This fleeting bright new morning
I wish would last a moment more
But again, time isn't on my side
I'm realizing at last, I've been chasing the past
I've been heading in the wrong direction

You tried to give me a hand
So I could start again as best one can
But I was a fool and couldn't turn to you
So far I've held it back, but any moment now I know I'll crack
When all my pain is pouring down my face

Eyes like yours
Don't wanna know about a past like mine
Hands like yours
Gently brush away the tears I cry
But these scars, I know they'll only heal if I give them time
That distant future no longer seems far away

**********

"She's gone," Winry said.

Alphonse nodded. "She sure was lively."

A sly smile grew on her face. "So I guess you'll miss having her around, huh?"

"Why are you smiling?"

"Mei's a royal princess of Xing, right? If you play your cards right, it could be like a reverse Cinderella story!"

"Reverse Cinderella story?" he whispered. Cinderella was a peasant that went from rags to riches. If Winry was implying the opposite then did she mean that Mei would go poor? "That doesn't make sense..."

Ignoring the teens, Jerso looked to Zampano. "So, Liore then?"

"Seems like. And Scar? You and the doctor are headed over the desert as well?"

Scar nodded. "Yes. We'll meet you in Liore when we're finished."

The group bid them farewell and then Scar and Marcoh headed in their own direction, leaving Aiden as the odd person out who hadn't shared her travel plans. Al seemed to be the only person to notice. "Miss Aiden? Where are you headed?"

The Lieutenant Colonel paused to think. Where would she go? At first she had panicked and got the hell out of Central before Pride or one of the others came after her and heading North seemed like the best option, given that she knew where Al was. Finding Edward would've been easy, but he wasn't due to leave the hospital for another few days and she didn't want to draw attention to him. There was a chance that she could find Jean in the East and lay low with him... and yet Aiden found herself not liking the idea.

Where else could she go? She could go with Scar and Marcoh across the desert, but she felt her presence wasn't wanted or needed in their journey. Back to Maes and wait for the Promised Day to arrive? No, she'd find the urge to check in on Roy too strong so she had to stay away. How did Maes keep away from his own family?

"I've got nowhere to go," Aiden admitted, shrugging. "I booked it up here as fast as I could to get away from the homunculi. If you don't mind the company..."

Al and Winry nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! We'd love for you to join!" he said.

With that settled the group left for Liore. Traveling in the snow became one of Aiden's least favorite things to do. The upside to traveling with a group was that she had other people to talk to other than herself, the environment, and those who happened by. The downside was that as the third adult in a group that also consisted of two teenagers and Yoki, she had to teach them how to survive in the winter. Alphonse picked it up rather quickly, crediting his success to his teacher who he said left them on an abandoned island for a month. As military officers, Zampano and Jerso knew what they were doing and could survive in the wilderness for a long while. Winry and Yoki took some extra time to get their bearings in the winter plains of the North.

They spent four days traveling from Asbec to Liore. After the first day the weather began to warm and by the second day they didn't need to wear their winter coats in the day, though the chimeras preferred it to carrying them. Aiden just shrugged and stuffed hers and Winry's into her suitcase turned bag. The third day they spent traveling as fast and as far as possible in the warmer section of the East in order to arrive in Liore by mid-morning the next day. Their rations ran out that night and they had to go without breakfast when they left.

The town was wrecked, to say the least. Between the riots and the military officers sent from Central to suppress the violence, thereby making it worse, it wasn't surprising to see some fallen and broken building on their way into town. Aiden controlled her urge to shudder; it reminded her too much of Ishval.

Zampano glanced around at the destruction. "Ugh, this place is a disaster."

"You think there's any place left standing where we could get something to eat?" Jerso asked Alphonse.

The metal boy hummed. "I think so. It's around here somewhere." He led them through the streets, past men and women who were working together to rebuild their town. They came upon a food place where a girl in a pink hoodie was wiping off a counter. "There it is! Yup! Right where I remember it!" He paused and gasped. "Rose! How are you!"

The teen, now identified as Rose, smiled. "Hi! What a surprise Al! Are you still traveling? What brings you back to Liore?"

"Looks like the kid knows her, doesn't he?" Jerso said.

Alphonse turned from Rose to his group. "Yeah, somewhat."

Aiden leaned forward and whispered in Winry's ear. "Mei would be jealous," she whispered conspiratorially. Winry laughed lightly.

"Hey Al? Where's Ed? Isn't he with you?" Rose leaned around the large suit of armor to peer at the group in excitement.

"Oh, uh, no. We're traveling separately right now."

"Oh, well that's too bad. I've actually really missed him."

A strange look passed over Winry's face that only Alphonse and Aiden saw. "My my!" Aiden cackled.

"Winry?" he said, smirk not seen but clearly heard.

"What Al?" Winry snapped defensively.

"Oh nothing! You just kinda had a funny look on your face, and I thought you might be jeal-"

"S-shut up! I did not, you're imagining things!"

"Huh? What? So you're Ed's..."

"We're childhood friends!" Winry quickly supplied Rose.

"Okay Rose, these pots are as clean as they get. Is there anything else I can-"

The group turned to the owner of the voice. He was tall, had long golden hair and a beard to match, and wore glasses. An apron was worn as he carried the pots closer and stopped in shock. Alphonse and Winry were frozen, though Aiden was still for a different reason. The resemblance to Father was uncanny and she almost drew her gun and shot him on principle alone. The rest of the group and Rose watched them with curious faces.

Then the two teens gasped in unison and the three spoke up at once.

"You're..."

"Dad?"

"The armor from my collection!"

"No!" Alphonse raged and Aiden almost had to take a step back from them.

Hohenheim was quick to apologize. "Oh! Uh! Sorry!"

Winry shook her head. "This is Alphonse."

Hohenheim was quiet for a moment. "It's been ten years since I last saw you, Alphonse."

"I know."

"Pinako told me... about your body."

"Uh-huh."

The two were silent as they stared at one another. The rest of the group glanced between them, only two knowing most if not the whole story between the Elric brothers and their father.

"Hey! There he is!" Attention shifted focus to the man and woman that approached Hohenheim. "Mr. Ho, think you could help us out for a bit?"

"Yeah, sure." He looked at Alphonse. "Let's catch up later."

"Oh, okay." Al watched Hohenheim leave with the two people in silence. After all this time he thought a reunion with his father would've been more... well more. He wasn't quite sure what he had envisioned if he and his father met again, but it certainly didn't happen with so few words. There was no doubt Ed would've had a few words to say. He was startled from his thoughts when a familiar voice spoke up.

"You did a hell of a job fixing up this old radio, it works better than it used to. It doesn't even pick up static now!" the man behind the bar praised.

Alphonse recalled standing up and breaking the radio on accident, he was quick to fix it though. And then he and Ed got involved in the town's religion... "I'm really sorry. It's because we started trouble with Cornello that your town was destroyed..."

The old man shrugged and leaned on the counter. "Mmm, don't worry about it. I know it must be hard seeing the town like this, but the truth is... you guys exposed a great injustice. A corrupt fraud. That was the right thing to do. At least I think so. You've gotta look at all the good stuff that's come from it. Sure people reacted badly at first, but take a look."

As the man stopped talking the sounds of people building filled their ears. There were those who were transporting woods and metals, others nailed things together while their buddies chipped away at stone or were cementing things together.

"Sounds good huh? The whole town's working together to rebuild what we lost. And you guys are the ones who brought us together." 

Aiden smiled in her seat at the bar. "You make a valid point," she said. "Even when things look bad and bad things happen, there will always be good to come from the bad. It may take some time and a little bit of looking, but it's there."

In the last year she'd forgotten that fact. Although it was safe to assume she probably didn't know at all, even living in a land where Equivalent Exchange was so prominent. She'd spent a lot of her time in Amestris looking at the bad things in her life. She'd lost Tristan, Jessica, and her parents when Truth sent her across universes. But what she hadn't fully realized was that she gained a family on this side of the Gate as well. She thought she'd been bound to living her life only one way when the opposite was the truth. It took many years, and some prodding from the god-like being, but Aiden knew that she could do whatever!

What she left behind in her old universe was still there and unattainable and she was fine with it. Whatever gaps that were left behind were filled with people from her new universe. Tristan and Jessica were gone but she'd taken to looking after the kids in the East, and more recently the Elric brothers, Ling and Lan Fan, and Mei Chang and Winry. Her friends were gone but she had Roy and his unit, Maes and his team, and her own team. She'd gained a little brother she never had in Kain, even if he loathed her at the moment. Her Equivalent Exchange was there and had been all along.

Alphonse looked between her and the town before declaring, "I'm gonna go help build. Winry, you should keep a low profile. Go find somewhere to hide, okay?" Al turned and ran to catch up with his father.

Jerso and Zampano shared a look and nodded. "We should help out too," Jerso said.

"Let's go Yoki."

"Huh? But aren't we gonna eat first?"

Zampano grabbed him and began to drag him away from the food bar. "Come on. Food tastes better after a hard day's work."

Yoki kept voicing complaints that fell on deaf ears as he went out of earshot. Aiden and Winry were the last two of the group still at the food place. A gleam sparked in Rose's eyes as she stared at Winry. "Um..." Winry said.

Suddenly the blonde was being dragged away in a style Aiden was most familiar with; kidnapper style, though her kidnappings were mostly overseen by Maes. Riza had kidnapped her once for a day out.

"You need some place to stay on the down-low, right? Leave it to me! Come on! Let's go!" Rose proclaimed.

Aiden and the old man shared a laugh and waved as they too disappeared. "So?" he said. "What're you gonna do?"

"Can you watch my bag? I'll be off helping Al and Hohenheim."

"Sure."

Aiden dumped her bag behind the counter and jogged to catch up with the youngest Elric and his father. When she turned a corner and almost slammed face-first into metal, she had to double back and twist to avoid crashing into the fourteen-year-old, almost tripping in the process. She glanced between Alphonse and the father he had yet to approach. "Al?"

"I'm not sure what to say to him," he admitted.

"Well, you've already said your greetings, no matter how awkward they were..." Aiden bit her lip. "What do you think you should say?"

"Ed would've yelled at him already."

"And you don't want to?"

"I..." Al looked down. "I'm not sure. I don't remember our father as well as Ed or granny do and all brother has to say about him is rude. And since I haven't seen him since I was little..."

"You don't know where your relationship stands."

"Yeah."

The two stood in silence, watching as Hohenheim passed wood to a person on a ladder. "If you don't know how to interact with him, then just go for it. You want to get to know your dad, right? So then call him that. If he doesn't like it, he'll correct you. If not, well then there you go. Either way, you know where you stand."

Al glanced at the woman who'd been giving him and Edward advice since they met her. "Thanks Aiden."

She smiled brightly. "Sure thing." Then she lightly kicked his metal foot. "Go on, get going!"

Al laughed and hurried to his father. "Hey dad!"

Hours later Aiden was grinning and laughing with the townspeople. She didn't dare use her alchemy to fix things but when on break she entertained the few children that passed here and there by drawing animals with the chalk she provided. Her animals may as well have been a crime against nature but the kids were laughing and having fun. After that, she was led into games of hopscotch and jump rope. When they were bored of that, they gathered more kids and as many balls as they could to play dodge ball on the outskirts of town, out of the way of the adults. Aiden played referee as her skills in dodging and aiming would be an unfair advantage to either team. At least, until they made a game of all the kids on one team while she was on the other, and needless to say she lost.

Alphonse came to her and informed her that Hohenheim was in on the country-wide transmutation circle and he knew when Father was going to activate it. Aiden nodded along as he explained the mechanics behind Hohenheim's moon shadow transmutation circle. She had to give the old man some credit for calculating where the moon's shadow would appear on a certain day over a decade before it was due to appear without the aid of technology she'd been born with.

The moment the teen had gone to find the chimeras and Winry to inform them, she looked for Hohenheim. She found him taking a break away from the rest of the townspeople, leaning against a building that had yet to finish construction but no one was working on. Without much remorse she walked up to the man, who was at least a foot taller than her, and slugged him. The man was smart, she'd give him that, but he was a total dumbass if he thought Ed was the only one pissed at him for abandoning his kids. Though to be fair, he didn't know she'd show up.

The man was on the ground for a minute, staring at the darkening sky. "What have I done to incur your wrath? Furthermore, who are you? You arrived with my son this morning."

Aiden rubbed at her knuckles, knowing it would be useless trying to injure an immortal being. "I have morals against abandoning children, regardless if they forgive you or if it was for the greater good. The name's Aiden Wilson. I'm a friend of Roy Mustang who oversees Edward's doings in the military. I arrived with your son because I've been looking out for them since we met and the homunculi found out I could do alchemy without circles." He sat up and stared at her with a blank gaze, no doubt thinking she'd committed the taboo. "And you're Van Hohenheim, father to the Elric brothers."

"I didn't ask for my own resume."

"No, you didn't. I could've added more, slave number twenty-three."

Hohenheim sighed and she got the feeling that he would've run a tired hand through his hair had it not been in a ponytail. "I see you know a lot about me. Perhaps you would be willing to share more about yourself?"

Aiden tilted her head consideringly. Perhaps it was time she came clean about her origins. Not just as a last resort but as an act of good faith that they won't throw her in the loony bin or abandon her. Besides... Her thoughts turned to Roy who was no doubt sighing and having a miserable time signing paperwork. She smiled inwardly. He deserved to know. They all deserved to know.

She'd been hiding her past for far too long. "After dinner." She wasn't telling him, she was determined to not back out; it was almost like a dare between her consciousness and anxiety. There was no telling how they would react, especially Alphonse, but she had to trust they wouldn't shun her. Maes hadn't, so there was hope.

Later that night she and the group were sitting around a campfire. Aiden was staring at the fire intently, watching the flames moved, controlled only by the air around it. It was very different compared to Roy's directed flames. The ones she saw moved freely, contained only by the rocks around it and the fuel that would eventually be gone. The flames she remembered twisted and burned brighter than those in front of her. They had to destroy, no matter how their master wielded them. Though recently, those flames had become more tame in a desire to protect.

"Aiden? Are you alright?" Her head snapped up to look at Alphonse. "You've been staring at the fire for a while now."

"Yes... and no."

"What do you mean?"

"I think it's time you know the truth of who I really am."

The fire burned brightly as Aiden began her story for the teens and adults in the group. At some point she found herself staring at the ground in shame for not having told Alphonse earlier. When she stopped talking she didn't look up. She didn't want to acknowledge the disappointment or shock that was there. There was no need to see the pity of losing everyone she knew and loved, she could already feel it in the air.

"I don't blame you for your actions."

Aiden scoffed at his words. "Yeah, well, I do. I could've done a lot but I did nothing."

"That's not true!" Winry shouted. "You saved Mr. Hughes from dying!"

"I also could've stopped the transmutation! Al, you could be in your regular body if I had taken the time to travel from Central, back to the East."

Al stopped short at her retort and Winry stared. Hohenheim cast a calculating gaze over the blonde soldier. Moments passed in silence until Alphonse spoke again. "You're right, you could've."

"Al-" Winry tried but he shushed her and continued.

"You could have stopped our mistake," he said again, "but so could've anyone else." Aiden looked up from to the ground to the suit of armor that sat directly across from her. "If the Colonel and miss Riza had come just three days earlier they would've found us. If granny had come by she would've stopped us. If I had told Ed that I didn't feel like doing it he would've stopped."

"Alphonse, it's not you're fault-"

"And it's not yours either! You were still dealing with being in another universe and being dragged through a war that you had no obligation to fight in. You could've called it quits and just left the timeline to its own devices but you didn't. You chose to stand up and change things for the better!"

"But I-"

"We all could've done things differently," Al said gently. "But we're only supposed to play the hand we're dealt, remember? We can't play with the whole deck when there are others in the game."

The words she'd once spoken to him were thrown back in her face and Aiden huffed a small laugh, the barest hint of a smile pulling at her lips. "So I should take my own advice?" She'd only said it once, and it was more of an offhanded comment at the time.

Before he and Ed left for Resembool, right after Scar attacked them in the East, she and Al had been talking about nothing in particular. Favorite colors, foods, ideal vacation spots... Then they'd somehow moved on to the boys' bodies. Alphonse mentioned how tough it was being in a suit of armor that couldn't feel, eat, sleep, or the like, which he didn't tell his brother, though he suspected Ed knew and no doubt felt guilty for, and she did her best to console him. Aiden told Al how they couldn't choose the hand they were dealt, only that they could play it to the best of their ability. And when the deck didn't agree, they changed the rules.

The armored teen was adamant that they couldn't change the rules because it wasn't fair, that it wasn't equivalent. She'd shrugged but nodded all the same. A person couldn't change the rules, but an external factor could. An extra card.

"We'll work through this together, as a team, okay?"

"Alright."

From then on Aiden and Al worked closer than ever when they weren't fixing Liore. Often times he approached her with questions about her world and what it was like and what her kids were like, and she'd answer to the best of her ability. He enjoyed spending time around her just as much as he did his father. Not once did he ask about the future, no one did. Even Yoki stayed away from the subject, which surprised her more than she would admit. Al said they were going to play it by ear, just like they would have without knowing her origins.

She and Winry had become close as the only two females in their group. Winry came to her about a lot of things and Aiden was relieved that someone could confide in her again. The teen's trust in her didn't stop the occasional teasing about Ed. It only progressed when Winry heard from Maes that Aiden had a thing for Roy.

Alphonse had taken up teaching her about circleless alchemy. Aiden thought her understanding of materials when she beat Envy was a fluke but he didn't agree. He thought that she already knew what was there, she just needed the drive and the will to think through what it was, what she could do with it, and how to make that reality. It was basic advanced alchemy limited to less than half a dozen people and Aiden was a moron compared to the actual geniuses she knew. That didn't stop her from knowing all the elements of the periodic table inside out and backwards, which she took pride in thank you very much.

Without much hassle in getting her to learn, Al was a strict teacher. Thank Truth if he was listening that the fourteen-year-old was nowhere near Izumi's level and Aiden shuddered to think what would've happened to her at age ten under that woman's supervision. They started off trying to figure out if she understood materials in the first place. It wasn't until Zampano tried waking her up from a nightmare and his neck was almost sliced that they realized she processed things under stress without realizing it. Zampano never went near her when she was sleeping after that.

From there they worked on accessing what the Gate gave her. Al began with small objects and letting her guess the materials it was made of wearing a blindfold until she could sense as well as he could. After that they moved on to fighting with alchemy. They both still had a while to catch up to Ed's fluid movements, though he had at least four years practice on them both so they had to agree that they were decent at the very least.

During the few times they weren't practicing or helping rebuild Liore, Al was working on learning English. The puzzle box she'd given him all those months ago had finally been cracked open when he slid the last marking in place. Inside had been a small booklet on how to learn her home language. Ed had once mentioned how his brother had a knack for foreign languages, and since he often had to stay up at night all alone, she figured she'd cure some boredom and educate him at the same time.

He wasn't fluent per se, but he could carry a simple conversation without needing the book. His pronunciation could use some work but all things considered, he was picking up things quicker than she would have. Not to mention he was learning a language that more than likely didn't exist, from a country that certainly didn't exist in the world. There were enough parallels between their languages such as alchemist, kitten, and strangely enough orchestra, that it helped him assume what words were which. He was successful eighty percent of the time.

There would never be a time when she didn't cherish his funniest mistranslation. Al had wanted to say, "You ready to go?"

It came out as, "Our time to buttflap." Aiden cried she laughed so hard.

Winter slowly passed and Spring approached, setting them on edge. Maes contacted them once every ten days on the dot, to check in. Imagine his surprise when Aiden called over Winry and Alphonse to say hello. Understandably, she didn't get the phone back for over an hour. Because of her absence, he kept her updated on the ingoings and outgoings of Central via her network. He'd been shocked to hear an informant give a brief overview of his family. He hadn't known she'd been keeping an eye on them for him and he thanked her profusely for it. Those small updates kept him going a lot better than when he didn't know anything at all.

Jean reported a few times as well, though only when she called him. Maria was almost done setting up trade routes between his parent's store and the weapons manufacturers in Xing. He said that he couldn't wait to hear the Colonel's reaction when he knew who shipped him the ammo.

Major Miles had managed to get in contact with them in late January. Ever since then they kept in direct contact, Aiden taking over phone duty and relaying messages when needed. Maybe it was because she was the only military personnel around to understand certain codes, or maybe it was because she was the only woman old enough for their long distance relationship cover to work. There was a good chance it was both. Either way, it got the job done and threw off whoever might have listened in.

When word came down that the training exercises between the East and the North would be held in the East rather than the North, due to the recent invasion of Drachmen soldiers that failed to take over Fort Briggs, Aiden decided that her time in Liore was up and it was time for her to move on. She still had things to do before April rolled around, and it was already very late February. With a lengthy goodbye from the group and a few people from Liore, she set off for Central.

First she traveled North to Posterim to catch a train to East City. She'd been missing for so long that Aiden felt confident in her disguise. Her hair had grown two inches and her hunched shoulders and glasses did help keep her inconspicuous from any prying eyes. Unfortunately, it worked too well when a man tried to mug her and she'd knocked him to the ground before he knew what hit him. It was a hastily constructed baseball bat.

She tried to spend as little time as humanly possible in East City when trying to purchase a ticket to Paumis, one of the cities closest to Central. But of course, the train was down for maintenance and wouldn't be running for a few days. Aiden cursed her luck and trudged to the outskirts of town, not trusting any of the motels in the vicinity. One might say she was being overly cautious but those places and the soldiers knew her too well to be fooled by an appearance such as hers. She'd visited Eastern Command too much for the men stationed there to not recognize her! Not to mention the motel clerks who saw her often enough as well.

So Aiden sighed deeply and made her way across the river she'd been intimately acquainted with, and set up camp a fair distance away from any possible stragglers or the odd camper. She had no problem sleeping among the stars and had just started a campfire when-

"Huh? Aiden?"

The woman searched around until she saw a familiar head of golden locks walking towards her. "Edward?" She hadn't planned on seeing the teen until the Promised day. Hell, she thought he was already in Resembool for his repairs. "What are you doing out here?"

"Me? I should ask you the same."

She slapped her forehead. "Oh right, you haven't heard! I attacked Envy and now I'm on the run. Though officially I'm classified as missing." Pausing for a moment, Aiden turned to the second bag she'd been given before leaving Liore and began to pull out cooking utensils. A small pot, a couple of spoons, a canteen, a can of something he couldn't read the label of. "I wouldn't be surprised if I had been labeled as a deserter within the military," she stated dryly.

A new voice sounded to her right, very close and familiar. "You fought that ugly S.O.B.? Damn woman, I underestimated you-"

Bong!

Whoever it was was not familiar enough to stop her from grabbing the pot and swinging. The figure landed on the ground laughing. "Hoo! That was one hell of a swing!"

"Whoops," Aiden said, not sounding the least bit apologetic to the homunculus on the ground.

"Maybe I should bet on you if you ever go head-to-head with Mustang!"

The Lieutenant Colonel sighed heavily as two more sets of footsteps entered her hearing range. Heinkel and Darius entered her small campsite without so much as a hello complaining about the loud racket they were making. They were just as bad as the other two, she noted mildly.

When they were all settled in and Aiden had cooked dinner for the group - one can each because I can't spare more damn it - they traded stories of the recent months. Edward told her about the mine shaft collapsing in Baschool, his time in the hospital with the two chimeras, looking for Al, and joining Greed's team. From there they'd been wandering to the East to get to Resembool for some maintenance on Ed's automail. In turn Aiden informed him of her own travels. Meeting Scar and the team in the North, the takedown of Envy, splitting to Liore, and Hohenheim.

Edward had scoffed at that part. "So you met that bastard?"

Aiden nodded. "Yup. I also punched him for leaving you and Al," she hummed and grinned, she had literally beaten Ed to the punch.

The teen laughed in surprise. "No kidding!"

"I have a thing against abandonment. But really it's just children that get to me." In a quick change of subject she turned to Greed. "Hey, Ling, quick question."

"Hmm?" he said through a mouthful of soup.

"Is it illegal or just frowned upon to marry your bodyguard?" A sly grin slid onto her face as the prince began choking on his food. Edward's laughter sounded once more and they relished in the prince's embarrassment and sputtering.

After a few moments he calmed himself enough to breathe properly and speak. "Heavily frowned upon and therefore very uncommon."

"So you mean it's happened before?" Greed questioned, momentarily taking over their shared body.

Ling sighed and nodded. "A few times, yes. Our country is separated into many clans and when a new Emperor is selected they must take on as many wives as necessary to promote goodwill between each of the clans. As you can imagine the right of succession is a complicated process. However, long ago when an Empress had ruled and the clans were still living together as one, there was no need for such a thing. Each ruler had the right to choose their significant other regardless of station. Nobles were more sought after but the Empress would have no other but the servant she'd known her entire life.

"With very few people against the idea of their marriage they did indeed become united. However, an unfortunate accident occurred when both the Empress and her daughter were assassinated. Many people believed it to have been the servant-Emperor or another jealous relative, but they couldn't prove it. Without an heir to the throne, the nobles of the clan fought for whose daughter was to become the newest Empress. On the brink of war, the servant-Emperor promised the nobles that he would marry all of their daughters. This appeased them for a time, but the next generation was a problem. Who would claim the throne if there were so many children? Over time the nobles split the country into clans and it's been the same ever since."

Aiden whistled lowly and the other males of the group shook their heads in disbelief. "All that over a throne? I remember you saying that people have been trying to kill you since you were a child. I don't think I'd be able to handle all the pressure."

Ling shrugged. "I'm used to it. This is what I was born into."

"You didn't answer though, why the servant thing was frowned upon?"

"The servant-Emperor had no legitimate claim to the throne without the Empress at his side, and since he was popularly believed to be the assassin, well..."

"Servants probably weren't seen as the most trustworthy bunch for a while."

Edward shook his head and leaned against the large rock sitting behind him. "And here I was thinking you and Lan Fan were gonna be a thing."

"Not likely."

Aiden too leaned against the object behind her. It was a large oak tree that shadowed her from the moon's glow. "Well if you unite the clans then you could marry her. Or tell them all to fuck off and do it anyway."

"This coming from the woman who can't confess her own feelings?"

"This isn't about me Edward!"

The next day was spent in inner turmoil, a vastly different emotion from the excitement and humor of the night before. While outwardly she seemed like the same person and watched Ed's demonstrations of alchemy - the poor boor had been surrounded by people who didn't understand the thing he lived and breathed - on the inside she was at war with herself. Meeting Edward before the Promised Day hadn't been a part of her plans in the slightest.

She and Maes had agreed that getting the group together after the war was over was the best plan of action. Doing it before would cause unnecessary problems they didn't want to deal with, while telling them after had fewer repercussions on the timeline. Being found out by the homunculi put a few curves in the tracks and Aiden's running away had derailed the train entirely. Then she went about telling Alphonse and his group about herself...

It wouldn't be fair to tell Alphonse and not Edward, especially since they were sharing vital information about the possible end of Amestris.

"Hey, Ed?" she said, interrupting his babble. "You know how I said I wasn't from Amestris?"

He paused and thought for a moment. "Yeah, I remember. Why?"

"Well, the thing is..."

"You're not going back are you?" he almost screeched in alarm. "You can't! Al and I - we need you! The Promised Day is almost here! And not to mention Mustang; that bastard back in Central would be lost without you!"

Aiden was thrown back by the declaration. "I'm not going back. It's not possible."

Confusion flitted over his face. "Why not?"

"I'm from the other side of the gate, Edward. I can't go back."

The silence in the surrounding area was punctuated by her pounding heart and Ed's growing expression of horror. "You're... you're from the other side of that thing?"

The idea that she was from another universe hadn't sunk in for Edward until that night, nor had any of the other things she'd told him. He'd mostly sat in shock away from Aiden and the rest of the team. Another world... a whole other damn universe where alchemy didn't exist. She'd seen the Truth by accident and was trapped in Amestris. She knew what had been coming. His unmoving figure bothered Aiden to such a degree that she was almost relieved when he stood up and began screaming at her. He yelled and threw his arms around and paced in front of her.

"You could have stopped us from making that mistake!"

"I know."

"If you had trusted us we could've taken care of the homunculi by now!"

"I know Ed-"

"Nina and Hughes might still be alive had you done something!"

"Edward!" she barked, standing and narrowing her eyes.

"You knew what would happen and you could have told us from the beginning but you didn't! Why didn't you?" he yelled.

"Because I was scared!" Edward's mouth snapped shut at the admission. "I was scared and I'm sorry! Is that you want to hear? I was thrown into a new world and I'll never be able to see my son again. All I had was a god damned notebook telling me your future. Could I have done things differently? Yes! But I was too scared to ask my friends for help until it was too late and I have to live with knowing that I could have saved a lot of lives!"

Aiden took a shuddering breath as a few tears slipped from her eyes. "If you think I don't regret what's happened then you're wrong." Edward wasn't looking at her, choosing instead to glare at the ground. Suddenly she turned around and picked up her bags and marched away.

"Where are you going?"

He almost sounded... worried. She paused but didn't turn around to face him. "I have a train to catch in the morning," she said softly, resuming her walk back to the Eastern train station. There was an early train at six and there were no rules against waiting overnight.

**********

Al after learning Aiden's past: That's okay. We'll work through this together.

Ed after learning Aiden's past: YOU'RE JUST AS BAD AS HOHENHEIM DAMN IT I TRUSTED YOU!

I'm updating early because I will be updating on the 25th for the one year anniversary. Of course, because of that, I will not update on the first of February.