AN: Wow! I am sooo sorry that this is late. I got a little caught up the election, so unfortunatly, this was put on hold. However, I worked really hard to make this long.

I would like to say thank you to Emalee Roze (yes, I loved the mental picture of Ed and Al with the pets), thegirlinred93 (I am soooo glad that you finally read this! Oh, and thank you so much for the idea for the orchestra scene!!), Seengot (yeah, I'm sorry that it took soo long to update), and Arden Anam (Don't worry, I will have an internet scene. Oh, and that is soo weird, I hate popcorn also) WOW! That is a large reviews section! And that fact by itself makes me really happy! YAY!! XD

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA or anything FMA related :'(

I hope you all enjoy!

Chapter 9

"So, what happened?" Mo whispered to me.

"Second violins…" Our teacher said warningly as she continued to help the cellos tune. Mo and I went silent for a minute before continuing.

"So, what happened this weekend? Did I miss anything good?" Mo asked again in a hushed voice.

"Well, no not really. I just took Ed and Al to go shopping, although I couldn't convince Ed to cut his hair." I whispered back.

"You tried to do WHAT?!" Mo yelled. Suddenly 15 pairs of eyes were on us. "Hehe. Sorry Ms. Pearson." She only shook her head and went back to the cellos. "So why would you do that?"

"Well, because I was trying to help them blend in. But of course Ed just had to keep his hair long. So other then that, I spent the whole weekend trying to catch them up with all of the technology. It was actually really funny to see Ed trying to mess with the computer. Oh, and Al wouldn't let me leave the house without leaving my I-Pod for them to listen to."

"Alright, now let's start from measure 30, and then we can pack up." Ms. Pearson said. Mo and I sighed as we picked up our violins and started to play, anxious for school to be out. We had already planned that we would take Ed and Al to the library and maybe back to the farmhouse to see if we could get any clues.

"Second violins, no open A's!" I winced as I heard the girl behind me, Jeana, squeal her open A. The only good thing that I could see about this class right now was the fact that I could talk to Mo. Luckily she was 1st chair second violin, and I was 2nd chair second violin, which meant that we were seated right next to each other, allowing us to talk to each other. I finally finished up the song, anxious to get out of class.

"Ok, you guys can go put up now." Ms. Pearson said as both Mo and I raced to put our stuff away.

"Mo? Molly? Is that you?" Mo and I stopped in our tracks.

"Ed…Edward? What are you doing here?" I pulled him into the shadows, praying that no one would recognize him.

"What's wrong?" Ed asked bewildered.

"Where's A?" Mo asked.

"He's in the cafeteria. Seriously, what's going on?"

"What's going on is that you're not supposed to be here. There's too many people who know who you are. Our school even has an anime club, which means that if people spot you, they're going to start asking questions." I hissed at him.

"But then why would you give me the directions to where you guys would be if you didn't want us to come?"

"Because that was only for emergencies! As in the house is burning down, Al is trapped, Envy's here to kill me kind of emergencies."

"Molly? Monique? What are you guys doing?" My friend Zoe asked us. I realized that both Mo and I had backed poor Ed up into a corner of the auditorium where we had been practicing. I immediately turned bright red.

"Oh, it's nothing Zoe, I was just talking to my friend…Zach here."

"Zach?! What do you mean Zach?" Ed hissed into my ear.

"Just go with it!" I whispered back to him. "Hey, Zoe, would you mind putting our violins away for us?"

"Sure." Zoe gave us one last look and thankfully put our violins away. I was thanking my lucky stars that Zoe didn't watch anime 'cause otherwise… well I didn't know what else but I could only guess that it wouldn't be good.

"Zach? Why Zach?" Ed asked me once Zoe was gone.

"Well, sue me if I'm bad at picking names. Anyways, it's not my fault that I had to come up with one in the first place. If you had just stayed at my house,"

"You never said that we had to stay there!"

"Well, excuse me for expecting you to use some common sense. You'd think that after seeing my reaction that you'd figure out that you need to keep a low profile. But no, the Fullmetal Alchemist, the oh so great champion of the people just can't be content to stay out of the spotlight for one day!"

"GUYS!!" Both Ed and I turned around to stare at Monique. "Ok we get it! Ed did a stupid thing to come here, but we should really find Al and get out of here."

We walked out the auditorium rather quickly, trying to ignore the awkward silence. I also tried to ignore the stares of the other people around us as they saw Ed.

"Why are they looking at me like that?" Ed whispered to Mo.

"It's because of your hair." Mo replied back.

I couldn't help myself. "I told you to cut it. You look like a girl with your hair in a ponytail. And, you just can't pull off the emo look." Ed simply glared at me. However I couldn't suppress my laughter when I heard Ed whisper to Mo, "What's emo?"

We arrived in the commons and I started scanning the tables for any sign of Al. The commons could best be described as a massive cafeteria, complete with the stereotypical old, white tables, too small kitchen, and overly used vending machines. At least the school had made the futile attempt to cheer it up by painting a large ocean mural (which made no sense because we were in landlocked Colorado) on the wall opposite of the kitchen, however nothing could overcome the trapped feeling that you received because of the incredibly low ceiling. The large crowds didn't help the claustrophobic feeling, and at this time of day, the commons was packed.

"Do you see him?" Monique asked.

"No, not yet. Keep looking." Ed said, as he continued.

"There he is!" We all walked over to Al who seemed to be busy talking with a group of freshmen.

"Hey Al." Ed said menacingly, clearly he was still in a bad mood.

"Oh, Brother. There you are. So you found Monique and Molly?" He said happily, ignoring Ed's tone of voice. "I was talking to Brandon, Kiki, John and Lauren here. Guys, this is"

"Zach." I interrupted. "This is Zach, his older brother." Al looked at me questioningly, but thankfully he decided not to say anything about it. "So Kiki, have you seen your sister yet?"

"Wait, you guys know each other?" Al asked.

"Yeah, she's friends with my sister, Zoe. No, I haven't seen her." Kiki said, her bright red hair (much like her sister's) bobbing up and down as she talked.

"Come on Al, we've got to go." Ed said.

"Well, it was nice talking to you. See ya'!" Al said as he raced to catch up to us. "Why are we leaving so soon?"

"Because it's not a good idea for us to be around here…well, more specifically you." Mo said.

"Why?"

"Because Al, apparently too many people here know about us. We're supposed to, oh now what was it, oh yes, stay out of the spotlight." I felt myself start to turn red under his gaze, realizing how badly I had yelled at Ed in the auditorium. However, I refused to say anything, at least in front of Al.

"Hey guys," I stopped, "I've got to go to my locker. I need to get my books."

"Ok, I've got to get my books, so I'll meet you back here."

"Ok, sounds good." I turned around and started to walk over to my locker, conveniently located in the commons. "Why are you here?" I asked surprised when Ed walked up to me as I started on the lock.

"Cause we need to talk." Ed said as three large guys ran into me as they made their way to one of their lockers.

"Move it Frizz." One of the guys said as he strained to remember his combination. I simply sighed and ignored the guys and the pang of pain that came with the reminder of my overly dry and curly hair. Ed, however, did not.

"What did you say to her?" Ed hissed at one of the guys.

"You heard him. And who are you?" Another one of the braver goons said as he stepped closer to Ed. I instinctively shrunk back. Although I knew that Ed could take care of himself, but Jack wasn't exactly a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ed on the other hand, wasn't one to take a hint. "I'm a friend. You know that it's not nice to talk about people like that." I could now feel the waves of anger and danger rolling off of Ed. If I hadn't known who Ed was, I would've already run out of there, sandwiched between two angry guys.

"Yeah, well what are you going to do about it?" You idiot, can't you tell how mad he is!!! I screamed in my head and I braced myself for Ed's reaction.

"You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" Ed seethed dangerously. A mental picture of Ed transforming his automail flickered through my head.

Thankfully, Jack caught the not-so-veiled threat and backed off. "Whatever man." He mumbled and left with the other two guys waiting curiously behind him.

Ed turned to me. "Are you ok?"

I blushed and looked down at my feet. "Why'd you do that for me?" I then forced myself to look back up at him. Surprisingly his face started to turn bright red.

"Well…I-I……" Ed finally just stopped talking. Deciding to let it drop I zip up my backpack and start to walk over to where I was planning on meeting Mo and Al.

"So what did you want to talk to me about?" I asked curiously.

Ed just sighed. "You know what Molls, it doesn't matter anymore." I looked up in surprise at the sudden use of my nickname. Before I could ask him about however, Mo and Al walked up to us.

"You ready to go?" Mo asked suspiciously, looking at both Ed and I.

"Yeah, let's go." Ed sighed. Monique and I fell back a little so we could talk in private.

"What's going on between you two? Did you two have another fight or something?"

"I…I…well in all honesty, I don't know." Monique just looked at us in silence, contemplating something. We made our way over to my truck.

"Mo! Molly! Wait up!" A girl's voice floated through the crowd. I immediately recognized her as Star Torrez. Of course Star wasn't her real name, but I really can't remember the last time that anyone called her Jessica. I think that she began to have people call her Star in third grade.

And that was the best way to describe her. When she chose her name, she had short, blonde, almost translucent hair. However, last year she had decided to dye her hair jet black. At first I had thought that it wouldn't look good on her, yet somehow her long, jet black hair seemed to contrast her skin color, giving her the appearance of glowing. Combined with her small size, she had the general appearance of a glowing star.

But she also had the personality of a star. She was shy yet once you got to know her, very friendly. However, she always seemed to be off in her own world, and she loved anything about different places. From Harry Potter to Wolf's Rain, she had pretty much read it all. Which is why I almost passed out when I saw her come over, with Ed and Al right behind me.

"Jeese, I was yelling at you guys for five minutes. Are you deaf or…" Her breath caught as she spotted Ed. "Wh…who are you?" She managed to whisper.

"My name is Zach. I'm a friend of Molly's from out of town. Hey, are you ok?" Ed said smoothly, although noting how Star had frozen at the sound of his voice.

I was now working on damage control. I flung my arms around Ed's neck, acting as though I had known him forever. "Awww. Zach, are you embarrassed to tell people that we're dating? 'Cause if you are, there is no way that we're going to the movies next."

That seemed to snap Star mostly out of her daze. "Oh, I'm sorry Zach. It's just that… well has anyone ever told you that you look just like Edward Elric?"

Ed perfectly feigned confusion. "No, who's that?"

Star looked at him in total shock. "You don't…. oh, just forget it."

"So, was there anything that you needed? We're sort of in a rush to make the movie." Mo asked.

"Oh, well nothing really. You just seemed out of it all day, I just wanted to make sure that you were ok."

"Oh yeah." Mo replied. "I'm just really tired, that's all. So, I'll see 'ya."

"Yeah, see ya'." Once she was out of hearing range, we all let out a sigh of relief.

"God, that was way too close." Mo said. "I was just glad that Al was already in the truck. There is no way that she'd pass both of them off as coincidence. We'd better go, before someone catches us." She ran around to the other side.

"Boyfriend?" Ed asked before I opened the door.

I started to blush. "Don't look into it too much, I was just trying to get her off of your case."

Ed's face fell a little and I immediately regretted saying it. "Come on, I want to get to the library. I have to study." He said darkly and walked away.

"Edward…" I called after him, even though I knew that he wouldn't be able to hear me anyway. I was suddenly looking forward to going to the library. A little time to think would do me good.

AN: Yeah, I feel so bad for Ed. Lot's o' questions for Molly.

So please review and let me know what you think of it so far. Thankies so much in advance!!!!