Once upon a time in a fairy tale, there were two little boys who wanted to bring their mother back from the dead.

I never knew these boys before that night. I knew of them; one had sent out letters to Hohenheim Elric's former contacts and friends, looking for the man. One of these letters ended up in my hands, and led me to Rizenbul, where the boys lived.

Lived, died, and resurrected.

But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

My name is Major General Roy Mustang. I'm one of the few on the ruling council of generals that runs Amestris in the wake of the destruction of most of Central. The complete loss of the fuhrer and his various top ranked leaders at the hands of a serial killer only known as Scar forced us into this new institution.

I'm a husband, a father, and a friend. My two boys are old enough to live on their own, but neither has seemed inclined to leave our home, and one even brought in a grandchild for me. Maes thinks it's the funniest thing to ever happen.

I think he needs his shoes set on fire, but Trisha and Riza both agree with him, and the boys just laugh, so I refrain.

The eldest of my sons- both adopted, mind you, I'm not nearly old enough for the gray hairs they and my new granddaughter give me -is famous. You may have heard of him as the Fullmetal Alchemist. The military's attack dog once, but no longer, as Maes and I got it out into the papers that his 'victims' were all criminals that he caught in the act.

He's still not sure what to make of this change in events.

Edward gave us his confessions, his story, but he didn't know everything, and I promised to tell him someday.

Today's that day. Hannah is old enough to hear his story, she's old enough to hear mine. Mine's not nearly as gruesome, but it fills in holes that he didn't know about.

This is my side of the story.

It was early February when I went to Rizenbul. I had a letter addressed to another officer who'd died in combat in Ishbal earlier that year, and I was following up on it. I had other motivations, motivations I'm not inclined to air here, but they had me tracking down this country boy and his family.

The storm that blew in with the train I was on was brutal, thunder and lightning crackling along the sky and piss-warm rain blowing nearly horizontal into my face. I crested the hill from the train station to look down on what I could only assume was Rizenbul, but with visibility being down to mere feet, I wasn't certain, even when the lightning flashed and lit up the ground. I saw a few houses in that light, and a couple still had lights burning in the windows. So I assumed I'd found something resembling civilization.

Then something strange happened.

I thought it was just lightning at first, but then I noticed two things: one, it was not white light, and two, it was not fading away.

I squinted against the rain, looking over at what turned out to be a house with its very walls ablaze with alchemical light. I did what any sane alchemist soldier would do. I went to investigate.

Okay, maybe not so sane.

I wasn't sure I was heading in the right direction when the light faded, but I pressed on across field and hill in pouring rain, hoping I'd get to wherever that house was. A second wave of light ripped from the walls, and I could feel the alchemical energy in the air with this one, something impossibly powerful that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

I reached the front door just as the light from that second transmutation faded. I tapped the doorknob a couple times, making sure I wouldn't burn my hand or get zapped or something if I grabbed it. After a second, I was reasonably comfortable that it was safe to turn the knob, so I opened the door.

I was immediately assaulted with the smell of boiled blood and burning flesh that took me back to Ishbal, to the desert where everything was impossibly hot and dry and people were screaming and-

Well, we'll leave that lay. We veterans sometimes take some things to our graves.

Other smells began to make their way past that to my awareness, and I briefly wondered, as I noticed the rain and chill again, how someone managed to set piss on fire.

I pressed my wrist to my nose, trying to filter out the various chemicals haunting the house as I stepped in. The place was like a tomb, a heavy silence filling the air and drowning out the storm. "Hello?" I called, hearing nothing in response but a few crackles of alchemical energy. I followed the sound to what was obviously a library of some sort, with a desk and books and neatly-lined shelves.

The smoke and sound was coming from a room attached to that one, the door shut. I opened up windows in the library, trying to draw out the smoke before going to the closed door. As with the front entrance, I tapped the doorknob a few times before deciding it was safe, then stepped into hell.

The room was hazy and smelled strongly of burned ozone. I couldn't fathom what the hell sort of transmutation it'd been that had been performed to still be live like this. "Hello?" I called again.

In the center of the room was an upturned, large plate, and what I thought at the time was human. "I'm coming!" I told the person, barely able to see her hand raising up out of the smoke like someone reaching for help.

I took the hand gently, starting to crouch to assess injuries before moving the person, only to be met with a twisted mess of flesh and bone, a head on wrong, ribs sticking out, a heart beating on the outside.

I admit, I screamed like a little girl. I'd never seen anything like it, not even in Ishbal, not even after Kimblee got done with his victims, and let's be honest, he was so many levels of crazy, I couldn't even count that high with scientific notation.

I scrambled back away from it, back towards the door, only to slip in what I later realized was blood, and landed flat on my ass. I skittered back, trying to get to a solid, dry surface I could stand up on to run away like my ass was on fire and my heels were catching, only to crawl straight into another body.

This one, however, was far more human.

He was small, a child, maybe eleven, twelve at the maximum, and I could hear his raspy breath indicating he was alive. I looked over at the twisted subhuman, which made a keening noise and slowly dragged itself towards me.

I didn't know who that thing was after, me or the child or both, but I didn't stick around to find out. I got to my knees, picked up the child, then got to my feet, heading out of that room as fast as I could.

Once outside, I could tell the child was likely a boy, his right arm was missing up to the shoulder, and his left leg up to the knee. Blood gurgled in his throat. I adjusted his head in my arms to try to let him cough out that blood. It moderately worked.

I took him to the closest house that had lights on.

Rockbell Automail.

Somehow, I had a feeling that if God or gods existed, I was being laughed at. For reasons I'll leave lie.

I kicked the door a few times to get someone to answer, my hands and arms full with a dying boy. A young girl answered, and immediately screamed. An older woman came up behind her, and nearly dropped her pipe. I didn't wait for them to let me in any further before I muscled my way past them. "This boy is dying, I need help."

The old lady went right to work, snapping at Winry, the little girl, to settle down and start what was a chaotic process of medical jargon I didn't follow. I was instructed to bring the boy to a medical room where they started examining and hooking him up to various instruments.

"Where's Al?" Winry demanded. "He'd be with Ed, where is he?"

Another child. I stared at her helplessly a moment. The old woman looked over at me. Then without a word, I flew back out the door, running as fast as I could against wind and gravity up the hill back to that house.

The silent tomb feeling was gone, leaving just an empty, wet, and cold house. I hurried through each room, calling for Al, or anyone that might be there.

Reluctantly, afraid to find that inhuman thing again, I took to the lab. It was gone, and I assumed its chemical composition was not stable and it'd broken down. I searched the room. Papers and glass tubes and beakers had been scattered about in a vaguely circular position, as if they'd been caught in a circle of energy. A suit of armor, old from who knew what age, was toppled over on the floor near a transmutation circle that had been burned into the floor. I peered inside, wondering if perhaps this 'Al' had crawled in to hide.

The armor was empty, but inside, just where the neck would be, was a small, eight pointed array drawn in blood.

Nearby was a crater where a little boy's clothing was laid abandoned.

I knew right away what had happened. There was no other way to describe the horror of that lab. An inhuman creation that defied nightmares, one missing child and another gravely injured. I didn't have to have ever seen that array before, either the one on the floor, or the one in the armor, to have figured it out.

Human transmutation.

With my mind reeling and my heart heavy, I made my way back to the Rockbell home. I didn't want to be the one to say that this Al was no longer there, and no child should be left in such a desperate position as to try to create a human, for any reason.

Winry and Doctor Rockbell, as I assumed the old woman to be, were still working on the boy.

"Winry, more type O negative!" she said.

"We're out, Grandma, that was the last of it!"

The boy was dying. I had no medical knowledge to help with, but I did have one thing. "I'm type O negative," I said.

Doctor Rockbell looked over at me. "Winry, get him a seat, hook him up, he's our new donor."

I took off my coat and uniform jacket, rolling up my sleeve as Winry grabbed me a chair and set it near the boy's operating table.

She was practiced, moreso than I thought a child her age should be, but I was grateful for that practice. Having had needles shoved into me by people who didn't know what they were doing, you start appreciating those who know how to do it without causing more than a pinprick.

They took probably a bit more blood than was healthy, and I felt weak and dizzy after they unhooked me, but the boy was stabilized, and Doctor Rockbell all but shoved a couple muffins in my mouth and a glass of a sweet juice. I was too tired and drawn out to notice what kind of juice beyond it was sweet. So probably not orange, unless they added sugar.

Which was a possibility, I guess, but I wasn't terribly concerned with it at the time.

I didn't remember being shoved into a bed, but I knew I woke up the next morning feeling shaky and cotton-mouthed. I stumbled around until I found the dining room, where Doctor Rockbell was already seated, drinking what smelled like tea and smoking her pipe.

"I see you recovered from your job as donor," the old woman commented quietly over her mug as I stepped into the dining area at the front of the house. I wondered how many cups that one in her hand made for her.

"For the most part, I believe," I admitted, then eyed the tea. "I don't suppose you have any coffee I could impose upon you for?"

Doctor Rockbell set her cup aside. "I do, actually. I was about to perc some myself. The tea's lost its effect. I hope you like it strong, Mister Soldier."

I grimaced, settling down at the table and running a hand over my face. "Please, don't use such a vulgar name. Mister Mustang, is fine, although if you have to, I suppose I couldn't stop you from calling me Roy."

Doctor Rockbell grinned from the stool she'd climbed on to reach the coffee percolator. "Ah, a young'un who minds his manners around his elders. That's a rare thing to come from the military. I would hardly know you were an officer."

I found myself liking this woman. "You sound like you know a bit about how the military works, Dr. Rockbell," I said, propping my chin on the palm of my hand. "Are you a retired military doctor, by any chance?"

The noise Dr. Rockbell made at that point could only kindly be called 'rude'. "Shut your mouth," she snapped, fussing with the percolator. "I've better sense than that. I'm just an old automail doctor who's had more soldiers for customers than she cares to remember. And you can call me Pinako. I've decided I like you enough to let you get away with that without risking a tobacco pipe to the knees."

The next words out of my mouth had been spoken before my exhausted brain could catch me and stop me. "I see where your son got his sense of humor."

The room seemed to get cold as Dr. Rockbell paused, then slowly set the mugs she was digging out of the cupboard down on the counter and looked back at me. I inwardly cringed. The death of the Rockbell doctors was no secret, the military pulling the trigger on them for helping 'the enemy' simply because they helped everyone who came to them, Amestrian or otherwise. That second part wasn't so known.

"You knew my son?" she asked quietly, leaning back against the counter and watching me.

"Ah- yes. A lot of us in the field did. We liked him. And his wife. It wasn't right, what happened to them. Innocents never should've been killed in the line of someone else's duty. None of us were happy about it."

"I see." With the tone she used, I couldn't help but wonder what it was she saw, but I didn't ask, and she didn't say. Silence took over and stretched on as she poured our coffee.

"War makes people do terrible things, doesn't it?" she finally said as she set my mug down in front of me.

My stomach turned in so many knots, I couldn't be sure I wouldn't grace her table with anything that might be left in it from the previous night. "Yes, it does," I answered hoarsely, refusing to look at her as I forced myself to down a sip of the coffee.

Pinako looked back towards the door to the medical units in the house, quiet for a moment before she took a drink of her own coffee. "That's the way of the world though, I suppose. There doesn't even have to be a war to take someone's family from them."

Some of the tension eased off from my shoulders, and I glanced where she was. "Your family was close to his, I take it?"

"Mm." She took another drink before answering. "His father is an old drinking buddy of mine. Ed's mother and my daughter-in-law were friends growing up, and when Sara and my boy got married, Hohenheim crawled back into town to join the festivities and I introduced him to Trisha. She had him wrapped around her little finger right from 'hello'. I never wondered where their youngest son got his ability to make Winry and Ed do what he wanted."

Ah, a second child. I looked back at her. "The youngest son- he was the other boy Winry asked about last night, wasn't he?"

Pinako went quiet again, then sighed as she started to fiddle with her pipe and tobacco. "Alphonse. Al, we called him. He and his brother left for Dublith with a woman named Izumi Curtis to study alchemy, just under a year ago. I consented to let them go, because I was hoping having something to focus on would help them cope and move on, the way a person's supposed to. I can't imagine Edward would've come back alone. I'll contact Missus Curtis after the sun finishes rising to check, though."

More awake than I was a few minutes ago, I considered my words very carefully this time before opening my big mouth. "I will be forthright with you, Dr. Ro- er. Pinako."

Pinako gave me a somewhat calculating look over her pipe as she lit it. "I appreciate that," she said with a touch of dry amusement in her voice.

"Yes, well, don't expect it out of a lot of officers. I'm a rarity," I told her. "I was in Rizenbul because of official business. A letter was sent to an officer that unfortunately was among the casualties of Ishbal. It was sent by an Edward Elric, seeking his father, Hohenheim."

"I remember that letter," Pinako said, giving her pipe a couple puffs. "Edward made a spectacle of himself, sending those letters out." She didn't elaborate on what she meant by that, and I left it alone for the moment.

"It's not a well-known fact, but it's not exactly classified information that the military was seeking Edward's father. We were rather hoping for his assistance with the mess in Ishbal." I wouldn't have been surprised to find out it was related to Dr. Marcoh's work, and part of me was just as glad they never found the man.

"So you've come to see if perhaps he responded to any other letters Edward might've sent out?" I wondered again if perhaps Pinako hadn't been involved with the military somehow. She was certainly shrewd about how they functioned. Of course, I supposed, one only needed the right amount of paranoia and a little practice in any sort of political manipulation to figure out the double-motive to everything the military did.

"Something like that, yes," I said. "I had other reasons for volunteering to be the one to come out here." Pinako raised an eyebrow at him while I paused to consider again how to continue without being too forthright. "Not all of us in the military are heartless killers, Dr. Rockbell." I ignored the slip this time, and she didn't say anything about it. "Some of us are even trying to do make things a little better for the people we protect, even if all we are able to do are little things."

Of course, it didn't seem that Pinako was entirely buying my story. "Don't tell me an officer was moved by a little country bumpkin and his sick mother." She seemed amused by this idea- either because it was normally incredulous, or because it seemed outright silly for how true it was.

"I was, actually," I protested. This was true enough- any other time, I might've taken the assignment and delegated it down to one of my subordinates, but after Ishbal, I was finding myself scrabbling for even little things to try to make penance.

"Well, you're certainly a rare bird among the brass, then." Pinako eyed my shoulder. "Lieutenant Colonel, is it? I've heard of you. The famous Flame Alchemist. It's no wonder you're still idealistic. You're still young."

I chuckled, not entirely humorously. "Maybe. But for now, I'd rather be idealistic than the alternative. But yes, I came to see what had become of the sick mother. I assume she is no longer with us, since you are the one that gave the boys permission to go to Dublith?"

Pinako sighed, taking another drink of her coffee. "That's right," she said. "Trisha passed away not terribly long after those letters went out." She stopped and thought for a moment. "It's been about a year now, actually. Certainly took you military fellows long enough."

A year. Well, there really wasn't any denying that the military could be slower than molasses in the winter when it came to things it didn't deem important, like blowing up other nations. "Paperwork is the officer's curse," I told her. "It's always on deadline, but never processes even half as quickly as they want you to have it done." I was quiet a moment, considering again, and Pinako let me think without interruption. "I saw what was in that house," I finally told her, gauging her reaction.

There didn't seem to be much reaction to speak of; Pinako kept her expression carefully neutral, sipping her coffee without comment as she waited for me to continue.

Youth and cunning against age and treachery. I had a feeling age and treachery might win this one.

Since I wasn't going to get a reaction, I continued on. "I will be up front with you, Dr. Rockbell. My duty in the military says I ought to take that boy in for performing human transmutation."

"Yes, I suppose it does," Pinako replied, maintaining that flat tone. She eyed me over her glasses. "Something in that tone tells me there's more you plan on saying about this."

More careful consideration. I was dancing around on a family's personal wounds with this, and the military had done enough to them. "I do, yes," I admitted. "I don't always agree with what my duty and my stripes tell me to do. Sometimes I don't have a choice about it, but sometimes I do. I've no intention of turning him in. He's a child, and it seems to me that he's suffered enough for what he did."

Finally, Pinako smiled, although it was a fairly grim one. "Well, I'm very glad to hear that, Mister Mustang," she said, snuffing out her pipe, then flashed me a grin that made me fear for the safety of various body parts. "I would've hated to have to warn you about the creative ways tools could be used if you'd intended on doing anything but keeping it to yourself."

My god, she was a psychopath. Maes, you can stop laughing at any time.

"Ma'am, with all due respect, you're rather terrifying," I told her blandly.

She grinned. "Why thank you, boy. That's one of the nicest compliments a young man has paid me since my granddaughter was born."

She would think that.

"I strive for flattery," I said, then grimaced, eyeing my coffee and suddenly wishing for something stronger to spike it with. "Should I assume it was their mother that they were attempting to resurrect?"

Back to business, the smile on Pinako's face faded and she sighed. "That would be a safe assumption, yes. Those boys were terribly fond of her. Took it hard when she died. She'd been their whole world. Unfortunately, Edward's had it in his head since my son and daughter-in-law died that alchemy could fix such a thing. I thought I'd scared the notion out of him, but I forget whose son he is. His father's just as stubborn when it comes to that alchemy of theirs."

What little I knew of Hohenheim of Light, that statement didn't surprise me any. "Are you and your granddaughter the only family he has?"

Pinako gave me a wary look, clearly already wondering where I was planning on going with this. "We are. His mother's side of the family wanted nothing to do with her or them because of their father. It's a shame; that used to be a good family."

I didn't know anything about Trisha Elric or her family, so I decided to take her word on it. "I'm going to make a suggestion to the boy that you may not like, Dr. Rockbell."

"I had a feeling you would." Pinako must've used all her years perfecting that long-suffering look.

"Successful or not, and regardless of the price paid, Edward survived an attempt at human transmutation. Since you are friends with Hohenheim of Light, I have a feeling I don't need to explain to you what that means about his talents in the field of alchemy."

That wary look on Pinako's face grew more suspicious, but she didn't say anything, so I continued. "The boy will need some sort of focus now, or else he could very well run the risk of trying something again. His brother was apparently killed in that transmutation, Dr. Rockbell. I'm sorry to admit I know a thing or two about the kind of guilt that will haunt a person after that kind of thing."

Pinako didn't answer right away, looking at me as that suspicious wariness changed to resignation. "I suppose you'd have him become a State Alchemist or some other such nonsense, wouldn't you?"

"I'm aware there are risks," I agreed. "I'm also aware that his current condition would make it impossible, but considering he is a boy that tried to defy nature, I hardly think he'll stay in a wheelchair forever."

There was that rude noise again. "No, he won't. That boy's too stubborn." Her fingers drummed on the table. "You remember, of course, that the only reason I'd consented to letting him study alchemy with Missus Curtis was for the very reason you're suggesting he test to become a State Alchemist?"

I nodded. "I remember. I also am aware that it's in his disposition to try something like that. I doubt Missus Curtis did. And with military orders, I can keep him steered away from that. Having something useful to do with his alchemy might help him, Dr. Rockbell. There may be some awful things we State Alchemists have to do, but the ones that remain in the capacity of civilian advisers rarely see those things, unlike those of us in the uniform."

Something else occurred to me, and I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep from swearing at it. "And to be perfectly blunt, Dr. Rockbell, he would be far safer hiding from the military in the military, under the command of someone who would keep this crime a secret. If the higher ups above me get any idea- any hint of a rumor they might hear while still looking for his father- that perhaps the son would be a better option, there would be absolutely nothing you or I or anyone else could do to save him from them."

The bastards would do it, too, and I damn well knew it.

That last reason seemed to have her attention more than my others had, and the skepticism gave way to concern. She looked towards the door to the medical unit again, clearly debating over what I said and her better judgment. I imagined her better judgment was telling her to run me off the property before I could fill Edward's head with these ideas, and if I were smart, I'd be getting a running head start.

Of course, my mother always did tell me I had the common sense of a door sometimes.

"All right," she finally said quietly. "I don't like it, mind you. But I won't stop you, or him, if he decides to take you up on this idea." Her lip curled up in frustration. "I doubt I could stop him even if I tried."

I glanced at my now-cold coffee. "It wouldn't be the sort of thing I'd normally advocate, Dr. Rockbell. It's not my favorite of my ideas. But I will promise you this. I will do my best to look after him in this."

Edward remembers our conversation after he woke up fairly well, so I won't rehash it. But I could tell before he even indicated he'd have to think about it that he would do it. I could see it in his eyes.

For the record, Edward, you didn't miss much of a joke, I'm sure you know that by now.