A/N: In the discussion with Tseng and Sonna in this chapter, their dynamic with Ed (as of when they left Gaia) is going to be true in every FoWD branch path, so pay attention to what it's described as (this won't affect FoW branch paths, though). Ed's current physical age just complicates matters in this one.

Affirming

The following week was a great deal of the adults being busy and the children collectively having nothing to do. Women who had a child too young to leave to people like Trisha (and several Gaian women, and even a few men) had to keep them with them, but most were old enough to play on their own. They invariably gravitated to the 'child minders' to play with the other children, even if they hadn't been especially involved in the first round of Trisha taking the Ishbalan children.

In that week, the materials and foods the Ishbalans had brought with them were pulled out and made use of as people started building actual buildings rather than just make-shift shelters. Tools made the work to gather materials and make them into things easier, and that also helped their ability to develop what they actually needed for the population. Sleeping pads and blankets and pillows helped significantly with those who had been in pain, and for those who had been having trouble sleeping. And all of that was around the creation of the medicines.

It was around the end of the week when illness actually began hitting people, and it hit them hard. In that regard, the group who had been taking Al's healing water for their pain almost didn't suffer for it, so their roles ended up reversed for about two weeks—they were making sure everyone got food and medicine instead of being cared for. If the healing water hadn't been a thing, it would have been much harder on everyone and there would have been many more deaths, but as it was, less than one percent of the people who had arrived there had died.

Ed realized how important Al's healing water had been in that survival rate, so had thanked him profusely for it—and Al had turned around and thanked him for teaching him how to make it. Especially when it was Trisha's turn to get sick, and she got the worst combination possible—her body already had been 'primed' for that kind of illness, even after being cured. Even some of the people Ed had known on Gaia had gotten that 'worst combination', and he hadn't been looking forward to seeing people like Gast or Verdot die.

Once the round of sickness was done with, though, things mostly went back to normal. Shelke and Reeve were teaching Winry about their mechanics and engineering while they worked to re-develop their technology, which had first required the re-development of metalsmithing. With her attention being on that, no one had to actively watch her or take care of her, and Ed always got a laugh out of her 'lessons'. She was so much like a fish in the water that it was plenty clear she was a lot more than just an auto-mail mechanic, even if that was her whole focus in life.

Around then, however, various Gaians began to want to separate from the main group, and it was clear they had some regional affiliations—people from the general area of Midgar were fine staying wherever Lady Shinra was, but there were four others. One was obviously the Wutains, who had been equal parts fascinated by Shiro and alienated by him (much to Ed's amusement). Another very distinctive one had been an odd combination of Cosmo Canyon's and Gongaga's people. Then, there had been plainslanders nominally represented by Junon and Kalm, and the mountains-glaciers people were represented by a combination of Nibelheim's and Icicle Inn's people.

For that, Ed had some idea of where they might like to head for to be in a similar environment to where they had once lived, and if he didn't know, Minerva could tell him. If that didn't work well, Sephiroth or Genesis would fly into the air and see if they could find a suitable terrain—but it only emphasized the sheer size of the area of land they had to work with. It also gave them a better idea of the map of the area they were now dealing with, so it turned out to be useful for that, and there were always a few from each group who wanted to stay with a different group to pass messages.

Finally, they decided the people of Midgar would just stay and keep building right where they were while the others would all split off to other areas. The mountain-glacier people were sent north to the mountains and the Wutains were sent to the far eastern coast, where there were islands not too different from Wutai's out in the ocean, though they'd need to first create a port and ships to get to them. Then, the plainsland group were sent west to the plains the caravan had passed through to reach them in the first place and the Cosmo-Gongagans were sent south, to the border of a tropical rainforest and desert.

While nearly half the people who had arrived on Earth stayed in the 'Midgar' zone, about half of them had decided to move out, which also made it easier to support the people in the 'Midgar' area. It had amused Ed to find out that there was also a wagon track and a long bridge over the inland sea in the east, like there had been in the west, but it was too far south to be seen from the islands Minerva had offered to the Wutains. That sort of meant she'd kept a very specific and easily guarded through road along there, and their only dangers stood to be people walking in from the north.

If what she'd said about terraforming the mountains with the intent to keep monsters in, Ed doubted most of the north would be passable, but to the northeast and northwest, there could well be more 'wagon tracks' to follow for people to get in. The northwestern side definitely left invasion by Drachma as a potential. The only question he had about that was whether they'd charge in with an attack or send people to get a feel for the area, first. Logically, it should be the latter, but it was also likely they'd be sending spies no one would see (except the Turks), not Ambassadors to speak with them.

Then again, he was biased by having lived in Amestris, who they attacked and tried to kill with single-minded determination for no fathomable reason. It was possible they would actually send Ambassadors to speak with Lady Shinra, assuming they could communicate. After all, the common language being used was Amestrian, but it seemed the Ishbalan language had also transferred to the Gaians, and the Gaian Standard had transferred to the Ishbalans. If Drachma approached in peace, it would be possible to trade off that language, too, he thought.

Still, knowing how likely to attack Drachma was, he had to tell Lady Shinra to send guards and a greeting party to the northwestern pass into and out of the area. For that, she decided Rufus should be her representative, backed by some SOLDIERs, Turks, and Infantry, which meant she sent Angeal and his whole unit, other than SOLDIERs who had families (like Zack). Despite doing so, she still had to ask why Ed thought only the northwestern entrance would be an issue. Of course, that meant he had to tell them about Xing, so he told them everything he knew about that land and its people.

He finished by saying, "Unlike the Drachmarans, they aren't enemies, even if we get some very annoying visitors from there. And they'll also happily announce themselves. And try to trade you to death."

Lady Shinra found the last point very amusing, and replied, "I'm sure 'try' is the operative word, and I'll be able to get us the better end of the deal. Unless they care to threaten war."

"If they do that, they'd have sent one of their most powerful warriors," the boy told her flatly. "And they sure aren't push-overs, they're strong. You've seen Gran sparring with your SOLDIERs, and he's not even enhanced—they're his level of strong, at least. So, your best bet would be to pit someone against their strongest who isn't the strongest you could send, but who is just strong enough to win."

"Which means?" she blinked in surprise.

"A SOLDIER who is either a Second or a Third, not a First," he shrugged. "And not a Turk. That way, when your Second or Third wins, you can then say, 'oh, and that was actually only one of our mid-range skilled fighters, and we have plenty more powerful ones to send at you—for example, all the ones who primarily wear black...' That should make them think twice before actually threatening war. Especially if you then have people like, say, Genesis and Weiss fight in a standard sparring match."

Her lips twitched in amusement as she said, "Edward, with the amount of damage those two do to their surroundings, that amounts to serious threat tactics."

"Sure," he agreed. "But if they used 'war' to begin with, it means they're actually testing how easily they'd be able to take over and have you become one of their 'states' which all pay taxes to them. I mean, there are benefits to that, but not for us. You'll have to make it very clear to them that you won't be able to be intimidated or taken over by force, so they'd better take you as a trade partner, not a subsidiary of theirs. They still aren't just going to charge in here with their weapons already drawn—they aren't that kind of danger. They'd be more like the kind of danger your business partners were back on the Planet."

That made the woman laugh. "Thank you for the advance notice, then. I'll certainly be prepared to put on a show should it be necessary, and I'll send people to all the passes to meet visitors. Now, please go play or something—your size doesn't exactly lend itself to the work we need to do now." As he began to open his mouth to say he could still use alchemy, she cut him off with, "No, Edward. While you 'could' create us homes or other buildings or roads, that's not what we either want or need from you. We need to do it ourselves so we can re-establish our sense of self on a completely different world. Let us do that."

As Ed's brow furrowed in confusion and hurt, Rashad's voice from behind him said, "Ed, she's right about needing to do it themselves." When Ed faced him in some surprise, he lifted the boy in his arms and told him, "Something tells me this is an issue for you, no matter how long you live for, yes?" Slowly, the boy nodded, so he said, "No one is trying to hurt you or leave you out of things. You already have a place here—two of them, in fact—so you've already established yourself.

"They haven't, and working to build their new homes themselves is turning this abnormal situation into something normal. Once it feels normal, they can adapt. You're helping them by letting them know they need to react to something—just like you do with us, like warning us we were about to be attacked by the Amestrian army and the Führer. That's also just as valid of a way to help them as tangibly doing work, so don't think you're shirking some self-imposed duty. You aren't."

"Too true," Lady Shinra added, sounding amused, and Ed—well, he'd have blushed if he could have (that was still a thing with not having blood in his body). "Did you need something, Warrior-Priest?"

"I wanted to discuss with you an actual layout for your new city so it isn't a mess—we Ishbalans like things organized if we're going to actually have a home in one of our very few cities. I don't think you've thought about how you're going to arrange the area for practicality yet, and we know from our own cities that deciding on a layout and building based on that works wonders for efficiency, too," the man offered.

"That's true," the woman sighed faintly. "I hadn't been thinking about it in particular, though we've primarily been building homes near the orchard and other types further out. Organizing that should still be doable."

"We'll do that now, then," he agreed.

"Ugh. Maybe I will 'go play or something'," Ed said in annoyance. "City planning is not my thing."

"Go ahead, then," Rashad said in amusement as he set the boy down on his feet.

The only problem was, even though Ed wandered away to look for something else to do, his 'inner child' was currently apparently asleep (too much excitement, maybe?), so he was still thinking like an adult. Finally, he just picked a place to sit that was out of everyone's way, which meant it was out at the far end of the orchard. He hadn't really looked at the variety of trees there before, and only just then realized it was actually correct to call it an 'orchard', because it had been laid out in neat rows of types of fruits, just like an orchard humans had planted. Except Minerva had done it.

Suddenly, Tseng and Sonna sat down to each side of him, and he realized what both of them would want with him at once, so he sighed.

"Don't behave like that," Tseng chided him, sounding amused. "We aren't going to bite your head off or anything like that."

"That would be very distasteful, on several levels," Sonna added, also sounding amused. "But we do need to figure out what's going to happen now, because obviously, things have changed—you being in the body of a six-year-old, namely."

"That's why I'm sighing," the boy replied tiredly. "I've been avoiding thinking about it because this dynamic really doesn't work when I'm this age."

The two traded looks over his head, but Tseng asked, "Could you try to explain to us what that means for your perception of things? We had still been waiting for you to choose one of us, but by your age alone, we had already guessed we'll be waiting until you've grown up again for that answer, but..."

"Even knowing that doesn't help us grasp why it's difficult for you," Sonna finished.

Ed closed his eyes for a long moment, trying to sort out how to tell them what his thoughts and feelings were doing to him. His choices in romantic partner had always been limited by two factors. One was that he had to already care about them as a friend just to be able to go past that point, and the other was that the one he chose couldn't be either someone too much like him or too passive—they had to be a mellowing and calming influence, but able to put him in his place if he got out of hand. Even though he got out of hand a lot less with Mako for blood, that didn't mean it didn't happen, and those times when it did were normally pretty spectacular.

Generally, that left him four options, and the exact dynamic varied from dimension to dimension.

The most variable of them was Reeve, who could only actually form that kind of bond with him if it was one of the dimensions where he had a significant backbone. In this one, he would have been an option, except that his focus was on Scarlet this time, and Ed wasn't actually sure how that had happened—it was a first, unless it had happened but been kept very quiet in other ones. Even Scarlet didn't seem to care about anyone but Reeve in that way, though in many of the 'Lady Shinra influenced' dimensions, she'd had Genesis as a friend-brother and had been a lot easier to get along with, so it would have been feasible for Reeve to potentially end up with her.

Oddly, Felicia was also an option, whether she had become a Turk (Percia) or not, but that seemed dependent on whether or not she'd merged with Zirconaide. If she had, she generally never had any sort of romantic relationship at all, though he had also found out in a few dimensions that she'd stopped aging when she was merged with Zirconaide. A properly-merged Vincent and Chaos kept aging, but the poorly-merged one didn't; for Felicia, she universally froze in time by being merged. Which meant she wasn't an option in this dimension.

Ed wondered if that aging peculiarity was because she was being merged with the Materia (crystallized Mako) as well as his soul. However, this wasn't the time to think on Percia and her current state.

Moving on, the lack of those two options left him with his last two options, Sonna and Tseng. They weren't 'last' as in the ones he was least likely to choose, but in the sense that they were something of a mire of complexity, and if it came down to them and both expressed an interest, it was nearly impossible for him to choose one. That also normally meant it took several years and some sort of extreme defining incident to clear things up for him so he could choose. One Tseng actually got so annoyed by the wait that he basically said, "Fuck that, let's just have a threesome. There, done."

Oddly, it had worked in that dimension, but it was far from the norm, and likely wouldn't have worked in most of the other dimensions. In this one, Ed wasn't going to try to guess if that even could work, though in some of the dimensions where he'd ended up with Reeve or Percia, the two of them had gotten together. In a few where he'd been with Sonna or Reeve, Tseng had even ended up with Felicia/Percia, too. In short, Tseng wasn't actually picky about his partner, he just had an order preference. And normally needed a certain amount of 'peaceful time' before actively choosing, other than his first choice.

Ed's issue right now, though, was that his assessment and thoughts were all based on the young man who had been about twenty-one years old when they'd left Gaia, and who was now in a six-year-old body.

Finally, as he felt Ria land on his shoulder and drape herself around the back of his neck, he sighed and said, "My mind is the same mind, with all the same memories, but because my body literally can't feel romantic or sexual feelings, it's almost like it's bent? Like, I know we were casually dating and playing around, but that part doesn't have emotion attached to it anymore."

"So that bond we'd been building is broken?" Sonna asked in alarm.

"It's not..." the boy paused to think about the best words again. "I still care about you, and you're still my friends, probably the ones I'm closest to, except for Genesis. But there's still a difference in how the two of you 'feel' compared to him, it just doesn't go into those romantic feelings. That's why I called it 'bent'—there's still something there which is different from others, but it's not the same thing it used to be. If that's just because a six-year-old's body can't produce the chemicals to feel those specific emotions, that may fix itself when I hit puberty again, but that's going to be at least five more years, maybe longer. Would that much time really not change things between us?"

"Just by virtue of the passage of time and new experiences," Tseng commented quietly. Ed just nodded, and Sonna sighed. "But where does that leave you? If you reached that age and neither of us could have that kind of bond with you by then, what will happen to you?"

Ed gave him an annoyed look. "Then, I find an Amestrian who's compatible with me, or maybe an Ishbalan, or even someone from Xing. It's not like I don't have options, and this world is way bigger than Gaia with a lot more people." Both Sonna and Tseng looked taken aback by the words. "Seriously, it's not like there's no one here I could have a relationship with eventually. Right now, 'relationships' don't exist for me other than on purely technical and unemotional terms. If our relationship can be re-established later, then fine, but we really have a lot more important things to do right now, anyway."

"So you aren't discarding the possibility, and we'll have to see how things play out from here," Sonna said quietly. She then gave a small nod. "But if it's a non-entity to you for the time being, I'm going to play around until you're back to an age when it's relevant again."

Ed blinked at that as Tseng snorted, but then he gave a nod and agreed, "Sure. I wouldn't actually expect you to stay celibate when that's not your natural habit anyway."

Her look became annoyed and she asked, "Are you calling me a whore, Kitten?"

"No," the blond answered in amusement, and she blinked. "I'm saying that, if a man happens to catch your eye, you'll happily join him—and only him—in bed until the relationship falls apart. Then, you'll take a break, find someone else many months later, and do it all over again until one lasts. Tseng does that, too, but his options are a lot wider because he can have a partner anywhere on the scale, it's not specific to one gender. The result is still the same—to be a whore, you'd have to be sleeping around randomly with any and all comers without sticking to just one. Neither of you does."

She looked annoyed again, but admitted, "Fair. Okay, then...we'll do our own thing while we wait for you to grow up again, and otherwise, we'll be your friends. It will take some getting used to having an adult discussion with a six-year-old, though."

"At least he still talks like an adult. That would have been much harder otherwise," Tseng commented, sounding highly amused. "And I think we're both guilty of forgetting that you've met us at least a hundred times by now, if not more, so you've also met and seen us in different circumstances. Forgetting that makes your comments about our personalities very awkward."

"I'm pretty sure this topic would make them somewhat awkward anyway," Ed answered, gaze amused. "It is for me, too, just not quite as much. And friends and family are always good—even with everyone's losses, having all of you here is...It's as 'right' as it was to have my mom back after so long. Maybe this is more right, because in the end, I spent so much more time with you than I did with her—I really only had a few years with her, not around nine thousand."

Both Turks chuckled at the words, then gave him hugs. "We'll be sure to stay close, no matter how the romantic part goes later," Tseng told him, and Sonna gave an agreeing hum. The two sat with him for awhile, telling him about the island they'd appeared on and the bridge across to the mainland, and about their trip over, until they were called to help with some necessary message-running.

When they were gone, he pulled Ria into his lap and facing him, and asked, "So way back when I got here, you ran a self-diagnostic?"

"Yes," she agreed. "Did you want to know what happened? You didn't really have time before."

"Sure," he agreed. "Your power supply, especially."

"I don't need one anymore—whatever happened on our way here, that got fixed," she told him. "The Cait Siths' did, too. I think, if Reeve studies how we're made now, he should be able to copy it with any others like us he makes. And all my other functions are smoothed out and work more easily. Nothing else has changed."

"Huh," the boy blinked in surprise, tipping his head to the side to eye her. "And I already saw you changing colors like usual, though I think I'm glad we don't have neon lights for you to reflect just now. That means you're in a better place now, too."

"Yup!" she agreed happily. "My database is still the same, too, and I've been processing some of the data I had recorded there while all of you were busy. There's a lot we need to go over to make sure we're on the same page, especially when you have lots of new data from this world. Should we start now?"

"I don't have anything else to do, so probably," he agreed. "Did you record the data about the planetary essences here right now?"

"Yes, done," she said. "I did that when you first said it. But I'm actually pretty sure baby Jenny is actually Jenova, and I can't put my paw on why."

"Jenny?" Ed blinked in surprise. "Zack and Aeris' daughter?"

"Yes, her," Ria agreed. "I mean, I don't think she remembers it right now because babies usually don't, but that doesn't mean she won't remember. If she's that kind of being, I'm pretty sure she'd have to eventually."

Pausing to think about that for a long minute, Ed commented, "Then, I think we should leave Minerva to do what she's going to with Jenova, since this might just be the chance she mentioned she'd give her to be good—that one last chance. And if that's the case, Aeris, and maybe even Zack, probably know."

"Okay, but what are we supposed to know?" Aeris' bemused voice came from behind him, and he turned to see Aeris there with a basket of herbs over her arm—she'd just been collecting more healing herbs from the forest past the orchard—with Zack beside her. Zack was carrying Jenny again.

"Um," he blinked, then eyed the two confused and bemused adults and the baby. Jenny had hair which was a darker brown than Aeris', feathered and flyaway in a manner similar to Zack's (including a part that stuck up in the middle), and Cetra green eyes. Her hair was in two short, feathery pigtails, too. "Is Jenny actually Jenova?"

Both of them blinked at him, but it was Zack who commented, "You know, no one except the two of us was supposed to know that..."

Ed had to sigh at the words and comment, "You do realize I've known Jenny in virtually every dimension since the first one when I met Lady Shinra, right?"

"Which means what?" Aeris asked in mild surprise.

"Even if she is Jenova, giving her this chance has never failed to correct the problem. I don't have a reason to even bother with her or her origin," the boy told them dryly, then poked Ria in the chest. "And that means you don't tell anyone, either, okay, Ria?"

"Okay, if you're sure, Ed," she agreed with a nod.

"I am, and thank you," he told her, then looked back up at Zack and Aeris with a wry smile. "I won't tell anyone else—that will be up to you or her when or if it becomes necessary. In the meantime, Jenny is just cute little part Cetra and part J-cell Jenny."

"That's almost as bad," Zack chuckled.

"Yeah, but the J-cell part is true of any child produced by SOLDIERs, or did you not clue in to that part of your basic genetic structure?" Ed returned to the black haired man, who laughed in amusement.

"Fair," Zack agreed as Aeris also chuckled. "Anyway, we have things to do, so we'll see you later, okay?"

"Sure," Ed agreed, and Aeris gave him a quick hug before they left. He then turned back to Ria and said, "Okay, let's get back to that data crunching."

"Right!" she agreed happily. "So, first is..."