Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ The Fullmetal Paradox ❯ Prelude ( Prologue )

Warnings: anime spoilers, plenty of language, later violence and lots of angst.

 

Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist and all affiliated characters and settings are the creative property of Hiroaki Arakawa and all companies that hold license to its title. Characters picked on and plots shamelessly twisted without permission, but sadly, I don't make money off of my stupid plot bunnies.

 

The Fullmetal Paradox

Fullmetal Alchemist

 

Prelude

 

If you could go back in time to change one thing, just one thing in your life… what would you change?

 

But had I known that that one thing could change everything, I don't know now if I would have done it. I suppose I don't have much of a choice now, really, but… if I had known that I would sacrifice everything I'd learned in those years with my brother, searching for any method that would enable us to get our original bodies back, then…

 

Perhaps I wouldn't have chosen this path, even if we never would have needed to set such a goal. At least we would have lived.

 

--

 

The world seemed so much fuzzier with the lack of sleep. The dim lamp flickering over the paper-cluttered desk cast a hazy glow across the blurred words the blond-haired eighteen-year-old teen was trying so desperately to read. He squinted, brushing stray bangs from his face and adjusting wire-rimmed spectacles over his scrunched nose in a vain effort to read the text with more ease, and even tried keeping metal digits pressed under the line of interest in the book as he wrote down a few numbers on the working scratch paper at his left. Sighing, he removed his glasses with his prosthetic hand and rubbed at closed eyes with his other. As if in afterthought, he glanced out the window and seemed surprised to find it so dark.

 

“Damn,” he muttered, taking a quick scowl at his watch before getting back to writing. “Got late on me too quickly again. Better hurry and finish this before the old man comes to get me.”

 

As if on cue, a knock at the door startled the young man, causing him to draw a sharp line across the calculations on the page. With a sharp curse, he tried to quickly erase the line.

 

“Edward? Edward, it's late… The librarian wanted to lock up earlier tonight, I think.”

 

“I know!” he snapped back, finally erasing the line. “Give me two minutes, and I'll be right there.”

 

“I'll be waiting in the car downstairs. Don't take too long, or you're walking,” came the warning.

 

Ed snorted disdainfully in reply as heavy footsteps retreated away from the closed door. “Like I haven't walked the whole half-mile home before,” he groused as he looked back down at his work…

 

… and dropped his pencil with wide eyes when he saw what he'd written.

 

“Oh. My. God…”

 

The air in the room suddenly wasn't enough to fill his lungs - he couldn't breathe enough to keep the edges of his vision from blackening. The last thing he remembered was the floor rushing up at his face at an alarming rate, but he oddly didn't care.

 

--

 

It should have been impossible, but it wasn't. No, it wasn't possible. It was crazy - no, Insane. I-n-s-a-n-e. Capital `I' for sure. Oh god, how didn't I see that sooner? Why couldn't I have seen it then? I was a scientist there, damn it! My job was to examine all possibilities before making a decision.

 

I was blind. And because I was blind, I didn't see the path that my actions would take me. No, that wasn't me - that was… someone that I thought died a long time ago.

 

Me. No, and yes. But not for long.

 

Because what I became - no, what he became - was not destined to happen.

 

Words of wisdom, from the unwise, for the unwise. Never mess with Fate. Oh, and hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

 

Damn it.

 

--

 

Hohenheim gently pressed a cloth bag filled with ice into his son's shaking hands, a worried frown creasing his forehead. Ed, lounging on a couch, pressed it against his forehead with a pained groan, uncharacteristically ignoring his father's large hand brushing long strands of unbound golden hair away from his face.

 

“You alright?” the elder man asked quietly.

 

Ed grunted. “What do you think?”

 

Hohenheim shifted a bit, used to his son's hard edge against him after several years of putting up with it, but still none too pleased by it. “I guess not quite.”

 

“You know, if you'd discovered something like that, how would you react?” the boy snapped. “No, wait, don't answer that. Please don't.”

 

“You said you found it,” Hohenheim continued. “You checked your calculations yet? Are you sure? If what you're saying is true, then -”

 

“I know!” Ed shouted, slamming the ice bag down on the coffee table next to the couch. He took a deep breath. Calmer, “Damn it, old man… I know.”

 

“When?”

 

“Why are you so anxious to know?” Ed glared at his father, but couldn't hold the expression when he saw a hint of hurt flicker in the man's eyes. He sighed. “As soon as I can tie up a few loose ends here. It's been, what, how many years now? Four?”

 

“Three,” Hohenheim corrected quietly.

 

“Okay then, three. Long enough for me to start settling down here somewhat…”

 

An unreadable emotion flickered across his father's face, and Ed frowned.

 

“What's the look for?”

 

Hohenheim managed a fake smile. “Ah, nothing. Here, you should keep that on your head until the headache goes away, and then we'll discuss this when you're feeling up to it.”

 

Ed opened his mouth to say that he was just damn fine, and that he wanted to discuss this now, but his father was already at the door. Instead, he snorted derisively once his father shut the door, and silently cursed his decision to study physics in this world beyond the cursed Gate. What he wouldn't give for alchemy, and to find another way around this theory…

 

It's all your fault, you stupid old man. He scowled. No… it's my own fault, too. If only I had never tried to transmute Mom - and hadn't dragged Al into it…

 

If only…

 

--

 

.end prelude.

 

--

 

Just so I make this infinitely clear right away, I will be using the anime canon(but trust me, I have ideas for manga canon stories), and will pointedly be ignoring the movie (which I have not yet seen). So in that sense, this is a divergence or AU fic, or whatever you wish to label it. At any rate, it is post-series in terms of the anime.

 

As for the title, I am taking artistic liberties with a time-traveling theory called “the Grandfather Paradox” by many physicists. Feel free to look it up on Google; I've done a teensy bit of my own research on it and will be using Carl Sagan's short explanation of it from his interview with NOVA. And because I mentioned it, I'm already spoiling my story here. Sorry for anyone who was held in utmost suspense by my awesome prelude.

 

… Don't you dare take that last line seriously. -.-;

 

You know, I wasn't planning on working on this story for a while, but the plot bunny bit my ankles and wouldn't let me sleep tonight until I tossed up a prologue, as un-beta-read as it is. Nerk. Pretty Please tell me what you think of it. X3