Sleep was evasive once again, and seeking to keep some routine in my life, I had taken to sneaking up to the roof to see the stars as I had seen them when sleeping in the sand wastes on the edge of Central.

Sleep had been easy to find when I worked on that farm, my limbs leadened by exhaustion and my eyes forced shut by routine. That peaceful leui been broken again, and I was once more sent adrift in the stagnant tides of daily life in the Maes-less Hughes residence.

The stars here were dim, blurred by the street lamps and city buzz, but the air on top of the apartment complex felt fresh and clean, despite the smog that filled the streets below. I brought a bowl, water lapping at its edges as I set it down by my improvised seat of cinderblocks by the roof's edge. Not long after, a cat came up, a calico with a limp, to give me some company. Other cats were on the roof, I could hear them pace and mew behind me, but only the calico ever came to drink.

The first night I had snuck up there, following the news of Maria's arrest, I had been so anxious for escape. Gracia didn't seem to want to acknowledge me, and I didn't blame her. Elicia, by some miracle, had fallen asleep right after dinner, supposedly exhausted by a day playing with Mike and his family while Gracia ran errands.

Boredom and a desire to see the same stars I had fallen asleep under day after day drove me nightgown and overcoat clad up the last flight of stairs to find an unlocked door and a roof all to myself.

Tonight the air was cold, the worn polka dot night gown from my home doing little to keep me warm. My breath made small clouds that quickly faded in the cool autumn air, and below, some of the trees lining the streets had begun to drop their leaves.

The metal bowl scraped across the stone roof, the cat licking it dry. It turned a pair of dark eyes to me, as if asking for more. As much as the instinct to reach out and rub the cat's head and coo apologies to the stray overwhelmed me, awareness that this universe probably lacked Allegra and Claritin kept me from picking up the cat and cuddling it. Allergies were still very much real here, as the dust of the now usually empty apartment would remind me.

Alphonse would like this. Sitting quietly in the dead of night, with nothing but stars and cats for company. If he was still in town, I would have to invite him over, if not to have some company to at least tell him Hughes was safe. The secret was gnawing at me, the sadness in Gracia's eyes made me feel like someone had removed my organs and filled me with cotton. Someone to talk to besides the cats would be a relief.

But the bowl was empty, and my bare feet had grown cold, so I picked up the bowl and gave a muttered goodbye to the cats as they scattered at my movement. I trudged down the stairs, my footsteps painfully loud in comparison to the silence of the building.

I found myself sitting alone at the kitchen table in a nightgown a size too big scanning through the job advertisements. This time, Hughes wasn't there, to talk to, to point out jobs I might like. Lucha wasn't rummaging around and finding jewelry to steal, wasn't possessed and trying feebly to communicate Thruth's frustrations to me. It was just me and the darkness and the sounds of the still settling apartment at thirty minutes to midnight.

The paper offered few comforts, the front page detailing the death of Maria after she "escaped police custody". I couldn't ask Mustang if he had really killed her. He would know something was up. All I could do was wait it out and hope everything kept going as planned.

The jobs offered in the paper were familiar from the last time I had skimmed through the ads. Odd jobs like fixing up chimneys and building fences, grocer work and register positions open at the local market. Maybe I would work there, find that normalcy I was starting to crave.

After everything the past few weeks, my mind was growing sluggish. I could barely recall what happened next, the episodes and plot a slurry of screenshots and broken dialogue. I had most episode titles written in my notebook, which would probably jog my memory. Except Alphonse had it.

I hoped he hadn't been too affected by - ugh, who was I kidding, he was most like profoundly affected by the revelation that I was from another universe and knew the future of his universe. Who wouldn't be impacted by that news? It must be horrifying, and incredibly uncomfortable for someone you barely know to have such in depth knowledge of your feelings and life.

I just hoped he hadn't changed anything. And that he hadn't changed too much.

The clock on the mantle struck 12, the dim star shine of the moonless night illuminating the dust that had settled on the loveseat in the den. It hadn't been touched in weeks. Clocks throughout the apartment broke out in a chorus of chimes and bells, reverberating through the walls like a discordant symphony.

I looked back to the paper, going through the ads systematically. One caught my eye. It was the most cliche job for some shy Mary-Sue self insert, but that didn't make it any less attractive. I mean, who wouldn't want to work at an old bookstore that barely pays minimum wage? Or at least, I assume it's cheap work given the cash offered by the other ads.

That's another thing about this world I've noticed. You get cash, not check. I can't even remember if I've seen someone use a check. Are checks even a thing in pre-WWI developed countries?

That aside, I decided to check out the place tomorrow. My blah blah blah Citizenship fast-pass was in the duffle bag in my room, a little weathered by our adventures together but otherwise unscathed.

I wondered where Hughes was, at that very moment. Was he at home, or what he was calling home? Or was he working? Or at a restaurant? How did time zones work here, and was he just beginning to eat supper, or asleep in bed, like I should be?

I didn't even know where he was, let alone how he was. I couldn't even begin to think about the problems that would arise if he came back, or worse, if he got in contact with the "main characters".

It seemed my interactions with characters that only appeared briefly or didn't appear at all in the shown series had no serious repercussions, so long as I remained relatively inconspicuous (as inconspicuous as an immigrant that looks like they took a bleach bath can appear). In theory, I could continue as I had been. A passive observer with no interference to the timeline, as I promised to the Sins, and to lesser extent to Truth.

Of course, as one of a generation fascinated with time travel and space and the probable future, I was acutely aware that the butterfly effect wasn't always immediately obvious. But, I couldn't box myself away from the world, that would draw too much attention, and so far, it didn't seem as though the universe was punishing me for my meddling that took place after Hughes' "death".

Besides, it was almost too painful to watch Gracia and Elicia go through life, day after day, knowing that someone they had loved so much had an empty coffin in the field a few blocks away.

I wrote the address on a napkin, and folded the newspaper. A few hours of tossing and turning in the warmth of my bed was suddenly more attractive than pondering like a Grecian philosopher or Oscar Wilde in the icy kitchen. I gave the days mail a glance, putting the newspaper and ads in the appropriate waste bin, leaving the bills and sympathy cards, still coming but steadily dwindling in numbers every day, on the table.

One caught my eye. "Rush Valley" read the address, the sloppy handwriting vaguely familiar. Unwittingly, a smile broke out on my face, the reminder of normalcy past making my heart beat anew in reminiscence. With the addressed napkin and the day old letter, unopened by Gracia it seemed, I retreated to the safety of my room, early risers in other apartments turning on showers.

Stars were just beginning to disappear in the violet-grey sky, leaving just enough glow coming from my window to read the letter without lighting the lamp at my bedside. I didn't open it at first, tracing my fingers over my own name then his. The bandages over my fingers made the paper oddly weightless, the pen marks indistinguishable from the envelope's surface. Reginald's handwriting seemed shaky, the ink smudged and blotted throughout the cursive lettering.

The letter's contents, a summary of his trip to Rush Valley, Garfield's a little too enthusiastic acceptance of the task of creating an automail arm, phantom pains and physical therapy, and the recent departure of Winry from Studio Garfield, brought a strange mixture of regret and nostalgia.

I should have gone with him, given him some company on the train ride, comfort when the pain was overbearing. I could have met Garfield and learned more about the process of obtaining automail. I would have seen Winry again, before Hughes' death.

From the letter, it seemed he was practicing his fine motor skills with a prototype of his new arm before the final tweaks were made. His progress was surprisingly fast, but his reflexes and control were not as sharp as they had been, and, as expected with a new automail user, it would be months, perhaps years before the arm functioned exactly as his former would.

Automail was actually one of the reasons I had gotten so interested in the show. Real, working prosthetics, connected to the nerves and fine tuned to behave like legitimate limbs. Having an amputee mother, it immediately piqued my interest. Of course I tried to get my mother to watch it, especially on days when her legs hurt too badly to get from her bed to her chair. She did for a bit, but I think the Loire episodes turned her away from it. A Catholic first, anime enthusiast second, in her words.

But the automail here was real. Not the stiff, semi robotic prosthetics that we could hardly afford for when my mom was strong enough to walk with a cane. Real, widespread acceptance and use of such intricate and, scientifically, advanced technology. The possibilities a hundred years in this world's future would be unimaginable.

It seemed Reginald had decided on a design quite different from the ones we had looked at in the magazine, courtesy of Garfield's insistence that the new one would be better for "domestic work" as he called it. The details were vague from the letter, the design less mechanical and more realistic, but I would have to wait to see it.

He wouldn't be back for another few weeks, and the adjustment to the new automail would take time. But he'd be back soon. Someone else to talk to. The postscript made me smile, the pattern in the numbers familiar enough given I helped make the code. He had solved the entirety of the Gettysburg Address, and couldn't wait for more challenging cyphers once he got back.

Something was turning the gears in my mind. Hughes off in a distant land, Reginald's speedy recovery, and the codes kindling the beginnings of a plan. I just needed to know, with some degree of personal security, that Hughes was okay. To fill him in on why he couldn't come home to comfort a grieving family.

Returning to the kitchen, the sun still struggling to throw off the grey blanket of clouds, I wrote a letter in return to Reginald, the post script encoded,

"Would you do something for me? Something important? Something that needs to be a secret?"

The finished letter, stamped and addressed, slid into the mailbox with a quiet thunk. I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful the lobby was still empty, with a half awake secretary dozing at her counter. It still felt wrong, dropping off a letter in only my slippers and night gown, but at least no one was there to see.

The daunting ascent glared back at me, the shadowy stairwell creaking underfoot with every step. My ankles hurt so badly, the pain numbing the soreness of my feet. I wondered about seeing if they had any ibuprofen, but the probability of opioids was greater given the time period.

I shut the door of the apartment as softly as I could, a yawn escaping my lips. It was only five, I could get a few hours of sleep if my body would let me. Reginald's opened letter sat on my bed, but I crawled beneath the sheets without moving it. A breeze sent the drapes of my window fluttering, and sent the papers shuffling quietly to the floor, but that was a problem for future me to pick up. The blankets were warm, and the cool early morning air from the open window made for a perfect temperature balance. Just a little shut eye...

I hadn't opened the window.

My exhaustion, for once, begged me to roll over and just keep going to sleep. I was halfway there, my mind barely able to grasp the reality and the beginning of a dream. Like the papers, it was a problem for future me. A more well-rested me. Maybe I had opened it earlier, before I had gone up to the roof, to get some fresh air to fall asleep with.

I stretched in my bed, hoping the universe didn't plan to punish me with this interruption of blessed sleep. My foot hit a weight, which then shifted away. Heart racing, I felt the footsteps, light and cautious, track along the edge of my bed. Maybe I can convince it I'm asleep, I thought, covering my head tightly with the blankets. Just for a few minutes.

I sneezed, the blankets erupting in a wave with the force of the sneeze. A whine and a thud indicated that whatever it was had fallen off my bed. Eyes tearing and nose itching, a realization hit my awakening mind, not that it had been able to sleep in the first place. Lucha?

I pulled the blankets off my head, a joy filling my hollowed heart. It would be a nice coincidence of the plot to give me a letter from Reginald and return an old friend in such a short span of time. That would be nice, wouldn't it?

The black cat shaking itself back to its feet was most certainly not Lucha, unfortunately. At least the lucky sneeze made sense now. I coughed a little, the fine hairs of the animal like a blanket of spider silk on the bed sheet.

"Jesus f- you scared the shit outta me lil' guy," I breathed, trying not to rub my eyes. The cat just recoiled at my voice, attempting to straighten its fur after its fall.

"What'd you do that for? I'm trying to look, ugh, friendly or whatever."

Huh, a talking cat. My initial instinct, to laugh nervously in confused horror, kicked in before I could recognize the cold purple eyes that looked up at me.

"Stop laughing you idiot, you'll wake somebody," Envy hissed at me, jumping up on the bed. I wrinkled my nose as he twitched his ears in annoyance.

"You're the one that broke into my bedroom without warning, weirdo," I muttered, backing away from the small cat. I sneezed again, this time managing to control it with a tissue. "Can you, like, change into anything different or leave? I'm allergic to cats," And creeps.

"Why would I do that?" Envy growled, his voice oozing with impatience.

"Because I don't want you here any more than you want to be here, so hurry up and, like, kill me or whatever before my sneezes wake everybody in the apartment up,"

The familiar smell of static and ozone rose in the air as a barrage of red lights turned the cat into his familiar humanoid form. He was being surprisingly accommodating. Something must be dreadfully wrong.

He held up his hands as proof or something that he wasn't a cat, eyes glaring down at me. It was a little awkward now that he was sitting on the edge of my bed in that skimpy outfit with his knees drawn to his chest, but it was better than a cat.

"Better, less friendly, but better. " I said, acutely aware of my white knuckled grip on the bed sheets. He lowered his hands and crossed his arms. "So, what's so important that you have graced a lowly human with your presence?"

He shifted nervously, eyes darting from the door to me, but without fear.

"You sure I can't just be a cat? What if somebody walks in here-"

"Gracia doesn't get up until around 8 lately, Elicia might be up soon but she plays in her room until somebody starts making noise in the kitchen, it's all good." I said, checking the clock on my dresser. More than an hour. Alone. With a murderer. I cracked my knuckles hoping he'd be gone soon. "You could be, I don't know a dog, but what about walking in to find a girl talking to a random dog is normal?"

"The cat would have been able to get through a window, unlike a dog." He explained, shaking his head. "Ugh that's not the point, the point is that everything went according to your stupid little scheme right?" He held up the newspaper, pointing to Maria's article. "She's dead, he got his revenge, and you're happy with our agreement in Aerugo." I squinted at the paper.

"Were you just carrying that around as a cat or...?"

"I got it from the kitchen table,"

"For dramatic effect?"

"Will you just shut up and listen?" He whisper yelled, leaning forward to emphasize his point. Way too close if you ask me. "Bradley wants that hothead close. He thinks the Flame Colonel is on to us." Violet eyes scanned my expression. "That wouldn't have anything to do with you?"

"Not that I know of," I muttered, scratching my arm. Great. Now I'm all itchy because of the damn cat hair. Couldn't he have picked a cat that shed less?

"Well, the good news is, the Fuhuer will be able to keep a closer eye on him-"

"No pun intended, I'm sure," Envy huffed in annoyance, but glee replaced what should, for the sake of human survival, been fear in my hear. Banter and bad puns with a near immortal creature that absolutely loathes humans but so desperately wants to be one...was more enjoyable than I thought it could be.

"The bad news is Mustang'll probably want to keep a close eye on you." I sighed at the new problem, leaning back against the head board of the bed. "He might call you in for questioning or something, and if you let anything slip-"

"I'm not as stupid as you think, sometimes. I know how to keep my mouth shut." I smiled, looking out into the streets. People were just starting to leave their homes, and the street lights were going out slowly in the first rays of morning. "Wait how'd you get up like three stories as a cat? Were you on the roof and then went back down? I definitely locked the window so did you come inside or did you open it from the outside by some homunculus alchemy BS or did you open it after for dramatic effect? And did you grab the newspaper as a cat and leave it on the floor or did it transform with you? I don't think that's how it works-"

"Do you ever shut up? I just told you someone, a revenge thirsty killer, might try and hunt you down and squeeze the truth out of you-" He was exasperated, my ramblings and questions clearly provoking some hatred he had buried while trying to "look friendly".

"That's what Bradley did," I said. "He's a killer, a scary one too. And he came into my hospital room and practically interrogated me over tea. I'm sure Mustang will try to be a little more subtle, especially since Maria let him blow off some steam, pun intended." A heavy weight settled in my stomach, memories of the half truths and lies I told Bradley resurfacing. "Why send the homunculus who hates humans the most to warn me? And why even warn me at all? Think I won't hold up our agreement?"

"I can hide better and reach you without suspicion, obviously. You think he would trust that lumbering idiot to find you and tell you what's going on?" Envy explained, some resentment for, or, well, envy of, Gluttony seeming to slips through his words. I too would envy some degree of blissful ignorance to the hellscape in which I now resided. "Bradley needs to create some distance from you so the hothead doesn't get too suspicious, Pride and Sloth have other work to do-"

"Greed is out of commission still?" His eyes shifted to me in annoyance. I couldn't help it, he was going to start rambling.

"Yes," He hissed, turning his gaze to the sun beginning to slip between the buildings. "And Lust...she's just fucking hates you. Must be because she couldn't kill you that night. He thought it best not to give her the opportunity to let her nature get the better of her."

"So I got stuck with the guy who also wants to kill me, but has better impulse control?" I asked jokingly, though I was pretty sure Envy definitely wanted to kill me.

"And I got stuck with the pathetic human who made a deal with me explicitly stating that if she died, hypothetically, at the hands of a certain flame alchemist, that our plans would be ruined by a coconspirator of yours." Oh, right. Now it makes sense why I was getting an update from the homunculi. If the Colonel killed me, they would be screwed. So long as everything continued the way it was supposed to.

"Ah, that. Almost forgot about that. It's been a rough couple of weeks," Envy scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"...puny human memory..." He mumbled under his breath, but I caught it. Before I could begin a tirade about the wonders of my memory in serving me well in the mental copy of the Gettysburg Address, the faint hiss of alchemical reaction and the gentle sparks of his transformation distracted me, the sound of the bedroom door down the hall creaking open suddenly as loud as a falling tree.

The crow gave a quiet croak of farewell before diving out my open window. I batted my eyes in confusion and relief. Why hadn't he been a damn bird in the first place? Another sneeze and the sound of the coffee maker in the kitchen whirring to life. Another beautiful day in Amestris.

The bookstore was tucked away from the roads, behind a bail bonds office well away from Main Street. Cigarette butts and old newspapers collected in every corner of the backstreet, swirling in the cool breeze.

The old man that patiently swept the sidewalk moved stiffly, shifting slowly from foot to foot as the broom pushed discarded papers and old wrappers into the gutter. A halo of thin silver was all that encircled his head, eyes trained on the ground even as I approached.

I suddenly felt out of place, sore feet tucked in shiny new boots and a dark skirt paired with a freshly ironed blouse, compared to his broken sandals and thread bare apron.

"Excuse me?" I asked softly.

After a moment of standing there, with nothing but the distant bustle of the street and rhythmic sweeping of the straw broom, it started to feel awkward, at least for me. I thought he would have noticed me after so long.

"Excuse me," I asked again, a bit louder. It wasn't until I shifted to walk closer to him that he looked up, dark eyes changing from confusion to surprise. "I'm here about the job, the ad in the paper?"

He stood there, watching me, brow furrowed in confusion. I rummaged around in my bag for a second before pulling the newspaper clipping from its depths.

"The job?" I said slowly, handing the man the paper. He smiled and nodded, leaning the broom against the door and beckoning me to follow.

The shop was a mess. Books were piled in every corner and stuffed into overflowing shelves. The air was heavy with the smell of old paper and hot binding glue, dust glittering in the air for the brief moment the door was open. The window, bearing a small crack in its right corner, let the only light filter through the grime.

The hiss of a lit match and the huff of fire that came from a single oil lamp further illuminated a desk, buried under a half mended manuscript and several containers of ink and glue and string.

It was weirdly homey, in spite of the suffocating claustrophobia. Like something you saw in a movie, or your grandfathers study.

The man motioned to the desk, waving for my attention. He shuffled through the layers of paper before pulling out a crumpled sheet and handing it to me. A contract, eloquently hand written in a beautiful but near unreadable calligraphy.

It took some time to decipher, the flourishes and stylization of each letter elegant, but impractical for a matter of business. The job would include manning the register, a skill I was yet to hone given my menial tasks at the Store and the Farm back in my world, but seeing the emptiness of place, I was sure I wouldn't be too overwhelmed by customers. Other tasks such as organizing the stock, keeping track of transactions, and tidying up as I saw fit made this job seem more like an entrepreneurship than payed occupation, but the allure of the quaint bookshop, and my need for distraction from the world, made signing the contract in my swirling cursive less painful than anticipated.

"When can I start?" I asked, speaking softly as though any noise above a whisper would cause the precariously stacked books and papers to tumble from their perches and crush us both. The old man took the contract and smiled, nodding as he rolled it up and placed it in a cluttered drawer of the desk. Cautiously, I tapped his shoulder, a small wave indicating my confusion.

Any attempts so far to converse with him proved futile, so I scribbled my question on a bare scrap with the pen I still held from signing the contract. He read the slip, picked up a stack of books from the desk and placed the load in my arms, a toothy grin revealing a few gaps and blackened teeth as he whirled out the door, broom in hand to clean the street of dust.

"O...kay..." I whispered to myself, setting the books back down on the desk. Hands on hips I looked up through the volumes that sat in towers taller than I. It was going to be a long day.

I started by determining the state of the books on the shelves. There was no apparent order, the books neither alphabetical by name or author nor organized by genre, and so I began to redo those shelves that were not blocked by towers of equally disorganized novels. It was about halfway through the second shelf, myself wedged between towers to pull books down and place them in order or towers of later letters that would not fit on the shelves available to me, that I was hit with that Twilight Zone feeling of existential cosmic horror.

You know it, the weird feeling where you recognize the pointlessness of your actions and feel how infinitesimally small your role is in the universe? Yeah, that one. I sighed deeply, looking at the piles of books around my seat on the dusty floor of some forgotten shop off the main street of town.

It was cool outside, and leaves had begun to gather in the gutters of the street. Probably October, if I recalled the chronology of the timeline correctly. If I was at home - my real home, in my world, I would be at college. I would have already moved in with my roommate, started classes, learned the schedule and town. I would have said goodbye to my mom, my dad, and my siblings, with promises that I would be safe and assurances that I would be home for Christmas. It would almost be my birthday, if it hadn't already passed. Matt would probably be on that fancy trip for his school farm thing, blue corduroy uniform and all. Mary would be back from her honeymoon, and we would all go visit her and Delilah at their new ranch in Montana. Aine would be starting kindergarten. I had missed so much. What was my roommate like? Would we get along? Had Matt asked that girl - Eve, I think her name was, Eve Deforge - to the summer festival in town? Was Mary settling in with Delilah and the horses?

As I slowly recuperated from my homesick daydreaming and returned to my seemingly impossible task, I tried to divine what day and month it was. From memory, Gracia had long neglected the calendar on the fridge since her husband's abrupt departure, and it's date was last marked September 29th. The day Hughes went missing and was presumed dead. I had spent, lord, how long? Perhaps a week? In the hospital. Then a little less than a week of working on the farm, and I had been back at the Hughes residence for three days today. So it was about October 16th, meaning my birthday was still about two weeks away.

It was a strange relief, to know my birthday hadn't passed unnoticed in the chaos into which I had thrown myself. If it had passed, and it would have done so without notice given I had never told anyone here the date, I don't think I would have noticed. That would be sad, you know? Missing your own birthday? Let alone the 18th birthday, when you can be a legal adult and vote and buy cigarettes and so on. Not that any of that actually applied here, considering Ed was a military employee before he would have graduated middle school in my world, but it still would be something to keep in mind.

I worked on the shelves until nightfall, not a single person entering the shop except the owner. In cleaning his desk as a break from the monotony of alphabetizing the novels, I found a chipped and weathered name plate. The faded carving read Samuel Rigerrio, likely the name of my silent employer. To ask permission to leave for the evening, I wrote out my request once more, the lesson of the day residing in my knowledge that his hearing was not conducive to verbal conversation. He squinted at the blotted ink letters for a moment before giving a gap toothed grin and waving me over to the still cluttered but better organized desk. He unlocked the bottom most drawer using a key from his pocket, and handed me a small bag heavy with coins and crumpled bank notes. He bid me farewell with a wave, and I began the long walk back to the apartment.

I noticed a familiar flag hanging from a hotel I had seen time and time again on main street, the building front well kept and gleaming in the warmth of the setting sun. Ed would be on his way to the ruins of Xerxes by now, meaning Alphonse was likely left here with Winry. I paused across the street, weight of my bag digging into my shoulder. If Winry was with him, I wouldn't be able to tell him about Hughes survival and escape until she left, but I didn't know how long I would have until the 3rd Laboratory incident. A heavy weight settled in my stomach, the promise to be passive and the pain of knowing how badly the incident would injure Havoc so conflicted I continued my walk to Gracia's.

A quick dinner and brief interlude before my hostess and Elicia fell asleep, or into presumed sleep, I was once more ogling the large building, cursing myself for my earlier panic. Perhaps now they won't admit a visitor, or the doors will be locked, or Winry will still be awake. In spite of my own anxiety, I opened the door to find a receptionist who was, in all likelihood, on a caffeine high. Her bugging bright eyes locked onto my own panicked expression, and her smile nearly broke into a verbal address to the strange, pale girl with messy hair and tired eyes creeping through the creaking door.

I stepped softly to the counter, unsure of Alphonse's room number or floor. A few mutterings from myself, the shuffling of my fancy Certificate, and the receptionist's overenthusiastic responses left me at the apartment door, hand raised to knock. I swallowed the nausea building in my throat, fears and worries multiplying by the minute. If Alphonse had changed something, even just slightly, in a simple expression of phrasing, I would have no more control or knowledge over the future than any other being. If Pride's spying discovered Alphonse was my "co conspirator" as Envy had put it, Hughes' life would again be in jeopardy. I lowered my hand, the artificial lighting of the hallway sending a pounding headache through my skull as my oversensitive eyes closed tight against the harsh white of the walls.

Those were all ifs and maybes, Schrodinger's cat tucked inside a suit of sentient armor. As long as I left him be, I would never know if everything was fine or if everything was ruined, and so as long as I left the door closed, it was both and neither simultaneously. Those conjectures were all theory and panicked thinking until I talked to Alphonse again, and then they would either be the musings of an overtired undernourished mind or concrete fact. I breathed deeply. Regardless of the ifs and maybes, I needed to talk to someone who understood, or at the very least could conceptualize my anxieties and see the roots from which my fears spawned. And he probably needed someone to tell him if I had been successful, because everyone else would have him believe I had failed.

I knocked, softly, knowing he was awake. A shuffle and clanking of heavy armor followed, the steps cautious and restrained to minimize noise. A lock clicked and the door opened. I breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of that familiar helmet and soft, glowing eyes. Nothing seemed wrong. Everything was as it should have been.

*yEETS this through your window at 2 am*

You all know that scene where Ed is being pulled through the Gate but then he punches it open at the last second to point angrily at Al's body? That's me, with life trying to drag me away, somehow managing to write this chapter and throwing it at you guys.

Seriously I love you guys so much like ? writing this fanfic always makes me feel better even if it's a pain (still no working computer, iPhone notepad anybody? Thank the Lord for the new app tbh, what a lifesaver). And recently some new readers have been faving/following and leaving comments like damn brave considering how long it has been since I last updated heh. And yay! The plot is moving again! Don't get me wrong, I love worldbuilding as much as anybody who has spent three hours researching halberds for a story, but Irish is our "straight white female Mary-Sue" lead, so she's gotta end up with the main characters at some point, right?

But seriously I love you guys so much like just seeing the viewing statistics of each chapter each month gives me a rush, I swear I will finish this fic! (Eventually...)