The Frost Alchemist

Chapter 26: The Roans

I woke up feeling like someone had bashed my head in with a brick. I groaned as I slowly opened my eyes as I tried to get them used to the light, but it made my headache worse so I squeezed my eyes shut.

"Mom! She's moving!" someone yelled and that made me open my eyes. I was in a room I didn't recognize and there was a little girl who couldn't be older than ten sitting in a chair by the door just watching me. An older woman with black hair that had white streaks came into the room.

"Oh good, we were just going to send for the doctor, though we should anyway," she said. I sat up and groaned again putting my hand to my head. I had almost forgotten that I didn't have automail.

"Where am I?" I asked my voice gravely. I needed water. 

"Oh I'm Lucy Roan, this is my daughter Chrisy," the woman said.

"What country am I in?" I asked again.

"Amestris of course," the woman replied and I fell back against the bed. I didn't like waking up in a different country. 

"Town?" I asked.

"Helltem," she said. 

"West part right?" 

"Yes."

At least it wasn't too far this time. 

"Miss, I'll go just call a doctor, maybe you can talk to him about finding an automail engineer," Mrs. Roan asked. 

"I have one. I need a phone," I said, I saw her eyes flick down to my hands. "If you'll just dial for me, I can handle the rest." She helped me out of bed and lead me to the phone. I told her which number to dial and then she helped situate the phone between my shoulder and my ear. 

"Hello?" came an annoyed voice when the call was answered and I couldn't help but let out a small sob. "Levy? Levy is that you?"

"You were right," I cried. "God, you were right."

"Levy, where are you? What happened? Are you alright?" she asked quickly.

"Helltem. Father... it's back. It's here again and Selim... Selim went with him," I cried tears now streaming down my face. 

"Levy I need you to stop crying and tell me what's going on, clearly," she instructed and I took a deep shaky breath. 

"I found who was doing this. It's Father. He's back, I don't know how but he is. And Selim... he just turned on me and went to him, god I should have listened to him when he said we shouldn't go in. Why can't I just listen for once in my life?"

"Because it's not who you are Levy. You make your own decisions and don't let people's opinions get in your way, it's a good thing. But Levy, you're sure it was Father?" she asked.

"I wouldn't lie," I replied. She let out a heavy breath. 

"We'll figure it out. I'll talk to Ed," she said eventually.

"I'll need a ride to get up there," I reminded.

"We'll send someone from West City to pick you up, then you can ride the train up here," she said.

"Tell Sara to start working on my automail, okay?" I asked.

"Winry and Sara have been working since the moment they got up here, so it's ready to go for you."

"Winry? She's doing better?" I asked.

"Seems like almost getting her family taken away made her body fight back, she's almost back to normal. Though nothing I can say about the stress they're all feeling," she explained. "Izumi and the others got back into the country the other day, in case you were wondering. They've gone into hiding like Mustang."

I didn't want to dwell on the fact that I probably missed a few days between entering that mansion and now. But after Selim got me to the ground, my memory was fuzzy or nonexistent until I woke up here.

"That's smart. Father isn't going to stop just because we got them out, if anything the State Alchemists need to be more careful, he'll probably try to take us out next so we can't stop him next time," I explained.

"Probably, but it's hard to get information out since it's not like they all stay somewhere close to phones, but I'll send out calls to the major cities," she said.

"I'm sorry, for reacting the way I did, it was uncalled for," I apologized.

"It was, but understandable. We'll talk more when you get up here, but for now, you should get to a train station so the officer doesn't have to look very hard for you," she suggested.

"Yeah I'll talk to the people I'm staying with," I replied.

"We won last time Levy, we'll win again," she said trying to comfort me.

"Yeah, we will," I replied quietly. We would have to make sure this didn't happen again. No one that was part of it could live. That mistake was made once. Mustang wouldn't let it happen again. I asked Mrs. Roan to hang up the phone and she did. "I need to get to the train station."

"The closest one is Albupow," Mrs. Roan said. 

"I have someone coming from West City coming to get me, so I need to get to the station," I explained.

"Do you work for the government Miss?" she asked.

"I'm a State Alchemist actually," I replied and her eyes widened. "I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier, it's been a rough couple of days as you might imagine. My name is Levy Armstrong, I'm known as the Frost Alchemist.

"Armstrong?" she asked her jaw dropping a little. 

"I'm just a normal person ma'am, but would you mind telling me how I came into your home?" I asked.

"Oh, of course, my husband brought you in. You were a couple miles out of town, unconscious. He was coming back from work, and sort of stumbled upon you. He brought you inside, you looked so young and so dirty and then your limbs... so we cleaned you up, gave you some of my old clothes and gave you the bed in our spare room. I was worried you weren't going to wake up, I was just about to call a doctor when my daughter said you were awake," she explained. I just realized I wasn't in my own clothes. I was in a brown dress that was loose on my body. "Oh! You must be hungry and thirsty. Let's get some food in you before we head out, okay?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Roan, thank you so much for taking me in and doing this for me," I said and she smiled.

"Oh Miss Armstrong, it's a pleasure. Everyone needs help every once in a while."