Disclaimer: I don't own FullMetal Alchemist, or any of the characters from the series used in this fic. They all belong to Hiromu Arakawa. I only own any of my original characters that I choose to include, as well as any of my own original plot ideas.

Chapter 11: What We Dream

A/N: I have nothing to do today, and no work until the weekend, so I whipped this up for you guys. Honestly, the story's going a lot slower than anything else I've written to date, but it's essential. My desire was to create a follow-up story that did Arakawa's own masterpiece justice, and I feel like this could be it.

I don't know if anyone else cries while reading or watching things, but I do. I'm afraid that this may be one of those "all the feels!" moments.

The nights she remembered had been spent beneath a sea of stars, watching as plumes of smoke from nearby houses floated up and around them, like a screen. Her bedroom had been her house, her window a door to the world outside. A world filled with people who, while looking for hope, had managed to be content with what they had. Life, laughter, love. So a hotel, which she had thought to be a very large house before now, was an entirely different environment. Soft plush beds, plump pillows, electricity, and all the food a child her size and age could dream of eating.

The only downside? The soldiers who had been assigned to keep watch.

"So why's this Mustang guy keeping us here?" Annabel quipped, shoving a cupcake into her mouth. She grimaced, realizing that the texture of the small cake was rather different on the outside than the inside. "I don't mind being fed, and this room is great. But what's the point of treating us like prisoners?"

Sitting by the window, Winston didn't so much as move to look at her. He just allowed his eyes to move with the people and traffic on the street below.

"Don't know," he replied as a carriage drove on by. Annabel imagined that, being from outside the city, he must have liked horses. "And you're not supposed to eat the cupcake wrapper."

The cupcake still half-formed in her mouth, Annabel stuck her tongue out and pulled a very damp piece of paper out of the clump. She couldn't claim to be much of a chef, having to kill pigeons and steal from delivery trucks, but she was certain that paper didn't belong in food. Unless she'd missed out on something while living in the old train yard.

Tossing the thing in the trash, she wrapped her hands around her ankles and leaned back, rocking herself on the bed. There must have been so much out in the world, so much that she knew nothing about outside of Central City. And it got her to wondering.

"So what's your place like?"

Winston turned then, leaning back against the window with a raised eyebrow. "What?"

"Your home. What's it like? I bet it's better than this place, huh? I bet it's pretty, too, Risembool."

The way he looked at her, he must have forgotten that she'd done her research, having claimed his father as her eternal hero. His expression softened, a whisper of a smile creeping onto his face. Annabel imagined that he must have been a little homesick, even after only being gone for a couple days.

"Well, back East, things are pretty small, simple. Considering we're so close to the border leading to the desert, it's not surprising." The smile widened. "It's real green," he said fondly. "Especially in spring. Everything just looks alive, and it smells the way I think heaven might. The houses are far and few between, so there's no crowding unless you go into town. Just a couple shops and restaurants, and the station, of course, so everybody gets a lot of business."

Annabel nodded. It sounded perfect. Like something right out of a storybook or a museum painting. A peaceful place that everyone would want to live.

"What about winter?" She crawled to the edge of the bed, grinning, the tray of food on the table momentarily forgotten. "Is it perfect in winter, too? I bet it snows all the time, right?"

"Of course it does," he laughed, sitting beside her. "I think winter's my favorite. Plenty of people don't like it, because they say everything looks dead. But when you wake up and look out your window in the morning, it's like you've been taken someplace far away. It's white everywhere, and the shapes of the trees and rocks are barely visible. The lake freezes, and the whole town goes out for a night of fun the week before Christmas. Everybody cooks, and we place games on the ice."

How lucky he was, living someplace like that. In Central, it wasn't quite that pretty. It got cold, just like everywhere else, but it was an uncomfortable kind of chill, the sort that made people like herself and her friends wish that they had a house with a roaring fire to return to. Rather than white, the snow would appear gray, or sometimes black, from the soot, the exhaust, in the air. Lights would always be on at night, taking away from the perfect winter wonderland that it should have been.

Annabel wished she could live in a pristine green valley. To run through the warm grass in the summer, and sit indoors with friends when the snow touched down to earth. A big house on a hill is what she would have, where she'd raise sheep and horses and plant her own maze of crops. It all sounded so beautiful.

"Do you have a river?"

He stood up then, pulling his coat, which he had yet to remove, around his shoulders and marching back to open the window.

"That's right." Winston's voice was quiet, now lacking the excitement that it had held mere moments before. "The river runs right on through. Through the heart of our valley..."

"The river here is horrid. It's all we have, but it's so full of dirt and grime and litter, that it might as well not be a river at all." She smiled, looking to his back again. "You're lucky, Winston."

"Yeah," he whispered. "Real lucky."

# - # - # - #

Though dizzy and confused, pacing was the only thing keeping him sane at the moment. It kept his head clear, and siphoned much of the energy it would have taken for him to begin shouting. By all rights, he should have been more than just shocked. He should have been angry, furious even. He should have been on the phone, demanding that the soldiers at the hotel take that damned child to the station and escort him straight back to Risembool. He had missed his meeting with Colonel Valen, and had thus been informed that the man would not return until a proper, and personal, apology had been issued by Roy himself.

He cursed himself for having been so preoccupied with this damned thing.

But, in his hand, the watch was familiar, a presence that brought him both comfort and despair. With it, he had been branded a dog, a soldier, a weapon to be used in a time of war. A shepherd called to slaughter the sheep he had sworn to protect. Yet, it was a firm reminder of all their sacrifices, of those who had lived for this country, lived to help him and others to pursue their goals.

It must have been disrespectful, pacing back and forth across the row of stones, trampling the grass with each step. He had come to talk, to seek a silent form of guidance, not to obsess and ignore the grave of the man who had died for Roy's own objectives.

"Were our positions reversed, what would you be doing now?" He glanced to the stone, hands shoved firmly into his pockets. "Would you cater to Edward's request and send his boy home, or would you keep it a secret, allow him to stay?"

There was never any answer to his questions. Just the sound of his own heart racing and breath leaving his body. But, sometimes, he would remember the days of the Extermination Campaign, and imagine that Hughes was still alive and well, standing beside him as a counselor. If anything, he'd want to respect the wishes of that young friend, though not without the thrill of a good mystery.

"You'd let him stay," Roy muttered with a dry smile. "You'd say that children don't travel for three days just for a bit of sight-seeing. They could learn all about Central with brochures and picture books." He lifted his head to the sky, sighing. There had been a time when the stars had shone brightly, unhindered by the black screen of smoke that had become a permanent resident of Central. It was such a shame. "He's Edward's son, Hughes. I know he came here for something. But what would bring him here, so far from home...?"

# - # - # - #

He hadn't been able to get out of the room, even to take a brief walk around the building. The soldiers were under strict orders, after all, and had refused to allow him any freedom. So he had settled for dreaming, wishing that he could slip through the glass like water and fool them all. Disappear before they knew he had gone, make his rounds around the city, and return with what he needed.

But that was the problem right there. Winston didn't know in the slightest what he could do, if anything, to make his home and family whole again. So he sat down at the edge of his bed, positioning himself so that the light from the moon would strike the pages of the book held in his hand.

The soldiers hadn't bothered checking his suitcase, and for that he was grateful. If they had, he could have ended up in a jail for stealing books and military records from the library.

Upon checking the index, Winston gently leaned over the bed and placed the book back inside the suitcase, his hand fishing around for another. He needed something that detailed his father's exploits in the military, his adventures. With his father being as famous as he was, someone must have written something about him. If not a biography, then at least a few pages in some history book.

For perhaps an hour, Winston sat there and sifted through the books, reading through pages about the old Amestrian military and its flaws. Human experimentation, mass murder on a grand scale, wars, and so on. He cared little for things of that nature, about learning who and what had prompted this now great nation to engage in such atrocious things. He just wanted a damned answer, a way to make everyone happy again.

"Big brother..."

Blue eyes widened, turning to Annabel's sleeping form on the bed across the room. She hadn't moved, hadn't snored, hadn't made any sound aside from that of her deep, relaxed breathing. Shaking his head, Winston returned to the book, hoping this time to find something about the disbanded organization of State Alchemists. His finger fell upon the page, hope brimming on his face.

"'...State Alchemists were primarily seen by the populace as enemies, often ridiculed by the public and called 'human weapons' for the violent role they played in the destruction of the people of Ishbal during the Eastern Civil War... were also ridiculed for their supposed undying loyalty to the Fuhrer of the time, King Bradley...'"

He read on, learning then that the watch with the six-sided star and the military's insignia had been the seal of the Fuhrer, marking the State Alchemists as "dogs of the military." So his father, the youngest State Alchemist in the history of the organization, must have been seen the same way as the others. A monster, a weapon, a soldier with a love for war and death. Winston squeezed his eyes shut, dispelling those thoughts. He knew his father, knew that he wasn't a cruel bastard who would take pleasure in other people's suffering.

If he had, would he really have been named a hero?

"Brother...?"

Looking towards the bed, it was not Annabel who stared back at him, but a little girl with a bow tied into golden hair, clad in a blue-white dress. She stood there in silence, watching him as the book fell out of his hands and onto the floor. Winston stood, the little girl following suit. They approached one another slowly, the child's face calm as could be while poor Winston felt something welling in his chest. He knew this feeling well, had even come to resent it as the years had worn on. Every time he thought about her, he felt like he was drowning, or perhaps just breathing through a wet sponge. They hadn't even touched when he stopped, shocked as she continued coming towards him.

He closed his eyes in fear, telling himself that it was a dream, that she wasn't real... anymore.

But when a small hand closed around his finger, they burst open again, full of tears. The girl gave his hand a gentle tug, just enough to pull the shaking boy to his knees. Letting go, she lifted her arms, tiny fingers grazing the sides of his face, her own still as empty and emotionless as before.

Winston tried to speak, tried to usher this cruel apparition away, but he had fallen mute.

"Why, Brother?" the girl asked in a quiet voice. "Why didn't you stop me?"

There they were, running through the fields, Matilda chasing after him as he carried her doll away. It flew across the river, and she ran out of the tall grass, prepared to knock him into the water. A few small steps to the right, a rock beneath his foot, and he fell over, sending her tumbling into the rapids to die.

Shamed, he hung his head, shoulders shaking. "I didn't mean to..." he cried, fingers moving to hold onto her dress. The last dress their Granny Pinako had sewn for Matilda before she had gone on to heaven. His sister had loved this dress. It only made sense that she'd wear it in death. "Please... don't hate me, Matti... I didn't mean to let you..."

"Die?" She looked at him with those big, beautiful eyes of hers, lips pressed into a small line on her face. Then, she smiled. "That's okay, Win," Matilda chirped. "You're gonna make it better, aren't you? Isn't that what you came to Central for?"

Winston nodded, allowing her small arms catching him in a hug. "Not better, Matti. Right. I'll make things right again..."

"Okay, Win. Just remember," she let him go, turning and jumping up onto his bed, "you promised me. And you can't break a promise."

She moved slowly, jumping up and down before launching herself towards the window, the lace at the bottom of the dress flying behind her as she slipped through the glass, vanishing.

Winston, still kneeling on the floor, just pressed his head against the foot of his bed, and cried.