Hello and welcome :)

This story was born from a one-shot I published. It plays before the main events of the manga - after Ed becomes a State Alchemist but after Roy's promotion to Colonel.

English isn't my mother tongue, so I'm always grateful if you point out any mistakes, or even typos.

Without further ado - I hope you'll enjoy! Would love to know your thoughts.


Chapter 1 - The Transmutation

The floorboards creaked under the soldiers' heavy boots. Riza controlled her breathing. Finger on the trigger, the barrel of her gun pointed upwards. She watched his back intently where he led their squat. Silent, stoic, eyes sharp. They flashed about when they reached the attic.

It was enormous. Dust coated the floor and cobwebs that strung from the roof beams. Hay bales, scattered by the wind, covered the ground, marten faeces having dried up here and there. Riza peeked past her superior officer. He relaxed slightly.

With a wave of his hand, the soldiers pooled into the room. Havoc turned back to the staircase, peering about for any possible escape.

"He didn't fly off, did he?" He propped his rifle up on his shoulder.

"If he went in here at all," Breda mumbled, discouraged.

"He did, I saw him," Roy said between his teeth for perhaps the third time. He raised his voice, "Check for trapdoors."

The soldiers saluted, promptly doing as they were told.

Roy stepped further into the room, crouching to inspect what appeared to be a sail or large linen cloth spread beneath the bits of hay. Riza never let her gun sink.

A rogue alchemist, they had said. No state certification, although not by choice. The records recounted his multiple attempts to be certified, all failures. Lazy, they called him in the Second Laboratory where he apparently spent his breaks torturing poor undeserving animals for 'research'. Those having been to his examinations hardly even called him an alchemist, hardly called him a threat, but Roy was more careful.

At least so Riza had thought.

"On the count of three," Roy was ordering the soldiers, each of them holding the cloth to lift it off. Riza's skin tingled. Something didn't feel right. She was no alchemist, and she would have never claimed to be an expert, but something about the five men standing there rather accurately in a circle made her guts twist.

The cloth rustled as it was raised. Dust whirled up, catching in their noses. Chalk marks. Riza's eyes grew. Chalk marks on the ground, connected. An intricate circle – an alchemic circle.

"Colonel—"

Lightning burst from the ground. Riza yelped, eyes shutting out of reflex. The air was electrified. Oxygen grew thin, robbing her breath. She willed her eyes to open, to bear the dust and sudden heat when Roy screamed. As did the other soldiers.

"Colonel, no!" she screeched at the top of her lungs. A pair of arms caught her from behind. She struggled against them. "Colonel!" she kept on yelling, kept on struggling. Havoc nearly lost his grip on her. Breda caught her wrist the last second, both of them having to yank her back lest she got caught up in the transmutation too.

Another zap sizzled, finishing off with a bang! that made their ears pop.

Blinking rapidly, blinded, Riza gasped for breath. Her vision was white for a second, then slowly cleared. The screaming had stopped. The dust had yet to settle.

The soldiers were gone. Merely their clothes and weapons were left, shreds of flesh bloodily littering the four positions where they had stood. The stench of iron and ashes bit her nose. Riza stared in sheer horror at the pitch-black coat of her superior officer. Crumpled on the heap of his clothes. No body in sight. As if he had been swallowed by the transmutation circle; sucked right into the ground.

Breda and Havoc slowly loosened their grip, regaining their breaths. Riza dropped to her knees. Her chest heaved in subsiding panic, mind blank.

He was gone.

He was gone.

Afraid that she would lifelessly sag to the floor, Havoc and Breda didn't let go right away. Breda knelt down, taking hold of the loaded gun where it dangled from her hand. Her fingers twitched, keeping hold of it. Bang! She mercilessly fired into the shadows.

Breda and Havoc winced. Breda grabbed the weapon from her, having to peel off her fingers by force. Havoc gasped when something dropped in the far corner. A man.

"It's the guy; the scientist!" Havoc realised.

The man in the corner grunted, then hissed a curse at his wound.

"Damnit, Hawkeye, hold on a sec—" Breda managed to seize the gun from her. But Riza's other hand only darted to his hip, snatching his holstered gun, furiously shooting past him at the man responsible for her loss. The latter cried out in pain. Havoc somewhat threw himself onto her arm, both Second Lieutenants tackling her hands to rid her off the guns still on her.

"Don't kill him – our orders were to take him alive, remember?"

"He has to at least answer for his crimes!" Breda huffed, stumbling backwards with the guns secured. Havoc released Riza. He wanted to groan, to cuss, but it got stuck in his throat once he caught sight of her face. Tears stood in her eyes. They tumbled down her cheeks, fat, salty tears, reddening her eyes. Her throat was clogged, chest burning achingly. She sobbed almost violently.

He was gone. He—

Riza suddenly stood. Something had moved. Something beneath… No, it couldn't be.

The coat moved.

Hardly noticeably, it rose, then fell, then rose again. Like breathing. Like someone breathing underneath.

Havoc shouted but she didn't heed it. Caution thrown to the wind, Riza rushed towards the black coat. She slipped and fell, crawling on regardless. She was shaking. Her eyes blurred with tears, expecting but never prepared for the deformed, ripped-apart remains of the man she loved.

Her hands hovered over the coat for another heartbeat. She hesitated. Havoc sucked in a breath, unsure whether he would take the burden from her, about to move when she firmly gripped the coat with both hands, lifting it off.


The first sense he regained was his hearing. Someone was speaking, muffled and distant. The same word, again and again. Gradually, it became clearer. The ringing in his ears faded.

"…onel," a woman was saying. "Colonel."

A massive headache throbbed like rubber hammers against the inside of his skull. Everything hurt. Everything burned dully, tingled and itched. His mouth was dry. It tasted of hay and dust. Why hay?

"Colonel," the voice repeated. The woman. He didn't know her, but the first face that came to his mind was that of his mother. It couldn't be her. He knew he hadn't dreamt it all; he knew she was dead.

He knew, because only three days ago, he had identified her body.

"Mama…" Roy hoarsely whispered. Laboriously, he opened his eyes.

There was a woman leaning over him; blonde hair that only just reached her shoulders. Her face was red and sticky with tears. He wondered if she had recently lost her parents too.

"Colonel?" The woman reached out a hand but stopped midway. The hand hovered, a slight tremble detectable. She studied his eyes. He returned the gaze exhaustedly, but no matter for how long he stared at her, nothing sparked recognition. She swallowed, then let her hand sink. Her shoulders slumped.

She sat back, thus moving away from where she had been blocking the ceiling. Roy squinted at the garish, artificial lights. He was on his back, he realised, most likely in hospital. Why?

He hadn't been to a hospital since that time he had hit his head and it had bled so much they had had to stitch it. This wasn't that same Central hospital. The lights were different, and even those in the small doctor's clinic next town where they had plastered his broken arm that other time had had but a lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. This place was huge.

Huge, cold and artificially bright.

"Can you hear us?" another voice asked. Roy blinked at the man. He was older than the woman, his features grim and his black hair streaked with grey. He was wearing a white coat. A doctor, Roy assumed.

The doctor watched him, waiting for a reply. The gaze of the woman was still burning into Roy from the side, her jaw tight in an effort to hide the trembling of her chin. He noticed how his body's inner fire had died down, his limbs not feeling like blocks of searing lead anymore.

Roy sat up. He took in his surroundings again; the uninviting hospital room, the doctor, the woman with the tears in her eyes. Her hand had come up, perhaps to assist him, now covering her mouth as if he were already dead.

As if she were him not three days ago, terrified by the unmoving bodies of his parents.

Maybe he had done something unspeakable that had sent him to hospital – something to the other children at the home; something entirely justified because they were just that annoying, counting how many years they'd already been orphaned. As if it were something to brag about. As if it compared in any way to how he felt and to how much he was suffering.

"Why am I here?" Roy ignored the previous question. The doctor had only just opened his mouth when Roy's mind clicked. "Is she here to pick me up? Was I chosen?" Roy all but burst into the tense silence. He swung around, gaping at the blonde with hope. Her brows knitted together in sympathy – this time for him instead of herself.

The doctor cleared his throat. "Chosen? Could you explain?" he asked, leaning down on his knees as if Roy were some sort of street dog to be lured out with a chicken thigh. Still, his face remained grim.

Roy let his head hang. "So then I'm not being picked up?" he mumbled. He raised his eyes, looking directly at the doctor. The latter became uncomfortable, which was Roy's full intention. He was no better than the caretakers at the home.

They should all be shrinking pitifully at how they were behaving, telling him over and over how everything would be fine when it clearly wasn't. His parents were dead. No one had come to pick him up at the orphanage, as if he didn't have any other family at all. Or rather, as if they'd heard the news and decided to keep quiet, Roy bitterly thought to himself.

He knew he was a handful, but his parents had loved him – why wouldn't others? His own family, if he had any.

"Colonel, do you have any recollection of today?" the doctor asked. The woman sniffled, then regained her posture. She looked as if she now understood, while Roy himself was still thoroughly confused.

"Is this your new way of avoiding the truth?" he asked, not feeling addressed. It must have been the woman's name that the doctor had been saying, and a strange one at that. He was done with everyone trying to hide reality from him. Now they were just overlooking him altogether, leaving the 'adults' to talk?

"Colon— Roy," the woman spoke softly, heartbrokenly. He met her gaze – a gaze full of pain and affection, even though he couldn't remember ever having seen her before. Her hand twitched, once again on its way to reach out but she restrained herself. He glanced at it for a long moment where it retreated into her lap. He would've liked that hug. The tears standing behind her eyes were making his own itch, constricting his chest. She looked so different but the way she regarded him held so much love, it made him think of his mother.

As if she'd known him for ever.

"Are you… here to take me home?" he dared to ask. He had little hope, but he couldn't help it. He didn't want to go back to the orphanage; he wanted his own room and his own toys away from grabby hands and the attention on him and no one else. And he wanted that hug. He wanted his mother.

The woman frowned sorrily. To his great surprise, she nodded resolutely. "Yes."