This is agent000, or Melissa if you are familiar with or prefer to use my real name, hehe. I wasn't exactly sure what to write for this chapter, since I have a bad habit of rushing into the story way too fast, so I tried to follow Addict's example and just take the story slowly...hopefully it worked. Let me know. I'll likely be throwing in my traditional curveballs into the plot sooner or later, but new stories tend to take a few chapters to pick up, heh. Anyway, hope you all enjoy the story!

I shook my hand lightly as I walked out into the living room with Brother. The cold water had helped soothe the burn a bit, but it still hurt quite a bit. I hadn't expected the handle of the teapot to be so hot as to cause a burn that bad, but I guess that it just goes to show that I should listen when people tell me to be careful. I'd remember to grab a potholder next time, anyway.

Winry was waiting for us in the living room. I guess that she had heard me scream and had decided to come and investigate, even though there really wasn't anything to worry about. Anyone could burn their hand on a hot pan. Brother and I quickly assured her that everything was fine, and she went back to her business of repairing Brother's automail.

I clapped my hands in front of me and lit up my face with a smile, almost feeling like a child again. "Brother?" I said, forcing him to look at me and raise an eyebrow at my behavior, though he had to have known by now that this was quite normal behavior for me. "When are we going for that walk you promised?"

He snorted in response, and then pointed to his chest. "That I promised? It was your idea to go walk and look at the trees and the hills and the flowers..."

"I hadn't said anything about flowers," I said, interrupting him, "But that's a good idea!"

He rolled his eyes at me and waved his hand at me as if he was trying to brush off whatever disease I had that might be catching. He shook his head some more and then finally turned back to me. "Why do you want to go so much?"

I suddenly threw my arms around him and began to squeeze the breath out of the poor guy. "Please, Brother, I want to go so badly!"

"I didn't say we wouldn't go," he said as he freed himself from my grip, "I just wanted to know why."

I stood there and looked at him blankly for a couple moments. What could I say in response? In truth, I didn't really know the reason either, but I was beginning to feel a bit stifled being in the house. I had to get out. They day was so perfect, and we were letting precious moments of it tick away.

"I don't know," I finally said.

Brother rolled his eyes again, and then said, "Well, can't it wait until after I've got my arm back?"

"No, it can't!" I said, grabbing his one hand and pulling it toward the door, dragging the owner of the hand with it. "The day is so beautiful out, Brother, and we're just letting it slip by. We need to go out and see it while it's still young."

He finally offered a light smile, and he said, "Since when is your speech so poetic?" That just earned another blank stare from me, since I hadn't a clue as to what he was talking about. I guess that he saw that, because he finally chuckled and then said, "Alright, fine Al, whatever makes you happy."

I practically squealed with glee, or wait, I DID squeal with glee, and I turned tail and ran out the door, calling for my brother to follow me out.

He did so, but what first met his gaze was me lying on my back in the grass, soaking up the sun's rays with the most contented expression on my face. He snorted again, a bit awkwardly, and said, "So...um...where to?"

"Anywhere..." I said dreamily.

Brother rolled his eyes again, he was getting quite good at that, and put his hand on his hip. "It was you who wanted to go for a walk, Al, so where do you want to go? The forest? The hills? The valley? What?"

I lovingly rubbed at the grass beneath my fingers and said, "Somewhere where there's...Nature."

Brother threw his head back in a sigh. "There's nature all around us, Al, which part of it do you want to see?"

"All of it," I said. I spread my arms out contentedly to feel the ground beneath me, and then I rolled over and bolted up so fast that Brother didn't know what had hit him. I was running away from him so fast and laughing about it that Brother had to use all his energy just to kind of keep up.

I was still laughing when I reached the edge of the woods and plopped down by the base of a tree to catch my breath and to give Brother a chance to catch up. The run had felt so good. I hadn't remembered being in a body to be this invigorating, but it was wonderful.

I drew my knees up to my chest and sighed contentedly. Was there any way that Brother would let me stay out here tonight instead of sleeping inside the house? He wouldn't like the idea, I knew, but it wouldn't hurt to try and ask him, later, when the moment was right.

The wind picked up just slightly and rustled the leaves of the trees, creating a fine symphony orchestra directed by Mother Nature herself. The birds joined in with their twittering, and even some small rodents had decided to accompany them by chirping a merry little tune of their own.

Something tickled my hand. Thinking it was a bug, I quickly turned to look at it and possibly fling it away, but relaxed when I saw that it was only a little pink flower being jostled by the breeze. I hadn't noticed it growing up by the roots of the tree when I had first sat down, but now I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It was just an ordinary flower, I knew that much, but something about it seemed irresistible to me.

As if on cue, something on the surface of the flower suddenly seemed to move. I couldn't see whatever it was clearly, as it appeared to be mostly transparent, like a ghost, but I couldn't deny its presence there. Did flowers have souls like we did, or was I just being silly?

The presence then seemed to lift itself off the flower and then hover in place, only a couple handbreadths from my face. Off of the backdrop of the flower, I was now able to make out the form of what appeared to be a little woman, a little translucent woman with wings, and she was staring at me!

The sound of heavy footsteps brought me out of my trance, and the little woman faded from view. I snapped my attention to the source of the intruding noise, and saw Brother running up to my tree, desperately trying to catch his breath.

I sat up straight and looked at him. "Brother, did you see that?"

"See what?"

"That little flower woman!"

He paused and stared at me for a moment before saying, "The...what?"

I excitedly pointed out the pink flower in front of me and tried to explain it to him in the best way that I could. "There was this little woman...in the flower...and she looked at me...and I looked at her...and...and..." I couldn't think of what else to say, in spite of my excitement, so I simply continued to try and grapple for words that weren't there.

Brother sighed. "Al, there's nothing there. You just imagined it."

"But, Brother, I saw her with my own eyes!"

"You're just tired from the trip," said Brother, "Let's go back to the house. Winry will probably be about done rewiring my arm by the time we get back."

I sniffed and stood up to walk back with him. I wasn't nearly as jovial as I had been when I had first come out. Brother didn't believe me. Even worse, he thought I was hallucinating, and it hurt. I slumped my shoulders and stepped into place beside him.

"Are you okay, Al?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said, but I wasn't.

When we got back home, Winry was indeed almost finished repairing Brother's arm. Rewiring didn't take nearly so long as rebuilding, only a couple hours if she worked quickly and knew what she was doing, which being Winry, she always did.

"I'll be ready to reattach your arm in a few minutes!" Winry called from the workroom upon hearing us reenter the house. That girl has better hearing than Den, I swear. Brother and me both sat down on the couch to wait for her to finish. We still weren't talking to each other, even after that long walk back. The tension between us was rather awkward at the moment.

A few minutes later, Winry came into the room carrying a big metal arm with her. She was smiling, but Brother was grimacing, obviously anticipating the pain to come with the reattaching of his arm.

"Al," she said, holding the automail arm in my direction, "Hold this for me for a minute, will you?" I nodded and stretched out my hands to take it, so she quickly set it in my care and then turned to Brother to get his shirt off.

As soon as I'd touched it, however, the heat from the steel rushed into my hands and felt like it was going to burn away my flesh. I screamed and threw the arm away from me, not worrying about what damage I might cause it, because more than that had already been caused to me.

I brought my hands back around to look at them. They were both very red and raw, and looked like they were starting to blister. Tears were involuntarily running down my face, and every time I tried to speak, all that came out was a sob.

Brother grabbed one of my hands and pulled it toward him so that he could look at it. I still couldn't speak aloud because my tears were the ones in control at present, and the deeper the burn set in, the more childish I sounded.

"How hot was that automail?" Brother asked Winry accusatorily.

She put her hands up on a show of innocence. "It wasn't hot at all, or I wouldn't have asked him to hold it. I wouldn't try to hurt him, you know."

Brother didn't bother to answer her right at that moment, and instead pulled me back into the kitchen to run some more cool water over my hands. The water helped the stinging to subside and I finally stopped crying, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to use my hands much for the next few days.

"Are you okay now, Al?" said Brother.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Thank you."

"Good," he said, and then without another word, went into the living room. I shivered involuntarily. Was he angry with me for hurting myself again, or was he blaming himself? I rubbed a lingering tear out of my eyes, and then ran into the room to join him.

Wow, agent actually managed to take things slow. –falls- Well, at least now I get to write the reply! ;) Al is so cute! Remember to leave those reviews, everybody! Reviews are wonderful and make the world go round! You wouldn't want to make the Earth stop rotating and therefore cause another ice age just because you didn't review, right? That's what I thought.