Chapter 5: Masked Intent

Back in Riesembul, Winry smiled and hung up the phone as Mustang did the same. It was going to be nice to stay in Central for something other than a crisis or work. Need to get new clothes for the kids…and Ed, too, she reminded herself. Won't that be fun.

Ed didn't usually mind being the designated pack mule when it came to shopping expeditions for herself or the kids. She could even count on him for a decent opinion on how a dress fit or a color looked. But contrary to all logic, Ed loathed shopping for himself.

There had been two notable episodes in the ten years they had been married that she actually managed to browbeat Ed into getting some clothes, and even then only because Al had been dragged along to suffer with him. Both events were due his managing to ruin a trunk of belongings in some military escapade. She had found the burned remains of Ed's first suitcase stuffed into a closet in their house at Central, and had to badger him the entire day before he would admit to being assaulted by an alchemist when he got off the train to Drachmar. The suitcase and every stitch of clothing in it had been sacrificed as a shield. The second time he made sure he disposed of the remains before she could find them. It had been the sudden abundance of empty hangers on his side of the closet that tipped her off. That one he wouldn't discuss no matter what she threatened him with, which conjured even more dire possibilities in Winry's mind…

She pushed the anxious memories aside in favor of the convention. Even if the whole affair bored her to tears, having cause for everyone to enjoy a pleasant, lazy day together would be more than worth it. Mustang had described the event briefly before he'd hung up (thought not before she caught Ed's bellow of displeasure). The first part was an afternoon exhibition of alchemy for children to enter in and compete against each other for prizes, something the kids were sure to love. The second part was centered more on the adults, an evening of dinner and dancing where the winners of the competition would be announced. She resolved to enjoy every moment of it, right down to Ed's inevitable grousing. The whole family was actually in one place at one time so rarely, despite the fact that Amestris currently enjoyed a period of relative peace, that having him around even to complain would be something.

As she wandered back down the stairs she indulged a daydream of herself in a nice evening gown, dancing with Ed. Ed in a new suit she corrected the image--and enjoying himself, while I'm dreaming, she thought with a rueful chuckle. She had just seated herself at the workbench when there was a knock at the door.

"Never fails…" Winry sighed. She turned and yelled up the stairs. "Will! Lou! Can one of you see who it is?"

Almost immediately the thunder of at least two pairs of feet could be heard on the stairs. "We'll go!" one of the boys yelled back.

The sound of the door being opened filtered through the floorboards, followed by the murmuring of two voices, one of the boys and another she didn't recognize. Winry was already halfway up the stairs when her oldest son shouted. "Mom! There's a lady here to see you."

"Thank you, sweetheart," she called back. When Winry reached the living room, all four boys were clustered around a woman she didn't recognize.

"You don't have any automail. Why are you here?" William demanded curiously. He'd been looking for the telltale sheen of metal limbs that accompanied strangers to their door.

"William Curtis! Don't be rude," his mother admonished, reaching down to cuff her son lightly. Winry looked back to the woman at the door and smiled apologetically. "Sorry about that. They're used to seeing my clients." She looked at the woman, taking in her expensive clothes, shoes, pale, china-fine skin and soft hands. Winry was suddenly very aware of her grimy, scarred and calloused fingers and the equally grimy coverall knotted around her waist, bearing her midriff and shoulders. She saw the woman take in the machine oil and graphite all the way up her arms, even the one embarrassing streak across her chest. Winry drew herself up proudly under the scrutiny. She hoped this was a client who knew the reputation of Rockbell Automail, but if a person couldn't look past the appearance to the quality, as Granny would have said, they weren't worth troubling with. There was as much challenge as explanation when she said: "Sorry about my clothes. I was working."

"Please don't worry about it," the woman smiled, showing a thin line of very white teeth. "My name is Abigail Merel. May I come in?"

"Sure." Winry smiled with the bluff, easy courtesy that set people at ease and bypassed the caginess that so many automail users developed in the face of other people's leeriness. "Why don't you have a seat at the table outside? I'll wash up and be right with you." She turned to the assorted children. "Guys? Why don't you make yourselves lunch and we'll all go outside to eat. That is, if you haven't already, Ms. Merel?" She turned a friendly smile on the woman as the boys stampeded into the kitchen.

"I ate on the train, thank you. But I don't mind if you do." Abigail Merel smiled brightly, charmingly, but the expression struck an odd note in Winry's mind. It seemed…false; painted on somehow. The woman's eyes didn't change at all. Winry kept her own smile firmly in place. You couldn't always pick your clients, and it wasn't her job to judge people. Unless they gave her real cause to refuse them, she always did her best by those who came to her for their automail needs. There had been plenty of guys in Rush Valley that made her edgy, but she had yet to serve a client who was dissatisfied with her work at the finish.

"I'm having tomatoes and cheese!" a voice announced suddenly from the kitchen.

"That's nasty, Rick!"

"Not as nasty as applesand cream cheese, Will!"

"Cream cheese and apples are good! Oi, Niko, don't touch that, that's mine!"

"You're hogging all the strawberries!"

Winry made a face. "Do I have to come in there?" she yelled over her shoulder.

"No!" four voices hollered back in unison.

"Sheesh…" She turned back to Merel with a wry smile. "See what kids do to you? My granny used to say things like that. Now I catch myself doing it all the…" Winry trailed off as she caught sight of the other woman's expression. While the kids were bickering the mask-like smile had slipped, exposing something…raw, but also…hateful.

She found herself between the stranger and the kitchen door with no memory of having moved.

Merel caught her expression and laughed politely, her face snapping back to pleasant blankness so fast that Winry almost thought she had imagined the change. "Shall we go outside?"

"After you," Winry said, opening the door. Her eyes followed Merel out.

Once the two women were settled at the table on the porch and the boys were munching their assorted messes on the steps, Ms. Merel spoke again.

"To tell the truth, I'm not here to order automail. I'm a reporter for Central Distributed. I'm doing a piece on the Fullmetal Alchemist, and I was hoping you would contribute to the article."

"An article on Ed?" Winry looked at the other woman, surprised. "Well, I suppose I could…" She was ahead on her work, and she didn't have any appointments scheduled for the rest of the week. Edward wouldn't mind, surely…? It would be nice see at least one story coming from a better source than rumor and speculation. He had hated the last article Central Distributed had printed about him. Among other false claims, it had declared that Al had been a steam-powered bodyguard assigned to him due to his youth. Ed had been so furious, in fact, that he paid a visit to the editor in person. He hadn't told Winry exactly what he'd done (not yet, anyway), but he returned home looking deeply satisfied with himself. It was weeks later that she heard from Riza about the restraining order banning the Fullmetal Alchemist henceforth from all branches of the Central Distributed.

"Sure," Winry smiled. "What do you want to know?"

"Would you like to start with how you met?"

"Well, we grew up together. Ed, Al—that's Ed's younger brother, he's also a State Alchemist—they and I lived next door to each other since we were born. When their mom died my grandmother looked after them." For a moment she could see them, Ed hunched and staring, tears streaking Al's face as they stood over their mother's grave. After that there had been distance between them all, both boys barreling off home after school, coming for dinner with her and Granny but always returning to that empty house…she had thought they just missed their mother; it was natural, she had missed Auntie Trisha too, as well as her own mother and father. She had never even guessed that they were…not until it was too late, anyway.

But we made it anyway, didn't we? she thought, defying the old pain. We made it. All of us, and in spite of everything...

"How old were they?" Merel questioned, interrupting her thoughts.

"Ed was eight and Al was just seven. Their father had left a long time before that, though."

"Mmm." Merel bit her pen thoughtfully. "Very young. How old were they when they started alchemy?"

"Oh, it was years before that. They made a doll for my sixth birthday with alchemy. I'd never seen it done before, so I was a little scared," Winry confessed, blushing slightly. "Now I don't blink even when one of our kids does it."

"You mentioned that your grandmother took care of them after that. Your parents had died by then?"

"Yes." Winry responded automatically, and then wondered how the woman had known her parents were no longer alive.

"Killed by our own side, apparently. During the Ishbal Rebellion."

Winry's head snapped around to see Merel's eyes boring into her, watching for her reaction.

Stiff with shock, Winry stared at her. "How could you possibly know that?" she whispered.

"I'm sorry, but I cannot disclose my sources. A state alchemist, one Major Mustang was responsible. He was never tried." The pale eyes were searching her own, digging for something she didn't comprehend.

Winry said nothing. She stared blankly, feeling as though she'd been punched and had never even seen the fist that hit her.

"Mama?" Niko's voice came from behind her. She glanced back, realizing that the all four boys had gone abnormally silent. Her youngest son's wide, astonishingly blue eyes watched her worriedly, along with his brother and cousins.

"Are you okay, Mom?" William frowned. He stood up and moved forward until he stood only a few feet behind her, glaring at the stranger. Will was a bit tall for his age, gray-eyed, and possessed of a paler shade to his thatch of bangs, but otherwise he was the spitting image of his father as a belligerent seven-year-old. Will's tone and stance stated clearly, were his mother not okay, the person responsible was about to become very unhappy.

"I'm fine." Winry tried to force a reassuring smile for them.

The piercing summons of the telephone shattered the silence. Winry jumped, but mentally showered the caller with praise for the distraction they had provided.

"I'll get it!" With a parting glare at the strange woman, Will vanished into the house.

It had given his mother a moment to recover. She thought briefly of calling Will back and making some excuse to answer it herself, but discarded the impulse. It felt too much like cowardice.

"Can we please talk about something else?" Winry was pleased at that her voice remained even. "Sorry, but I'm not comfortable talking about this…"

"But you already knew about General Mustang." It wasn't a question. And Merel was still staring at her like a bug on a plate.

Cornered, Winry was beginning to feel the edge of her own formidable temper. "Look, I told you…" She trailed off as Will's one-sided conversation became audible. "…strange lady here. I think she's upsetting Mom." Winry tried not to flush as Will continued talking, unaware that his conversation was being overheard.

"What's she look like? Um, she's wearing all blue, and has these long, red fingernails—I dunno what her name is…"

Will came around the door, holding the receiver for his mother to take. "Dad wants to talk to you."

"Win?" Ed's voice came through clearly. "The woman with you—is her name Merel?"

"Yes. Ed—what is this about? Do you know her?"

"We've met." The anger in his voice made Winry's eyes dart to the stranger. Merel gazed back impassively, still wearing her bland, untroubled smile. What on earth could she have done to make Ed that furious…? She frowned.

"Winry, you should tell her to leave." Her husband sounded as though he were talking through clenched teeth.

"I'm not doing anything until you tell me what this is about." Winry snapped back. She didn't know what was going on, but she would eat her wrench if this Merel person was truly after a story. Her feelings were bleeding into her voice as irritation and Ed, like as not, was a convenient target. She was out of her seat and pacing now, phone cord trailing behind her. When she reached the far end of the porch, she added under her breath "Ed, she knows about…she knows things no one should know."

Winry heard her husband suck in a breath. "Your parents?"

She nodded, then remembered Ed couldn't see her. "Yes. Ed, how--?"

A short, obscene hiss cut her off. "Give her the phone." Ed wasn't even attempting to hide his anger. "Winry, please hand the phone over to her. Believe me, she's got it coming."

Winry looked at Merel, considering it. The woman looked from her to the phone, her smile twisting. She took her time retrieving her purse from the chair as she stood, apparently unconcerned with the demand issuing from the phone. "Your husband wants to speak to me?"

Winry lowered her hand, ignoring the tinny sound of Ed's voice filtering through the speaker.

"What do you want?" she demanded bluntly. Her voice was sharp enough now to shave steel, and she stood with the receiver fisted in her fingers. Merel's false smile melted, but she didn't flinch from the other woman's anger.

She matched Winry stare for stare as she answered. "To expose the truth behind what happened at Lior.

"Which I will accomplish. No matter what." The woman's pale gaze burned in a face made harsh with pain and resolve.

Winry knew that look. She had seen it before, in the faces of the two men she loved most in the world. Only one thing caused it. "Who did you lose there?" she asked softly.

The pale woman looked away, her face utterly devoid of expression. After a long silence she said, "That's no business of yours."

"No business of mine." Winry echoed flatly. No business of mine. Her husband had yet to return home from any major campaign unscathed. There were parts of Edward Elric that were more scar tissue than skin. There had been instances when a sudden sharp sound would make him start up from a book or a doze to crouch wild-eyed, searching for a threat that wasn't there. There were nights that he screamed in his sleep and there were days when his spirit retreated further than she could follow, deep within the tangle of shadows behind his eyes. Days he fell so far down in some secret hurt that Winry feared one day she might lose him to it forever.

And you say that it's no business of mine? You DARE?

Suddenly the reporter's purpose in Riesembul was all too clear. And Winry was angry. No, forget angry; she was furious.

There is nothing that threatens Edward Elric that is not my business, woman.

Winry strode forward until she was nearly nose to nose with the taller woman. "It's fine for you to pry into my private life but you aren't willing to tell me why before you get me talking? It's fine for you to disrupt my work and interfere with my family? You—" Winry bit down on the shout, hard, then took a deep breath and plowed on, eyes never wavering from the woman's stare

"You know something? You aren't out for the truth. I don't know what the hell you want, I don't know if you're out for some kind of misconceived revenge, or if coming to my home and pulling this is your sick sense of justice, but I'll tell you something…"

"My husband and his brother risked their lives to save Amestris. To save this country and everyone in it, they knowingly stranded themselves with no hope of getting back. Maybe you don't care that Edward Elric had more courage at twelve than most men show in their entire lives, but if you're trying to use him as some scapegoat for a disaster he would have died to prevent, you can go to hell."

Eyes blazing, arms folded, Winry was formidable in a way only her family and her clients might have suspected. "Now get off my property."

Without a word, Merel turned and walked past the clustered children and out onto the road. When she was ten yards from the porch, she whirled suddenly to face the house. Her skin was flushed, and she was shaking as she shouted.

"I hope your husband's courage comforts you when he's jailed for his crimes!" Her voice cracked with spite, bitterness and—beneath it all—pain.

The younger boys jumped, upset by the woman's tone, but William growled and reached into his pocket.

"Oh no you don't!" Winry snatched the chalk out of her son's hand. "And you--" she jabbed a stiff finger in Merel's direction. "You move now, or jail will be a picnic compared to what I do to you."

Tightlipped and unblinking in the face of Winry's anger, Merel spun on her heel and stalked down the road. Winry leveled her glare at her oldest son, who flinched but stared stubbornly back. Facing defiance on all sides, Winry realized that the phone she was clutching had lain quiet during the entire exchange.

Winry thrust the receiver to her ear. "Did you hear all of that?" she bellowed into it.

"I—Winry…" for once, Ed seemed at a loss for words.

"Well?" Winry almost wished Merel had dared to stick around. She wanted to yell at someone, but she didn't want to be angry with Ed.

"Don't deserve you." He whispered quietly, prayerfully, almost as though he were reminding himself.

Those three words sucked her anger away as though they had lanced poison from a wound. Winry felt her throat close as her vision blurred. She opened her eyes wide to force the tears back, her smile glorious and terrible, mixing sorrow and pain and passion with fierce love.

"Love you, alchemy geek." It was explanation and rebuke. We deserve each other, you idiot. We'd have driven anyone else insane.

There was a pause, as though Ed were working around a lump in his own throat.

"Love you, automail geek," he returned roughly. "You're coming to Central tomorrow? Roy said this alchemy convention is in two days."

"I'll be on the noon train tomorrow."

"Al's train comes in at eleven. So we'll have to wait for you for a change." Ed's tone was wry with irony.

Winry laughed.

----------

The smokeless chimneys and slate roofs of Central burned bright as the sun fell behind them, and the day finally conceded to a calm spring night.

In the Library district was a house which often stood dark and empty. That night, however, lamps winked cheerfully in the street level windows, and receding fingers of bloody light picked out a man before the door, catching his hair and setting it ablaze as he stared westward, toward the light-etched lines and charcoal shadows of inner Central.

Coming from about as far out in hickdom as was possible and still be Amestrian territory, Edward Elric had never thought he'd know greater cities than Central in his travels. But he'd lived to see Central outshone by London, Berlin, Boston, and New York. Especially the last; he and Al had been struck dumb by the young metropolis, overwhelmed by its noise, its lights, and its cloud-shearing fingers of steel and glass. The first gift Edward had made his brother after crossing the Atlantic Ocean was half an hour on top of the tallest structure ever made by men.

He chuckled to himself as he shifted his weight on the stone lip of the steps, recalling how he and Al had scared the life out of one of the foreign city's many tour guides by sitting up on a barricade and swinging their feet over several hundred feet of empty air.

They had pretended not to understand English or the guide's repeated gestures that they remove themselves from the wall. Instead they pointed through the bars at a skyscraper being erected not a mile away and speculated on its construction in pointed German. They spent the time between the tour guide's flouncing departure and the arrival of the security guard debating happily on whether or not a structure of that size required a different variety of steel to support it. They never had bothered to ask—the answer was afterthought to the argument.

Every city Edward had known held one thing in common: they never truly slept. Not like the countryside. Not like Riesembul. Here in Central, there were only scattered pockets of peace to be found in quiet, secluded corners, or in the small hours of the night.

Not that he minded; city life had become a habit while he and Al chased Nuskisson's uranium weapon through Germany. It was far easier to be a hunter when you were concealed from those who hunted you, and what better place to hide than buried beneath a population of thousands? Finding them would have been as sifting for two grains of sand in a desert; a pair of aliens indiscernible among a dispossessed multitude.

A decade after he returned from that world, Edward wasn't certain if he had made Central a second home because it was convenient for his work, or because it offered the concealment of a sheaf of paper in a library, or a tree within a forest. Credit for that, like their homecoming, was owed in large part to Roy Mustang.

It had taken a creative bit of paperwork on the part of the newly re-commissioned brigadier general for Edward's stipend to continue being entered into his accounts after his second disappearance in 1917.

The military bureaucracy had let it pass, mostly because they had learned not to argue with the general the first time Major Elric disappeared. Mustang had not allowed the clerical staff to so much as sort through the few scattered belongings left in his locker and dorm, as was standard protocol after an officer's death. In fact, the clerks had been ordered crisply to drop the major's effects in his office and clear out. Something about the way the blond officer at his side fingered her pistol had convinced them not to pursue the matter.

Mustang had argued after both brothers' disappearance that, because the Fullmetal Alchemist was sighted again when the gate opened in 1917, the military was unable to halt his pension until another requisite period of seven years had passed and his status was changed from "missing in action" to "believed dead". For his insistence, Mustang had accepted extreme scrutiny over his own and Edward's finances for signs of his exploiting the situation, and his monitors were left scratching their heads when none were found. The general's ferocity over the manner was dismissed as an overly sentimental but unfortunately legal allocation of government funds, all of which would eventually return to their hands.

So a decent sum of money had awaited the Elric brothers when they finally returned to the life they left behind them. A very decent sum of money; Ed's mouth had fallen open when the general gave a conservative estimate of the amount that had accumulated.

"I hear that the housing around the Central Library is at a premium." Roy had offered, smirking as Ed struggled pry his jaw off the floor. He carelessly tossed the younger man the keys to a deposit box. "Be sure to spend it all in one place."

The newly reappointed major had caught the keys purely out of reflex and stared at his commanding officer. Then he grimaced, tossed the keys once and snatched them out of the air. "Sounds like good advice," Edward said. Incredibly, the younger alchemist forgot to add his customary "Colonel Shit", though probably out of astonishment, Roy had mused, rather than gratitude.

So when the Fullmetal Alchemist snapped his first (and so far, only) sincere salute of his entire military career to the Flame Alchemist in full view of his fellow officers, it was understandable that even a veteran commander of Roy's vast experience and composure might fail to completely contain his surprise.

Edward had held the salute, deriving a certain amount of evil glee from the widening of a sole dark eye. With a last cocky flash of his teeth he practically pirouetted from the room, red duster sweeping in his wake. Alphonse had looked as though he were straining mightily to contain his laughter as he bowed hastily and followed.

Ed leaned back against the smooth coolness of the stair behind him, his grin a white slash in the dusk. Really, he had given Mustang so much shit when he was younger—not that he didn't now, of course, but he hadn't ever…appreciated it…before he left. He laughed to himself. Before Munich, he would never have seen being rude as a luxury. Well, it hadn't been Munich so much as getting nabbed in London…

Hijacked by that train of thought to a time that he wished with all his soul he could forget, Edward didn't reply until his daughter called him for the third time.

A slow count of thirty loosened Ed's throat enough to clear it loudly enough that his daughter could hear.

Another moment saw the ugly memory kicked back into its oubliette. "I'm out on the steps, Tri."

Edward listened to the thump of approaching feet and watched the street lights wink to life between the trees and thought: Fear should be a sin.

Grateful for the distraction Trisha had provided, Edward forced his face into something that wouldn't scare children and his thoughts to better things, like her mother. When he had phoned Winry to say goodnight, she let him know that Al had checked in and would meet him in the morning, earlier than they had planned. Ed unbraided his hair one-handed and raked his fingers through it absently. Winry had sounded tired, and no wonder; she'd had all five of the kids to manage for a solid week that he, Al, and Lana had been gone. His three days spent at home had hardly been a respite for either of them. Plotting how to make sure they both got a break when Winry arrived brought a genuine smile to his face.

But until her arrival he was content to wait—and this was no bad place to wait in.

A thin sliver of light split the dimming yard before a shadow obscured half its length. Edward's smile broadened as he reflected that the company wasn't bad here, either.

"There you are." Trisha shut the door behind herself and stepped around her father's planted feet, settling pointedly between his knees with her back to him.

Ed had to smile at the scolding implicit in his daughter's tone. "Did I go somewhere?" he teased. Trisha's hair was still plastered into damp bronze locks. Edward could smell the lemon oil soap he had brought back from Xenotime.

Instead of answering in kind, Trisha tilted her head back until she was frowning thoughtfully into his face. "Maybe," she said solemnly.

She might have caught something in his expression then, old pain or old shields slamming into place, but Trisha leaned back against her father's chest and left it alone. "Tell me another story, Dad. Please?" She made her tone just whiny enough to annoy him out of his somber mood.

Her father smiled crookedly, closing his eyes. My wise girl.He thought. Just like her mom.

"Your head's all wet," Ed complained by way of reply, adding: "And aren't you tired yet?"

Trisha grinned. They both knew his exasperation was strictly for show. It was part of the game to argue him into something he wanted to do in the first place. Edward, for his part, liked telling his children about his and Al's adventures, and didn't plan on letting his offspring tire of the novelty before he did. They were growing up too fast as it was.

"I've already told you two stories tonight. You said you'd go to sleep after the second one, Tri," her father reminded. His tone mimicked her own imploring whine as he supplicated the sky: "My daughter pulls me out of bed at the crack of dawn and then keeps me up all night telling her stories. What did I do to deserve this?"

His daughter sprawled across his lap and grinned up at him, reassured by the banter. "Must've been bad, Dad!"

Her unsuspecting foot was suddenly pounced upon by a stealthy steel hand, pulling it into easy reach by the ankle. Trisha was lifted and spun around so that she hung backwards over Edward's knee. When her father tickled the captured limb she was unable to do anything about it except flail and laugh.

"Hee hee—ahh! Gonna fall off, ah HA HA—yahhh--!"

"And just what do you think you know about being bad, brat?" her father growled playfully.

"Ah! Ah ha ha! Mom says that—hey! Hee hee quit it!—that when I grow up I'm going to have a kid just like me, and then I'll regret what I put her through! Agh! No-don't-not-there-AHH! AH HA HA HA--!"

"That's appropriate. I think I like that idea. You get to chase a kid around and I get to watch and laugh. Maybe by then you'll be worn out enough to let me sleep in peace."

Trisha shook her head breathlessly, her grin turning fiendish. "But if—agh!—if Mom's right, and that's what happens when you have kids, then you must have gotten me because I'm just like you, so you deserve what you got! So I get a story." Red-faced and upside down, his daughter crossed her arms and smirked up at him over this convoluted piece of logic.

Ed grinned and decided to acknowledge his "defeat", pulling her back against his chest. It delighted him more than he would ever admit that his daughter had yet to be embarrassed at being hugged, as older children inevitably did. He would certainly never tire of it. "All right, but this is the last one, and I'm serious this time. If I don't wake up in time to meet your uncle he'll never let me hear the end of it. Which story did you want?"

"The one about when Niko was born. That's a good one."

"Aw, Tri, I've told that one a thousand times. Besides, you were old enough to remember that."

Trisha scrubbed at her forehead, sticky from her tears of laughter. "I don't. I just remember the part when Uncle Al sat on you. And when you tripped over me and Will," she insisted stubbornly.

Ed winced. He remembered that too. "No one's ever going to let me live that down, are they?" he asked rhetorically.

Niko was the only one of his children to have been born in the house at Central rather than in Riesembul. It had been August, and the Elric brothers had been celebrating their return from the Gate six years earlier with family, friends and all the trimmings. Then, a full month early, Winry had gone into labor with Niko, and Ed had been in such a panic through the whole affair that Lana ordered him downstairs. Even then Al had had to pin him to the floor to keep him from rushing back up every time Winry yelled. To make things worse, when Al finally let him go he had started pacing and his offspring, wanting to reassure him and be reassured in their sweet, wonderful four- and five-year-old way, decided what their father needed was a hug. Unfortunately they decided this when he was in mid-stride, without prior warning, and before they had grown quite hip-high to him. The joint embrace effectively stopped his knees but the rest of him kept right on going, planting him chin-first in the floor and knocking the wind out of Trisha and Will as they landed next to him.

When all three sat up with identical looks of watery-eyed shock, his audience of family and friends had been torn. They couldn't laugh and cajole him then, because Trisha and William were crying and Edward looked supremely unhappy with the world in general and himself in particular. Things tended to explode when Ed was unhappy, so they compromised by patting the three all over, making sympathetic noises, and then ribbing Ed about it for years afterward.

"Can I tell some other story? One that makes me feel less guilty?" When he received no reply, Edward looked down—and smiled at what he saw. "I didn't think you'd last through another one," he murmured softly.

His daughter was curled with her feet in his lap and her damp, soap-smelling head buried in his real shoulder, her slack mouth and quiet purling breaths telling him she wasn't shamming.

He had held her like this when she was barely the length of his forearm. Barely nine years was all it had taken for that tiny, fragile, unbelievably loud bundle to become this beautiful, brilliant child that filled his arms and his heart.

So little time…

"I will tell you one thing my darling, my baby girl," he whispered, too softly to disturb the skinny bundle of knees and elbows in his arms. "I will tell you that of all the things I've seen and done and been recognized for, you and your brothers are the first important thing I've managed not to screw up royally. I'll tell you that I love you all more than anything, and I'm terrified for you all more than anything, and how there is nothing the Gate could take in trade that would equal you."

Ed smiled wryly against his daughter's damp head and finished aloud: "And one day I might do something really amazing and tell you when you're awake to hear it."

Trisha barely twitched as he lifted her and stood, yawning hugely. The third floor seemed a long way to climb once he got through the door, and the lounge and its pile of Pinako's throws too tempting to resist. With a flick of the master switch in the hall, the house followed the rest of Central into the street-lit peace of a spring night.

With a small face shoved trustingly into the crook of his arm, Edward Elric smiled to no one in particular and fell asleep.