"Oh, of course. I go to sleep wishing I could be 'awesome like Ed' and wake up with two automail limbs that's just great. I don't suppose I'm gonna go home and find my little sister stuck in an inanimate object as well?"

As you can see, I hate being shocked. But I was getting used to it already.

"Um, you okay, Felicity?"

I calmed my breathing and looked up at her, unsure as to what my face looked like, but it couldn't have been happy. It just hit me then how serious this was. I'd lost two limbs, and now where pale skin used to be, there was cold, grey...metal. No wonder I'd felt numb all over! Maybe my arm-numbness was spreading to everywhere else or something... I looked back down at the right arm (I'm right-handed...or I was.) and flexed the fingers a bit. That felt...really really weird. It was like something in my brain was telling me I was definitely moving something, and there was a sort of...pressure in the lower part of the arm, like muscles clenching up . But it didn't feel quite right—like when you pet a cat with gloves on: You know there's something soft brushing against your hand, but you can't quite feel it moving.

Best I can describe: Not quite like I'd imagined Ed felt.

"I'm f-fine," I croaked out in English, then cleared my throat and looked up at her. "Um, ah, I-uh I'm fine. Fine." I was about to give her one of my award-winning 'don't-touch-me-'cause-I'm-perfectly-fine-get-out- of-my-business' smiles, but it became more of a grimace when she snatched my right arm and grabbed a wrench.

How was I supposed to react to that? Like this of course: "Mlughnah!" I cringed backwards at the sight of the famous Evil Winry Wrench and felt something in my shoulder move...wrong. It left me groaning and clutching said shoulder with my left arm, which wasn't very helpful considering it was no longer warm and comforting.

Winry looked at me in shock, wrench raised. After a pause she set it down with a sigh and stood up, walking over to a small set of shelves in the wall. I couldn't see the contents of it, but she came back with what looked like a roll of bandages and gently took hold of the arm again. "Geez, Felicity, you're just like Edward when I bring out a wrench; it's almost like you expect me to hit you with it."

I blushed in embarrassment and watched as she rolled up the tiny bit of a sleeve I had and starting wrapping the bandages around a now bleeding shoulder.

Wait. Bleeding?... I'd pulled on it, and... 'Oh, crap no.'

My vision went fuzzy, and my mind came up with a bunch of horribly vivid ideas as to what happened to my shoulder there; I must've ripped some things up, some blood vessel's maybe? Muscle stuff? Maybe I sliced through it because the automail wasn't properly healed! I got a flash of the image of Lan Fan hanging over an edge, two people hanging from her not-properly-healed automail arm, blood pooling through all the cracks...

"Hey, relax," Winry comforted, probably at my sudden hyperventilation. "It's not too serious. You were scratching your shoulder in your sleep a few weeks ago, like it itched or something, and that got the raw skin bleeding something fierce. But we put bandages over it and it's fine now, just make sure you're careful not to lose anymore blood than you already have."

'Oh...so it's not the automail at all. Good.' I sighed with relief as she finished up with wrapping the shoulder. That's when my stomach growled again.

Winry smiled and gave one of those anime-giggle/laughs that sounds sort of like 'Mm, hm!' but quieter, and for some reason always accompanied a lop-sided grin. (It was weirder in real life...or what felt like real life anyway.) She reached over and picked up the bowl of stew, moving it closer to me as she spoke: "I guess now I'll have to wait for the bleeding to stop again before I check on your arm. It's been a bit difficult getting it to work properly, what with it getting soaked in blood every few hours. But automail will be automail."

Oh yeah, that made me feel a whole lot better. I told myself, 'This isn't real, this isn't real,' one more time before thinking, 'Aw, screw it. I'll just go along with it until I know for sure.' So, shaking a bit, I reached out both hands for the bowl of delicious-smelling stew that Winry was handing over. I was somehow able to grasp it without it slipping through the smooth, metal fingers that held it now. Since my hands were still a bit unstable though, Winry took hold of the spoon and scooped up a spoonful.

Oh no, she meant to spoon-feed me like an incapable baby or something. (Pride alert, pride alert, backing up...backing up...) I sighed in resignation at the fact that I really couldn't move my arms very well. In fact, I should probably set down that bowl before I spilled its hotness all over me. I lowered it into my lap as Winry started talking again.

"Sorry that you can't be trusted with a spoon just yet," she stated, almost smirking at me; I realized she could still read my face like a book. Now why couldn't I mask my emotions like usual? Maybe it took a lot more skill in a place like this; it could've been that my face was making a bunch of anime-like expressions without my realizing. I'd have to get control of that, if that was the case. "But you haven't had any practice with the automail, so we don't want you making a mess with the stew."

I nodded, swallowing my annoying pride, and let her feed me the delicious stew. Den came over at some point and pawed my left hand, so I reached up and pet him a bit, sucking on a piece of potato. The dog waged his tail at my touch, but I was a little bothered by the fact that I couldn't feel his fur, just some weird, numbing pressure where my brain knew my hand was supposed to be.

I remembered what Ed had said in the original series' movie, Conqueror of Shamballa, about how it works. Something about the brain still sending signals to where the limbs should be, so I guessed it wasn't really the automail making me feel like that...

"Oh, I should probably mention something about your automail; it's a bit important." I turned my head again to look at Winry, who was smiling sheepishly. Uh oh.

"What is it?" I asked suspiciously, watching as she placed the spoon back in the mostly-empty bowl.

She reached down to the bottom of the bed and grabbed hold of the right side of the cover, then paused and spoke just as sheepishly before pulling it aside. "Your right leg is gone too."

Okay, I knew my jaw dropped all the way down to the middle of my chest then, no question. I left it that way as I stared...and stared...and stared...at the metal leg that replaced my right. 'So...I only have one limb...' I wiggled my left toes to conform the fact, relieved by the soft feeling of the covers affecting the real nerves in my foot. Then I swallowed and went into irritable-scowling mode again; I started ranting in English. "Oh, of course I'd lose THREE LIMBS! I should probably thank God I wasn't awake for the surgery—and how the heck could I survive that long, losing blood, with less room for there to BE blood? I don't believe this is a dream, it's way too real, and kind of painful, so HOW CAN THIS BE POSSIBLE?"

Winry looked at me sympathetically, but I detected a bit of uncertainty in her face. "Um, are you going to do that every time you see something surprising?"

I calmed down and looked up at her, easily wiping the anger-that-replaced-other-negative-emotions off my face. I sighed—well, it was more like a really deep, calming breath—and flexed my fingers again, along with my new toes. ('New toes. That's just too weird, and yet somehow...kind of cool.') "No, I'm good. So long as none of my other parts have been replaced." I glared at her accusingly. "You didn't replace my liver or something with metal too, did you?"

Winry looked almost horrified at the notion, and I felt a bit embarrassed for bringing the idea up. But then I could've sworn I saw a light-bulb go off in her head. "That's...a brilliant idea!"

"...Say what now?"

Winry grinned. "Oh, not with you, silly. I mean, with someone else. There are a lot of people who get internal organs damaged to a point of no repair, but what if we could make automail organs! Mechanical hearts, livers, kidneys, maybe even spines if someone were to break one!" She gasped. "I could create a whole new age of mechanics, and of course save a few more lives! You're a genius!"

She quickly stood up and started walking toward the door. "I'll be right back, I gotta tell Granny Pinako something."

I blinked, staring at the door she'd left wide open to reveal the inside of a hallway. Den made a weird sort of whining noise as I processed what had just happened—it was so fast. 'Did I just...did I just introduce the idea of fake organs like thirty years early? (It's, what? 1905 here?)'

After a moment of pondering, and trying to remember where I'd read about fake organs, I finally just decided to take it as a good thing and move on.

I stayed at the Rockbell house for the next couple of weeks. I was really glad that, if I had to end up in an anime world with only one limb, I'd ended up with the Rockbells—even if it bothered me that I might never get back home to my family...

I'd wished I could come there so many times, but I never really realized how painful it was to be away from everything and everyone I loved. I moped in bed every night for the first few days—first week—my mind wandering toward my world; I managed to ignore the impending loneliness during the day, but at night, I felt like I was sitting alone in a doll house: These people didn't even exist. Real life was somewhere beyond my grasp—maybe I'd even died and this was my mind trying to make up for it. (I didn't think so.)

Thankfully, I was eventually able to cheer myself up with this thought: this was a fictional universe! I had to make myself enjoy it as much as I could, while I could.

I was forced to stay in bed most of the time, except when I had to use the bathroom—but that was it. After the first couple of days I felt strong enough to at least feed myself, and I found out that Granny Pinako's cooking really was as good as, if not better than, the anime suggested. If the woman wasn't regulating how much food she gave me, I'd have been really fat by the end of two weeks.

Speaking of which, I'd lost a lot of weight while I was unconscious. I felt like a deflated balloon, which was kind of weird and my stomach hurt a lot, but something I was happy with was that my uncomfortably huge chest was smaller now. (Cue happy anime smile noises!) But that's just weird and irrelevant, so let's move past that.

I'd cunningly tricked Winry into telling me about Ed and Al—mostly so if I slipped up and said something about them in Amestrian it wouldn't be as suspicious—but whenever I asked why they 'left home,' Winry just looked kind of sad and said, "They just...didn't think there was anything left for them here." Then I'd answer with something like, "What about you?" and she'd just shrug like she wasn't sure.

I know it must seem kind of wrong to completely LIE about what I did and didn't know—and trick her into giving me the information anyway—but I didn't know what else to do, and sure as hell I wasn't going to tell them I was from another universe where they were just fictional characters! And besides, with all that talking with her, I'd become significantly less nervous/shy around her and Granny, and it was helping me to not think about the fact that everyone I knew before was in a different universe...

Yeah, I'm pretty good at lying to myself about my feelings.

Anyway, I figured the more information I could get out of them the less I would be lying, if that makes any sense, so I kept doing it.

After those two weeks that I mentioned, Pinako finally let me get out of bed, but Winry had to hold me up by my right arm due to the fact that 1. I hadn't used my legs in over four months, and 2. I had NEVER used my right leg. So I crawled out of bed, with Winry's help of course, and glanced down at the white, robe-like thing I had on that went down to about my knees—uh, knee. I tried not to think about how I'd ended up with it on as she helped me limp out of the room and down the hall. Den was with us the whole way, trying to unbalance me by nudging my left leg with his head.

'The jerk,' I found myself thinking in amusement as he did it for the tenth time; we were entering what I kinda recognized as the kitchen just then. Granny Pinako was standing just outside the open door, facing a nice little sunrise with a cigar in her hand. I glanced around and found it really creepy that I recognized pretty much everything—although, I was surprised to discover that a lot of what I recognized wasn't in separate rooms as I'd previously thought. Random bits of furniture and pictures that I'd assumed were in a living-room or a bedroom were sitting around in places, making it all look really homey.

I made Winry help me over to the table so I could lean on that instead of relying on another person, and as I gripped the back of a chair with my metal fingers, I noticed a little picture of Edward and Alphonse sitting in the middle of it. A recent one, I guessed, judging by the fact that Al was in the armor. It was probably taken just before they left home so Ed could become a State Alchemist. (I'd wriggled out of Winry that this was before they came back after their fight with Scar.) I grinned for a moment before turning to Winry and pointed at first Alphonse, then Edward. "So this is Ed and Al?"

She smiled in amusement. "Yes, but the one in the armor is Al. Ed's the short one."

I put on a mask of surprise. "Really? Wow, I thought you said he was fifteen; he's pretty short." I almost regretted that Ed wasn't around to hear that, but it was still fun.

"Yeah, I think he's fifteen now. If he only drank his milk he'd be taller," Winry said, slightly exasperated. "Oh hey, I just realized. The only thing you've had to drink so far is water. Want some milk?" I heard some noises and turned to see her walking over with a glass milk bottle. 'Dang it.'

"Um, no thanks, I'm good." I smiled reassuringly, trying not to make it obvious that I dislike milk almost as much as Ed.[1]

Winry frowned. "The last time you had anything to drink was yesterday. Take it." She shoved it in my face, giving me another one of her Winry looks. "Do you want to grow up to be short like Ed?"

I scoffed. "I'm fine! I'm two years younger than him, and judging by this picture, I'd say I'm already taller."

Winry raised an eyebrow questioningly. "What? You're thirteen? I thought you were like, ten. You really do need to drink your milk."

I directed narrowed eyes up at her. "Oh haha, very funny. Last I checked I was perfectly normal height for my age. And I don't need milk. Besides, there are tons of things I like with milk in them, right? I just don't like drinking it; no big deal."

Winry lowered the milk and scrutinized me uncomfortably. "You're at most four foot ten, and that's being generous; you're probably shorter. Do you come from a country of shorties to be 'normal' sized?"

I found myself staring at her in frozen shock. If I still believed this was a dream, I'd think that whole 'be awesome like Ed' thing had made me shorter. But...wait...what if it did?[2] What if this whole thing was my wish coming true? 'I wonder who granted it though..?' Well, whoever granted my wish went a bit overboard with the 'like Ed' part if you asked me, but I could deal with it. At least I hadn't been turned into a guy. '...Okay, that thought'll give me nightmares...'

'But I'd been looking forward to calling Ed shorter than a thirteen year old. Now I'm even shorter than him,' I thought with a disappointed frown. Oh, well.

I realized I'd been staring at her and coughed awkwardly. "Um, no...Maybe going without food for so long made me shorter?"

Winry gave me one of her blank faces that said, 'do what I say or meet my wrench,' and shoved the milk at me, saying out loud, "Regardless of your height, you still need to eat and drink healthily to recover. Drink."

I...couldn't deny that face.

Another month passed by and I was still in the Rockbell house. I was allowed outside once and a while, but Pinako still wanted me to be careful of my injuries and weakness due to all the time I'd spent unconscious; apparently I needed to adapt to my new limbs slowly, and my having been horribly injured didn't help with the process. Personally, I was okay with that. I didn't know where I'd go if they suddenly decided I was perfectly fine and threw me out, but...that wasn't like the Rockbells. They'd probably let me stay as long as I wanted, but I felt like I'd be swindling them if I just let them take care of me like that after making me automail. That stuff can NOT be cheap. (Speaking of which; I asked them why they bothered with it instead of just plain saving my life, and the answer was, "You don't seriously think we'd let you go around with one limb, do you? Maybe two, but one would be torture!")

I started trying to help Pinako with the chores, like washing dishes or cooking, but she wouldn't let me do anything else. I thought maybe I could try to repay them a bit—which is weird, because I used to be really lazy around the house. Maybe it was because I felt like I owed these people? They'd saved my life after all...

I had been with them consciously for a total of seven weeks and three days ('And added to the three months they said I've actually had automail, I've had a good four months of it and feel great! I thought it took at least a year to recover? Oh wait, I remember reading somewhere in a Fullmetal Alchemist guide thing that theoretically someone could recover in six months. Cool! And..wait it's been five months since I was home... Yikes, I missed my birthday! When was that? I should probably tell Winry I'm not actually thirteen... Damn, that makes me even shorter. Why does it even bother me? ...Gee, I wish I could've spent my birthday with my family...')

...

Anyway, I had been with them consciously for a total of seven weeks and three days when the visitors came. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, bored out of my mind. I was rubbing my right shoulder gently, as it really did itch from time to time, but I didn't want it to start bleeding again... I was just considering going outside with Den when I heard said dog barking madly. Curious, I got up and starting walking out of the room.

"Winry! Winry, our best customer's here!" Granny Pinako shouted from somewhere. I paused at the door, getting the weirdest sense of deja vu...okay not so weird; I had heard that before. Upon realizing this, I grinned and made my way slowly into the front room, not wanting to catch the wrench I knew would be flying down onto a certain shorty's head.

As if on cue: "I'M STILL TALLER THAN YOU, YOU MINI HAG!" Whooshh-CLUNK!

[1]: No, I didn't just say that to sound like Ed; I really do hate milk in real life. Unless it's in stew, or pumpkin bread, or pizza (the cheese), or...anything that gets rid of the original flavor. ^-^' Coincidentally, I actually am the shortest in my family—apart from my youngest sister. But those guys just take after my mom's tall side; I refuse to blame the milk! *shakes fist at Winry and her milk obsession*

[2]: Yes, I did do that just to sound like Ed, but more for personal-comedic purposes than obsession.