WE WERE THE COST CHAPTER FOUR

Chapter Four

 

 

(THEO)

I shifted under the expensive sheets of Sarah's big white bed. These rooms were friggin' huge. Dad's books were strone carelessly about the room, and pages were flying. Sarah was chewing on a strand of her hair as her eye's raked over a page quickly, then she cast it away with a flick, revealing a new set of information to her eyes. I smiled swiftly, but refused to let her see to distract her, and returned to my own reading.

"Homunculus (Latin for "Little Human", plural Homunculi) refers to the mythological concept of an artificially created human, presumably brought into existence by certain means of alchemy..." I mumbled.

Sarah whimpered and I looked up to see her wiping her eyes, shaking.

"Sarah?" I said, voice not full of concern I was feeling. I peeled the covers off me, then glanced at her book. It was black bound and along with the perfect font in black on the yellow pages were the writing of children in red pen. I squinted.

"Human transmutation is alchemy's greatest taboo..." I read. My stomach lurched. I saw drops of blood on the spine and blurring the pages. I didn't remember seeing this one on the train.

"It was in the room with them," she whimpered, pushing it away and coming into a fetal position, grasping her knees to her chest. I just stared at the book, wondering what it had seen my father do.

What it had seen Alphonse do.

What it had seen happen to my family.

And my Grandmother. I flinched. I cautiously flipped the book closed and shoved it away.

"That's one area of research that has nothing to do with now," I told her. "Don't look at it again, Sarah."

She nodded slowly. I pursed my lips, and it was my only show of emotion before I gave her another book and took up mine again.

But I couldn't think about the pages, and how my young father had held them, in hopes of being like his father.

Then, misguided by dreams, in hopes to bring back his dead mother.

I flinched again.

What had that been like? Alone and unsure....in that house. No, no. They didn't stay there. They left as soon as they could. The left because they couldn't stay. Couldn't stare at the space where their mother was supposed to be.

I had the horrid thought of Father leaving Mother, and Mother getting sick and dying on us.

With their recent fighting, this seemed like an all to real possibility. Pinako was still getting sicker and sicker too. Was it contagious, what she had? Or was it old age? Could mother...

I stopped my train of thought again. Thinking doesn't do any good. Dwelling on the past....

"No good," I mumbled. I knew Sarah looked at me again, but I ignored her.

A knock at the door silenced me completely. A balding servant looked in.

"Master Elric? Some one is here for you and Miss Elric."

"Thanks," I said, not looking as I gathered our materials up. "Who-" I said as we stepped out side into the hall, but stopped cold. Sarah's feet scraped behind me, and I heard her gasp as she looked up.

My Mother and Father stared with wide, sad eyes at us. Mother had her hands over her mouth, while Father was half turned toward us, and half toward another figure. My eyes were too locked on my parents to care who it was.

"My babies!" Mother screamed. She ran and took Sarah into her arms, both sobbing wildly. I stayed locked in my Father's unbelieving gaze. I stalked forward.

He didn't hug me, like I thought he would. I realized he was seeing me as a young man. He didn't want the hug to soften me. I cringed inwardly.

"Why did you do that? Do you know how worried your mother has been?"

So that's where this was going. I noted, too, how he took himself out of the equation. But his gold, watery eyes betrayed him. I too could feel my eyes welling with tears, but I hoped that I wouldn't need to wipe them. That they wouldn't fall.

I reached robotically into my pocket and handed him the letter. He didn't open it.

"I know," he said, not looking at it. I blinked.

"You what?" I screeched.

"I said I know about it!" he screamed. "Do you think I'm stupid? That I didn't know how to follow my own child to Central and not know why they've come? Of course I've found out every thing already!" I didn't cry now. All I felt was rage.

"Why aren't you looking for him? He counts on you!" I screamed. "Why did you leave home, anyway? Huh? Why aren't you looking after Pinako? She could be-"

"Pinako's dead."

His voice stopped me. My rage slipped off my face to sheer unbelief and grief.

"What?" I said. But he didn't need to repeat it.

I was shaking, going into some kind of emotional overload.

"Why aren't you looking for Alphonse?" I asked in a strained voice after a few minutes. I knew Sarah and Mother were crying wordlessly behind us. They were staring at us, wondering why we were so cruel to each other.

"Because I have a family now. I can't go risking my life-"

"HE IS YOUR FAMILY!" I screamed, panting. He stared.

"You think it'd be okay if I died looking for him? Huh? Left your mother with another person to bury? Is that it?"

I stared, bracing myself for what I knew I had to do. I put aside my own anger. I don't mean this Father...forgive me.

"You were fine without your father," I said emotionlessly,"Maybe I'll be better off without mine."

I had barely finished the sentence before he slapped me hard across my face. His wedding band had cut my cheek and I'm sure left a bruise. I felt blood on my lip. It didn't hurt I was numb.

"Theo..." Sarah said. Neither Dad or I said anything. He just stared at me with his furious eyes. But I could see the hurt in them. When I was young, he let all his emotion out to me. When I grew up, he stopped. But I could still read him. I knew I'd cut him so deep. But he could take the pain.

He could always take the pain.

The other figure cleared his throat. Mustang.

"Edward, you and your wife are welcome to a room tonight. You're children have already made themselves at home."

"...Thank you, Roy," he said. Mustang smirked. I wondered what put it there.

"Any time, Fullmetal."

"Just one night though," he said turning back to me,"then we'll go."
***

Sarah was sobbing when Mother and Father left to go to their room. I looked at her as she collapsed on a chair.

"Pinako..." she choked.

"Don't," I said, sitting at her feet, my head on her knee. She kept sobbing.

I rose, and picked up the books and stuffed them into a pillowcase. I looked in her wardrobe. I put few changes of clothes in. I'd sneak down to the kitchen later...

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"We're leaving."

"What?"

"Tonight. And you're coming, too, Sarah."

She blinked. "Why-"

"For Alphonse."

She looked away, the emotions in her eyes was overwhelming.

"Dad said he couldn't save him because he had a family. If we die-"

"Don't say it doesn't matter, Theo, because they care about us. Even if you think they don't."

"I know they do! But listen, if they lose us, they can keep living. They don't depend on us for food or money or anything. They'll be okay. They'll get over it eventually. But no one is looking for Alphonse. Are you in or out?"

She looked up at me, her eyes hard and determined. "Always," she said, grabbing a pillow case and heading for my room.

***********************************************************************************
(SARAH)
The very thought of leaving mother and father again frightened me, but I had to get over it. Wouldn't it be worse to die trying to save Uncle Alphonse than to just give up on him? And why was Father even entertaining the notion of getting himself killed while trying to save uncle? Was it really that dangerous that even he couldn't handle it?
We were back in Theo's room, planning about how we would go about doing this.
"We'll leave at midnight and work things out as we go." Theo said, taking some clothes out of the wardrobe and shoving them into a pillow case.
I sat quietly beside him, actually trying to think ahead instead of diving in head first. "Theo, do we even know where to start?" I asked.
He looked over at me. "Huh?"
"We have no idea where Uncle Alphonse is." I stated.
He remained silent, knowing that I had a point, but he was just being to stubborn to admit it. "We'll find him, okay!" he exclaimed, quickly ending the discussion.
After a few minutes of tense silence, I spoke up. "What you said to Father..."
"I meant every word of it!" Theo shouted, but didn't sound too sure of himself. He reached up and touched the cut on his cheek, then shook his head.
We spent a couple more hours like that. Gathering various things and putting them in either of our pillowcases, and me trying to talk to Theo, and him shutting me out. I tried not to think of Pinako. It didn't seem real that she was dead. I suddenly remembered something Father yelled right before Theo and I left the house. 'Everyone dies'. As true as it was, I didn't want to believe it. My mind could never even grasp the concept of death. The only thing I seemed to understand was that people can't come back. That was proved by Father and Uncle... I can't help but wonder what would've done in their situation. Would I have attempted to do the ultimate taboo for alchemists?
"Sarah."
Theo's voice made me jump a little. I guess I was just nervous...
"Are you ready? It's almost midnight." he said, putting on a jacket.
I took in a nervous deep breath and nodded. Theo and I made our way down to the basement where there was a window that would lead right outside next to a hole in the fence that I had seen earlier. All we would have to do is climb out of the window and slip through the fence, totally under the radar of all of the soldiers guarding the front gate. We were going over to open the widow when we heard footsteps coming down the staircase. As the person stepped in the room, holding a candle, we saw it was just Maes.
"You're up awfully late." she said and smirked.
"Very funny." I said.
"What're you doing here!?" Theo whispered.
Maes sighed. "Let's see. I kind of live here. And what is it that you're doing here? You're supposed to be leaving with your parents tomorrow, no?"
I glared at Maes. "Just go back upstairs and forget you saw us, alright?" I said, then wondered why I was being so rude to her. She had been nice to me the whole time we were there. Maybe it was how...close she and Theo had gotten.
"That I cannot do, Sarah Elric." Maes replied with a slight smirk. She grabbed Theo's pillowcase and riffled through it. She looked back at us. "I would feel jut awful if I let you two run off so ill-prepared." She walked over to a corner of the room, her candle illuminating a large metal safe that I hadn't seen before. Expertly, she pressed her hand and her ear to it and started spinning the lock back and forth. Within a few seconds we heard a click, then the door swung open. Theo stood wide-eyed and slack-jawed. I was pretty amazed myself.
"What?" she said. "I've always known how to do that. You learn a few things when you're the daughter of the Fuhrer." She looked into the safe and pulled out a few things I couldn't identify in the darkness. "My father keeps a few odds and ends in here. Weapons and things if the like." The thought of us needing weapons fueled my fear a bit more.
I groaned. "Maes, what are you doing?"
"Accompanying you." she replied.
"You don't even know what we're doing!"
"I apologize for listening in on your conversations." She smirked again, shoving a few things into our pillow cases.
"You've been eavesdropping?!"
"Correction. I happened to be walking by your rooms when you were discussing everything."
I sighed and Theo put his hand on my shoulder. "It's okay, Sarah." he said. "She seems to know what she's doing. I think she should come."
I didn't like the idea. Hated it really. And I hated myself for being so jealous. I felt so stupid. I looked over at Maes, hoping something would make me either like her or dislike her. Right then I just wasn't sure how i felt. "Alright. She can come." I whispered.
Maes walked over to the window on the other side of the room and opened it and hoisted herself out. Theo followed her and then turned around and held out his hand to help me out. Once I was outside, I took a deep breath and pulled the window shut. That was when I saw another light in the basement.