ed." She paused to move the things she'd been cutting into the pot with the broth, then said, "If there's no cure known to doctors and alchemic doctors, they can't do anything to help me. If you think you can, then go ahead. Right now, it's no rush. And please don't tell Al, because it would just worry him needlessly. I don't want either of you to worry over something which can't be fixed anyway."

"It can," Ed reiterated, hopping to the floor and turning to leave the room. "And I'll prove it."

He then headed back to his room to make more notes on his papers, this time about the processes of degradation, cancer, and healing water (and wished again that Ria was there to keep his notes and records for him). On Minerva's world, it wasn't that hard, in the full scope of things, to create the right kind of healing water, but this world was different and had much less accessible energy. Yes, he would be effectively creating a miracle cure (Al would kill him if he didn't share it with him, four years old or not), but he wasn't sure what kind of quantity he would be able to create at any one time. On Gaia, he and Aeris had both been able to make it rain the cure, or create pools of it in a place which was reasonably secure, but he was pretty sure Earth wouldn't let the former happen.

If he was honest with himself after doing an energy level comparison, it was likely he'd be lucky to fill a pail or a bucket (hopefully a larger one so there would be some to give to people in the community, too). Maybe adding more sentiences to this world's functionality would be a good thing, if only so there would be more energy to go around and more likelihood of being able to create the healing water on demand. He was sure Al would be able to learn to do it—if Ed was originally a Cetra Sentinel, then Al was definitely a Cetra Healer, and Aeris had always been more proficient at creating it than he had. Add Nina's proficiency as a Healer as well, and it followed the trend of being the height of a Healer's skills. Al would be over the moon if he could make an honest-to-God miracle cure.

Either way, he now had a plan and a goal, and he'd need to create the method before giving it to his brother, even if he didn't have Ria's help. Letting Al do the making would also be a good thing to distract people from him while he did other things—they could fawn over the healing prodigy, Alphonse Elric.

On second thought, maybe he should include Al in the creation so the other boy wouldn't feel bad or guilty over claiming the work as his own? They had always worked together to create things in the past, anyway, and Ed had never really gotten out of the habit of getting alchemic help from other Mages (Sentinels), so there was no reason to keep Al out of the process of something for healing.

As such, he planned to introduce it all to Al that evening, and in the meantime, kept working on his lists. There was still so much to do.