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Ed never did like black and white photographs. Long sermans never appealed to him, and serious faces in the midst of emotion was something he wanted to slap out of the people surrounding him. At his first funeral - his grandmother's, a woman he had never truely known - Edward had simply been /there/. He had not been crying - though Trisha was. He could remember the way those tears rolled down her cheeks and plopped unto her firm breasts and how her eyes had grown pink and puffy as she stared down at the coffin. Closed, he remembered, he had never even see his grandmother's lifeless face.

Edward hadn't been crying, nor mourning, nor caring, for that matter. He was five years old and just as bored as a child could be. And Al's tiny hand had clutched at his as they sat awkwardly in their dark slacks, staring up at their Mother with concerned faces. He had remembered that feeling as well; the feeling of wanting to help but not knowing how. Or, better yet, knowing that taking the broken expression off her face was impossible. They were as helpless as little children could be.

But then Ed was thrust into his first real funeral - a funeral where he had actually been there, and God, how it had been burned into his mind, every detail, every tear, every faceless man and woman that clapped large hands on the brother's shoulders, their bodies enveloped in a cloud of thick cologne.

He remembered thinking, "How many of these people knew Mama?" But the realization had only stuck him afterward - the realization that he had been one of those faceless strangers at his own grandmother's funeral, child or not, he had simply sat and shaken his head and waited for the damn thing to be over.

And then he had stared at the coffin and the comprehension dawned on him that it was open and that it really was Trisha Elric laying down in the midst of the flowers and the white drapings. He remembered thinking about the color: white - the color the Japanese wear for mourning. But why wasn't she in black? Wasn't that more appropriate? After all, he thought, she's a dark place now. And no one could convince him otherwise.

No one.


- - - - -


Al had disagreed.

He remembered looking at that tiny, round face and those large, blue eyes and laughing - actually laughing. It was a serious matter, oh yes, even at his young age Ed knew that, but somehow it had struck him as funny.

They were sitting in front of their mother's grave and staring at the white carnations and Ed had pointed out the irony of the color. Al had shrugged and said that death was pure for a reason, something Pinako had told them at the funeral. But Ed knew just as well as Al that neither of them had a firm grip on what those words ment.

And then Ed proposed his idea: "Let's get her back."

And the look on his face was priceless, completely priceless. His eyes had grown large and round in his chubby face and his hands moved blindly forward toward the grave. His fingertips brushed over his mother's name with heartbreaking clumsiness as if he could pull her body right out of the chisled letters. But then his eyes hardened and he turned toward his brother's empty face and shook his head.

And Ed had laughed.

God, how he laughed.


- - - - -


He knew several things about life, but all them were taken from a child's view. He remembered that his mother smiled when he made paper cranes out of newspapers and that Auntie Pinako used to love feeding him stew with extra milk added just for a laugh and a bit of teasing from Winry. He remembered the shadow of his father's retreating form and the way Mama sat in her bedroom all quiet and lonely. But what he remembered most was the look on her face when they had first created alchemy. He had whispered, "Is it bad?"

And her answer was elated, awed: "No, it's wonderful!"

And he had smile down at their alchemy - his own perfect, shiny toy and Al's slightly deformed one and even while picking out it's defects he thought; /it's wonderful/. He thought of a person like that, a person with arms and legs that jutted out at strange angles, with skin that seemed too dark or stained to be real, but they were still a person with a mind and a heart, so they were just as wonderful. It had to be so, because Trisha said it, and Trisha was never wrong.

But the transmutation of something larger than just a child's toy was something that bubbled in his head and erupted and grew and grew until all that was left was the picture of her smiling face, no matter how different it may look, it had to be her, because he would make her. And it had to be wonderful, because she said it was.

So night after night Edward would fall asleep against the soft, thick pages of textbooks and science equations with paper scattered clumsily over the floor, a sight that was both adorable...and shocking, that such a young child could understand such things, even if only a little. His diary was thrown open and tainted with ink and formulas and sometimes he had even scribbled them across the back of his hand had it been a perticularly important one. He always dreamed of Trisha smiling down at him in her new skin - a from that was different, perhaps a little like Al's mishapen toy - but she would hug him close to her and then look down at her body and he would ask, "Is it bad?" and she would shake her head and say, "No, it's wonderful!"

Once he had stumbled out of his room with an alchemic equation scrawled across his forearm and Al had been on him like a kitten on a rat, taking his wrist in both hands and turning his palm over and over for more signs of equations. His head had snapped up and his eyes had been blazing - not with worry, but with fear.

"Oh, brother." he said huskily, "You can't. It's forbidden."

Ed's eyes had narrowed. "You're not willing to break a few rules to get Mama back?"

And his voice broke then; "It's illigal for a reason! If they find out...if you really do get her back, the news is bound to spread. You might go to jail, brother! You might even die!"

He jerked his palm back sharply, ignoring Al's sharp, hard flinch at the burning sensation that spread from his fingertips to his elbows.

"They can't kill me." he hissed. "Keep your damn head on, Al!"

He wailed loudly in protest, shedding no actual tears, but earning Ed a deep, painful cringe. "Don't you curse at me, brother!" he cried, "Mother wouldn't like that!"

And before he could control himself, he shouted, "You don't care what she likes! All you care about it being a good little boy for the others!"

He regreted it instantly, because Al's eyes filled with an honest pain that made his heart ache. Ed feld self-loathing wash over him in a visible wave and knew then that there was nothing he wanted more than to hold Al close to him and apologize as many times as needed to make that pain go away.

But he couldn't...he just couldn't.

So he ran.


- - - - -


If it was illigal, they wouldn't have books on it.

It seemed logical, he thought. Even as a boy he knew that illigal didn't mean impossible, but for a child like himself to get his hands on several novels about human transmutation - and to do so unnoticed? It was almost past his belief. So maybe it was illigal - or, Ed thought, maybe they said it was illigal. After all, it hadn't been that hard. And not one person knew - not one. Winry was off in her own little dream land, their father was never home, and Al...well, Al was too busy watching his face to watch his hands.

It could be counted as either luck or destiny - but Edward perferred destiny.

But overall, he had to be right. He knew it. If it was illigal, they wouldn't have books on it. And what Edward had spread out across his lap at the moment was none other than said books.

Al was hovering just outside the basement door - Ed knew it. The room was so silent that only the dull, monotone sound of his brother's footsteps against the carpet reached his ears. Pacing. And he was pacing, too, he knew, and Al knew he knew. Pacing, waiting...but the door was locked, so he needn't worry. If Al heard anything or decided to interfere, it wouldn't matter. The door was locked. Locked...and transmutated closed. It was complex, he could say that, at the least. His brother wouldn't be able to get it open without help.

The array in Edward's textbook was complex, and it had taken him a little over an hour to draw out perfectly. But now, sitting back from it, he smiled to himself. It was beautiful, it really was. It was wonderful. Because alchemy was a wonderful thing, right? And besides, all the delicate, detailed patterns and overlapping lines...it was art, and he loved it.

He loved it because it would bring Mama back.

He didn't think when he pressed his fingers against the chalk. He didn't hesitatitate. His mind never once stopped to ponder the consequenses. All he could imagine was how he would take those white carnations off her grave and put them in her hair.

There was a rushing noise - there often was with alchemy, but instead of a simple blink-and-miss it rush, it felt like Ed was falling, and the wind whipping around him was different, somehow. Omnious.

And while his body was still in perfect contact with the floor, his head was miles above, and he was looking down, down, down, at what would soon be Trisha Elric.

He heard it. And Al heard it, too.

At first it was a little knock, a nervous check, and Al's tiny voice was shaken and scared when he called; "Brother?"

Ed didn't answer.

Al knocked again, this time with closed fists. "Brother! Open up!"

Alchemical reactions took time. When he and Al had made a doll for Winry to play with, she had been able to sit and watch the pieces connect and re-arrange themselves. It had been slow and teasing, so by the time it was over, Winry was shaken. And now, watching the chemicals and ingrediants mixing around in the center of his array, her horrified anxiety became painfully understandable. And the doubt sunk in then - what if it didn't turn out? What if something went wrong? What if -

As if on cue, Al's voice broke though his thoughts; "BROTHER!" His fists slapped furiously against the wood: deep, drum-like booms that filled theatmosphere of their basement."OPEN UP! BROTHER!"

His voice was distant now.


- - - - -


( I don't need to be whole, Mama, all I need is you )


- - - - -


There was a gap in his memory when Ed came too - something painful and gut-retching, something that made his stomach churn and his body sting - God, it hurt, it hurt - and there was so much blood...

And across from him lay a thing - a body, like one of the rotted corpses from a horror novel. It was decayed and slashed open - from where, he couldn't quite say. It was almost as if every pore in it's skin had been stretched until blood had oozed its way out, tainting it. And then the closer he looked, the more he wondered if the thing even had skin - it was either chalk-white or armed with only bones. It's lipless mouth was stretched in a mask of horror, it's tounge white and bloodless, it's teeth jutting out of bleeding gums like little ivory tombstones. And her eyes - little black cups of venom, struggling for breath like a child under water, huffing, huffing -

But it was her.

Edward crawled hopefully forward, ignoring the agonizing pain in his left thigh.

It was Mama, regardless of her shape. And not a thing could disturb them now.


- - - - -


The energy drained from Al's body like blood from a wounded animal. He let himself sink against the hardwood door, sobbing silent, praying, but not really thinking at all. There were noises coming from the other side of the door - huffing noises, panting; almost like the funny sounds Mama would make with their missing father at night. But he could hear his brother's strangled little bird-cries over it, happy and horrified all at once, too strung together and high to really make out.

And then the doorknob twisted.

Ed had gone into the basement sneakily and hopefully, several books tucked under his arm and his hair pushed back nervously behind his ears. He came out dripping in sweat. His face was as white as bone. His hair was matted to his head, damp with blood. His eyes were empty, but his lips were stretched into a mirthless grin.

His left leg was missing from the knee down.

Al almost fainted, but in a distant way, his mind and sight seemed tauntingly clear. There was a trail of blood and scarlet handprints littering the walls and the very edge of each step. There was a long, thick splatter somewhere near the bottom, and from what Al could see, it seemed as if Ed had crawled away from the array and slowly up the stairs.

Funny. He hadn't that at all.

And then the realization hit him that his brother was there, bleeding and dying, smiling up at him like a crazed man, one shakey finger pointing behind him, behind him -

and Al followed his brother's fingertips to the thing that laid in the center of the array and shrieked.

"OH GOD, BR - "

"Mama's...back." Ed said sharply in spite of his heavy breaths. His voice was calm and almost victorious, as if Al's reaction had been immidiate joy rather than horror. "/Oh, Al...I'm...so happy.../"

Why?

"Why?" Al spat after a brief struggle with himself. Ed, however, looked bewildered. His voice came out in sharp pants as he spoke, bent over his freely bleeding leg. Somewhere where his knee had been sliced apart there was a bit of cloth from his jacket, knotted twice but lost within the sea of red.

"/We'll ... never be ... lonely ... again./" he panted weakly. "/Mama's...with us, and ... she can read us... bedtime stories ... like she used to ... and we can ... take care of her... it may not ... look like her ... but it's...her... you know ... it has ...to be her - /"

"It's not her." Alsaid sharply, his voice close to hysterical. "Listen to me!"

Ed blinked slowly, smiling.

"Can't." he said thinly. "I'm - "

But Al never quite knew what Ed was trying to say at the moment, because his sentence was cut short as his body went limp and fell to the floor with a sickening thump.

Al struggled to speak and found he could not. Behind his shaking brother was a disgusting, bloody lump of fleash and bones. And there lay Ed, in a mockery of that position, his white as chalk.

But he was smiling. Even out cold, he was smiling. And if Al didn't know better, he'd say the thing on the floor was smiling as well.


- - - - -


Edward woke up at Winry's house, his head weighed down by a wet cloth and his sweat-drenched body sticking to the sheets. Al sat curiously by his side, his face pink and eyes puffy from crying.

I made Al cry....

"I'm leaving." he said, and the words cut through Ed's thoughts like a knife.

"You're..."

"Leaving." Al finished once again. "Brother, I'm sorry. I really am. But I can't live like this. I can't live with a replacement mother. That's not her, and I can't let her take Mama's place. And what you made...it's just going to die. Maybe not now, but soon. It's going to die, and you won't be able to bring it back again - even if you want to - just like Mama will never come back - "

"But she is back!" Ed cried wildly, "I saw her!"

Al shook his head.

Edward smiled weakly, but his face was full of horror, as if he was trying to brush off Al's words like they were a cruel joke. "I brought Mama back...didn't you see her?"

Al's voice was lost, strangled: "...yes, I did." He paused, and the fleeting silence that filled the atmosphere overcame him with pain. "I saw her."

Edward sighed deeply, his pale face lifted toward the ceiling.

"Isn't she beautiful?" he whimpered. "Isn't she, Al?"

But then the door opened and Winry was at his side and she was holding him close. Her eyes were pink from tears as well, and her form was trembling, and Ed realized that she was clutching unto him like a lifesaver in spite of slowly leading him away. Al was shaking his head and repeating the forbidden words; "I'm leaving...I'm leaving..."

Edward closed his eyes. And when he opened them again, Al was gone.


- - - - -


"This is impossible!" Roy Mustang cried furiously. Pinako stood firmly before him, a strong pillar in spite of his high position. "The letter that was sent to me says that Edward Elric is at age thirty one and wishes to take the State Alchemist exam. This boy is eleven and cripled." He stressed the last word strongly, and behind Pinako, a faceless blonde girl in a pink dress cringed. Edward sat silently in his silver wheelchair beside her, unmoved. He watched the Colonel with unmoving eyes.

"I need to speak with you." he said heavily. "Please."

Roy gritted his teeth together, but from behind him, Lt. Hawkeye spoke.

"Sir, you're already here, why don't you just hear him out before we return? It wouldn't hurt..."

And as much as Roy hated to admit it, she was right. She saw something he did not, by the tone of her voice, and it took him a moment to realize it.

This boy may have an interesting story.

With years of practiced control, Roy turned on his heel and twisted the door open, preparing to leave.

"I'll be waiting at Lesignburg Central." he said. "Come see me tomorrow at noon."


- - - - -


The basement had become a shrine. It was a sacred place where the dead came back to life. It was where his mother lay.

"Mama..." he whispered, falling to his knees and crawling closer, flinching as her fleashless fingers wrapped around his neck and pulled him close in a loving embrace, trying to smile at her empty eyes. The blood seaping out and around her cheekbones was drying, now, and he had never gotten such a close look at the way she moved, the way her lips would curl and her mauled skin would shift as she inched closer, heart beating wildly, blood spilling out of her stomach and jagged ribs in a never ending flow.

"Al's gone." he said huskily

And the thing moaned - no, no - Trisha moaned a heartful response that he had come to love day by day. It could be anything, really, he thought. She could be expressing sorrow or pain or...hell, even joy. But it was a response. And only humans could respond, right?

Right?


- - - - -


"There's an old quote." he said. "That the God Leto is not a God, just as the Sun is not a God. It's just a chunk of high temepture."

Roy Mustang sat alone with Edward Elric on one of Lesignburg's private offices. The layout was almost flawless - several china figures on the desk, three pens, and a few neatly filed papers. Sitting to the far right on the desk, perched like a hawk, was a silver revolver. Roy was leaning back against his chair with his fingers knotted together beneath chin.

"Yes." Ed said thinly. "And if you get too close to the sun, you will just get burned."

Roy let his eyes drop to his knees, thinking deeply.

"Human transmutation is illigal." he said.

"I know." Ed continued smoothly. "But everything's gone. Mama's different. She had different skin. She can't laugh or smile. I'm even beginning to wonder...if it's really Mama anymore."

His hands crawled across the desk like spiders, his fingertips curling around the sleek edge of the revolver with haunting innocence. Roy kept his eyes locked on the trigger, careful to see any sudden movements, but too caught up in the conversation to stop him.

"May I see her?"

"No." Edward said sharply. "You can't."

"Why not?" his voice was beginning to break. The image of a child's hand curled around an oversized gun was sending shivers down his spine.

"Al's gone." he said gently. "Forever. And now all I have left is Mama. She can't even smile at me now, did you know that?"

His lips began to tremble as his small, tanned fingers pulled the weapon toward him. Roy gawked at him, his eyes locked on Edward's knuckles, realizing he was still possessive of that see-all look that newborn babies seem to be born with.

He was too young, way too young...at the sight of the gun's deep, shiny metalic color clashing with his dark skin, Roy found he couldn't approve of such an act, his simply couldn't...

Then the child's low, husky voice sliced apart his thoughts like a knife: "The sun is hurting my eyes."

And when Edward gently eased the revolver into his back pocket with all of a child's hesitation, Roy found he couldn't object, either.

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