Disclaimers: I don't own FMA.

A/N: Alphonse's POV. (Any typos, please excuse.)

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Sweet Slumber Sweet Child

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Oxygen, forty-three kilograms.

Carbon, sixteen kilograms.

Hydrogen, seven kilograms.

Nitrogen, one point eight kilograms.

Calcium, one kilogram.

Phosphorous, seven-hundred-and-eighty grams.

Potassium, one-hundred-and-forty grams.

I could go on, but those are just the first few on my long review list. My eyes burned from the candle and from reading so much. I was already well into the second book and I was re-reading everything I'd already read. I wanted to make sure I knew everything so I didn't let Brother down.

I glanced up to him. He was intent with what he was doing – he was copying down arrays from the back of a book, measuring their circumference and translating that into the measurements for an actual one, which meant a lot of math and concentration. You could tell how long his calculations were stretching into by how many times his fingers tapped the floorboards.

I picked up my pencil again and underlined a part of a line of text in the book.

should be noted that there is no consensus on the actual number of cells in the body; estimations vary widely.

I couldn't help but start to feel heavy-headed. I glanced up at the wall. It was nearly eleven-thirty at night, and we'd been up so late the previous night that we'd only had about three hours of sleep. I didn't know how Brother did it.

Just a little bit, I told myself. I lowered my head, my nose in the crease of the book. I could still read like this. All I had to do was turn my head a bit to see those weird lines at the top or bottom. I read half a page when the letters started to run together.

"Stop that," I told them, but they didn't. They bled together to make a big black blanket, which fell over me and I curled into it, closing my eyes and feeling my thumb make its way to my mouth. Childish, childish, I thought, but then I didn't think anymore.