Welcome everyone! (All one of you.) I normally only finish crackfics, but I managed to write this in under two hours while listening to Bowling For Soup, and I wanted to show my friend without copying and pasting every paragraph to Facebook chat. So here it is, folks: A story I'm sure we've all been dying to hear since it was mentioned in the series.

Disclaimer: If I owned anything Fullmetal besides a single copy of volume 22, I'd be both happy and rich.

It was late at night. Edward and Alphonse had just finished up their daily fight over who would get the top bunk (Ed won this time), and both boys were lying awake, talking.

"When we grow up, Winry and me are gonna get married," said the five year-old Edward.

"Nuh-uh! I'm gonna marry her! I love Winry more than you do, Brother!" Alphonse replied, a hint of rare anger in his words.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, you can't." Edward leaned over the side of the bunk to stick his tongue out at his four year-old brother. "I'm the older brother, so I'm supposed to get married first. And I'm gonna marry Winry before you can."

What happened next caught Ed completely off guard. Al grabbed the sheets that his brother was lying on and, mustering up all the strength in his tiny arms, yanked them-and his brother-onto the hardwood floor. He then wrapped them around the struggling Edward and proceeded to sit on him to prevent escape.

"Let me up, Al! I can't breathe!" Edward's voice was muffled through the blankets.

"Okay, but only if you let me marry Winry."

"What? No way!"

Alphonse crossed his arms and frowned, though Ed couldn't see it. "Then I'll just have to sit on you until you die, Brother."

There followed several minutes of back-and-forth dialogue, which consisted mostly of Edward calling Alphonse every name he could think of (which, for a five year-old, was a great many names) and Alphonse occasionally saying "Good for you, Brother," or "I know, Brother." Finally, Ed cried "uncle" and Al let him up. In exchange for his freedom and his life, Edward not only had to give Al the top bunk for the night, he also had to watch as Al proposed to Winry the next day. He went to bed muttering under his breath.

Al had been up all night thinking about how he was going to ask Winry to marry him. He didn't have a ring, or the money to buy one. He was scared stiff, but he refused to let Ed see it. It was a new day, and Ed might challenge him for Winry's affection again today and win.

The Elric boys shoveled their cereal into their mouths at the table so quickly that neither noticed that their bowls had been switched-Al's cereal was dry, and Ed's had milk. Trisha realized right away that something was up.

"Are you boys alright?" she asked, ever the concerned mother.

"Yeah, just fine," her sons replied simultaneously, though it came out sounding like "Mmf, yush fii." Trisha sighed.

"You boys have some plan for today, don't you? Oh, well. I won't try to stop you. Just don't do anything dangerous, and don't cause any problems for the Rockbells, alright?"

Ed and Al finished their breakfast at the exact same time, threw down their spoons, and shouted goodbyes to their mom as they bolted out the front door, leaving Trisha alone in the house again.

"Someone is going to come home crying," she said to herself with a small smile. "I can only hope that Winry doesn't hurt them too badly."

Al had decided that the best plan was to not beat around the bush-Winry hated that. He would just be straightforward and hope for the best.

Ed had decided that there was no way that Winry would ever agree to marry Al, so after laughing at his brother's rejection, he was going to ask her himself. After all, he was the strong older brother. There was no way she'd be able to say no.

The brothers stood on the Rockbell's front porch, waiting for the door to open. After what seemed like an eternity, Winry's face appeared in the crack between the door and the frame, and her eyes lit up. She called back into the house,

"Hey, Grandma! Ed and Al are here! Can I go play?"

"Sure, Winry. Just don't get lost, and don't let those boys out of your sight, or they'll kill each other," came Pinako's response. Winry laughed, and Al almost lost his nerve right there. How was he supposed to do this? It seemed so easy in the fairytales. Why couldn't this be a fairytale? Winry was certainly pretty enough to be a princess.

The trio walked until they reached the river. This was a common play place for them, and the familiar surroundings gave Al a little burst of courage. He suddenly dropped down onto one knee and grabbed Winry's hand.

"Al? Are you-" Winry started.

"I-I love you, Winry Rockbell," Al stuttered. "Will you marry me?"

Several minutes' worth of crushing silence followed, in which time Al's leg fell asleep from him being in a kneeling position for so long.

"You're joking, right?"

It was as if a three-foot icicle had embedded itself in Al's chest. "N-no," he stammered, feeling like his heart was breaking. "I love you, Winry. Please marry me?"

"No."

Al wanted to cry, but he was rooted to the spot. He could only watch as Ed grinned hugely and said "I knew it! Winry loves me, so she's gonna marry me!"

"No I'm not," replied Winry calmly. "Where did you guys get the stupid idea that I was going to marry one of you?" Neither Elric could admit that they'd been up late arguing over it.

"Wait," said Ed, hiding his sorrow at rejection under a layer of anger. "Why not? What reason do you have for turning us both down?"

Winry thought it over for a while. Ed's eyes were burning angrily, whereas Al's were brimming with tears.

"I guess…" she said slowly. "I guess I just don't want to marry a guy shorter than me."

The brothers' jaws hit the ground as Winry began explaining how her favorite love stories always involved the woman having to get on tiptoe to kiss the man, and how sweet it was, and how she wanted to be able to do that one day. She recounted various stories, and expressed serious disgust towards the dwarves from Snow White, due to their height. She didn't realize that she had just broken the hearts of two young boys, and the two young boys didn't realize that preschool marriages almost always ended in divorce, anyway.

This was written for the benefit of my friend, and also myself, since we were both completely bored at midnight. Sorry it's so short - it seemed a lot longer on Microsoft Word. Also sorry for not having a funny author's note here, but it is now 1 AM and I'm tired. Thank you for reading, and please review!

(Next day) I fixed a few minor grammar mistakes that I was too exhausted to notice last night, and I keep looking at this and telling myself "I could have ended it better" or "Trisha should have had a bigger part" or "It should be longer." Please, please, please, please PLEASE review and tell me that I'm wrong, because it's making me uncomfortable. Also, just to clear something up: I'm not sure how old the boys were when Hohenheim left, and I also don't know exactly how old they were when Trisha died. The date is on her tombstone, and I could look it up, but I don't feel like it. My guess is that Ed was six or seven. Also, they started to learn alchemy in the same year that their mom died, so this isn't AU, they just didn't know how to use alchemy yet. This, children, it the reason that neither one had a ring for Winry. (If they had, she might have actually said yes.)

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