Did you think it was over?

(p.s: I own me and some socks)

---

Dark Humor.

Chapter 16: The Id and I.

Machines, Envy had found, were not particularly reliable objects.

Of course, the more complex the machine, the more likely it was to malfunction and the greater the difficulty factor of repairing it became. Winry might have argued that a wristwatch had a far better chance of lasting years without winding down than a bicycle - which also used a similar, simpler clockwork-style mechanism on the gearbox, yet was liable to throw its chain with constant use. And Envy would have replied, indulging in as much vitriolic sarcasm as pertinently possible, that perhaps the bike would crap out every two hundred miles or so, but fuck turning a watch over and reconnecting the chain. Only nut jobs knew how to repair something so complex, and yes, sadly but typically, Winry fit rather snugly into that pigeonhole – ostensibly, at a fault all her own.

However, there were plenty of machines even the most articulate of nut jobs couldn’t fix, and these were undoubtedly complicated items. For, once they broke down, they required a frighteningly superior level of repair than a few sets of skilled hands pottering about in their cogs. The human heart, the millwheel of the human body, was one of these specialist items; though it had the ability to resume pumping, literally, the fuel of life, there were so many factors that could impede things. Perhaps the heart might be sick, or drained - starved through hemorrhage or injury of the blood it required. It might be old, weak, or affected by stimulants. It could have simply lost hope, scarred by the burn of a weary soul that could no longer rally itself to survive and simply burnt itself out by the sheer pain of loss or disappointment. And once the heart had gone – truly gone – little hope remained; for then Time, the meridian of all machines, ceased for the owner of the heart, and the world would slowly, apologetically, draw to a close.

Time, arguably, is a metaphysical element. Unlike a watch or bicycle or a heart, it does not possess tangible workings, save for logical representations that log its passing through various forms - yet Time could malfunction, just as any other machine; Time could slow down to such a sluggish rate that even Evolution could look back at it and think, Goodness, someone needs a tipple. Time could even run backwards if a suspiciously dexterous nut job could manage tuning it to do so. Most importantly, however, Time could start and stop - seemingly of its own will - sometimes for all, sometimes for one single individual. In human terms, it began with the fertilization of an egg in the womb and ceased the moment the heart has failed – clinging on in kinetic readiness for the pump to spark into life again. The break in the steady rhythm of a heartbeat is like a pause in a sentence: there is certainly room to continue, more to be written, but if one leaves the ink too long, the flow of the prose will die.

And so will the heart. And so will Time.

To screw with Time, most fantastically of course, were other universal factors hanging off existence that were equally as invisible and supernatural - and on a scale much higher than any mere human could reach. The Gate was among the most prominent of these, for it possessed the ability to open doors to other worlds, other lives, and of course, to an abundance of creatures who could easily pop the bonnet and toy with Time’s sprockets, despite the difficulty mortals had with it, generally making first-class nuisance of themselves. One might actually describe the beastly phenomenon as the “Gate of Nut Jobs” - but one would have to be incessantly brave and have the ability to run very, very fast.

Envy knew what it was like to live in a world where Time could not dominate. He remembered the strange, soundless, soulless golden world inside the Gate, knew all too well the cold glow of what some humans referred to as the ‘false light’- the illicit copy of the warm, heavenly spark that was supposed to transport their astral beings onto a higher plane. The light, he knew, was seething and evil. It swarmed with ill-intent and, once the alchemists started poking at it, spewed forth plague about the earth like a lanced boil.

Envy knew the Gate. He knew death. And he knew the cold world swathed in golden light that lay beyond the dark doors – yet only as a child recognized its world within the womb. He remembered the sense of unending desire, the voraciousness for completion, the hunger for something that even the Gate itself couldn’t seem to create, nor explain. Beyond the murky doors, Envy had only known darkness and light as two very separate elements; grey did not have weight nor meaning in the golden world. The sense of will and the luxury of choice did not exist. He had been reborn from the belly of the beast as a physical representation of that hell, that appetite. He had destroyed, he had lied, he had loved without loving and had hated fiercely – on a level than no human soul could bear. He had clawed furiously at the life around him, draining it in attempt to fill his inexplicable need for… for….

For what the Gate could never contain. He hadn’t realized it before, but he’d taken a subconscious stab at a fairly decent hypothesis. Humans and homunculi differed greatly in the physical sense - that was obvious - and the paramount anomaly was the exclusion of the mortal soul. The Gate could only contain metaphysical matter: clumps of atoms - particles of what the human body was comprised of - that were surrendered for the sake of both simple and complex alchemic transmutations. The golden world held a mishmash of elements that could no longer exist on Amestris’s sentient plane, like a multi-versal strip of flypaper that caught the leftovers from alchemic offerings, but it could not halt the transgression of the immortal soul from one world to the next. The meddlers, the practiced – all of those who, at one point, were faced with the looming dark doors - they might have thought at one time that the World Gate they’d uncovered was one and the same as that of their theorized “Heaven”; certainly there were gates and golden light as they had written in their scriptures. But the Gate was false. It was not salvation, and what passed through it could not keep any nuance of soul-matter – for this would evaporate indefinitely to wherever it was meant to go.

And hence the trouble remained: A human body will remember it had a soul. It will know when the soul is no longer present and it will yearn for it, like a ghost limb or a fancied object gone missing – the final key, the completion of what it once was. A soul was not a human without a body, and a body was not human without a soul. It was a homunculus.

Incomplete, wanting, unaware of what it was supposed to obtain, and subject to nothing but the surging waves of tremendous, insatiable demand that powered its mosaic mind. The body remembered the soul; it remembered what the soul felt; it remembered what the soul required. Forever within the Gate and the creatures it whelped, there were ghosts of the lost tattoo that had made them people, things. Real. Without it, they were nothing. Powerful, but nothing all the same.

And now Envy knew. He understood why he could put a name to his hatred, yet never complete it. He knew why he’d been charged by his fury, his anorexic adhesion to the living world - one that had been controlled through spiritual deprivation by his confusion and rage. He’d never wanted control, and he’d never received it. But he’d been controlled, or at least steered toward tragedy – Dante singing at the helm. She’d nurtured him, ruled him. She’d been his guide, his Bible – all he had known and all he’d been willing to accept. Envy had only cared for destruction, of which Dante could provide in abundance – and he’d been fine with that. He’d clung to it and survived, turning on his own little cog of existence that simply was just another that worked the motions of his mother’s rotten game.

Just like a machine. Just like Time.

---

On the golden plane, nothing could be touched by the mechanisms of the waking world; nothing could and would ever change. But Envy was all right with that. Existence could hiccup around him – stopping and starting like a spluttering motor, as it was wont to do - and he would pay it no mind. Whether he remained part of the flow, synchronized, or stood watching on the bank, he had his memories, he had his will, and he now realized the importance of choices. Of pain, and joy, and souls. He found the tawny plane much less of a threat now. He had no reason to be afraid here. Nothing could touch him – mortal or immortal, and he was lost within it, content in his memories and the knowledge he had gained. What more did he need? He had lived and he had learnt. He had suffered, but he had grown so much because of it.

Envy squinted a little and stepped into the brightness, feeling his newborn soul lift and open, as though rising from his chest like a plume of soft smoke to play in the air above. Walking toward the gold, he found himself smiling a little, arms crossing over his middle.

And, ever so little, he smiled.

There were other things that could stop Time aside from immortality and death.

One of those things was love.

---

It was on a Tuesday that Hohenheim Elric decided to pay a friendly visit to the newest addition to his remarkably dysfunctional family - despite the fact he was not supposed to know of her existence, nor Edward’s whereabouts for that matter. Hohenheim had decided long ago that such trivial things as logical answers were really less of a pressing importance than they seemed, and hitherto he tended not to execute any form of effort into their creation. The hidden fact of the matter, of course, was that Edward’s father was really a dreadful liar and rarely managed to retain a straight composure whilst attempting to blame his eldest son for pillaging the last of Trisha’s homemade macaroons; instead he had found that making a bolt for his cellar-come-laboratory was a much better plan. His darling wife, who had a frightfully effective pitching arm, would find herself audience to a most apologetic alchemist later, when Edward had been tucked into bed - said son never really losing out in the first place, since his mother would then shower him with kisses, explaining that his father was a "naughty, naughty mister!" and that Edward could have as many cookies as he wanted out of the new batch because he was "such a good boy".

As time went on, Hohenheim began negating the use of arbitrary excuses and instead focused on improving his worldly collection of trivia and anecdotes - most of which, he found, were quite successful for shelving even considerably damaging faux pas; though of course, the backlash of his unique conversation manner left the majority of his acquaintances under the impression that he was quite, quite mad. However, Hohenheim continued unabashed in perfecting his divertive commentary, finally resulting with the trick of turning almost any situation into a footnote on the weather. Indefinitely, being as much as a traveler as he was, Hohenheim always made sure to be clued up on the forecast and took great joy in predicting the pattern for the day. Dante had once scolded him for cloud-watching when he was supposed to be refining his tinctures for purification, announcing snidely that although he might consider his powers near-deific, he was not, and could not become a God. That feat was impossible for humans, and for good reason. Hohenheim had yawned lethargically, adding that if they could, they would definitely do something about unexpected showers in February.

He whistled as he rounded the corner into Izumi’s street, arms swinging at his sides - a small, yellow, hand knit bunny poking out of his breast pocket like a rather unusual corsage. Unfortunately, as he’d had to leave the town so fast while tailing Greed as far as the northern border, he hadn’t been able to find out the baby’s sex; but he considered the soft pale lemon colour to be suitable for either a girl or a boy. Well, maybe a very little boy. Besides, he certainly wasn’t about to turn up empty-handed! This baby was his first and possibly - at the rate Ed and Al were hurtling down their nominated paths of total self decimation - only grandchild; indubitably, Hohenheim Elric thought it his duty - nay, his right - to turn up on Izumi’s doorstep armed with peppermint candy, a small, yarn leropid and an uncharacteristically large smile plastered on his face.

Edward, who was perched on said doorstep, his arms crossed over his chest like a bouncer - if not an amusingly ineffective one - almost fell out of his own surprise when the tall, solid lump of his father strode into view and waved pleasantly from the grass verge. Naturally, he’d been waiting for Greed to show up - like one waits for a storm, watching the clouds for changes, tasting the air - and the atmosphere around Izumi’s little house had been so heavy the last few weeks, it seemed as though the air itself had been set in concrete. Izumi had been keen on moving accommodation, mentioning repeatedly that she knew of a safe house where they could hide - especially while the baby was so little. But Edward dug his heels in, refusing to budge; Greed may have known where they were, but at least they were in a familiar environment, as opposed to a place where they might miss a trick. Izumi was on good terms with her neighbors and the township they all knew like the backs of their hands. Leaving abruptly would have attracted suspicion, and Edward didn’t want to risk being seen as going A.W.O.L by the military, despite what Mustang might have noted about his situation. Besides, he was dead-certain that Greed would be able to follow them wherever they went. With as developed senses of smell as a homunculi possessed, they’d surely be as easy to trace as a fart under the blankets. Perhaps leaving might have been a good idea, but their cargo was far too delicate, and Edward didn’t want to run. Not from him.

Of course, it was highly likely that Hohenheim could have easily been the homunculus wearing the blond man’s guise, but Lust - who was sitting just inside reading her book at the kitchen table - hadn’t stirred, and essentially this meant that she hadn’t caught any type of unusual scent. Theoretically, this Hohenheim-figure was the genuine article.

Ed was sure, for several popular reasons, he would have preferred Greed.

“Hallo, Edward,” the man greeted him, smiling jovially. “Nice day, isn’t it?”

“I oughtta slap you,” Ed hissed in reply, his arms tightening about his chest, hiding his twitching knuckles in their pits. “I really oughtta pummel you one for even showing your face around here, you bastard!”

Hohenheim twitched in surprise, then glanced about himself, searching for the poor sod of whom Edward must have been snarling at. As he found no one else hiding about his person or the immediate vicinity, Hohenheim gave a light cough and decided to try again. Perhaps it was just a bit early in the day for his son?

“Nice day, isn’t it Edward?” he repeated, turning the smile on full force, once again.

“You have some nerve showing up here,” Ed fumed in return, practically steaming at the earlobes. “What the hell are you doing here? You get lost up your ass or something?”

“Er,” Hohenheim stumbled a moment, scratching beneath the tie holding his unruly hair hostage in a long, flaxen tail. “Yes. Well… it has been awhile, hasn’t it?”

“Been awhile? Been awhile?” The boy simmered. “Al was in diapers last time you saw him! He was barely able to say his own name! And Mom… You never even bothered to write her! You never even came to the funeral, you cheap shit! Is that your idea of a divorce, huh? Just up and leave your family hanging - waiting until your spouse dies before you even consider making a move to reconcile with us?”

“I’m here now,” Hohenheim answered, steadily.

“You want money, don’t you?"

“No.” The older man sighed patiently, taking a few steps toward the house. Edward glowered in retaliation, unmoving - hackles rising like a dutiful guard dog. He even managed to growl a little. “No, I do not want money. It’s been… difficult-“

“Difficult! Are you insane? Didn’t you hear me before? Our mother died. She died, you complete tosspot. You wanna know how easy it is for two kids to survive when their whole world crashes down around their ears? Not. Easy. Not very fucking easy. God, you’re the biggest shit-head.”

“Difficult...” There was a sigh. “...to get back into the country with the recent laws on the state borders.”

“What the hell does that have to do with the price of shit? Aren’t you some sort of kick-shit super-alchemist? Aren’t you able to-“ Edward gesticulated violently. “-move a border or something?”

Of course, this was ludicrous; Edward knew all too well how difficult it was to travel from country to country, especially when one was as infamous as he. He doubted Hohenheim would have been completely stripped from the Military’s agenda, and he didn’t doubt that the checkpoints probably had a mug shot of him lacquered by coffee and tea spills to a coaster somewhere. The power-pole of a man would also have found it much harder to disguise himself, as Edward’s smaller frame had greater flexibility when it came to altering the size and shape of a character. However, he pushed these circumspections aside, preferring for the moment to draw his argument out a little longer.

“I believe the saying is ‘the price of fish’, Edward,” Hohenheim corrected his son, smoothly. “And no. While there is plenty that I can do as an alchemist, I must also live as a human. There are rules and regulations to follow.” He smiled a little, the corner of his mouth hitching up, snickering behind its fingers secretively. “I cannot move as easily as some people can.”

“Liar,” Ed snapped. “You’re a stinking liar! You just didn’t make the effort because you wanted to be gone. But I wouldn’t expect any more of you.” Trusting himself to keep a lid on his temper now, Edward swung to his feet.

“That isn’t all of it.” Hohenheim shook his head. “Some people don’t want other people to be found by certain people.”

“Oh, right, you mean the Military?” Ed scuffed his boot against the grass, bitterly. “How they were trying to smoke you out before Mustang discovered me? Don’t think I’m going to buy that! You’re supposed to be a great alchemist! Mom said so! If you’re so swell, you should have been able to evade the military easily and come home. Difficult my ass, you’re making excuses, you bastard liar. Don’t try to hide it.”

“If that’s what you’re going to believe, then I guess it’s true.”

“Why are you here, anyway? You never said.” Ed’s eyes narrowed. The timing was all a little too convenient and suspicious. “Can’t be just to check up on us, finally…”

“I came -” Hohenheim brightened almost on cue. “- because I wanted to give someone a gift.” He motioned lightly to his pocket.

Edward looked at the bunny, then looked at Hohenheim.

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s a bunny.”

“Yes, but what’s it doing here?” Edward was immediately on edge. There was only one person in the household who would appreciate such a gift, and no one outside Izumi’s watchful eye was supposed to know about her. “You know, Al’s a bit old for stuffed toys now.”

“Oh, it’s not for Alphonse,” Hohenheim told him, casually. “It’s for the little one.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Edward said, suddenly turning pale. The entire household - Lust and Warner included - had promised not to mention the baby to anyone; not even on pain of death.

“Edward, do you mind if I come in for a cup of tea?”

“Only if you’re willing to wear it,” Edward growled flatly as he struggled to remain nonchalant. The blond hadn’t quite figured out his exact feelings toward the child, but he wasn’t about to put her in danger because he was mentally inconclusive. She was worth a lot more to him than that. And yet, one out of the nine that had sworn to secrecy had gone and let the cat out of the bag. They must have - how else would the bastard have found out about her? And who the hell would have done such a thing? Edward shrugged, trying not to feel too betrayed before he’d really considered the truth of the matter. “There’s nothing for you here, you bastard. Piss off.”

“Please,” Hohenheim pressed gently, padding forward to the front stoop. His expression still bore his usual mask of vacant cheerfulness, yet his voice had taken on a slight hint of urgency. “I really think I should come in.”

“And I think you ought to get fucked. Sideways. With a wrench and a bag of cat litter. No!”

“It’s very important,” the man continued, shaking his head a little; he clearly wasn’t going to go away. Edward snarled, leaping up to take a swing at the older man’s pathetic mug.

“Look, I told you-“

“You’re Edward's and Alphonse’s father, aren’t you?” Another voice - honeyed and smooth like silken bed sheets - cut in softly; waving a white flag, or more aptly, a white pair of panties, in between the two warring family members. Lust smiled vaguely from the doorway, her arms crossed beneath her buxom chest, and Edward frowned in return, not entirely sure whether he liked the look on her face or not. Such expressions were uncharacteristic of the naturally devious homunculus; such expressions let wolves inside the house, only thinly disguised in red cloaks and the curious ability to mimic human speech patterns. Yet when he opened his mouth to object, she simply continued over him.

“I’ve just boiled the kettle. Tea with sugar and milk?”

“Sounds good to me.” Hohenheim smiled, easily sidestepping his flabbergasted son to follow Lust’s curvaceous silhouette into the house, leaving nothing but an odd waft of faint, sweet perfume, and a truckload of confused vibes buzzing in the atmosphere. Edward’s mouth swung on soundless hinges as his body swiveled around to the house and his feet automatically began trudging toward the open doorway, after them. What the hell was Lust thinking? Was she insane? Was she…?

Edward stopped before the door of the lounge, his fingers digging into the decorative wood surrounding the opening. Had Lust been the one to tell Hohenheim about the baby? Had she let their precious secret out? But how? Why? When would she have left? In the night, or something? And how could she have known Hohenheim, unless…

Our Master.

There has to be someone controlling the homunculi.

It was him: The Master, the Boss, the fucking Asshole in Chief. It had to be. Who else had been so engrossed in alchemy that they would have left their family alone to rot behind them? Who else could have been that sickeningly shallow? Edward gritted his teeth as the old man leaned over the baby carrier that was stationed on the lounge couch, and cleared his throat noisily, drowning out Hohenheim’s cooing.

“Well… What are you waiting for? Take her.”

“Excuse me?” Hohenheim peered over his shoulder, glasses slipping a little down his prominent nose. “Take her where?”

“That’s who you came for, wasn’t it?” Edward scowled, viciously. “The kid. You’re gonna steal her, use her for your own sick plans. I know you. I’m onto you.” He glared at Lust. “And you, too. You were just waiting for him, weren’t you…?”

Hohenheim and Lust exchanged looks which clearly stated that while they both admitted to knowing Edward, neither were actually sure he was from the same planet. Lust sucked in her crimson-flushed lower lip and knitted her fingers together in front of her, whilst Hohenheim managed to remain politely mystified.

“Edward?” he began, softly. “I don’t know who you’re thinking of, but I’m not going to take this child…”

“Yes you are!” Ed snarled. “You are, ‘cause you’re the boss of those guys!” He pointed wildly at the only homunculus in the room, his eyes flaring like the torches of a miniature lynch mob. “You’re the one directing them all! God, it’s so obvious now!”

“Edward…”

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before! Probably never crossed my mind because Al and I were too busy living your lie that we didn’t have time to consider the possibility that it might’ve been you behind it all! You rancid old fart!”

“Edward.” Hohenheim shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Suuuure you don’t!” Ed marched over to the carrier, curling his steel fingers tightly around his father’s arm. “Just keep running with that one, you bastard - maybe someone will believe you. But for now… get out! Get out of my house -“

“This is your house?”

“It’s not,” Lust added, glancing sideways at the small, blond, steaming wreck. “It’s his teacher's house. He’s freeloading.”

“You!” Ed scowled, turning his interrogation lamps toward her face. “You! You led him right to us! If I’d known you were working for him-“

“I'm not!”

“I think you’re mistaken, son. I don’t recall this lady as ever being in my employment.”

“Don’t call me son, you stinking weasel-shit!”

“Edward!”

“Though I can't say I'm really the best with names and faces.”

“Don’t you try to pull the wool over, Lust! I trusted you!”

“He’s not the leader of the homunculi! D-!”

Lust stopped herself abruptly in mid-sentence, her eyes widening at her sudden outburst that could have very nearly cost her more than her own un-life. If Edward found out, he’d want answers, and those answers weren’t ones she was authorized to give. As it was, the blond frowned impossibly harder, his hands drawing slowly away from Hohenheim’s sleeve. The momentum of gravity in the room seemed to belly flop into a brick wall of uncomfortable silence, until Hohenheim piped up, quite casually,

“Don’t be silly, Edward. Homunculi aren’t real.”

Lust looked at Edward. Edward looked at Lust. Both let the statement macerate for an astonished moment, then - still as incredulous - turned their attention back to the older man.

“But…” Edward stammered, feeling the wrench grinding in his works; already his fierce composure was beginning to wilt under the bright sun of non-compliance that was Hohenheim Elric. “But… she’s a homunculus… and… you…”

“A homunculus?” Hohenheim laughed fruitily. Lust chimed in with a weak giggle; if she could have sweated, she would currently have been washing her clothes with it. “Nonsense! They’re nothing but alchemical drabble, just old-hat myths made up by a bunch of stuffy fools who’d been bunged up in too small a room with too many dangerous chemicals!”

“Your books!” Edward shook his head, wondering how on earth his father had managed to literally topple his rancor in mere seconds. Sure, his debate hadn't been particularly well researched -or researched at all, for that matter - but he’d usually have been up to starting a bit of a fray by now, or at least have had his elbow in someone’s ear. He’d never been verbally winded so… politely before. “Your books had notes about them all over the place! You made references to them yourself!”

“Only as more of a theory to compare and resolve the differences between classical and modern alchemy!” Hohenheim chuckled and pushed his glasses up his nose. “The Hermetically created artificial human was just a fairy story that got a bit carried away. Certainly it gained some credit over time and somehow managed to attach itself to the myth of Human Transmutation, but it’s all poppycock, Edward!”

“It’s not!” One shaking steel finger thrust itself toward Lust while Edward hopped from one foot to the other in protest. “It isn’t! You’re lying! You know, you know! She is one of them, and I’ve performed Human Transmutation! I tried to undo the damage you did to our family… and you’re sitting here saying it’s nothing but bullshit?”

“Well, all right, perhaps not complete poppycock, as I guess I can see from your arm,” Hohenheim reasoned, motioning lightly to his son’s Automail limb. “And perhaps one can create homunculi and raise them, nurturing them with chemically-created incomplete Philosopher’s Stones and over time molding them into human shape, but really.” He shrugged good-naturedly. “Who could be bothered with such a kefuffle?”

“So, now you’re admitting you were lying?” Edward threw his arms in the air, tugging angrily at his blond mop with the full intent to tear it all off his head and strangle his father with it. “Which is it? They’re real or they’re not?”

“I think you ought to calm down, Edward.”

“I think you oughtta sort your ideas out before you piss someone off!” Ed hissed, clapping his hands to transmute his steel fist into a short, thick saber. “But hey, I’ll prove to you that they’re real! I’ll kill Lust and you can watch her reincarnate. That ought to give you a bit of guts to your explanation. And to save your own guts from a tragic attack with a screwdriver, courtesy of yours truly, you can tell me exactly what it is you think you’re doing here and how it was you came to know about this baby.”

Something in his eyes twinkled nastily, and his grin pulled back over his teeth in a frighteningly predatory way. Lust - who had been slowly inching around the couch to put herself between the two Elrics and their youngest family member - shook her head, palms up as the boy began approaching her, his face twisted in a manic grin that rather matched his equally twisted proposal.

“Edward! Just because I can heal, that doesn’t mean I want to die!”

“It’s for the sake of science! You’re proving a point!” Edward countered.

“Er… I left the kettle on,” Lust gulped, suddenly aware that rationalizing with Edward wasn’t really going to do much good, not when he was advancing on her - teeth bared, claws drawn - rather like a rabid golden retriever puppy. Backing up slowly toward the door, she spun on her heel and dashed into the hallway. “I’ll be right… back!”

Edward yelped and scuttled after her, completely forgetting the reason for which he’d insisted upon performing the gruesome experiment. Up the hall, somewhere between the laundry and the kitchen, was the sound of someone or something crashing against a wall - possibly leaving a nice dent for Izumi to go spare about at a later date. Hohenheim watched them leave, modestly unperturbed, and scratched a little behind his ear before he turned back to the sleeping baby, smiling as he bent to pick her up.

“Well, look at you,” he whispered, cradling her in the crook of his elbow while he studied the graces of her soft skin and sweet, round face. “You have your grandmother’s face. Edward’s colouring, but Trisha’s face. Can’t tell much now though, can we, little one? Let’s hope there’s some of him in you, though. Otherwise, he’ll be awfully disappointed.”

He held the bunny to her chest and let her unconsciously grapple at its woolly body, her miniature fingers digging in between the close purl of the knit.

“This is your very first toy by the looks of it, isn’t it?” Hohenheim chuckled gently, watching her give a big, pink, toothless yawn before burbling a little, her clammy hands pulsing around her new possession. “Well, don’t worry. I’m sure there’ll be plenty to go with it once everyone’s a little more comfortable. Just promise you won’t lose this one. It’s very special. Your mother might be able to figure out why.”

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen…

“Edward! Stop it! I don’t want to die just to prove a point to your father!” Lust cried, fighting off the crazed alchemist with a dishtowel and a handful of long, obsidian fingernails. “He’s got nothing to do with us! I’ve never met him before until the day I found you on the railroad tracks!”

“Look, he’s an arsehole, Lust,” Edward shot back, shielding himself with a frypan lid as the homunculus’s claws came down again, hitting the metal with a most cacophonic clanggg.

“Yes, and?”

“And arseholes need to be taken down a peg or six when they go and make up stupid lies that make no sense and just end up irritating the crap out of me!”

Clangggg…

“Edward, that doesn’t mean you can just cut me up, willy-nilly! It happens to hurt, you know!”

Clanggg…

“Getting my licks on that bastard makes it worth it!”

Clanggg…

“I wouldn’t have invited him in if I’d known it was going to end up like this!”

“Then why did you let him in! You know our policy on strangers! It only proves the point that you’re working for him!”

“For the tenth bloody time, Edward!” Lust panted, dropping her prongs momentarily. “I’m not working for your father!”

“Are too!”

“I’m not! But there is something about him that doesmake me curious…”

“Oh yeah?” Ed narrowed his eyes, holding his guard, though he halted his attack. “Like how he turns up completely unannounced after more than ten years and somehow knows about the baby?”

“Turning up just anywhere, is more to the point!” Lust shook her head. “Didn’t you hear me? I’ve met him before! I bumped into him in Dublith while I was trying to find you. He said he thought one of us would come from the east at one point. One of us, Edward! He knew what I was. He knew! And he’d only looked at me!”

Ed blinked, dropping his stance quickly. Hohenheim… He’d known? Well, of course he had, but… why had he been there, in Dublith? Why at such a coincidental time?

“I think he was there, at that manor. I think he was the one who interrupted Greed.”

“Did you… Y’know… smell him?” Ed shifted the flopping strap of his tank top back onto his shoulder. “You guys can… sorta sense people that way, can’t you.”

“Yes and no. Humans mostly smell alike,” Lust admitted, placing the dishtowel back on the door of the oven. “But that man… Edward, he doesn’t just smell like flesh and blood and clothing… He smells like- like alchemy. You know that bitter, metallic tang? Something like putting a coin in you mouth and sucking on it for a few moments? It’s as though he’s some sort of colloidal element bleeding it out into the atmosphere. He truly is nothing like any other human I have sensed before… Save one.”

Lust looked down at her fingers. She knew exactly where the conversation was heading with that particular statement, and she knew that it was about time she really made the decision on just how she’d reply to Edward’s response from it.

“Your master, right?” Ed said quietly. “The one controlling all of you. Lust… you know you have to tell me who that is-“

“I don’t have to tell you anything, Edward!” Lust hissed. “I mean… Look. Maybe I want to, but even so, I have figure out just where my priorities lie. It’s not easy! I’m not afraid to die, but what they might do to me… to any of you… I can’t...” She sighed, raking a hand through her glossy curls. “What I’m doing is completely against everything I’ve ever done. I’ve never protected anyone before. Not like this. Can’t you understand? It’s like having a soul… I can’t seem to stop it.”

Edward nodded slowly, padding closer to the distraught homunculus, who was now wringing her hands worriedly in front of her, still unable to raise her eyes to look at him. He reached out, kindly patting her on the arm, his expression grave, but not unreasonable.

“But…” he continued. “Because of your help… Because you’ve… been… If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have found him in time…” He trailed off, swallowing hard. “Even if it was that person’s orders… if you were only saving the baby because you were told to… I don’t believe you could stand here and tell me that you’re actually willing to go against them - ‘cause that’s what you’re saying, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps,” Lust muttered, miserably.

“Tell me,” Ed pressed. “Sometime. Maybe not now, but soon. If you can assure me your master isn’t going to be any immediate threat, then it doesn’t matter right now; we still have Greed to worry about. But ultimately…”

“Ultimately,” Lust countered. “You have an infant daughter. Whether you’re going to take care of her or not, whether you’ll ask Izumi to adopt her, she’s still yours. And whatever I tell you, Edward, is going to put that in jeopardy. Will your taste for revenge be satisfied if you know who has been raising us, or will my information only serve as an aperitif?”

“Lust…”

“You can be two types of a hero, Edward Elric:. One that saves the world, or one that saves your world. Which is more important to you now?”

Lust’s dusky gaze caught Ed’s and held it - set and serious. With a shiver and a light cough to clear his throat, Ed shook his head.

“Point taken,” he said simply, turning his gaze out the window to contemplate the onset of deep, slate grey clouds that hovered about the sky to the west. It was highly possible a storm was brewing. Well, at least that was somekind of anticipatory action. Edward knew he was being uncharacteristically level-headed (at least, now he was), but comparatively, Lust was acting as though she herself had undergone a radical personality transformation in the past few months. She certainly wasn’t the same creature that had threatened his brother at nail-point in the drab, murkish depths of Laboratory Five; she’d been the one to ask for his aid initially; she had brought his attention to the situation and had helped him with it. He couldn’t say he didn’t owe her one, whether her intentions were governed by orders or not.

“So we both have something to think about,” Lust went on, nodding slightly. “And we both have paths we have to decide upon. But if you must know, Greed had turned against us. He was a traitor to our master. If anything, they’re going to want to destroy him, and that is undoubtedly to your benefit.”

“Fine, fine,” Edward grumbled, waving her off, dismissively. “All right. I’ll think about it. But, you know, that baby isn’t going to stop me from trying to restore Al’s body.”

“I don’t think anything would.” Lust smiled wanly, before paling. “Er… speaking of the baby... didn’t we leave her with…?”

“Oh, fuck!”

Two sets of shoes, one stiletto-heeled, one rubber, squealed as both human and homunculus hurtled out of the kitchen, sprinting for the living room just as fast as they had left it and jamming shoulder to shoulder in the lounge doorway in their haste. But Hohenheim merely peered over the tops of his spectacles at them, his expression mildly serene. Edward’s daughter was cradled expertly in his arms, fast asleep.

“She is dear, isn’t she?” he said conversationally, as though they hadn’t left the room at all. “They always are when they’re this little. Does she have a name?”

“Baby.” Ed shrugged, unhelpfully. “No, she doesn’t. We haven’t really thought about it yet.”

“We?” The edges of Hohenheim’s eyes crinkled like tissue paper as he grinned. “You and her mother? Where is the lady, anyway? Your sweetheart, I assume?”

“No,” Edward retorted, turning beet red. “She is…was… not my sweetheart. The kid isn’t even mine. We found her in Liore - she was… um… one of the military’s accidents. Y-you know.” He bit his lip. “Anyway, her mother told us to take the kid to someone who could look after her. Then she died. She was really sick. And that. A-and since we were passing through Dublith, I thought I’d ask my teacher. ‘Cause she likes kids. Y’know.”

Like father like son. Edward also seemed to possess the unique inability to tell even the whitest of lies.

“How kind,” Hohenheim said gently, shuffling over to Edward to place the baby in his arms - his son jerking about like rusted clockwork to ensure that his grip on her was correct. “I’m glad that my son has such a strong respect for humanity and family, of course.”

“Shut up, you crusty old turd,” Ed replied sweetly. “You still haven’t told me how it was you knew about her. No one in this household could have or would have blabbed, so either you’ve been stalking me, or you know more than you’re letting on.”

“Looks like it’s going to rain soon,” Hohenheim replied, craning over his shoulder to glance out at the brewing clouds. “I should get a move on. I really only came here to give the little one a present.”

“W-what? But…” Edward stuttered. “Hey! You can’t leave it at that! You can’t just leave now!”

“Well, I would have liked to have seen Alphonse, but I really do have to go. No point in dallying. One doesn’t wish to get caught in a thunderstorm!”

“You haven’t told us anything, though!”

“I do believe it is forecast to hail, too, not a stunning predicament at all…”

“Dad!” Ed cried, exasperated, though his abrupt change in volume managed to wake the baby, and she wailed, frightened by the unexpected noise. Edward was already starting after his father, but stopped before the doorway, biting his lip as he nervously bounced the child a little in his arms. He really didn’t like her crying; he wasn’t used to dealing with it. Izumi was best at calming the fussy little girl, and unfortunately, she wasn’t in. Ed and Lust had been the babysitters of the day. “Dad, you… fuck! You can’t just go! You have to tell me how you knew to find us!

“Goodbye, Edward! Do take care!”

“If you could just find out like that, what if other people did too? How did you know about her? Dad! Dad! You crummy bastard!”

But Hohenheim had already rounded the corner with a cursory wave and was heading out the door. Lust shot Ed an apologetic look before thundering after the man, hitching her skirt up as she ran. She could have easily taken the baby and let Edward go, but then she wouldn’t have had the chance to get her own questions answered, and that was most important. Ed had to lose out this time, especially with the chance he might find out things he was not meant to, things that might fuel his desire to set out after Dante instead of focusing on a new life with his daughter.

“Hey!” she cried as she cantered behind him, latching onto the sleeve of his traveling coat. “Hey, wait! There’s something I want to ask you!”

“Hmm?” Hohenheim swiveled on the spot and gazed, if not a little blankly, down at Lust. “What is it, my dear? And quickly, please. I do want to get out of town before the rain sets in.”

“You were there, weren’t you?” Lust breathed, flicking a few stray tendrils of dark hair out of her face. “You were there when we were fighting Greed. You helped us.”

His response was a slightly baffled twitch of the eyebrows, but Lust rambled on regardless, panting as her breath sprinted to catch up with her words.

“It was too difficult to sense you, what with all the mud and the alchemy burn, but… why else would you have been in town? It’s too much of a coincidence. You were there… weren’t you?”

Hohenheim pressed his lips into a slim line, studying her intently for a few soundless seconds before he asked, with a stranger’s complaisance,

“Have I seen you somewhere before?”

Lust gaped, her pretty mouth falling open while her brain struggled to find a response that was fitting in place of such blasé absentmindedness.

“Yes. In Dublith, a few weeks ago. I bumped into you, thought you were your son. Remember?”

“Oh, goodness, did you?” Hohenheim chortled, combing back his unruly bangs with one hand. “I hope you didn’t tell him that. Yes, I think I recall… You threw something at me.”

“Not really.” Lust bit her lip. “That was an accident. Your head kind of got in the way of my jar.”

“I know, dear, it’s all right. I don’t think it knocked anything loose.”

Nothing that wasn’t loose in the first place, Lust thought, acidly. She straightened, smoothing down her skirt and flicking a few pieces of imaginary fluff from it, before glancing up again.

“You never answered me.”

“About what?”

“That day,” Lust said through gritted teeth, “That day I ran into you. Afterward, you followed me to her house. You know who I mean. Dante.” She lowered her voice, glancing quickly back toward the house, keen ears picking up the sound of the baby fussing while Edward frantically tried to calm her. It seemed he wasn’t too intent on following. That was fortunate. “You stopped Greed, didn’t you? You’re the one who caused that alchemic reaction. What happened to him afterward? Where did he go?”

There was another pause. Hohenheim appeared to be particularly fond of them, despite his excuse of being in a rush, so Lust waited it through, surveying his expression intently for any sign, any clue of an answer. He licked his lips and sucked a few breaths of air in through his teeth, making a noise that sounded like a trumpet plugged up with a wet sponge.

“You’re talking about those homunculi things again, aren’t you?” he replied, pushing his broad hands into his pockets. “Did you know that they don’t start out like humans at all, but grow into their bodies over a period of careful tending?”

“Well, of course I do. I am one. You know that! You said-“

“Rather like a plant.”

“Er… yes?” Lust closed one eye and squinted up into Hohenheim’s face. Either he was standing directly in the path of the sun (which was odd, for hadn’t it clouded over a minute ago?), or he’d somehow become immensely bright, for she was finding he was rather hard to look at all of a sudden.

“We use lots of plants in alchemy, for all sorts of things. For those who aren’t as successful with basic transmutations, there is always the practice of botany, or even herbology, if you prefer.”

“Uh-huh.” Lust felt as though she was having the innards of a motorcar explained to her. Immediately, she began to nod her head affirmatively, listing points she thought might come in handy later, or might possibly be quizzed on.

“Of course, one of the more popular plants we cultivated was the Artemisia absinthium, commonly known as wormwood. You may have heard of that one… They use it in Absinth”

“That green liquor that tastes like mouthwash?” Lust shaded her eyes with her hand.

“The very same. The plant itself is particularly useful for medicinal purposes. It can be used for all kinds of things, from pesticides to antiseptic lotions, but it’s also quite popularly used as flavoring for that infamous rotgut. Of course, wormwood is also a highly potent hallucinogenic, so, teamed with an alcohol content that measures through the roof, and a particularly vile palette, it is really the best practice to consume it as quickly as you can and in large quantities.”

“What… exactly are you trying to say here?” Lust shook her head slowly. “That all of the great alchemists of old - those who birthed the art and nurtured it until it became what we know today - were just… a bunch of drunkards, pissed of their faces on Absinth?”

“My dear.” Hohenheim chuckled. “Have you ever seen a book on alchemical drawings? Do you really think that people would believe one could turn lead into gold, that a human being could be bred from an egg, or a pile of poo - if they weren’t completely off their trolleys?”

“But alchemy works! I’ve seen Edward do it! Alphonse! A number of people! You can’t just go around saying that it is a myth; there’s too much evidence to prove you wrong!”

“Perhaps.” The man shrugged. “But what is an array without the belief backing it? Does a pretty scribble of chalk in a symmetrical pattern really have the potential to alchemically transmute an object? Or is it the intent of the person performing the art that actually gives it the dynamism to work? You can draw a cat on a piece of paper and show it to a person who’d never seen one before, and they wouldn’t know what it was. It would only become a cat once it had been named and explained as one. Of course, this might also be subjective of the artist’s ability, but in truth, it you give something a name, you give it life. If you believe something will work, then it will. I believe someone at some point had been toying with the idea as a medical term: a Placebo Effect, I believe.”

“Oh, really?” Lust scowled. “Then how can you explain homunculi? Why doesn’t Human Transmutation work? Why is it that only artificial humans come back in place of the person the alchemist meant to revive?”

“Well, it’s not as though body alchemy isn’t successful. You do receive something in exchange. However, I understand most people who have practiced the forbidden alchemy are often in a state of distress and cannot think clearly; they do not realize that there are some things that cannot be returned, no matter how hard one wishes it. You cannot retrieve a soul once it has gone. You can get a body as easy as you like, but once a soul has departed from this world, it is rather fiddly to get it back.”

“Aha! But that’s not true!” Lust shook a finger at the man. “Then how did Alphonse’s soul return! How was it that Edward could retrieve it and affix it to suit of armor?”

“My youngest is a suit of armor?” Hohenheim blinked in surprise. “Well… that’s a bit of bad luck isn’t it? Though I suppose he’ll be chuffed he never has to brush his teeth again.”

“Yes..” Once again, the homunculus had to do a double take at the so-called genius alchemist Dante had prized above all others. Really, she was itching to back up a few steps, lest she catch some form of infectious senility from him. “But Edward did get his soul back, so that blows your theory out the water.”

“Perhaps. But Alphonse wasn’t dead, was he…?”

“I… no… No, I don’t think so.”

“Well then.” Hohenheim smiled. “His soul couldn’t have passed on. You can’t be dead if you haven’t died. The Gate would have just spat him back out like a sour grape.”

“Then what of equivalent exchange?” Lust countered. “What of the rules, the regulations? What of the theory of touka koukan?”

“Yes, well.” Hohenheim shrugged. “The trouble with humans is, they’re very good at making up rules for things.”

“But-“

“And the Gate, as far as I know…” Hohenheim shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “…is quite fond of these people, because they really save it a bit of a job in the long run. Humans are actually quite successfully militaristic in method, are they not? There is always a top dog who will make the rules for all the others and coerces them into abiding - forcibly, if necessary. Of course, things get a bit messy when more than one 'alpha' crop up; but then, nothing is perfect, is it? That’s what makes it interesting.”

“You’re telling me...” Lust said slowly, incredulously, “that humans are humanity’s worst enemy...?”

“Possibly.” The man pursed his lips, perusing the sky for a moment. “But one can die from a bee sting, just as one can from a bullet.”

“Is there any way…” Lust exhaled forcibly in exasperation. “…in heaven, or hell, or any goddamn world in-between, that you are ever going to give me a straight answer?”

“My dear lady.” Hohenheim coughed a little. “I really must be off. This coat isn’t notably skilled at keeping the rain out - holes and all. Please do make sure the rabbit doesn’t get washed. The wool will shrink and the poor thing might end up looking more like a rat, which we simply cannot have.”

“But-“

“And to answer your query, what can I tell you that Edward couldn’t? If I knew all the solutions to life’s little mishaps, surely I would be doing something with them; rather than traveling from town to town on a wing and a prayer that I’ll get food and accommodation in return for an amusing story or two.”

“But Edward has things he wants to ask you. Surely…” Lust sighed, crossing her arms about her ribs. “Surely you could stay… Iron things out. You have to know by now that that baby is-“

“Adorable.” Hohenheim cut in, nodding a little. “Absolutely adorable. She’ll be a handful, I’m sure. Very typical of both her parents.”

“You do know then!” Lust gaped. “You know she’s Edward’s! You knew all along!”

“Perhaps.” Hohenheim turned a little as he walked away. “Only I sincerely doubt that I’ll be of much use around the household. Better to clean out the mould, than let it in with the damp, as they say. Unsavory things tend to grow in conjunction, and we can’t have that with a little baby in the house, can we? Just, please, don’t put the rabbit through the wash -a light sponging will do if it gets dirty. And make sure he doesn’t call her anything silly, he always had a penchant for less-favorable epithets.”

“Who? Edward?”

Hohenheim smiled.

“No.”

“B-but who else would…O-oh.” Lust blinked. “T-then… You know about… him too?”

“It is a long way to be traveling from Lior to Dublith with a newborn infant - especially without any knowledge on how to care for one. And there are plenty of checkpoints along the way to ensure refugees from one country cannot bleed into another. I cannot believe the military would overlook a young man and a suit of armor traversing the countryside with a tiny baby. In any likelihood, they would be inclined to suspect smuggling, and hitherto she would have been secured for relocation with her own people.”

“Hohenheim of Light.” Lust cleared her throat a little, fixing her posture to look the least bit more respectful. The man may have been a tad annoying to speak with, but his oddness appeared to be more of an overspill of eccentricity than simply a few disconnected plugs in his mind. “I’d been under the impression that homunculi couldn’t regain their humanity without the use of the Philosopher’s Stone; yet Envy seems to have become human of his body’s own accord. How? Was it because of the pregnancy? Because the baby had to survive in his body, it evolved to support it?”

“Envy’s accumulation of a soul, I would estimate, is possibly the simple proof that phenomena of a higher level than that of alchemy exist on our world; perhaps as a relative consequence of Alchemist’s application of the Great Art. Whether he acquired this integral constituent of his human self before or after he conceived, I cannot be sure; I can only tell you that the Gate is capable of as much. We are all aware that there must be two souls present to form a third, but while one might argue that his soul was birthed by the baby inside of him, before the fetus can even be considered, it is simply a cluster of cells, a mess of information and floundering gene structure that cannot possibly be a soul-possessing being. Or can it?”

“I don’t know,” Lust answered, reeling a little. “That’s rather vague.”

“Do you suppose that, if Envy had been aware that he was pregnant in the early stages, he would have had his body abort the intruder and thus retain his immortal nature?”

“But he wasn’t. I mean… He didn’t know until he was at least three or four weeks along.” Lust licked her lips. “Do you think that was enough time for… his body to start changing? I mean… he’d said he’d tried to morph, to use his powers, but he couldn’t. And then he started losing his stones… as though he was dying…”

“Then, quite possibly, we can assume that the first theory is correct. However, if he was able to use his powers until nearly a month later, then we must wonder where in Envy’s body the child housed itself. If he had been able to change back, then surely he would have destroyed the zygote when he destroyed the womb.”

“So, then… he would have needed to possess a soul to begin with to meld with Edward’s to create the child. To keep all the… stuff inside and ensure that he wouldn’t hurt the baby.” Lust sucked on the side of her lower lip. “But how could that happen unless by some form of Immaculate Conception? It doesn’t make sense!”

“It is something to ponder, isn’t it?”

“You mean… you don’t know?”

“Of course.” Hohenheim grinned as he turned to leave. “I can’t know everything, Lust of Ishbal. I’m only human, after all.”

And with that final, ambiguous proclamation, Hohenheim Elric retreated once again from his human ties, swinging one arm up in a casual wave as he disappeared down the street, fading into unusual low mist that had settled over Dublith. Lust simply deflated, clutching at the fencepost and drawing in a deep, revitalizing breath (as revitalized as Lust could manage - she wasn’t much of an expert) as she swayed a little, desperately trying to keep her wits about her while she turned the recent conversation over in her head. The feeling was like sticking one’s hand down a toilet to unclog the s-bend: you know you’re up to your elbow in shit, but pawing through the slimy remnants was an unfortunate necessity to ensure the cistern could flush properly once again, hence clearing the swill. And swill was exactly what Hohenheim had been talking.

The only problem was that it happened to be painfully accurate swill; it just needed to be sorted and shelved in the right places to make sense. Hohenheim had given her answers, or at least places to look, and by now she was almost positive of her assumption that he had been present the day she and the Elric brothers had saved Envy from a fate worse than Dante. A fate… or at least a force of unfortunate nature called "Greed" That man - that strange, foreign man, the one Dante had spoken of with a fanatical fondness. He knew more than he was letting on, and he made a point of subliminally advertising the fact he did. He was an observer, more aware of the world in a holistic sense than it was of him; one couldn’t judge him by his participation in a single event. It was the culmination of a variety of happenings he’d been involved in that seemed to combine into one overall master plan. Even the visit today, the gift; it all had to mean something. Lust wasn’t sure what yet, but she intended to heed Hohenheim’s wishes and take care of the strange little bunny. She owed him that much. They all did. But some of them - Lust glanced back into the house at Edward, smiling wanly as he eyed her from the door, a picture of distracted suspicion - didn’t need to know about it.

The baby I understand, she thought to herself, picking idly at a splinter of wood on the gate. Edward and Alphonse, I understand, but him? Envy? Where does he fit in? It’s understandable that Hohenheim knew about him; he’d mentioned him, after all. Perhaps Hohenheim had known Envy at some time? He might have had a run in with the homunculus and managed to worm away. Envy’s agitated by his presence; that much is certain. Even the mention of his name gets his hackles up.

Lust frowned as she recalled her brother’s words in the Fifth Laboratory, his voice thin and strained by emotion she hadn’t thought he’d possessed while he had "worked" Edward into submission:

“I’ll never forgive you, because you carry that bastard’s blood!”

There was something else she didn’t know. Something that was probably a lot bigger than Envy would disclose when he could control his temper enough to make insinuations toward it. Lust knew that Envy harbored his secrets and was as frugal with the truth as a defense lawyer, but she was fairly certain that, at some point, he would have to open up at least the smallest bit. If he was ever going to accept his humanity.

---

He was alive.

That was odd. That was wrong, actually; he was supposed to have died, expired from the serious trauma and injury he’d suffered at the hands of Greed. He was supposed to have disappeared - no longer having the ability to regenerate, or theoretically, a soul to support his body in the waking world. He was no longer a homunculus; he’d puked the last of his stones and had spat the remainder of immortal self from his body in a most graphic and violent manner. So, it unsettled him a little to find himself not quite as dead as he thought he might have been, despite his earlier contrasting hopes that he might have pulled through. He hadn’t thought he’d miraculously survive the whole birth ordeal.

He hadn’t really counted on it.

Of course, he could be dead. This room - this hot, stuffy room with its still, patient darkness, its drawn curtains and its strong incense of sharp medical chemicals that screamed (quietly), “Invalid’s residence” - could have easily been the stage of a medical soap opera set up in his mind. However, while he knew his imagination wasn’t exactly towing the line of genius level, he was fairly sure he could have at least done a little better than what greeted his waking vision. The room in which he was… asleep, awake… whichever state of consciousness his body was currently residing in ... seemed a tad below par in terms of charismatic demeanor. In fact, it was, as he could recall with effortless certainty, the exact room in which he’d lain for what seemed an eternity while he recovered the debilitating illness that had plagued him throughout the first trimester of his pregnancy, and then beyond, as he’d grudgingly agreed to remaining at the house for the other four-odd months. It was Izumi’s guest room, just her sodding guest room, for Pete’s sake. Far from cheery and welcoming.

Envy found himself silently cursing the ten-dollar serviceman-blue sale paint the woman had slathered over the walls in hope that the colour might dry to a shade more tasteful. He scowled at the eyeballing knotholes in the wooden wardrobe door, further irked that he knew the exact amount scattered across it. Aside from the mismatched duvet covers and pillowcases - in which Izumi had insisted upon sentencing the uncomfortably lumpy, second-hand slat bed mattress to - the only colour he’d found in the room was in the test patches on the underside of the curtain. Eight dots, ranging from battleship grey to a rather passive tangerine that looked as though it had been exiled to the back of the fabric warehouse where all the dreadful, obsolete colours of twenty years ago went to die - Envy remembered them all quite intimately. And, as he found himself staring up at them, once again in a rather disassociated fashion, he was severely disappointed that his imagination hadn’t bothered to work a bit harder to produce a surrounding of something slightly less newsprint-mundane.

He might have at least considered adding a little food to the mirage. Regardless of whether he was deceased or not, Envy couldn’t imagine going anywhere - not even the afterlife - without a cookie or two, though he wasn’t sure he'd exactly be up for eating, considering his guts hadn’t given much of an indication they still existed, let alone put their hands up for a bit of nourishment to gurgle over. He felt… absent, lesser. Abbreviated. He felt that something very, very obvious was missing, and though nothing hurt at this point, it seemed that the something might have been a little more than just a freckle or a bump. No, it was something deeper than that, something he’d had to struggle to become accustomed to. It wasn’t just a weight; it was a intimate communion, a synchronicity.

Envy shuddered, closing his eyes a moment against the nerve-tugging feeling that was almost like the rising hairs on a ghost limb. He was distracted in a worrying sort of way - and if there was anything Envy hated to do, it was to waste his time fretting. This useless human trait of becoming wound up in unconscious detail heralded an entire new tangent to his persona, and he wasn’t particularly acclimatized to, or fond of it; if he was stressing, then generally that meant there was something he was stressing about, which subsequently provided the evidence that he might actually still be alive.

Bugger.

Envy gave a soft groan and squeezed his eyes shut, as further proof of his tangibility assaulted his ears - in the form of a woman’s voice on its best bedside-manner behavior.

“Hey there. Christopher said you were likely to come around today. How are you feeling?”

There was no way in hell (or perhaps only in hell, but Envy had rather hoped his redeeming conduct in recent months might have exchanged his one way ticket to a flight elsewhere) that Izumi would be in his version of limbo. Even if he had managed to side-step hell, no God could have been that cruel; could they? Envy winced again, frowning down to shut his eyes tighter as a hand landed softly on his knee. Ooh, this wasn’t fair; it really wasn’t.

“You’ve been out for a couple of weeks,” she continued, still entertaining that uncanny, cotton-wool pleasant manner. “But don’t worry. Dr. Warner said it was probably better for you to rest uninterrupted while you healed. You gave us a couple of scares, but you were fine after a few pints of fresh blood and some recuperation.”

“I wasn’t supposed to be fine,” Envy muttered. “I wasn’t supposed to heal. I was supposed to be dead.” His voice was stiff and weak, the tone of it having dried out after weeks of disuse and neglect. It hadn’t helped that one of his operations had called for a tube to be shoved down his throat, and he felt sore and scratched because of it.

“I know you’d figured that.” Izumi was itching to utilize the popular heckle, "I told you so!", but held her tongue for the sake of tact. Envy, a creature that hadn’t actually lived as a mortal for more than four hundred years - prior to his pregnancy - was clearly distressed by the nameless miracle that had kept him alive through his difficult labor, brush with pneumonia, and the drain of serious internal hemorrhaging. Izumi was sure as spit that he’d be more than a little shocked to meet the product and culprit of his suffering - whom she had brought to visit - and she knew all to well her own exhaustive tendency to nag. “But some people are very glad that you aren’t, you know…”

“Aren’t what?” Envy snapped, crispily. “Dead? Decimated? Deceased? Stamped out? Obliterated? Extinct? Or are you too polite to say?” He shook his head firmly, then spent another few seconds reeling against the pillow as dizziness assaulted him. All right, so moving wasn’t the best idea. Neither was giving Izumi an excuse to go spare at him, for that matter, but he was beyond caring at this point. He was in pain, and scared, and he really didn’t like it. Cornering a rabid wild beast might have been less dangerous - and certainly less loud.

“You know what I mean, Envy.”

“Do I?” he countered, trying his best to come across as stubborn and unyielding. “Are you sure? I thought I was just a pain in the ass to you guys! I thought you’d jump at the chance to get rid of me!”

“And when, in all the time that you stayed with us, did we give any inclination that we might be considering such a thing?” Izumi sighed. “I know it’s hard for you to trust us, but really, I had thought you were learning.”

“Who is it then?” Envy didn’t bite this time. In fact he seemed mildly interested. Which, in Envy-speak, meant he certainly was. “Who’s glad I didn’t die?”

“Well, everyone.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying.” Patience. Patience was the key with this one, as brittle and rusted as the lock was. “We were all very worried about you; myself, Christopher, Shigu, Alphonse, Mrs. Rockbell and Winry-“

“Hn.” Envy snorted, making the most of his guttural prompting by fiddling with the sheet over him, tugging down the soft, worn weave. His eyes still promised a form of long, slow annihilation, but they flicked back over Izumi’s face, just daring her to say his name. It didn’t make any difference that he wanted to hear it more than he’d wanted to hear from someone, or something, that he’d died. It was simply an inexplicable necessity that he had to. It was like the full stop on the end of a sentence; it had to be there. If it wasn’t, then the piece wasn’t complete and left the reader hanging.

“-Edward.” Izumi smirked. It was amazing how quickly one name could just change a face. Just like that. She almost laughed. “And… oh, I don’t know - perhaps this little one.”

Kneeling down by the side of the sickbed, Izumi rocked inwards slightly, displaying a crooked armful of light, lemon yellow woolen blanket, plush, pearl scented baby powder, and the smallest, sweetest little human being Envy had ever seen. Of course, he’d seen babies before. He had killed plenty in his time. Woman and children, as well. Lovers, couples, families; it had been simpler back then, when humans had equated to nothing more than cattle to Envy. In hindsight, he almost felt as though he could justify himself and his horrific genocidal tendencies by arguing that when one is not equipped with a soul, one cannot possibly fathom the value of it, especially not something one cannot see or touch. He had known that he had been taking lives, snuffing out the mere smear of an imprint humans had made upon the world - not their world either, not as they seemed to claim it was. There was never a reason for him to stop and think of the impact his actions had generated. He had been too busy riding the high of their fear, still buzzing from the opium that was a human heart fluttering within a ribcage, moments before it stopped. Emotions he couldn’t understand had glossed over his blank senses, traveling on dead veins through a derelict heart. He’d had no idea. He hadn’t cared. He’d thought that was fairly understandable.

However, with the solid injection of life that was now surging about his body, pulsing down and bursting the thick, numb dams of his guilt-free, unimpeachable blamelessness, Envy had the chance to feel things again - really, really feel them. Not to say he did or pretend he did, but to have them - as humans did.

Because that’s what he was now, wasn’t it?

Lust had been right: their old bodies did, to some degree, remember the pleasantries of the flesh. But the sensation was never as strong; there was no warmth in the chest, no heated cheeks when a beloved was nearby, no pinch in the throat that made the eyes water when sadness pressed, damp and heavy. The wet burn of a wound, the exhilaration of air against the back of the palate, the cold sweat of fear that trickled down the back of the spine - all these things had been robbed from the flesh that had died, leaving only inadequate thumbprints that were tainted heavily by alchemy, the taste altered forever to bitterness. Doubtless, the homunculi remembered reacting certain ways in certain situations, but feeling and experiencing were two very different things. Like biting into a rotten peach - the fruit looks as though it should taste as one remembers: buttery sweet, fresh and juicy, with a slight graze of prickly fuzz, but once the exterior had been breached…

Greed was the only one who’d really been able to remember with any substantial affirmative. And perhaps this proved that, once a person got used to the taste of hops in their beer, they would press on to inebriation - just as though the bitterness did not exist.

Yet, this smooth thing - this silky, tender thing - this tiny bundle of rosy flesh and warmth, perfectly miniature and opening up to the world like a flower bud to the sunshine ... Envy had known what the words "breathtaking" and "sublime" had meant - he could even spell them (albeit with a few moments of tense pencil gnawing) - but he hadn’t been able to conceptualize how they were supposed to be used, and against what. The words were simply bland labels, empty adjectives like empty calories with neither weight nor substance behind them. They had the ability to describe something, Envy knew that, but without a noun to embody them, convey them, they were really quite useless. Words weren’t real things, but she was. And as frightening as he found it - being able to use descriptions to explain that tight, intimate corset of emotion that was squeezing his ribs - he doubted she could have been described in any other way.

(She was pink… so incredibly pink. Nothing was supposed to be this soft and small and pink, was it? She even smelled pink.)

Envy looked down at his baby daughter with eyes that hadn’t seen with love in more than four hundred years, and the sight of her brought the memories flooding back in smothering waves, his heart swelling almost painfully with the bafflingly strong attraction for the child. Jerking in retaliation, he squeaked, unable to seal the lid on the churning fear and unease that sat like cold wet towels in his chest, the earlier bravado shooting down like a lacquered lift. His ribs felt too tight; his nose prickled and his eyes watered. Despite the pain it caused him to move, he twisted away, grinding his teeth against the deep jabs of muscular ache and the stretch of cut flesh against medical cord. It was too much. He wasn’t supposed to be feeling like this; he didn’t like feeling like this.

“Take her away,” he muttered, biting down hard on his thin, bleached knuckles until they pierced and bled. Izumi paused, confusion flickering over her features before she pushed insistently closer, touching the powdery skin of his arm.

“Come on, Envy,” she coaxed. “Look, this is what you did - all on your own… er… theoretically. But she is yours… don’t you even want to see?”

“No,” came the flat reply, weak as a kitten with blunt, birth claws. “I don’t.”

“But she’s missed you,” Izumi pressed. She was pushing it, she knew. Her nerves, a little frazzled by the frequent, intermittent feedings of the newborn during the night, were not responding kindly to an extra drag of tension. Her short, peeling fingernails pressed into the flesh of her hand and she forced the corners of her mouth to stay apart as far as possible. The result was rather frightening, but it could have been worse. For if there was anything Izumi hated, it was the abnegation of a chance she would have given her right leg, and had given a number of her internal organs for. This was Envy’s child, and she wasn’t going to let him shrug her off so easily. He had to have been given a second chance for some reason. “She’s wanted to see you.”

“The only things she’s wanted,” Envy grumped. “Is a warm bed to sleep in and a tit to feed her. She’s used enough of me.” He winced over his words, unsure of whether he actually meant them or not. If he did, then did that mean he’d be punished? Obviously, it was the wrong thing to say. And if not…

(You’re scared of the if not… aren’t you?)

“Didn’t even have the decency to kill me after.”

Silence filtered over them like wisps of cold snow, and Envy could feel Izumi’s gaze - probably hard as diamonds by now - chewing into the back of his head. There were no mirrors in the room to reveal the woman’s bitterly disappointed expression, but Envy had become accustomed to her enough to recognize the strained quality of her voice that was surely pulling her lips like a drawer string into a tight purse - her eyes narrowing, lashes shading the hard chips of flint that regarded him. Steeling his will together into a tennis-ball sized lump, he gripped the sheets tighter, testing the clarity of his voice with a couple of coughs, before he spoke again.

“I said I didn’t want her. Take her away. And you too: piss off. I don’t want you here; I didn’t even want to be here!”

Izumi’s struggling sense of goodwill, already drowning in a hopeless sea of instinctive reprimand - the desire to "correct" Envy’s selfish attitude - ignored the lifesaver of silence and headed straight for the nearest concrete block to lash to its ankles. She huffed irritably, the sound scuffing over her lips with a deliberate grate, and re-positioned her knees beneath her. She crouched down further on the rough, waffle weave coverlet. Cocking one dark eyebrow at her invalid houseguest, she eased forward, laying the sleepy little infant on Envy’s chest, glued to Envy’s reaction all the while. He jerked again, the closeness thoroughly upsetting him. His body suddenly became starched and stiff, solid as a two by four - his violet eyes illuminated and sharp by a mixture of fear and indignation, mouth opening and closing repeatedly and with all the grace of a landed guppy.

“G-get her…” he yowled, fingers patting the air over the child, as if her were trying to push her away by her aura alone. “…uuh!”

Barely touching the soft form on his chest, he whimpered a little, using his sparse accumulation of self control not to rest his hands over her protectively, stroke her tiny, thick back. He wasn’t coping well at all, and as resolute as he was in his attempts to ostracize his firstborn, he couldn’t quite manage linking his fingers to his vicious inner agenda in order to shove her away; couldn’t quite yell at Izumi for being such a rotten meddlesome bitch. The girl, the baby… God, she smelled like, she felt like… she was ambient, addictive. She was him - she smelled like him, she even looked like him if he shaved his head bald and stuffed his cheeks with cotton wool. She was him; not just a baby. Him.

He bit his lip hard, nearly drawing blood (or what he had of it), as the infant wiggled on his stomach, feet kicking at the air while her fingers flicked time in imaginary beats. Her pert, bow lips pursed and she murmured a few poignant consonants in her own tongue, burbling up a little warm spit to lubricate her words. Strangely, Envy didn’t feel repulsed by that; in fact, it was so basic, so ground-level it was sweet. Usually people weren’t that enchanted when someone spat at them.

Izumi surveyed the scene with quiet amusement - if not a little self-satisfaction - resting her chin on her hands as Envy floundered in hesitation, his breath coming faster, slant pupils that had, in recent months, plumped out quite gracefully, drawn to pinpoints while a light sweat hazed over his temples. She didn’t quite understand the gravity of her act, yet she did realize that by forcing Envy to acknowledge his daughter, she was effectively holding a mirror in front of him, one of the ones batch shop-owners took sadistic pleasure in hanging in dressing rooms to reveal wrinkles and creases one never knew one had, along with a startling collection of wobbly bits one would rather forget about. The truth of the body was one thing, but even worse was the truth of the soul. Envy stared into the product of his self-inflicted irony, of the lives he’d taken effortlessly and enjoyably - shaking in the presence of one he had created and allowed to live.

“It doesn’t have to be hard,” Izumi offered, quietly. “You don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to do anything all alone. You already know I’ll help you. Shigu and I, Christopher, the Rockbells-“

“Ed?” Envy cut in again. His voice had taken on a strained, squeaky quality that seemed as though it was passing over rubber-coated lips. He’d paled further, his dusty flesh having shifted the entirety of colour from beneath his translucent skin to the apples of his cheeks and the tip of his nose, as though the particles were attracted by magnets. His fingers pulsed again, still refusing to touch the child, and his eyes were bright and sharp as cut glass. Izumi studied them a moment, trying to read the pools of reflected light within them as though they were the tea leaves to Envy’s soul - the higher truth written through the body as so often happened with the human form. She was reminded of a series of mandalas Dante had shown her as a young pupil; of macrocosms and microcosms, universe and man.

As a homunculus, though he’d been renowned for his skill as an actor, Envy could never have been able to achieve the level of physical emotion that bridled his features at this moment. A thousand faces he may have stuffed under his belt back then: a million expressions, a mask for every occasion.

Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.

But never, not in his hundreds of years, could he ever have borne such a look of heart-pinching helplessness and fear - not of anything in particular, but fear of being, of comprehending. Izumi smiled gently.

“Edward, too,” she breathed, her dark plaited locks swaying as she nodded. “You know, he was there. After she’d been born and you were resting in the operating theatre while the meds kicked in. He’d gotten the wrong message and thought you were dying. He rushed in, all frantic and hysterical and tried to talk to you. He was so upset… I don’t know if you’d remember-“

“I do,” Envy croaked weakly.

“He made quite a mess that day, tripping on the lead that connected the electrodes to the heart monitor. They all join into one plug, you see, and he knocked it out somehow. He went into a mad panic when he thought you’d gone into arrest. We tried to tell him that you’d be fine, but he wasn’t listening.”

“No.” Envy almost rolled his eyes, remembering the blond’s unnecessary hysteria, despite his own attempts reassure him that his life wasn’t so much as hanging in the balance as it was put aside for later measuring. And he really would like to rest the anesthetic off, please…

“He wanted to wait to name the baby.” Izumi chuckled, fondly. “He thought you’d have an idea of what you might like, so he waited. He wouldn’t let us call her anything but generic nicknames: Baby, Bunny, Sweet-pea, Poppet - that kind of thing. He said you’d get mad if we tried to go over your head to give her a name.” She laughed. “I didn’t know you were so particular.”

“Neither did I.” Envy felt his nose growing warm. He sniffed a little, surreptitiously - disturbed at small wells of salty moisture that lapped at the corners of his eyes, all hot and wet and far too extraneous for his liking. “Maybe he just has no imagination.”

“Or maybe he was hoping that waiting would show his respect for you,” Izumi suggested, softly. “For what you did.”

“Hn.”

“Envy… you must have known, or at least been aware that we thought you’d kill the baby at first. Even after the… your miscarriage of the homunculus, we were… we did wonder up to a point. But you proved us wrong.”

“Couldn’t.” Envy found himself reduced to single words, huffing a little for air in between. His daughter - dozing contentedly on his chest - had become so heavy in the mere few minutes she’d been using him as a mattress, the density of her slight weight crushing a soft place in the back of his soul and making it near-impossible to breathe. “Couldn’t kill…”

“No, you couldn’t, could you? You said there were reasons. You told Ed that the Gate wouldn’t let you abort her. But, retrospectively, would you say it might have been more than that?” Izumi combed her front teeth over her lower lip, peeling away the thin layer of chap-stick she’d applied earlier. Envy shrugged - a curious gesture, considering he was lying down with a five pound baby on his chest, but he managed, regardless. He was praying that the woman would cease with the questions already. They were beginning to rattle his nerves.

Already he’d had to deal with waking up to find he was actually alive. Then came the shock that he was alive alive, and not the kind of alive that was sentient, but had expired - rather like old milk on the chiller shelf. Of course, the woman was quick to dig at the shards of shrapnel from that bombshell, chasing the bitter shot with something equally vile, the most powerful weapon in her entire, extensive arsenal: pure, unadulterated human guilt. Which, of course, he responded to now, being a human-type thing and all, and God did she enjoy laying it on thick. Izumi was powered by such acrid pathos, he could practically smell the empathy dripping for her, and that was probably the force responsible for making his eyes water as they were.

“dnno,” he managed, sniffing again, and choking down a rather lonely mewl in the back of his throat. Great, on top of losing the ability to create sentences, he was fumbling the vowels. Wonderful. This was just getting better and better.

Izumi moved back a little, observing quite a different picture of the state in which Envy saw himself: pathetic, sniveling, an utter embarrassment. No, Izumi looked into the hushed, troubled expression of a young man scared out of his mind by the sheer audacity of the fact that he was now mortal, complete with heart and soul of which he was expected to use since he’d already shared part of it with his daughter, notwithstanding the manual to each had long since rotted into history. It was the expression a witless hayseed, who’d never set foot outside their farm and two-bit hicks-ville community, might consider if the universe and its vastness were explained to him in relevant terms. After the preliminary confusion came the horror that something could exist as more than a notion, but a physicality; that sort of space wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be; he’d never find his cows. And yet it was. He’d never see it, save for the stars at night, which were now changed forever for him, but it was.

The expression Envy bore was indefinitely comparable. He’d never see the soul inside him, but just like the universe, it was. And he couldn’t return to what he was because of it. Izumi reached out, fingers slow and graceful, and touched Envy’s arm, smoothing up and down a few times before she tucked it carefully around the child on his stomach.

“You should really be friends, you two,” she said. “You have much more in common than just blood and genes and all those scientific things that Christopher or Edward might prattle on about.”

Envy’s answer was as glazed as his countenance. He didn’t even seem to be able to work up even the slightest response at this point, and trying resulted in,

“…ip.”

“You may be… God, I don’t know how old,” Izumi continued, her thoughts brushing softly over her audience. “Hundreds of years, I guess - four hundred, I think you said at one point. Well, as many centuries as you have seen, that soul inside you is as newborn as this one.” A slow gesture at the sleeping baby and Izumi nodded. “If the world seems so different to you now, just remember she’s also seeing it for the first time, as you are. As it is.”

“…mm.”

“And, don’t you think it would be better to share it with her? After all, what you went through wasn’t her fault. You shouldn’t be considering adopting her out because she was the one who took your immortality away from you. Though I’d never want to force you into parenthood, I do think you should at least try it for awhile. Give her a chance.”

“…mm.”

“You gave us all a chance before; you can’t be so contemptuous as to hold back on her part.”

“…mm.”

“And you’re not crying, are you?”

“…nnph.”

“Because there’s nothing to be upset about, Envy,” Izumi added, soothingly. “I told you we’d help you; we want to. You don’t have to do this alone.”

“…’zumi?”

“Yeah?”

“Shaddup.”

It took Envy a few moments of unpalatable sniffing to compose himself; several more for him to sort out his alphabet and find the letters that had been hiding out somewhere in the back of his vocabulary. He wasn’t crying, not really. His eyes were red and felt heavy and hot, his nose tight and pink; although he hadn’t shed any actual tears, he was close. Moisture beaded in his eyelashes, threatening to spill and he blinked rapidly, trying to persuade it back into his body so as to lubricate his mouth a little.

Stupid…stupid emotional woman! Damnit, he used to be good at laughing at people like this, the peacekeepertype, the reasoning ones. Hell, these were the kind of people who seemed to think he actually gave a damn as he ticked the delicate bones on the insides of their ears with hooks of copper cable; they actually thought they could talk him out of killing them! Envy had taken the greatest enjoyment in matching their pleading expressions with one of sheer, utter joy and maniacal pleasure - the kind of look that sent hopes plummeting, caused waterworks in numerous body parts, opened bowels. The smell of feces didn’t even bother Envy if he knew that someone was shitting themselves because of him; it all came as part and parcel with the disgust for humanity package.

However, now someone would have been crapping themselves in front of him for very different reasons altogether, and while he wasn’t exactly considering the fact at this point, he was

mulling over Izumi’s proposition, buying time for his lungs to catch up with his breath and the feeling to return to his fingers. Izumi had said he didn’t have to do this alone, that there were plenty of people here to help him… or, perhaps, take over when he got tired of the little thing. Envy frowned a little as he shifted against the pillows and Izumi’s hopeful gaze. Izumi, the surrogate… yes. That sounded like a much better plan, and it was what she’d wanted anyway - wasn’t it?

He’d let this humanness run its course; suffer for a few months while the last of the ridiculous hormones left over from his pregnancy shat on his system, then he’d leave, go find sanctuary somewhere where he could cause a little trouble, or at least start looking for Hohenheim again, and that was definitely a crusade worth regurgitating. The kid would be fine here. Izumi had always wanted one, so what was the problem? Ed would get over it; he’d be satisfied with the fact Envy wasn’t going to try and kill anyone or assault him with all his… weird notions.

And if Dante came a-knocking? Well, it would be no business of his anymore. Ed would, no doubt, be able to fight her off, especially if his soppy sister Lust decided to gatecrash the family. He wouldn’t have to worry; he’d have nothing to do with it. He wasn’t hers, and he wasn’t theirs. It was that simple.

“Th-this…” Envy said in a brittle voice, his index finger tapping the child’s arm. “This… is mine. It’s mine. And since it’s my possession, I’ll treat it how I want.”

“Envy.” Izumi frowned. “That’s not really what I meant-“

“You said,” he cut in, “that she’s mine. You said I should at least try to look after her a little bit; well fine. I’ll give it a test-run.”

“I was hoping you might agree to a little more than that.”

“I’m not cleaning up shit,” Envy said, firmly. “I’m not going to wear puke on my shoulder. I’m not going to go around smelling like disinfectant and a nursery sick basin. I’m not feeding her and I’m not gonna put up with crying. I don’t have to do that, you said.”

“Well.” Izumi sighed and rubbed her temples. Frankly, she should have known better. Envy was fickle enough that - once he was out of immediate danger - he’d turn on his promises and lie on the other side of them without seemingly a care in the world. Perhaps it was typical of him that he didn’t want his hands near the dirty work, and she couldn’t say he didn’t deserve a break after such a traumatic labor. He sounded as though he was considering the possibility of abandoning her, which of course, Izumi couldn’t and wouldn’t advocate. Yet, with his sullen tone and unresponsive, sulky body language, she had the inkling that he really wasn’t one hundred percent behind his words. There was such hesitation present, which fundamentally led her to believe he might have been trying to convince himself he didn’t care as part of his own defense mechanism. The way he’d reacted to the little girl, the way he’d inquired about Edward - just like the night before he went missing… There was more to it than he’d let on. Especially to himself.

“No… no that’s all right. I guess you have had enough of the work so far, haven’t you?”

“Damn straight,” Envy muttered, shifting a little again, causing the baby on his chest to omit a croaky mewl, punting the air with her pudgy toes. Unconsciously, his arm slid around her a little more, his hand supporting her side. The other arm, the one punctured by a thin, snaking intravenous drip, finally rested - after minutes of fluttering - on the child’s chubby thigh.

“But… you’ll stay for now?” Izumi straightened, a few strained muscles in her back popping dully. “I mean, it’s not as though you’ll be going anywhere for awhile; you have a lot of resting you need to do. But don’t go and make your decision on a whim.”

“I’ll do what I want,” came the standard, gruff response - weak, but with the patent stubbornness Envy had employed for the past nine-something months Izumi had known him, and probably longer. She huffed, dusting the knees of her black trousers as she eased up to her feet. She was disappointed, and to be honest, she’d expected a little better from him. But, in truth, Envy wasn’t in the position to be slandered for having sluggish acclimatization; she’d be wrong to force things on him too quickly, and she didn’t want the experience of his newfound humanity and parenthood to sour without him putting a little effort into it.

So, once again, Izumi Curtis found a smile blanketing her scowl of displease, her fingers jabbing into the pockets of her pants, hidden from view as they pressed into tight fists. She could do this. It was hard slog, draining in both physical and emotional ways, but she could do it. There was something to be said for someone who had gone through as many pains as Envy had throughout his pregnancy, and generally, it was something quite empathic. He’d earned her patience this time.

“All right,” Izumi agreed, trying to remain as nonchalant as she possibly could. “I understand. I guess we’ll all need time to get used to this, yourself especially. I won’t let anyone rush you.”

“They’d better not,” Envy replied, sounding strangely hollow.

“However, are you okay holding her for a few minutes?” The woman took a tentative step backward, toward the door. “I have to make some formula up; she’s due for her afternoon meal.”

“Whatever. Don’t be long.”

It was a risk, leaving a newborn baby with someone as unskilled around children as Envy was, but Izumi trusted her gut that he would probably be fine for the few moments it took to heat the water and measure and mix the powder. In fact, the experience would probably do him some good, having time alone to interact without feeling as though he was judged by the other household members might just strengthen the bond a little between the child and her mother. Izumi knew for a fact that Envy didn’t like to be watched in these insecure instances of developing character, but if the only witness to his blind grope through the world was a little baby as emotionally callow he, then surely there was little for him to feel embarrassed about. After all, the baby had to rely on everyone else to get her what she wanted - including wiping her own bottom. Envy could at least order someone to help him to the smallest room.

Once Izumi had left, however, Envy glanced down at the baby in his arms and swallowed hard, his expression stiffening. That strange, electric butterfly feeling that fizzed each of his fingers and made his mouth feel still as dry as a wafer refused to leave him, as did those feelings… those stupid feelings that had arisen before. Instinct, he supposed he should have called them. They pissed him off. In the old days, his only true recurring concern had been to kill as many humans as possible - wipe them off the face of the planet, out of every corner, nook and cranny. Humans were lurkers; humans were gutter-trash. Humans weren’t worth it; ever.

But now his body betrayed him, and clung with desperate nails into his mind as though to pull it down the same path. His daughter was beautiful; he knew that; she was the most perfect thing he’d ever seen. But if he acknowledged such an observation, if he submitted to these absurdly human feelings (which of course weren’t as nonsensical as he would have liked, considering he was human), then… then that was really the final straw. Where would he go from there? Picket-white banality in small town nothing? Suffering everyday conversations with people he couldn’t care less about, all the while resenting the knowledge that at one time he would have slit the throat of the checkout assistant packing his groceries cheerfully into a robust paper bag simply for boring him to tears? He couldn’t kill now; he could try, but it wasn’t the same. Humans were hindered by guilt and responsibility, perceptions that, while seemingly of such flimsy, cereal box architecture, could manage to stay the hand of even the most notorious bottom-feeders of the human race. Understandably, these psychopathic shit-smears could turn off said limitations, but they tended to be a little lacking in other areas; Envy knew for a fact the Non-Partisan Alchemist (of whom Dante had jokingly dubbed "Nonpareil" alchemist, and wouldn’t stop: “Envy? Could you fetch Zolf Kimbley, please? I need to decorate the icing on my cake”) liked to save his toenail clippings in empty 2oz honey jars, while Barry the Chopper picked his nose and wanked off to the stripped beast corpses hanging in his butchery chiller.

As facile as Envy liked to believe he was, he knew by now that killing people would be out of the question, at least until he got his strength back. Until then, he had good old fashioned manipulation, sexual coercion, and stuff of the like to play with. He wasn’t able to pour his mercurial form into different guises anymore, but he believed that, after he gained a few pounds and had a couple of hundred showers, he might be able to pull off sexy again. And, if all else failed, he could always walk away; after all, he had no one to answer to anymore. He certainly wasn’t interested in returning to Dante, and Edward…

Envy stalled in his thoughts, finding the engine bunny-hopping on that particular begilded name.

Ed-e-e-edwa-edwar-ed-ed-ed-edwaaaaaaaard…

There, he had problem one. Beautiful, beautiful Edward. Edward, who had taken him in, then pushed him away when he got too close. Edward, who had fled from his needy solicitations, only to return as abruptly as he had gone, begging him not to leave - if anything, for the sake of the baby. Oh, yes, Envy really didn’t know what to think of Edward, currently. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to chew on it either, not with problem number two curled up on his belly, making alien little glubby noises and blowing bubbles of her own spit.

“You’re going to hate me," he said quietly, patting the top of her clammy, downy head as one would a friend’s or neighbor’s child. “You’re to blame for a lot of things, but you’re eventually going to hate me. Maybe someday, someone will tell just how much your m-muh…parent had to sacrifice to bring you into the world, but you’ll still hate me. I guess that’s all I can really give you - proof that the world isn’t fair, no matter what you do.”

He paused, wondering briefly if that was a similar monologue as Hohenheim might have concocted preceding his cruel abandonment of his resurrected son, before he stamped the notion away, furiously. Hohenheim hadn’t cared, and he had more the reason to! As much as he hated the man - hated anything to do with him - Envy clung to the evidence that his father had managed to worm his way out of parenthood and used it as part of his own inner justification. He didn't want to be responsible for a reprise of Hohenhiem's actions, but he felt as though he really didn't have much of a choice; the responsibility was suffocating. So why should he suffer, given the fact that none of this was planned? Why should he be pushed to care about the brat when he’d done what was expected of him? He wouldn’t be trapped; that was final.

They weren’t going to get him again.

---

Eight days later, Envy sat in the lounge, idly flipping through a culinary magazine Izumi had purchased for him - an olive branch to the heathen - every once and awhile throwing hateful glares at the pair of crutches resting solemnly against the arm of the couch. As necessary as they were, Envy hated being reminded that he was anything less than perfect, and at his last checkup, when Warner had suggested he take things slowly and easy in the case of his mobility, offering the services of one of the clinics ancient wheelchairs, he had very nearly torn the place apart in acrimonious humiliation. He was not some pitiful cripple who required the aid of four melodiously creaking wheels to get him around! He did not piss into a bag or need protective underwear! Even suggesting such a thing was an outrage - a fallacy! How dare they?

It was only when Warner patiently informed him that his fractured pelvis was taking much longer than he’d expected to heal, and it would be best for him reduce the risk of jarring it, lest the tissue surrounding the bone become painfully inflamed - thereby slowing the process down altogether - that Envy dropped the subject. And though he had provided crutches instead, on the grounds that Envy must take things slowly and carefully, the ex-Sin remained unsatiated, swinging woefully through the house like a chimpanzee without a tree.

He tired too easily, his strength petering out almost at once after he descended the stairs; granted, that took almost ten minutes, but Envy defiantly snubbed any offers for assistance. His hips were one swollen, continually aching lump, and throbbed no matter what position he was in. Unfortunately, the only deviants to his constant discomfort were when the pain arched and the twinge became an almost unbearable gnaw inside the thin skin on his pelvis; in those instances, he would hurl things at the wall until Izumi rushed in with a shot full of blissfully potent painkillers which quickly helped him forget the pain, and sometime the fact he even had legs to begin with.

Currently, the ache wasn’t so bad, but Envy was both chagrined and irritated with his handicap. He didn’t like being weak; he didn’t like being pitied. He certainly didn’t like the look Winry kept giving him when he stiffly swung out of a crowded lounge to be alone somewhere away from otherlooks that matched hers - suet-like, sympathetic and altogether sickening. He detested that kind of gooey rapport; it made him all to aware of how different he’d become, and he wasn’t even going to think about that.

The only person he didn’t silently chastise for philanthropic gazing as though it was open season on soupy, benevolent looks, was Edward. As annoyed as he was that he had let himself fall into the trap of his human emotions and had kissed the boy - thinking that in doing so would change his life and consequently, the world for the better - Envy shied away from him. Unconsciously, in some part out on the back doorstep of his mind where his human senses where trying to sprout in low, hard soil, Envy was hurt. In some other place, possibly among a patch of nodding pansies, he was afraid. Shutting the garden gate wasn’t doing much to help anymore, as he’d let the sun in too much during his pregnancy, and the seedlings: Reverie, Benignancy, Love, Jubilance and the like, were spreading like wildfire over the ground, despite the infertile nature of it. Hacking at them with a machete wasn’t going to help; all the weed killer in the world probably wouldn’t stop them once they’d dug their roots in. The best play, Envy had considered, was to throw in the trump card and move house, and it was at this point - while he thumbed boredly through a glossy article on party nibbles, musing the possibilities of renting in Drachma (where he doubted anyone would try looking for him since all those thar fo-ree-nors speak all funneh-lahk) - that Edward clumped in the doorway, looking as though he wasn’t particularly relishing the prospect of a conversation with Envy. The little yellow bunny was nestled in his hand and he squeezed its head fiercely, drawing some self-satisfaction from the momentary fancy that it was his father’s and not that of a yarn rodent, as little difference as he’d decided there was between his father and a rodent.

“Hey,” he began, trying to find a happy medium between interested, disinterested, and irritated, which he’d had a hunch would doubtless win the battle for attitude of the day. “You got a moment?”

“No,” Envy replied stonily, running his index finger down a sugary-looking page with a rubbery squeak.

Al had pressured him into this, nudging him into a situational conversation with Envy like a mother does their snot-nosed five year-old starting school into the classroom. Although the metal boy had actually left with Shigu to run errands, Ed swore he could feel the spike of Al’s elbow poking in between his shoulder blades, under a rib. As gentle as his steel-encased brother had learned to be, it seemed in certain instances he would inadvertently forget he was as spiky as a sea urchin; Edward’s arms boasted scars and dents from Al’s occasional lapses and playful nudging. Tickling the pale line of a particularly deep gash on his tanned upper arm with absent nails, Ed cleared his throat and tried again.

“Can you watch the baby a second?”

“Didn’t I just say no?” Envy’s face was hiding behind the thicket of his hair, his white fingers stabbing at the poor, defenseless page before him. “I’m busy.”

Edward rolled up to the balls of his feet and cocked a treacle-coloured brow.

“You’re busy? Reading cookbooks?”

“Yes.”

“Since when are we going to have a dinner party for ten people with gazpacho and rice krispie and smoked salmon hors-d’oeuvres ?”

Envy glanced up, eyes narrowing with the look of a cat being cornered by a lynch mob of mice.

“None of your fucking business, short shit-for-brains. Go ask the woman; she’s outside.”

“She’s gardening; she’s up to her elbows in marigolds and fertilizer at the moment. Besides, she asked me to ask you.” That was a lie, but Edward didn’t care. “It’s only for a moment,” he added, hoping that the ex-Sin would continue to refuse with the utmost tenacity, possibly lob something at him, giving him grounds to return to Izumi and get her to put the baby to bed. He couldn’t blame Envy; he wasn’t that keen on his fatherly duties, either. Sure, she was an adorable kid, but what if he dropped her? What if she started crying and he couldn’t get her to stop? He didn’t appear to possess the inner manual that his teacher, Winry and Pinako seemed to metaphorically pull out at every instance concerning the baby, the baby’s environment, the baby’s food, sleep patterns, breathing space, et cetera. Edward figured this was something to do with the levels of estrogen rushing through the female bits he thankfully wasn’t equipped with. Though he did recall his late Lieutenant blathering on a fair amount about the necessities an infant required on a daily basis, Edward figured that he must have picked it up from his wife. Men, around young children, were like sponges: they either sucked up vital information by the voracious bucket load, or they sat about, wetly, taking up space and getting in the way.

Envy, however, was neither of those. In fact, he seemed almost adamant to stay out of the spotlight and attention, glumly hibernating in his room. The southerner in Edward glanced over the chalky quality of his skin and silently urged him to seek out some sunlight.

“So? What’s that got to do with me? You have hands.”

“I was going to check the letterbox.”

“And that takes ten minutes?” Envy huffed. “Lust is on the front lawn. Ask her.”

“I was going to check the letterbox with Lust,” Edward stated, tiredly. If he couldn’t make his obviousness more obvious, then he couldn’t really be expected to continue on this fruitless mission. Envy didn’t seem remotely interested in his daughter. So, what was new? “For God’s sake, Envy, it’ll only be a few seconds.”

“A few seconds I can spend doing something else.” Envy’s glare darkened and he snapped the recipe book shut with a snap. “Don’t bug me, short-ass. I’m not in the mood.”

The final straw was a short and dirty one - more a twig at best - but Edward took it, scowling in retaliation. He didn’t like the idea of forcing Envy into anything - getting a rooster to lay an egg might have been easier (though not as impossible as he had once postulated) - and as humorously ironic as his analogies were, Edward found himself riling his sulfurous temper, striding over to the seething ex-Sin.

“That "something else" isn’t going to be a hell of a lot, Envy. Do you have to be so fucking selfish?”

“Shut the hell up, Elric,” Envy growled, steeling himself against the couch cushions as though anticipating Edward grabbing at him and tearing him away. It wasn’t often he turned down a fight with his midget sibling, but Envy was sore and tired, and their verbal brawling would only eventuate in him becoming sorer and even more exhausted and he would like to be able to climb the stairs back to bed this afternoon, please. “I don’t fucking want to. You can’t make me, and if you even try…”

“Oh, oh, what’s that?” Ed smirked, pointing a finger rudely in Envy’s glowering face. “Is that your big, bad homunculus death glare? Do I get to shit my pants now?”

“From what I understand, you’ve been doing that since age three upon request.”

“You got a money back guarantee on that?” Edward continued snidely, placing his hands on his hips. “Must be pretty handy, being a walking laxative. People don’t like taking pills half the time, and you won’t go off for at least fifty years or so. If I buy one now, do I get a free knife set?”

“You get a free knife in the eyeball,” Envy simmered testily, latching onto the game, hooks, barbs and even a sinker. “But wait, there’s more…”

“There is?”

“Yeah, if you don’t shut your ugly pie hole, I’m going to shut it for you. With the couch.”

“Envy.” Ed sighed. “All she needs is five minutes of your time. It’s no great sacrifice.”

“What’s the difference if no one is with her at the moment? She can wait until you’re not busy!” the other hissed acidly, scraping his hair away from his pale, peaked face.

“Izumi said she needed to be put to bed for a nap. She’s lying on the couch, but she won’t sleep there,” Ed explained, trudging closer, his toes flopping against the rough carpet. He tossed the little bunny down in Envy’s lap and shrugged apathetically at Envy’s look of cross bewilderment. “Apparently it’s her favorite. I couldn’t say why. It’s just some crap Dad dropped off a few weeks ago.”

Despite the warmth of the late summer air that clogged the house like a stuffy nose, the temperature in the room plummeted, Envy’s sallow complexion breaking into a light sweat as it paled impossibly further, giving the snowy tablecloth a run for its money.

“D-dad? Your dad?” he stuttered, slowly picking up the warm object that lay in his lap.

“Yeah.” Ed sniffed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know how he knew where we were or could have possibly found out about the baby, but he turned up out of the blue and was gone as quickly as he came.” The look of displease on Ed’s face, the way he spat out the words regarding his father as though the taste of them was indeed that foul, was a good look for the boy, and Envy might have commented on how much it suited him, had he not been struck dumb by the harmless little toy in his hands. “Couldn’t say if he was trying to barge in and make a point that he was her grandfather. As much as I’d have liked to disavow him, but by the way he pissed off as soon as people started asking questions? Yeah, I wasn’t surprised.”

Edward couldn’t understand why Envy seemed so perturbed, if not distressed, by the bunny, but he watched with increasing consternation as the other turned it about in his fingertips, squeezing it a little; nearly jumping through the roof at the strange crackling noise the stuffing surrendered.

“It’s probably just some cheap shit he picked up at a flea market, you know,” he continued, thoughtfully. “I would have gotten rid of it, but… I guess the kid does deserve to know that, at one point, her grandfather actually thought enough of her to bring her a gift. We were going to wash it, but Lust said we shouldn’t; it seems to be stuffed with newspaper or something, and the water would probably ruin it.”

“Newspaper?” Envy parroted weakly, picking at the loose tacking threads that joined the bunny’s head to its body. As one sunny loop began to free itself from the chain mail of the knit (further substantiating Edward’s claim that the article was cheaply constructed), Envy poked a finger in the widening hole, burrowing into the stuffing - of which appeared to be a mixture of paper and cotton, not simply old newsprint, as Ed had guessed. Ignoring the other’s sharp intake of breath, hey! I said give it to her, don’t wreck it!, he fished deeper into the woolly depths of the bunny’s stomach, his fingers scraping past what seemed like a thick fold of parchment - slightly greasy, yet coarse in grade. He tweezered it out eagerly, dragging a few more stitches in order to birth the strange object from the poor animal’s torso.

What happened next, Edward was neither able explain, nor comprehend, but he swore he could feel the chilly threads that entangled the nerves about the base of his spine for weeks afterward, and the haunted, panic-stricken expression that crossed Envy’s face would bother him for even longer.

Already, the ex-Sin was shaking with visible dolor as he plucked a small, neatly folded square of what seemed to be scrap paper of curiously crude quality - but as he turned it over in his hands a few times, nudging at the bent, tea-stain tawny corners of the object, it finally unfolded, revealing something of a fragment of a peculiar style of Western art that many Xingian merchants in Central had tried to fob off as expensive collectables.

The most popular was some variable species of bird: sparrows, pigeons, swans, that kind of thing, and this one, probably the most famous. He recognized it simply because he’d seen it everywhere in downtown Central around the usual hot-pot and noodle areas. It was a rather skillful rendition of the paper crane.

The alchemist was about to open his mouth to question the appearance of such an object in the back of a child’s plaything (perhaps it was just typical of Xingian-made over-embellishing, and the little piece of origami mig