Chapter 3

The rest of that day was uneventful. And I slept dreamlessly that night. It was one of those nights when it seems like you blink and then it's morning.

     And when I got up that morning, I was greeted by Edward knocking on my bedroom door.

     "What do you want?!" I called lazily from bed, not wanting to get up yet.

     "Get up, Lucy," came Edward's muffled voice from behind the door. "we're going out today."

     "Why so sudden?" I asked, sitting up and getting out of bed.

     "I'll tell you when you get downstairs," he said. Soon, his footsteps trailed away, and I just pulled on the clothes I wore the day before, via my dark blue jeans and black T-shirt, soon to be followed by my coat. It was already the middle of October.

     I met Edward downstairs and slipped on my shoes, grabbing my long borwn coat off of it's hook on the rack.

     He held the door open for me, and we left the house.

     "I want to make a quick stop," Edward said, heading in the direction opposite the train station. I shrugged and followed him.

     It was about a twenty minute walk, but soon, I figured out why he took me to this certain place.

     The remenants of his childhood home that he and his brother burnt down, signaling their journey's beginging. And today was October 11th, the anniversary of it.

     "You succeeded," I said as we stood side by side and just looked at it.

     "Partly," Edward said, holding up his right hand--AutoMail--and balling it into a fist.

     "Um, Edward," I began. "don't get mad at me for saying this, but..." He turned and faced me, a frown on his face. I couldn't meet his gaze as I spoke.

     "Is it...really all that important that you get your arm and leg back?" I said quietly. "Does it really matter?" I looked back up at Edward, and flinched at his angry gaze.

     "What do you mean by that?!" he shouted, gripping my left arm hard with his AutoMail.

     "I-I mean," I said quickly. "Alphonse has his body back, and he's your little brother, and everything's fine now. You don't seem to mind your AutoMail, at least when I see you." I took a breath. "Ed-Edward, let go, that hurts." His grip got tighter, and then he seemed to notice what he was doing, and he quickly let go.

     "Sorry," he said quietly, looking away. "I get what you're saying. Just forget about it."

     "Ed..."

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The walk to the train station was an awkward one. Niether one of us wanted to talk. I should've expected it from Edward, the more I thought about it. He was defensive about his past and the whole journey he went on with his brother. And the more I thought about that, the more I realized that I knew almost everything about Edward's childhood, but he knew nothing about mine. It occured to me that I had never told him what I did and where I was before the military.

     I glanced at him as we walked to the train station, and his expression looked more somber and regretful than anything. I wondered if he thought I was mad at him.

     I'm not denying that I was a little pissed off that he lashed out like that, but, like I said before, I should have expected it.

     We arrived at the station, bought our tickets to Central, and waited for train to pull in. It was silent, until Edward finally spoke up.

     "Sorry," he said, not looking at me.

     "You don't have anything to be sorry for," I said. "Besides, you're the one who said to forget it."

     "Still," he said, finally looking at me as he spoke. "I should'nt have got so angry. I understand what you tried to say, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that as long as Al got his body back, that was all that mattered."

     The train pulled in, and we took our seats, sitting across from eachother.

     "So," Edward said, going to change the subject. "I've been meaning to ask this for a while, but I never really got around to it." I looked at him questioningly, not really sure what it was he had to say.

     He cleared his throat and said, "Well, you pretty much know my entire life story, but I know almost nothing of your childhood. Care to explain?"

     "Are you a mind reader?" I asked without meaning to.

     "What?"

     "Never mind," I said quickly. "Well, let's see. You know about when we were kids, and then one day I just disappeared, and I believe I've explained the lab and--"

     "Lab?"

     "Okay, I guess I haven't explained that." I took a deep breath and told him about when Fuhrer Bradley took me from my home when I was seven, and then dropped me off at that lab facility. I told him how I became a Homunculus, that one day they strapped me to a lab table and how it was an endless nightmare. I left out the part about Father, and the man with the gold tooth.

     "So, that's how it happened," Edward said, like he's been wondering for a long time how it happened.

     "Yeah," I said. "So, now all that's left to tell you is what happened after that."

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After I was named Pain, I lost all of my childhood memories. I just woke up one night on someone's doorstep, not knowing where I was. All I really remembered was my name.

     The man who owned the house I was at turned out to be Colonel Mustang.

     It was late at night, and he was there in his military uniform. He was curious as to why an eight year old girl was on his front porch.

     "What are you doing here?" he asked me. "Where are your parents?"

     "I don't know," I replied. "I don't remember." He brought me inside and tried to figure some stuff out. All I could really tell him was my name, my age, my birthday, and that I didn't remember anything else.

     "How did you end up on my front porch?" he asked.

     "I don't know."

     "Do you live in Central?"

     "I don't think so."

     "What about your parents?"

     "I don't think I have parents."

     He eventually realized how late it was, and that I was a little girl who needed sleep. He let me sleep on the couch, and then remembered to ask for my name.

     "Lucille," I said, and then followed with, "I think someone used to call me Lucy."

     "Lucy," he said, bringing out a pillow and blanket for me. "That's cute."

     The following day, he took me to a doctor to see if I had any injuries or anything. The doctor said I was perfectly healthy, just a few pounds underweight. Next, he took me to work with him at the military. He tried to find some files, but coudln't find any. It was a lost cause.

     He eventually gave up, and I remember that one night, he came home with his Lieutenant, and they talked about me.

     It was my second week living with him, and I had my own room.

     "Are you sure you can keep a little girl with you?" his lieutenant asked.

     "I have no choice," he told her. "I can't just send an eight year old girl on the streets, or to an orphanage. She has no memory of anything, and I don't think she's from Central, either.

     "Besides," he continued. "Having a little girl might not be so bad. It won't be so lonely here."

     He started leaving me 'home' alone when he went to work, and it didn't take long for me to realize his place was a mess, so I cleaned for him. Washed and put away dishes, sweapt the floor, but I stayed away from the laundry, for obvious reasons. He came home that night and thought he went into the wrong house, because it was so clean.

     After a month of boredom and cleaning, he tried teaching me alchemy. Before you say that Homunculi can't do alchemy, I tried, and I could. It was simple. I practiced alchemy in the backyard when Colonel Mustang went to work. He came home once, and there was a giant dirt elephant in the backyard.

     For four years, I lived with him, until something started nagging at the back of my mind. It wouldn't stop, and I didn't know what it was.

     Everyday, I went up to him and said that something was bugging me, but he was always wrapped up in his work to notice anything, like the fact I stopped eating, and the fact I couldn't sleep at night. It was tearing me apart, phisically and mentally.

     When I was twelve, I eventually couldn't take it anymore. It was one of his days off, and I found his gun in his military uniform. I quickly took it and ran to my room.

     He saw me run to my room, but I don't think he saw me take the gun.

     "Lucy, are you okay?" he called, knocking on my door. I had the barrel of the gun in my mouth, wanting to end it all, but I couldn't pull the trigger. I was too scared of what would happen. I was afraid of the pain, and the fact that maybe it wouldn't work, and I wouldn't die.

     I ended up screaming and throwing the gun across the floor.

     The days that followed, I felt Colonel mustang keeping a close eye on me. That just increased the pressure and depression, and when he finally tried to talk to me about it, I snapped.

     I yelled at him for never being home. For never caring about me. For not trying hard enough. For not cleaning the house. I just yelled at him for every detail that popped into my head. After the yelling, I ran to my room and locked the door. I wrote a note, grabbed my pillow, an extra sweatshirt, my coat, and jumped out the window, running away.

     I realized quickly after that I had no right to say those things to him. He was the one who took me in instead of sending me to an orphanage or something, so that just made me run faster. I couldn't bring myself to go back and apologize.

     For two years, I lived my own way on the streets of Central, bouncing from East City, Central City, South City, and back to Central. I used alchemy to get what I needed, like food. I stole from people, I even killed a few without realizing it. Once I did without meaning to, I thought that if I used alchemy for good uses, then maybe it would balance out with the horrible things I've done with it.

     I was wrong.

     I became a State Alchemist, and the way I did was using my specialty--transmuting myself into a shadow. That blew them away. I was given the title Stealth Alchemist. I was fourteen then.

     Soon, the assignments I've been given started to get more brutal, or challenging, and I was forced to kill. Fuhrer Bradley noticed this, and reassigned me to assassin, under Colonel Roy Mustang.

     My eyes soon turned into the eyes of a killer. I let go of all emotions. I picked up smoking, and a little drinking. I lived how I wanted to, even though i was on a short leash with the military.

     I don't think I ever apologized to Colonel Mustang. I just know that things'll never be the same as they were before that day I ran away.

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When I finished telling Ed my childhood story, we had just pulled into the station in Central.

     "So, he was like a father to you," Edward said.

     "In a way," I replied, not feeling quite as cheerful as I did earlier that morning. I had a hella-bad childhood!

     "Will you ever apologize to him?" Ed asked as we got off the train.

     I didn't answer. I had no idea what my response would be.

     We just left the station in silence.

Author's Note

That was a long one... :3

Reviews

[Anonymous]

Yay! Flashbacks! :D