Chapter 7

Edward Elric lay across the couch, reading in a low voice from the small leather book that he keeps in his back pocket. "Water, twenty-five liters, Carbon, 20 kilograms, Ammonia, 4 liters, Lime, 1.5 kilograms, Phosphorous, 800 grams. Salt, 250 grams," he read, but then stopped. Someone was climbing down to stairs. He looked up from his book to see two blue eyes staring down into his own gold ones. "Hey, Winry," Ed greeted nonchalantly.

"Hey, Ed, what are you doing?" Winry asked almost too cheerfully.

"My alchemy notes, why?"

"Just curious. So I wanted to talk to you," Winry said timidly.

"About?" Ed asked suspiciously, eyeing the young woman in front of him.

"About," she hesitated, "us."

Ed blushed harshly, "Saltpeter, 100 grams, sulfur, 80 grams, fluorine, 7.5, iron, 5 grams, silicon, 3 grams!" he read loudly, attempting to drown out the young woman in front of him. His face was practically shoved into the book pages like he was trying to read it through osmosis.

"Ed! Don't be so immature about this!" Winry yelled.

"And trace amounts of 15 other elements," Ed finished quietly and then shut the journal with a resounding clap, "what about us did you want to talk about, exactly?" Ed was obviously trying to conceal his embarrassing outburst, although, rather poorly, seeing as his face was lobster red still.

"Well, remember when you were about to board the train to Xing, but then you stopped to talk to me?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, you remember the conversation we had right?" Winry pushed on.

"Um, vaguely, I was sick that morning so it's all kind of a blur," Ed blabbed, trying to avoid the awkward topic. But Winry was not going to let the conversation end.

"C'mon, you have to remember," Winry continued.

Ed sighed exhaustingly and then gave in, "Yeah, I remember what we talked about. Why do you ask?"

"What did you mean by that?" Winry asked, blushing slightly and lowering her head to look at the floor.

"What did I mean by what?" Ed asked.

"When you told me..." she hesitated again, grabbing for her limp arm, "that you'd give half of your life for half of mine, what did you mean?"

"Even if I'm a genius," he sighed, and then added with a chuckle, "I still have a hard time with words sometimes, don't I?"

"Stop avoiding the question!" Winry yelled.

Ed instinctively flinched, expecting her to conjure up some phantom wrench, but no such thing happened. Ed patted on the couch cushion next to him, gesturing for her to sit. She did so, but stiffly, like it was all a trick. "What I meant was," the nineteen-year-old said softly as he leaned in close, pulling her into a tight hug. Winry did not move forward, but she did not back away either, which was a good sign. But, before the two young lovebirds did anything more the phone rang.

Edward pulled back hesitantly, trying to decide whether to pick up the phone or not. Winry stood up quickly picked up the receiver, snatching it away from Ed's hands. The blond listened to a young voice for a few seconds and then handed it to Ed and said, "It's Al."

Ed nodded then took the receiver from her hands, and said irritably, "Yeah what's up, Al?" Suddenly, he shot up, tightening his free hand into a fist. "Figures Mustang knows this Rickert guy. That bastard has his fingers in everything. Okay, I'll head to Central with Winry and Pinako. There, Mustang, you, and I can reconvene and you two can debrief me on everything you found out; sound good? Okay, I'll talk to you later." We've got you now, bastard.

Finally, Ed has been brought into the loop, for the most part. This chapter has been revised so that the EdxWin pairing flows better. Still a bit sudden, I know, but this is the best I'm willing to do, at least for now.