"Hey, Winry, a letter for you."

"Ooh, really? Give it here."

Ed passed it to her and continued sorting the rest of the mail. Winry tore it open and scanned the contents. "Oh! They wrote me back."

"Who? I didn't know you were writing anyone."

"Remember the conversation we had with that man in Lior?"

"John Fitzgerald, whose automail hand you fixed up?"

"Yes, him. You know how he told me there wasn't a mechanic for seventy miles since the mechanics died a year ago in the fighting?"

"And I suggested you set up shop there. Yes, I remember. But you refused."

"You fixed his hand for free?" Ed asked.

"'Fixed' is a strong word. I wouldn't even call it functional."

"You know, they don't have a mechanic around here."

"He told me."

Ed had to force the pace to slow down because she kept speeding up for who knew what reason. "They could use someone like you around here, Win."

"I thought about it for like three seconds, then I remembered Grandma. And the fact that we're halfway across the country and there's no way I'd move that far away from home. For anything."

"So that's what the letter's about?" Ed guessed.

"I wrote the family of those mechanics about buying the property off of them. They have no use for all that automail stuff, after all. Pretty much I said, 'Name your price.'"

"So...?" Ed queried, setting the stack of letters down on the table and coming over to peer at the letter in her hands.

"They're giving it to me." She sounded surprised at what she was saying.

"For how much?"

"No. I mean, they're giving it to me."

"For free? Wow."

"Here: 'In the wake of dealing with the passing of my husband and son, my daughter and I have been at a loss for what to do with their shared automail practice. Since their passing I have kept the shop empty and have done little other than deal with the minimal damage done to the shop during the remainder of the fighting. As a result, the shop is in good condition, if a little dusty. To keep their memory alive I have hesitated to sell the shop to someone who would convert it into something else, but your letter had given me hope that my husband's work will be continued in the name of helping people. In good faith I am willing to give you the deed to the shop for free, including all the tools and materials inside, as well as the upper 'living space' level of the shop, which I have already moved everything out of in favor of living with my daughter and her husband. I am aware that your town is far away from Lior so the transition might not be immediate, but whenever you are able to be in Lior next I will sign the deed over to you and the shop is yours.'" Winry had to take a breath after speedily reading the letter aloud. "This is amazing! Everything, all the tools, all the materials, completely free! Do you know how much that would cost if you bought it from scratch?"

"A lot?" he guessed.

"Upwards of two hundred thousand cenz, easy," she answered. "This lady is a saint!"

"So are you gonna take it, then?"

Winry stopped celebrating and became solemn. "I'll have to talk to Grandma, of course. And Al will want to know about it... and you! You approve, right?"

"Since when do you need my approval to do anything, Winry?"

"I don't need anyone's approval. It's a free country. There's a difference between needing someone's approval and wanting it. I want yours."

"Fine, then. I approve." He drew out the O patronizingly.

"Oh, don't be like that," Winry pleaded. "I really want to know what you think."

"Think about what?" Pinako asked as she came in, reminding them that they weren't alone. "Winry, you haven't finished Mr. Sango's fingers yet. He needs his hand done by Thursday."

"Yes, I know," Winry responded, "But look what just came in the mail." She handed over the letter from Mr. Solomon's widow.

Pinako scanned over it, then raised an eyebrow at Winry. "Someone's giving you an automail shop in Lior?"

"The only two mechanics in Lior died in the riots that occurred after Cornello was sacked, and there isn't another mechanic within 70 miles of there. I wrote to ask how much she would take for the shop, Solomon and Son, and that's what she wrote back. What do you think, Grandma?"

"What do you want me to say? It's a good opportunity. You're sixteen, you're old enough to work, and whether you'll be able to handle an automail practice on your own, only experience will tell. I think you should take it."

Winry grinned broadly, obviously pleased. She turned to Ed. "What do you think?" He hadn't gotten a chance to answer earlier.

"Yeah. I mean... um, yeah, sure."

"Profound sentiments," Pinako said dully.

"C'mon, Ed," Winry sighed. "What do you really think?"

"Again, it doesn't matter what I think," he muttered. "Dunno why you're asking me anyway."

"You're no help at all," she complained.

"Yes, I said yeah, didn't I?" he shot back. "Just do it, I mean. Yeah... Well, I'm going to go upstairs now. I forgot... uh, something. Gotta go get it..." He trailed off, then hurried upstairs before anyone could stop him.

"Ed, where are you going?" Winry called after him.

"Who cares? It's quieter when he's gone," Meta shouted through the open door of her bedroom.

"SHUT UP!" Ed shouted downstairs. "LITTLE GIRL!" he added as an afterthought.

"SHORTY!"

"BABY!"

"PIPSQUEAK!"

"DIAPER SOILER!"

"PLATFORM SHOE-WEARER!"

"It's never quiet around here, is it?" Al asked as he walked in the front door and discovered that the house was in the throes of a multi-room screaming match.

"Never," Winry laughed. "And you always end up coming in just as the noisiness reaches its climax."

"WINRY! MAKE LITTLE TYKE SHUT UP DOWN THERE!"

"DO IT YOURSELF!" she screamed.

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING TYKE, SHORTY!"

"This is why I spend most of my time in the basement," Pinako commented as she left the kitchen and headed there.

"Hungry, Al?" asked Winry. "You missed dinner. Honestly I don't know how you could stand to stay outside in the heat that long. We were all dying, and we were inside."

"I... had a distraction."

"Look at this, Al."

"What is it?" Al walked over to where Luna was crouched by the bank of the river and peered in. "I don't see anything."

"Watch." She stuck her bare foot in the water and stirred the sediment at the bottom, causing a cloud of dirt to float up, cloud the water around her foot, then gradually settle out again. "What do you see?"

"Cloudy water?"

"A volcanic eruption," she corrected. Sticking her foot in again, this time Luna spun her foot around so the cloud of dirt funneled before spreading out. "Now?"

"You, spinning the dirt around."

"It's a twister." She removed her foot from the water and wiped some of the water away with the hem of her long pioneer skirt. "I think I'll write a poem about weather and earth phenomena tonight."

"Why tonight?" Al asked. "Why not now?"

"Because it's too hot today. And I have something else planned."

"What's your other plan?"

"Are you a strong swimmer?" She seized his wrist and dragged him, fully clothed, through the shallows and into the middle of the river.

"No," Al said after a moment of distracted thought. "I didn't have so much of a problem with the heat." The problem he had run into was trying to be a gentleman about swimming with a pretty (if quirky) girl his age while her light cream-colored blouse was soaked through. She had made no attempt at covering herself, either—but then Luna wasn't a reluctant sort of person. She said and did whatever came to mind.

"I swear, if you watch people's faces you can find out all sorts of things about their personalities. For example, right now, you're getting annoyed with my going off on tangents, but you're trying to be patient because you're worried about your brother and you need to know what I know." She sat down on the floor, placing her palms flat on the wood, and did a brief handstand, which she almost immediately fell out of. "I can never get the hang of those."

"Luna, if you know so much about my thoughts just by reading my face, why can't you just tell me what I want to know?" Al refused to get pulled away from the subject at hand.

"Straightforwardness isn't my style?" she suggested, and just like that her mind was off in another direction. "I wonder what it's like to lose one's virginity."

"I wouldn't know," Al said, turning slightly pink in the ears. "Luna, can you please try to focus for a minute?" Getting information out of her was like pulling teeth!

"Well, are you hungry?" Winry repeated.

"Uh, no, I ate," he said distractedly. "Where's Brother?"

"Upstairs—oh, but don't run up there just yet, Al. I have something I wanted to tell you about."

"What's that?" he asked warily.

Winry explained about the automail shop in Lior. "So what do you think?"

"It's a great opportunity."

"That's what Grandma said, too."

"What did Brother say?"

Winry's teeth worried her bottom lip. "I didn't get the feeling that he was so confident about his answer."

"What do you mean? He wouldn't tell you what he really thought?"

"Exactly."

Al was quiet for a minute, running the implications through his mind. "I'll talk to him, Winry," he assured her, then he gave her a small hug. "Don't look so worried, okay? You've got a good thing going here, don't let Ed spoil you on it."

Winry gave a short, edgy laugh. "I won't," she promised.

"Brother? Are you pouting in here?" Al knocked, a token gesture, and let himself in.

"No, I'm not."

"What was up with the evasion you pulled on Winry? She was upset."

"Well, damn. I just keep making things worse."

"What was the problem?"

"Honestly, I don't know… I don't like the idea of her living far away, but I can't for the life of me figure out why that bugs me. It's frustrating." Ed sighed loudly.

Al couldn't help laughing a little.

"What's funny?"

"It's just that we've kinda done that to her over and over again. It's like a taste of our own medicine."

"This isn't funny, Al, it's just distressing. I don't understand why you're laughing."

"Just the irony, Brother, that's all."

Ed grimaced. "Not funny enough, especially when I'm in this sour mood."

Al sat next to Ed on the edge of the bad. "Then I'm sorry for laughing at you, if you're offended."

There was a long silence during which Ed alternated between moping at his perceived cares and fuming at himself for even caring so much. "And what about you?" he asked finally. "What do you think of her leaving?"

Al shrugged. "Happy for her, I guess. As I told her, it's a great opportunity. Sure, I'm kinda sad because we've only just been able to stay in one place and now it's Winry that's going away, but it's not the end of the world. You're acting as if we'll never see her again. They've got trains, Brother. We've got time and money enough to see her fairly whenever we want. And anyway, pouting in your room isn't going to solve anything. If it did I have a feeling people would get a lot more done in life!"

"Ha, ha."

Al elbowed him. "Enough. You said you're not pouting but you're pouting."

"Hey, what's the deal with you and the freak? Are you sucking her face in the woods every day or what?"

"What?"

"Are you two together? You and Luna."

"No, of course not!"

"Then why are you with her so often?"

"Where is this all coming from?" Al asked, still reeling from the sudden change in topic.

"I don't know," Ed admitted. "Suddenly popped into my head. Meta thinks you guys are together, so I figured I'd ask next time I had you cornered and alone."

Al snorted a little at that explanation. "Tell her nothing's going on. I don't see why you have to become involved."

"Mei will be cross with you," Ed teased.

"Mei had an annoying unrequited crush on me and now she lives in a foreign country and we'll probably never see her again. She's not a concern, Brother."

Ed grimaced, finding that trying to coax a rise out of Al wasn't working too well. "Okay, fine. If you and Luna were doing something shady would you tell me?"

Al quirked an eyebrow. "Just like you told me about yourself and Winry?"

Ed turned five different shades of crimson. "Oh, c'mon—that's different!—You already knew!"

"Oh, not so different though, is it?" Al continued, giving Ed a little nudge.

"It's very different!"

"Your defensive tone tells another story, big brother."

"Just—you!" Ed stuttered in consternation, standing up. "You're a sneaky little bugger, Al! And here I thought I was winning for a second!" Ed stormed out of the room in half-feigned annoyance.

"What's there to win?" Al asked in his wake.

Nice, long chapter. I am appreciating not posting daily as I did for ENAT (the first). Reviews make me write more! (And if you have the time, check out my other FMA fics! PARALLEL is really interesting (to me at least) but there isn't much enthusiasm for that one and honestly I really like writing it. PARALLEL is what I write when I get a block on this fic, here, so lots of little plot nuances that won't fit in this fic end up there. Sorry for the shameless advertising.) (Oh, but while I'm at it, check out When He Says Hi, which is pretty epic as well. And is almost complete with only four chapters, so a nice short read. Bookmark it and read next time it rains where you live.)

Of course, I don't own FMA, and please review!