Disclaimer: I (unfortunately) do NOT own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of the characters. I only am responsible for the (albeit poorly written and devised) plot.

HELLO THERE!

(Sorry. We had a power outage. And I fell on black ice and sprained my wrist. That's my justification for the overdue posting. I know it's not a good excuse.)

I literally checked this story's stats on the day I published it and...

Holy...

OHMYGOD! I got so many people following TBOHB, who jumped right into this story without hesitation. Than you so much, for immediately favoriting/following TEOHS (yeah, I realize it doesn't acronym well. Too bad I'm gonna keep using it anyway…)

I'm really happy to a) hear from you all and b) to know you're all still alive.

Just wondering (PLEASE COMMENT/REVIEW ON THIS I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO), what should the teenagers call Riza/Roy? Miss Riza? Riza? Mustang? Colonel Bastard?

So, lets continue the tradition I've had for so long which is: specifically thanking the people who followed/favorited/reviewed/PMed.

TheFlyingLionFromNarnia

SquishyJellyKittenOfDoom

Rex the wolf

Curious 0309

DarkWinxGirl

Daddy'sLittleAngie99

flying mint bunny 77

Sorry (in advance) because the plot line sucks...

Boxes.

Lots, and lots of boxes. Big, heavy boxes.

Riza lifted one with little to no trouble, and started to carry it up the front steps. Behind her, the Elrics gaped.

"Has the the Lieutenant always been so strong?!" Edward whispered to his brother in disbelief. Alphonse openly looked on, surprised.

Riza looked back concerned, as the two boys had been suspiciously quiet as of late. One thing she'd learned with the Colonel: quiet (and alive) meant trouble. No sound meant something was wrong, because when men were practically silent on their own will, something was up. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Usually bad.

Her own personal experience suggested that this rule applied to all men. All of them. Even the decent ones.

"Edward, are you and your brother alright?"

"N-no we're fine Lieutenant!" Ed responded, flustered.

"Are you sure?" She asked, setting her heavy load down gently on the floor.

"Yeah, me and brother are fine!" Alphonse insisted, accidentally bumping Ed and causing him to drop his own box. Full of spare automail parts. Right onto his automail foot. Ed yanked his foot out from under the cardboard box. Not out of pain (obviously), but rather, the fear of damaging his foot.

Damn… I just got this tuned up last week! Ed thought, inspecting his automail. Luckily for him, his metal limb had come out unscathed.

"Whew," Ed gave a sigh of relief.

One less thing to worry about, he thought as he gathered the box back into his arms. At least I don't have to worry about Winry murdering me today.

"I'm safe for now," Ed muttered quietly to himself.

"What was that Ed?" A voice came from just over his shoulder. Ed jumped, just barely catching himself before he knocked himself over. Spinning around, he found himself looking at Winry's suspicious expression.

"I thought I heard-"

"Nope! It was nothing! I didn't say a thing! Yeah we're ll good here!" Ed's fake enthusiasm only made her eyebrows rise.

"Okaaayyy then…." Winry decided to drop the matter, knowing that this could very well just be another weird phase for him. He did this sometimes; shorted out and acted like an idiot for a few minutes.

Eventually it'd pass. Like always.

Until then, she was going to talk with Miss Riza, who already seemed a little… different since the Colonel had left. Or rather, the soon-to-be Fuhrer.

Just… different. She didn't look unhappy, or depressed. Not like she was about to fall apart at the seams, or crumple in on herself. But the air around her, the way she carried herself… it was different than the night before.

Winry wasn't exactly sure what it was.

But now that they were neighbors… there was loads of time to figure it out.

After all of the time she'd been spending with Roy recently, Riza hand't realized how strange it was to just talk girl to girl again. She hand't been all alone with just Rebecca and/or Maria in what felt like forever.

Now there was Winry, and even though she was younger than her a considerable amount, the two got along perfectly. (I'm gonna set this so Winry is eighteen and Riza's like… twenty-five, twenty-six, okay? Don't like it, too bad.)

Winry hauled another bag up the stairs, this one full of clothes. Winry unzipped the duffel, and began dumping shirts in drawers.

"I'm so glad you and the boys live here now. This house has been empty ever since I moved to Central City," Riza said, fixing the hinges on the busted door to what would soon be Alphonse's bedroom.

Between the idle chatting, there was comfortable silence as the two worked on. They moved from room to room, filling drawers with clothes and fixing doors.

"Why are boys such idiots?" Winry whined, as she began organizing her tools in her new workroom. She spoke with more freedom, and no filter; now that Ed and Al had left. (One of their beds had broken in the moving truck. A support bar needed replacing.)

Riza laughed, the sound echoing through the halls.

"I've been wondering that my whole life," Riza said, happy to finally have someone she could act as a big sister towards. Maria and Rebecca already knew practically everything there was to know about being a girl. Unless it was about weapons or self defense, Riza didn't have any knowledge to offer that they didn't already posses.

But now with Winry...

"Do they ever grow up?" Winry complained, thinking of all the stupid/concerning stunts Edward had pulled over the years. Less so with Al, because he usually had his head screwed on straight. But with Ed… All those wrenched to the head must've given him brain damage or something.

"Nope," Riza answered confidently, without a hint of doubt. "Sometimes they get a little better, and mature to some extent, but in reality, we just get more tolerant."

(This is how you can tell I'm a girl. The way I not-so-subtly poke fun at the entire male population.)

Winry groaned, burying her face in her hands.

"Shit. And here I was, hoping he would spontaneously mature or something…" Winry trailed off, smiling at a memory. "But I guess he wouldn't really be Ed if he was all grown up."

"So Edward, huh?" Winry's fingers gripped the wrench she'd been holding. Riza had sudden;y slipped into the prying older sister, a fact that Winry didn't seem to mind all that much.

Just… Just thinking about that thick-headed dumbass whose head is denser than lead makes me angry…

She was practically trembling with anger and sadness, though her getting worked up wasn't the result of something he'd recently done. More like something he hadn't done.

Well, a little bit of both.

She knew she liked him, she'd known for years. Once, a while ago, there'd been a really close call. In Briggs. She figured the cold had been causing him so much pain, and his almost-frostbite probably hadn't helped. She said something, something while leaning in dangerously close.

And he still hadn't mentioned it. There were only two possibilities, because there was no way in hell that he hadn't heard it. Though, moments before he'd had some sort of panic attack.

She figured a) he'd been so delirious in the moment after his little episode that he hadn't really been paying attention or b) he just decided to ignore her and pretend the whole ordeal had never happened.

Throughout her steady stream of thoughts, her fingers tightened around the cold metal until her knuckles started to turn white.

"How long have you had a crush on him?" Riza asked, not looking up from her work.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Clang.

Winry's hand went slack, and the wrench clattered to the floor.

She stood, frozen, as she stared off in horror.

"I… I- don't-"

Swallow.

"-Know quite what you mean by that," she managed to stammer out.

Riza set her hand on her shoulder. "You can get that past Roy, Ed, and maybe Al. But there's no way I'm buying that crap. I am a girl, Ms. Rockbell-"

"Winry. Call me Winry."

Riza smiled.

"Winry. You can't fool me. C'mon. I promise, my lips are sealed."

Winry cracked.

"Well…."

The second moving truck had come and gone, meaning that Winry and Riza had put all of the basic necessities had been delivered in the proper places. Bed frames, mattresses, dressers. Big cardboard boxes were stacked up all around the house, as the two slowly but steadily worked through a majority of it.

The sun was already setting; as it began to disappear behind the horizon.

And the boys still weren't back.

"I'm kinda worried," Riza said, looking out the front window in concern. Hoping that the blondes would suddenly emerge from the darkness that had begun to settle over the area.

No such luck.

Winry wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, also turning to look outside. Muttering to herself, she wen to the phone, dialing a number.

"Dammit guys. Where are you?"

Ring

The Colonel lifted the phone up, and brought it to his ear as he continued scanning lines of text. Damn, this was repetitive.

Ugh, I feel like this is just the same consent form over and over again… Roy mentally groaned as he scribbled his signature yet another time.

He'd been doing this all day. The. Whole. Freaking. Day.

"Hello?" He spoke into the receiver. "This is Roy Mustang speaking."

"Ummm, Mr. Mustang?" A small voice came from the phone.

"Oh! Ms. Ro- Winry. How are you?" Roy asked politely, now smiling, and in a considerably better mood.

It was nice to finally hear a friendly voice after a long and boring day of paperwork. (Besides, Ed and Al were practically his kids, therefore making Winry a part of the 'family.' Talking with her was actually very nice.)

"I'm- I'm freaking out a little-" She cut off with a tiny sob.

"Winry! Is everything alright?! What happened?!" Roy was standing, leaning over the desk as he yelled. Concern was overwhelming him.

Her sobbing suddenly became muffled, and there was strange noises in the background.

"Roy?" Riza's voice let some of the tension fade from his back and shoulders. He sighed with relief.

Thank God. She's okay.

"Riza? Riza, what's wrong? Are you and Winry okay?"

"Yes, we're fine. Though, I think Winry might be having a panic attack of some sort. Winry? Are you okay?" A muffled sound that sounded like a confirmation (You know, the 'mmm hhmm' noise you can make when your mouth is closed.) came over the line.

"The boys left a couple hours before lunch to get spare parts. They're still not back," Riza explained.

Winry's worry was consuming her, leaving her biting her nails and glancing over at the door every few seconds.

"We were hoping that they went to the office with you," Winry called at the phone, knowing she'd be heard. Th tinge of desperation in her voice was evident. Her concern over the disappearance of her two best friends was snowballing.

"What? No, I haven't seen them since I dropped you off this morning! What do you think happened?" Riza turned from the phone to alert Winry of this new development.

Now the teenage blonde's worry was manifesting into hysterical panic. Riza offered her the phone, thinking over the possibilities.

"What?! They're not with you? Where could they be? Are they- Do you think that they-" Her breathing grew uneven, making it too hard for her to continue frantically spew out words.

Her eyes rolled back and her eyes fluttered shut.

Reacting a second too late to her heavy breathing, Riza turned just in time to see Winry fall.

Winry dropped to the ground, phone still in hand.

She fainted!

"Riza? Winry?"

Too busy to officially end the call, Riza scrambled over to check Winry's head, which had bashed into the floor.

Crap, I think she's bleeding...

Hearing no response, Roy slammed down the phone and left the office.

(This part is earlier in the day, around lunch time.)

Al laughed (at something his brother had just said), a bag of wooden beams in one hand. Ed walked next to him, enjoying the sunlight.

Ed stretching his arms out behind him.

"Man, I don't think I'll ever get used to boring days like this," Ed said through a yawn.

"It's been more than a year now, and I still can't believe where we finally ended up," Al said with a somewhat-dreamy smile.

"I know the feeling."

Al walked slightly ahead, as they passed in front of the mouth of an alleyway.

WHACK

Al spun around, looking for the source of the sudden noise.

Instead, he set his eyes on nothing.

Literally, nothing.

His older brother had vanished.

Where did brother go?

And that was the last sentient thought Al had before something collided painfully with the back of his head, followed by then being dragged down the alleyway alongside his brother's limp form.

Hey.

So, sorry about the content (because it was WAY crappier than usual), and the delay.

I know, I know. I really need to work on brining the quality of my writing back up. It's been a while, and I got a little rusty.

Also: I need ideas.

So, who do you guys think have something against the Elrics? Someone with enough incentive to hate them enough to openly attack? I haven't really developed that part of the story yet so… I'm just kinda wingin' it so far.

I'd love some new ideas, and I really need the help.

Bye,

-Pyro