FYI: This is an Envy-centered fanfic. Rating is undecided so check my profile for frequent updates. This may also become another Envy/Winry.

All That Was Left Behind

By Leonahari

Prologue

It was a fiery mid-afternoon in Xerxes. The sun blazed down on the desert city, stretched in every direction. Stone buildings stood brilliantly waving in the golden light. Along the sand-strewn cobblestone roads rose billows of orange dust. People passed and weaved between travelling trade venders, horse-bound riders in long light colored cloaks, Noble litters carried by eight or more slaves, merchants and the like. Not a breeze dragged the heat from the still air. Not a shadow had less than a crowd of weary workmen huddled within it.

William Thiessen quickly stepped out of the way for a horse-bound carriage carrying grain sacks pilled so high the driver sat at the top to see above his seat. He drew his cream-colored cloak around himself tightly despite the heat and wove his way through the madness of Xerxes main street. He absently fiddled with the corner of a leather-bound book he carried under his right arm. He avoided the merchant's eye as he passed and walked faster as if he were being pursued by him.

"Dr. Thiessen! Good afternoon!" waved a young man from across the street. William gave him a curt nod, and carried on. His grip on the book tightened as he turned down an alley between two stone buildings, an alkestry shop and a butchers market. An old woman sat on the crest of an old stone, her back against the wall and her hand out before her tired face. The lines of her skin were worn with worry and sadness. William passed her by wordlessly, stepping over her outstretched leg and bare, filthy foot.

An unbearable, sickly sweet stench met him as he turned behind the butchers building and continued straight into a shaded cobble path. A door creaked open to his left and he stopped suddenly as the contents of a urinal jar were thrown onto the path before him. William turned his nose up in disgust and waited for the door to close again before picking his way carefully past the feces.

At the end of the alley he drank in the dust-filled air and stepped into the sun again on a less crowded street. His eyes fell on a man sitting on his doorstep with his head in his hands, despair was writ into his face. William crossed the street and the man looked up with widening eyes. He stood and bowed a bit before beckoning him inside.

"Thank you so much for coming at such a time. I heard the rumors, but I never expected… well, be as it might, you are welcome here whenever you need –,"

"Where is the patient?" William said simply. He brushed aside the dust from his cloak and followed the man's finger with his eyes as he pointed the way into a dark bedroom. The house was not much a house as it was a narrow hole burrowed deeply in the building. Though the space was little, there was a certain amount of care given to keeping the walls and surfaces clean.

William followed a hallway into the dark bedroom and walked across it to draw the curtains. The window looked out into the back alley. Soft light spilled in enough to shape the sick man's face against the shadows as he lie sleeping on a small bed.

"He did not speak before, and then when the fever came upon him he seems to have forgotten how to be silent. Murmuring tales of woe and scaring the living daylights out of Glen and the children," the man replied as he stood cautiously in the doorway, "We're worried it might be a dark omen, a plague. There was some word about that spreading in the East side of Xerxes, but here…"

William set the leather-bound book on the nightstand table and pulled a wooden chair from the corner of the room toward the bed. "Let the rumors speak for themselves, I don't give much weight to them," he said, gently touching the man's face with the back of his hand. The man made a face as if he had gulped sour milk and William withdrew his hand.

"How long has he been like this?" Grey eyes looked up at the man in the doorway.

He shook his head, "Maybe two days. I've been out of town since last night. Glen was looking after him and wanted to leave the house to protect the children."

William frowned. "There's nothing I can do for him."

The man blinked at his sudden conclusion, "But you're a doctor!"

"It is beyond my control. His fever is severe. The only thing I can recommend is some fresh air and cold water," William sighed, "I'm sorry."

"But –,"

"I do, however, have one question," William added. The man gazed at him intently. "I would like to be the one to perform the autopsy when he dies - for medical purposes of course."

The man's eyes were wide and angry. His nose wrinkled in disgust and his brow furrowed in fury as he snarled, "You're a cold bastard! How dare you say such things in my house. Get out! Out!"

William frowned and grabbed the book off the nightstand. He passed the man on his way out the doorway and gave him a curt nod of farewell. His face was placid, grey eyes staring ahead passively, undaunted by the man's angry disgruntled shouts from behind him. He exited the house and ran a hand through his long black hair as if the door had not just been slammed against his back. With a bored expression he sighed and glanced up at the sky. The sun hid behind the building he had just left.

He made it to the end of the street and pressed on through as before. He followed the main street into the center of the city where a grand statue, a depiction of God beneath a four-pointed sun, stood towering above a platform on which stood columns of white stone. The senate building where the Emperor met with his Council was an enormous structure of stonework. The sun drew out the shadows from under the wide columns, streaking the marble floor with dark and golden segments until they reached the steps of the Emperor's thrown. The deep-seated monument was cast in complete shadow by the Westward setting of the evening sun.

William stood at the feet of the statue of God and stared out over the marble floor in which an alchemy circle had been etched into the polished surface. He kept his eyes still over the symbols at each point as he lifted and opened the leather-bound book in his hands. The pages spilled over to open onto where he had marked the specific one.

On the page was sketched a transmutation circle in black ink. He felt his hands start to tremble and his hair stand on end at the sight of it. It stood out so clearly against the white parchment. The contrast was so sharp it seemed to indent on his mind.

A moment of instinct made him look up to find someone standing before the Emperor's thrown. William felt his insides curl and twist at the sight of him. The man stood rigid in cream-colored robes as if he were meant to have taken on a different shape altogether, something larger, something inhuman. His blonde hair fell over his shoulders in a careless fashion. A short beard made his face look longer than it should have been, and his eyes held a similar color to that of his golden locks, though they almost seemed colder somehow.

William frowned as he recognize the man and made the greatest attempt not to turn on his heel and run. His mind was screaming at him, warning him of the danger this man in white presented. Still, William's grey eyes hinted at nothing that was going on behind them. His hands still trembled, but his expression was calm.

The man in white held out his hands as if he expected William to embrace him and said, "Your decision is a wise one. I had expected you to return."

William's face contorted into rage. The calmness of his featured completely dissolved in an instant and his grey eyes were alight with fire hotter than the Xerxes sun. "I know how to destroy you. I know what you are," he growled.

The man looked half amused and half bewildered as William held up the book in his hands and stared to read aloud from it. "Homunculus, cursed being of the Gate of Death! Creations of the unity of the sun and the moon; beings damned into eternal discontent –,"

The book suddenly burst into flames in his hands and William dropped it and jumped back in surprise. He looked up and saw that the man – no, homunculus – was grinning at him.

"I cannot be destroyed," he stated, smugly, "I am the Father. Your struggle against me is admirable, but futile. Your knowledge of alchemy is also a useless construct. You are nothing more than a mere insect to me."

William watched as the embers of the book glowed orange upon the marble floor. A rare breeze shifted through the columns and took hold of the weightless ashes and scattered them further apart until all that was left was a dark scorched mark in the ground. He felt a massive weight pull him down as his hope was brushed away as easily as the ashes. His knees hit the floor. His face glowed with anger and shame.

"What do you want with me?" his voice was coarse. It felt like a large hand had a strong hold on his throat.

"As much as I want little to do with you humans, I cannot accomplish what I'm set out to do alone," the man said indifferently.

"What if I don't want to help you?" William felt his anger boil over so that his tongue seemed to move on its own.

"It matters not what you want," the man replied, "You have a perfectly fit mind for my soul to inhibit. Your will is not what concerns me. You and the people of Xerxes serve only a means to an end for me. You will become my vessel, my pawn to control as I will. You will help me become a God."

"Blasphemy!" William snarled, "You are a homunculus! You are nothing but a creature of darkness! Just the thought of… even the idea of… It's impossible!"

The man's face remained impassive. "This talking is futile."

He raised a hand and William found he could not move. Blood pounded in his ears as he started to panic. He struggled against a firm, invisible force that enveloped him, holding him as still as stone. He dragged in a sharp breath as the man stepped forward with a crimson stone between his forefinger and thumb. As he approached, William's breathing quickened. Sweat beaded along his brow at his continual, futile struggle to move. He found he couldn't even yell out for help. His voice was hitched in his throat.

The man stopped just above him, holding the red stone before William's eyes. "I understand why you came here, human. Challenge me and I will crush you like the insect you are. Join me and help me accomplish my goal, and perhaps I will give you back what I stole from you."

Wet, hot tears formed in William's eyes. The vision of the man standing above him was momentarily obstructed by the moisture building up on his eyelids. As if by relief, the damn broke and the tears streamed down his face leaving warm trails behind. He still couldn't move, but as if a weight had been lifted from him he held hope in the man's small promise. Slowly, reluctantly, his heart accepted his fate.

"Now," the man said indifferently, "Will you be the beholder of my envy?"

William closed his eyes. What the man did next he knew not. Darkness consumed him and after a minute or two he was William Thiessen no longer.