Disclaimer: I still own nothing but the plot and my Oc's. Anything mentioned that was not made by me, such as any movies, songs, Tv shows, and such, belong to their respected owners. Especially anything to do with FMA. None of them are mine.

The Scientist

Chapter Four: I Had to Find You

"Eric, put down the air soft gun and step away from the hunting section," Nura demanded, her arms crossed as she glared at the male who was gleefully eyeballing the item in his hand. She huffed as he held the package close to himself and glared right back at her. "I don't care how annoying they are or how much you hate them, you aren't allowed to shoot them!" she pointed angrily at the package that was held even tighter against him.

Eyes narrowed into green slits, Eric responded through gritted teeth, "All night Nura. All fucking night. I can't even get a goddamned hour of sleep with those little assholes. They chatter all night and destroy everything!"

"I know Eric. They keep me up all night also, but shooting them with air soft pellets is a little extreme!" she finished with a sigh, shaking her head in exasperation.

It had been two weeks since she had met the Ballard brothers and since Eric had started living with her. Those few weeks had completely turned her world on its head. Now, she had been used to chaotic, she had her Granny and Tina after all, but the two brought a whole new type of crazy into her life.

Eric, well, it had taken awhile for the two of them to warm up to each other. She still felt that he was uncomfortable, but that seemed to be towards the world in general. Al, on the other hand, had taken only days to warm up to. He seemed to just except everything and everyone. It was funny how different the two brothers were.

Eric was an enigma, hidden in a puzzle, wrapped tightly in a paradox. He tended not to start anything, he would wait things out, then he would react. Social interaction had to be initiated for Eric to really join in. Then he was loud and proud. Really, really loud. Unless you were around his brother, then he was immediately buddy-buddy. He seemed to Nura to be watching and waiting. What for, she had no idea, but he was just coasting along until it came.

Alec, was a really sweet guy. He was almost always all smiles and cheerful conversation. He obviously enjoyed interaction with other people and had no problem showing it. He was also very touchy. Not touchy in the "you can't say that or he'll go into cardiac arrest" way, more like he held and touched things as though they were precious to him. He also had a thing for human contact. Nura couldn't count the amount of times she seen people, herself included, be a victim of his shoulder pats or half hugs. He was pretty calm too unless his brother worked him up, then he was just as loud and crazy as Eric.

She was broken out of her musing by Eric's irritated growl. "Goddamn, mother fucking, cow titty sucking, demon bastard, squirrels!"

"Eric!" Nura squeaked out, mortified as she watched a angry mother usher her children pass while giving them dirty looks. "Watch it! This maybe a Walmart, but you still can't just spout off what ever enters your psychotic head!"

All she received in response was a darkly muttered, "Squirrels."

"Fine, buy the weapon!" she hissed out, fed up. "But, if I find out you've killed or mortally wounded any of those animals, you're going to be the one needing to dodge plastic bullets!" Her scowl deepened as she watched a victorious grin cross the man's face as he cooed at the gun. "You need help," she muttered as she stormed off, empty basket swinging in her hand.

"It's for the greater good," Eric firmly stated, face serious as he caught up to her in the hygiene section. "Why the hell are we in the diaper section? Do you have a problem that I don't know about?" he finished with a slight smirk.

She stared blankly at him. "You're an idiot," she stated as she walked passed the diapers to the end of the aisle and grabbed a pack of pads and threw them into her basket. She glanced over to Eric with a faint blush on her face. She watched as his expression went from confused then to blank. "Being a woman sucks sometimes," was her response.

The two awkwardly, and quickly, left the section and wondered off to the cleaning supplies, where Nura forced Eric to grab swifter pads and Lysol cleaning wipes, to "clean up the disaster you made in the kitchen!" Let it be known, the man should not be allowed near a microwave. Ever. To be honest, he probably shouldn't be allowed near a kitchen at all. She shivered as she was assaulted by memories of the incident.

Nura stretched and yawned as she finished brushing her hair. She hated mornings. She hated them so very much. Especially when she hadn't slept at all due to the little menaces destroying her back yard. She would call an "Animal Friendly" exterminator, hypocritical name right, to capture them and release them elsewhere, but that just cost so freaking much.

She froze as the smell of something on fire assaulted her nostrils. Eyes widening, she rushed down the hall and stairs to see smoke wafting in from the kitchen. She skidded to a stop as she came face to face with the disaster that was happening.

In front of her was a panicking Erik using a towel to try and fan out an on fire microwave. Eyes now stretched as wide as they could go, she rushed over.

"Move over! Your just making it worse! Don't you know anything about fires?" she shrieked out as she grabbed the towel, that was now also on fire, and threw it on the ground. She quickly started stamping on it with her slipper clad feet to put it out.

She then ran over to the microwave and slammed the door shut, hoping to suffocate the flames inside it. She took a deep breath of relief as the flames died down and finally flickered out. Glancing around herself, she noticed that drawers and cabinets had been ripped open and food and other items were randomly thrown around the floor . Probably Erik searching for something to stop the fire with.

Nura then turned to the pale male moving behind the island to keep a safe distance from her. Her eyes narrowed. "What the hell did you do?"

She glared at Eric after the memory had run its course. Eventually she had found out that the fool had put aluminum foil into the microwave. She could have killed him. What was he, born in the early twentieth century? Everyone knew not to put anything containing metal into them! She scowled to herself and decided not to dwell to much on it at that moment.

00

"To the movies and electronics!" Nura gleefully exclaimed when they finally filled their basket with their necessities. Eric rolled his eyes at her enthusiasm. Hey, she liked her entertainment.

Grinning, she gazed through the movies. Twilight: Breaking Dawn. Not even if it was the last show on earth. The Centipede Two. Yeah, no. The Way and The Space Between? What, they couldn't come up with anything so they were stealing song titles? Spork? Unless it involved Captain Kirk and Commander Spock she wasn't touching it.

Okay then, nothing new that she wanted to watch, but hey, classics are always good. Maybe they had the Original Three Star Wars movie pack. She hummed to herself as she squatted down and gazed through the "S" section. Sighing in disappointment when she couldn't find them, she hefted herself back up and turned her head side to side looking for Eric.

She finally caught sight of him standing in the Tv Series section. While walking over she noticed he had his shoulders hunched almost protectively and was gazing intently at something that was in his right hand.

Nura stopped behind him and stood on her tip-toes to look at what he was concentrating so hard on. She blinked in confusion and asked, "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?" She felt him tense up and turn his head slightly to glance at her. "I had heard that they were remaking the series, but I didn't know it was out already."

"You've... Watched this before?" he asked, turning his full attention onto her.

Her brows furrowed in confusion. He seemed overly affected by this. "Yeah, if I remember correctly, it was on Cartoon Network a lot at night. You know, the station with Adventure Time? I watched it a bit when I was in Middle and High School. I ended up reading the manga after seeing the show," she responded with a shrug, shifting nervously under his intense stare. "You can get it if you want." She watched as he stared at it a bit more before nodding to himself and throwing it in. Weird.

"So," she drawled out, hoping to change the atmosphere. "Candy?"

00

"Al, your brother, pardon my language, is a jackass," Nura firmly stated to the male as she walked into the hospital room. She watched as a look of fond exasperation crossed his face.

"What did he do now? And where is he?" Alec asked looking over towards the door.

She snorted as she sat down on a chair next to him. "A better question is what hasn't he done. He said he'd be here once he was finished." She pulled out a deck of cards and glanced at her Granny's empty hospital bed. She hoped the chemo was going alright.

Al quirked his mouth into a hesitant smile. "I'm not sure if I should be worried or not. Please tell me he isn't doing anything that'll get him sent here also. We're spending enough money on medical bills as it is."

"I doubt it. The most he'll get is a few bruises. Though he deserves more. The idiot is crouching by the back window and shooting any squirrel he sees with an air soft gun." She snorted at his emotionless face as she shuffled the cards. "You think that's bad? It gets worse. He's dressed as though he's ready for a gang war. He's in all black and he somehow found a camouflage bandanna in the house. Eric even used black Halloween lipstick he found to paint war smudges on his cheeks. It's almost frightening how into it he's gotten."

Al groaned and hid his face in his hands. "That sounds like Brother alright." He frowned and straightened back up. "He can't actually hurt any of the squirrels can he?" a look of concern was on his face.

She couldn't resist the smirk that crossed her own face. "I was concerned at first too, but don't worry. Your brother's aim is terrible. He probably wouldn't be able to hit one of them if it was five feet away from him and the size of a dog."

A sigh of relief followed by laughter escaped Al. Nura grinned as she handed out seven cards between the two of them and made a pile out of the rest. It was time for an intense game of Go Fish.

00

Nura and Al jumped up in surprise when they heard the door crash open and shut. Turning towards the source of the noise, they're gaze fell upon Eric. A very pissed and rumbled up Erik. The clothes he was wearing were extremely wrinkled and he had at some point ditched the bandanna, leaving his hair a mess. His facial markings were smeared all over his face and a few small black and blue marks could be spotted scattered all over him.

"Not a word," he growled out as he stormed over to the two. He pulled out a chair and placed it next to Al and dropped tiredly into it. "I fucking hate squirrels."

"Apparently they're not to nuts about you either," came Al's amused response. He glanced over at Nura with a mischievous smirk as Eric glared at him.

"Well, you can't really blame them. Eric was acting a bit squirrelly," Nura responded with her own smirk.

Eric's glare intensified as he crossed his arms and slouched down in his seat. "I hate you both."

"Brother! You wound me!" Al dramatically responded, placing the hand not holding cards against his heart. He just got an irritated snarl in response.

The two not brooding adults turned and grinned at each other and continued playing their game.

"So Al, we finished setting up the extra room for you to stay in when you're released next week," she happily responded. Turned out that Al's one leg only had a minor fracture, so he'd be allowed to leave and use crutches as soon as it was healed up. Unfortunately, his other leg had four or more weeks till it would fully heal.

She watched as his eyes happily lit up. "That's great! Thank you so much for letting me stay!" he exclaimed happily.

"It's no problem. I have an extra room anyway. Besides, what kind of person would I be if I kicked your brother out and left the two of you without a place to stay while you're in this condition?" she told him with a smile.

"An asshole," Eric responded flatly. He ducked as Alec swatted at him. "She asked."

"It was a rhetorical question Brother."

He just shrugged in response. "So, where's the hag?"

"She finished her chemo treatment and they decided to keep her in recovery because she wasn't feeling well," Nura said with a frown.

"Oh," Eric responded while shifting uneasily. "Sorry."

"Why are you sorry? It's not like you somehow mutated her DNA and gave her liver cancer. Besides, its still only in its beginning stages. If the chemo doesn't help we just need to wait for a liver transplant," she commented lightly, trying to keep the deep worry out of her voice.

She couldn't help but remember when her Granny first got sick. She had just turned seventeen a couple weeks before and the two had been making diner, when suddenly her Grandma had collapsed. She had called nine-one-one and stood by the old woman until they came. At first they had thought she was just being severely affected by a virus, due to her age and the fact her symptoms were fatigue, weakness, and vomiting. Eventually, as the months went on, they had discovered the cancer in her liver. She remembered being so bitter that it had taken so long for them to find it, and that her father had sent his own Mom to a hospital that couldn't figure it out sooner.

Of course, she had eventually realized that it wasn't necessarily the doctors' fault that everything went the way it did, but it still didn't mean she wasn't a bit bitter, or worried. Her Grandmother was old, and she wasn't sure that her body could take the chemo and fight the cancer. If it came down to her needing a liver, she was worried she wouldn't receive one due to her age.

She took a deep breath and released it through her nose. She needed to stop worrying about it so much. The old coot was strong, there was no way she'd let anything take her down yet, especially her own body.

She gave the two brothers a reassuring smile when she noticed that Al was looking at her with open worry and Eric was giving her his own pinched worried look. She noticed the two give barely there relieved sighs afterward. They really were sweet guys.

"How about we see if we can get a pizza delivered here and continue with our intense card games?" she asked cheerfully. "I'm sure we can convince the Rainbow Rebellion to let them up here."

"Sounds great!" Al agreed enthusiastically.

"Wonderful," Eric snorted.

Al glanced at his brother. "You don't have to eat if you don't want to. More food for us, right Nura?"

"Yeah. Besides, pizza has cheese on it, which is basically milk with bacteria added to it and left to age. You wouldn't be interested in it anyway," Nura casually responded and smirked as she watched Eric turn a slightly green color.

"You will never repeat that again," came the weak response.

"It ain't easy being cheesy Brother."

"Sorry if we're curdling your mood."

"You two really need to stop with the terrible puns."

"Fine," came the depressed replies.

"Has he always been such a dream crusher," Nura pouted.

"When its at his expense, yes. He's gotten better with age though."

"I didn't know it was possible for him to be worse."

"Oh, you don't even know."

"I should have stayed with the squirrels."

There you have it, chapter four. A bit more serious then my other chapters, but I tried to keep some humor in there. Oh Nura and Al, why can't you just keep your terrible puns to yourselves? The world would be a happier place without them. Not to mention Eric. Crazy Granny Pferang-Tadd didn't show up in this chapter, but at least we all know now why she's in the hospital. The title of this chapter is meant to be used in a sarcastic way, just fyi to those who've noticed that the chapter title tends to have something to do with what happens in the story.

Thank you all for reading! Please drop me a review to tell me how you think The Scientist is doing so far. It'll help me with making my upcoming chapters :)

Thanks Again!

WAIDTA