Chapter Ten

Where Aya opens her big mouth and Aiame ditches the apartment.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist

Edward Elric was an early riser. He was awake and wandering around the apartment hours before either of the girls were out of their bedroom. He ordered enough breakfast for all three of them from room service, and downed the entire meal by himself in less than fifteen minutes. After he finished, Ed locked himself in the bathroom to get dressed; it was amazing how he could have sworn he was still brushing desert sand out of his hair before he tied it into a ponytail. He smirked to himself in the mirror, knowing that in just a few days, his silky hair would be caked with sand again after arriving in Xing. His mission, once he got past the desert, would not be that terrible; he could see Alphonse and Ling and not be bothered by Mustang ever again. In fact, he would never even have to hear that bastard's name again!

"Edowado?" Aya whispered, tip-toeing across the wood floor. She peered over the couch, only to find a mess of unkempt blanket and pillows that had molded to the side of Edward's head. "Edo?" She moved into the kitchen, as soon as she saw the dirty dishes beside the sink, she began to wonder if he had already left for the Command Center. She threw the blankets onto the floor and sank into the cushions.

The eighteen-year-old man stumbled out of the bathroom upon hearing his name. It was strange for him to hear Aya trying to speak Amestrian, there was just so much that was wrong about how it sounded. "Good morning," Ed greeted her. He moved around the back of the L-shaped couch to sit on the end beside her.

She smiled brightly at him, the pen and notebook ready in her lap. Ed leaned over; trying to read what was written on the paper. Her words seemed to be filtered, there would a word missing here or half of the sentence would be in Aerugian, so it was fairly hard for Edward to concentrate on what he could understand. Eventually, he gathered that she had written down an entire conversation between Aiame and her after he crashed last night. The redhead made it very clear that she was mad beyond belief with him. Ed decided that the things written in Aerugian were the things that both he and Aya did not want him to read.

That's what you wanted to tell me? He wrote at the top corner of the paper, thoroughly confused. He already knew that Aiame was mad at him; he did not need to hear it again from her. The worst of it was, there was nothing more to read into what had been said – everything that Aiame was thinking had been said and everything she said, she meant.

Aya shook her head. She took the pen away from him; but instead of writing a reply, she circled two lines of the paper. The first was something she had said: I know you won't be able to keep this up. You'll only be mad for about a day more. You were the one who stayed up half the night in Caen talking about how great he is to be around. She looked at Edward, her eyebrows raised. It was as if she was trying to tell him 'you are an idiot if you don't get what that means' just by the look on her face. The second thing she had circled was several lines below the previous statement, said by Aiame: You don't need to keep bringing it up. I like him, yes. A lot, yes. But this is getting ridiculous.

It may have taken another moment after thinking about it, but Edward finally got the message. He knew he had always been a bit thick-headed when it came to girly stuff like that – even if girly was not the exact word he was looking for – but not catching those things the first time around was just unbelievable. Ed took the pen away from her. Why did you want me to know this?

I don't think it would be fair for you to not know if you are going to make us go back home, she scribbled along the margin. Aya smiled at him again. I guess I would be okay if you forced me to leave but Aiame would be just a tiny bit hear-broken. You don't want that do you?

Edward groaned, ducking his head. He knew that she was not trying to make him feel uncomfortable, but was succeeding in it anyways. He hid his face to hide the faint blush dusting his cheeks. You should not be telling me this, you know.

Aya shrugged. It isn't going to do her any good to keep it bottled up. With that, she scooped up the pen and paper and held it against her chest. She did not know if she had been overcome by wanting to embarrass Aiame by telling him this or because she thought they needed a push in the right direction, but knew it would be best if she cut off her conversation with Edward there. Now, the last thing to do was hide from Aiame everything she told Edward.

Ed checked the clock over his shoulder, it was nearly ten o'clock. He smirked to himself; he was going to be late for his first meeting with Mustang in over two years. Did he want the old bastard to think that he was still an immature kid who did not take things seriously or did he want to make a good impression and rub it in his face? He was already dressed and ready, he supposed that he should show up early for his meeting. It could not be as bad as he expected it to, right? "I've got to get going," he announced, rising from the couch. Ed swung a red jacket over his shoulders as he walked out the door.

"What was all of that about?" Aiame asked, her voice muffled by her hand over her mouth to catch her yawn. She took Edward's spot on the couch beside Aya.

"I'm not sure," Aya lied. "I'm hungry. What do you want from room service?"

"Didn't Edward order you breakfast today?" she sneered, folding her arms over her chest.

The younger of the two glared at the redhead. "Why do you say it like that?"

"I just thought, you know, since you are buddy-buddy with him now…"

"Oh, shut up, Aiame. Edward and I are strictly friends, nothing more. And besides, you should be thanking me for everything that I've told him."

"What did you tell him?" she snapped.

Aya sighed, "Nothing, nothing." She knew that the lies would never last.

"Anyways, what are we going to do today? Edward is gone and I have a pocket full of Amestrian cens with nothing to do with them. Should we go exploring in Central?" Aiame asked, grinning like an idiot.

"What is there to do in Central?" she demanded. Aya saw Central as a boring capitol with nothing to do. There was a bunch things to do if you were in the military or an alchemist or both, but nothing to do if you were simply traveling with one. Plus, anything interesting was restricted from the public. She could look out the window, able to see the entire city, and not be able to pick out a thing she would want to do. "I don't want to do anything here. It's boring."

"Edward mentioned that Central has a public section in its library, we could always go there."

Green eyes brightened. She was a nerd living in a sheltered country; there was not much to choose from when it came to reading. Aya saw this as an opportunity to learn something interesting, something they would not teach her back home. "Let's go, let's go, let's go!" she cheered, hopping to her feet. "You know, you should be a little bit more excited!"

xXx

Aiame tried to remember the path that Edward had taken to Central Command yesterday, it was the only means she had of finding the library. She spent a half hour simply going up and down main street, passing the same cafés and stuck-up-moms' clothing stores over and over again. Although she knew how fed up her friend was with her at this point, she was grateful that Aya was not saying anything to her. They both knew Aiame had gotten them lost. After another ten minutes of wandering a different avenue, she found the library sitting on the corner.

Once inside, Aiame found there were only about ten bookcases open to the public at the very end of the building. She laid her things out on an empty table, her pen and notebook along with the one automail book she had from Winry's, and hung her bag over the arm of the chair. Without any sort of warning, she ran off towards the books. It took her a total of a mere ten minutes to scan all ten bookcases. While Aya had already picked out a beginner's guide to alchemy, Aiame returned to their table with a stack of seven anatomy books in her hands. It was unbelievable to her that there were so many books on this small topic; she had only taken a fraction of the books off the shelves. Her nose was buried into the pages and her eyes were darted from word to word. Thank god she was a fast reader, but even then Aiame could not seem to get the information in fast enough.

Aya was watching her with a mix of horror and utter shock expressed on her face.

There was so much that Aiame had gotten wrong, she could not believe it! In the beginning, she told herself to except the fact that since she was just starting to learn the mechanics and engineering of automail, she would make mistakes. These books not only pointed out that, but things that she had been doing wrong all along that Winry told her she had no need to work on. Then she reached the section specially written for the automail mechanics, not just anybody. She read that the most common mistake most make was to make the outer plating heavier than the automail itself; this would throw off the movement of the arm itself and, if heavy enough, would shift the port that connects the nervous system. Aiame had not even paid attention to that!

"Can you do me a favor?" Aiame requested. Aya raised her eyebrows. "Walk down to the window and back."

Despite the many things she could say to make Aiame regret saying it like that, Aya rose from her seat and walked towards the windows across from their table and back. "What was that for?" she asked.

"I think I need to redesign your automail, I screwed up and don't want you to have to go through surgery for a new port," she explained, grabbing her notebook. "I didn't pay attention to the weight of the plating and I think it is too heavy for you. I need to design you a new one." Aiame began flipping page-by-page for a fresh sheet of paper.

"No! I like my arm!" Aya protested, her flesh hand gripping her metal shoulder.

"Too bad!" Aiame shot back harshly. She came across a page crowded with Aya's sloppy Amestris-handwriting. After scanning the first several lines, she recognized it as a written document of their argument about Edward last night. She saw that there were circles around the lines that clearly stated that she had a crush on Edward and a whole different conversation written along the margins. It alternated between Aya's and Edward's. Aya told Ed that she liked him! "What the hell is this?" she demanded.

Aya's cheeks flared bright red. "I just thought, well, since he is probably going to send us back to Risembool that he had a right to know, you know?"

"No, I do not know! That does not make any sense!" she roared. "I am not going to be able to face him now, you get that? If there was any chance of going with him to Xing, it is gone now because of this!"

"I'm sorry."

"No, you aren't…" Aiame paused. "What did he say about it?"

"He said that I shouldn't have told him because you would be mad at me."

"That's all?"

Aya shrugged. "Then he left for the Fuhrer's office."

"Well, damn."

Firm hands pressed against Aiame's back, shoving her over into the pile of books on the table in front of her. Aiame glared over her shoulder, her hazel eyes soon met Ed's pair of golden orbs. Two words passed through her mind: holy shit. "Do people in Aerugo just wander off whenever they want?" he demanded. "Do you think it is okay for you to ditch the apartment and explore a foreign city without telling me where you went?"

"For god's sake, Edward, what are you? My father?" Aiame shot at him. "You cannot expect me to stay cooped up inside all day while you go out without us."

"This is such a great way to convince me you can be responsible enough to come to Xing with me," he retorted.

Her eyes sharpened. "What was that about my responsibility?"

"Nothing. Let's just get going, okay? We can talk about it when we get back to the apartment."

Internally, Aiame was beaming and giggling like a schoolgirl. "Fine, we can talk about it then," she decided, smirking.