Short chapter is short. I was going to add more, but I wasn't feeling up to it. My last writing session was awful. While I was proofreading this, I came this close to trashing the whole thing! First I find our that I accidentally created to identical pages that have received two separate proofreading sessions (don't ask how that happened) so I had to figure out how to merge those two papers together (which was no walk in the park btw); second I find out that I have been misspelling some words while typing fast (which sucked); then I somehow put my backspace on lock so I almost lost a lot of my chapter, and GAAAH! ASDFGHJKLQWERTYUIOPZXCVNM! *Road rage* Anyhoo…

The other day I noticed something about my fanfics…I FORGOT TO WRITE ANY FREAKING DISCLAIMERS! WTF, Tenchiko!? So I shall fix that at the beginning of both fics very soon. Until then:

I am not Hiromu Arakawa, I am not a cow dressed in only underwear and specks, and I was not a Chinese collage student back in 2003 (in fact, I was only three years old back then. I didn't even know what the heck Fullmetal Alchemist was at that point in my life—never even heard of it! XD). So Fullmetal Alchemist—and any Bluebird's Illusion references I may make—are not my property. Hiromu Arakawa and Neoland Ocean-X deserve their rightful credit! That is all *bows*

There was a flood of individuals wandering along the planked walkway. Mothers were leading their children though the walkway in a formation like that of a row of ducks; men were calling out to one another and carrying luggage for their traveling companions; friends, families, and lovers were greeting one another as they stepped off the train. The trains whistled loudly as they came and went out of the station.

May walked up and down the area as she tried to find Al's chi. Independent and spontaneous just like him. That was the best way to describe it. It stuck out from other's and she was just barely catching wisps of it.

"Patience, Princess," Lan Fan assured her.

"I know but—"

"May!" a familiar voice called.

May spun around and smiled brightly at her dear friend. She ran as fast as she could over to him and jumped into his arms. "Alphonse-sama!" she exclaimed as she gave him a hug. She tried to ignore how subdued his behavior was compared to before.

"Nice too see you too," Al commented as he returned the hug and put her down. Xiao Mei, who still clung to his arm, made a purring sound and Al smiled slightly. "Hey there, girl."

"Alphonse," Lan Fan said with an edge to her voice. She looked so nervous and rigid, May wondered how she could've missed it. "What's going on?"

Al immediately dropped his smile. "You noticed too?"

Lan Fan nodded. May frowned in confusion until she cleared her mind and felt it too. Something was crawling under the earth again. Writhing in agony within a sea of bloodlust. May tried not to tremble at the feeling.

Al gave her hand a reassuring squeeze as he sensed her apprehension. "Why don't we speak about it in private?" he asked her in Xingese.

Al led the two young women into an empty train car. Neither of the two seemed to have changed very much, Al noted.

Lan Fan, while she'd set aside her mask, was still in her Xingese uniform of black, completely covered from head to toe. She seemed to have been doing an excellent job at maintaining her automail arm. Not a scratch marred the shine of it's gunmetal steel plating. Al absently wondered why she was here while Ling was surely still in Xing.

May sat herself down on one of the seats and made room for Al to sit beside her. She had grown the most since he'd first met her compared to the others. Even now, he could still remember being drop kicked by that adorable little girl back then. She had grown considerably since then and had already developed a feminine hourglass shape. She had certainly matured—although her wide, dark eyes shone as brightly as ever. Staring back at him…

"What's wrong Alphonse?" May suddenly asked. Al hadn't even realized that he had been staring!

"Oh uh nothing!" he said all too quickly. He wondered whether it was actually getting hot in the train car or he was just burning from embarrassment. Hopefully the first one…

After a stretch of silence, May finally said in Xingese, "What's happened?"

Al frowned, hesitant to retell everything that's happened. "…Where do I begin?" He explained everything from his return to Central after the wedding to the latest incident in Riviere. May and Lan Fan listened in reverent silence as he recounted finding only one survivor. "All the information I have is limited to my observations and what Asher told me," he explained. He combed through his hair as the stress threatened to give him a headache. "No one saw it coming until it was too late… It's all my fault."

"Al," May said softly in an attempt to ease his burden. "A purification circle that could eradicate the blood crests; you and I both worked on that theory…" she held his hand without a second thought. "If you're at fault then so am I."

Al didn't answer—lacking the energy to argue—but instead only looked out the train window. No one spoke as the train whizzed past rolling hills and small towns. Al could tell that the two girls were waiting for him to break the silence. He heaved a deep sigh that made May flinch in surprise beside him. "That boy…I don't know much about his history or his relation with his legal guardian—Caleb Renault—but I know that he's now completely alone. He has no living relatives, and any capable adults whom he'd known before…they're all dead too." He sighed again in frustration and pinched the bridge of his nose. May opened her mouth to say something, but Al beat her to it. "He took damage to his spinal cord and portions of his nervous system. I've checked…it's beyond repair." He glanced to the side and saw the shock showing in May's face. "He said that…the way Brother put it"—Al felt sick at the very thought—"it was so he wouldn't get a third chance; he wouldn't be able to run away again."

The air around them stilled and silence, aside from the pumping of the train engine, overtook the car. No one spoke up. And that was fine with Al. He wasn't feeling up to hearing words of reassurance or confidence about how this nightmare could end.

He was pulled away from his brooding at the sight of May's outstretched hand. His eyes trailed over to her face, which stared back at him soberly. "Your research notes"—she made a "hand it over" motion—"maybe a fresh set of eyes should take a look at them."

Al blinked before he robotically reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather bound notebook. He handed the notebook over to her and watched as she gave his writing a critical eye. He had coded the notes, but that had never stopped May from deciphering the basics of its contents. She hummed as she turned the pages to his latest notes. "So these marks"—she tapped on the page with Al's rough sketch of the tattoos he had seen on his brother's body—"You think there might be some alchemic significance to them, right?"

Al nodded numbly. "I-I guess I—"

"I wish I could've seen them for myself," she continued on, "I'm no Alchemist, but I understand the basic principles of your usage of symbols. If we could get a better look at them and put them under a category…" She tapped the edge of her lips as she read on. And thus, this continued on, her shooting questions and suggestions while Al tried to follow her fast moving-mind. The rest of the train ride continued in that manner until the group found themselves finally in Central Station.

The three stepped off the train and made their way through the ocean of people. May insisted on reading through Al's notes and—hey—who was he to argue? He watched as she weaved through the crowds, her nose still buried in his notebook, as though it was child's play. The ability to sense the flow of chi on autopilot certainly had its perks. Al checked the time on his pocket watch. "It's almost two," he said. "My apartment isn't too far off. I think I can make us something for a late lunch."

He offered a hand to carry May's bag, seeing how she was struggling to read with one hand and carry it with her other hand at the same time, but Lan Fan took it before he could. There was an oddly familiar glint in her eyes that Al couldn't quite place. "I can take these to your apartment. Why don't you and the princess look a little closer into those notes of yours?" she offered.

"Are you sure?" Al asked. She nodded. "O-Okay. My address is—"

"It's the house with the Xingese red banner over the door, is it not?" she asked. Al nodded but nearly jumped when he heard the sound of May tripping and face planting onto the concrete.

"May!" Al went over to help her up. He couldn't help but notice how she clumsily covered her face with his book. "Are you okay?" he asked as he tried to tilt his head to get a better look at her face. There was a small scratch but… She shied away and muttered something with a thick Xingese accent. "May?"

"I'm fine," she said in a wispy voice. Al blinked and tried to dismiss her odd behavior. He'd ask later.

"You must be more careful Princess," Lan Fan softly chided. She hitched up her luggage and grinned. "Your house shouldn't be too hard to find. Now stay out of trouble, young chényú luòyàn." And with that, she disappeared like a streak of lightning.

Did she just call us diving fish!? Al wondered to himself, baffled about how familiar the term was. Where had he heard that term before…? He thought back to how Lan Fan's eyes had bored into a suddenly flustered May. Overall, he felt completely lost.

"Found anything yet?" Alphonse asked as he handed May another book on Alchemic symbols.

She gracefully accepted the book and added it to the pile that was beginning to consume the library desk. She frowned and shook her head. "No. Nothing so far."

Al looked up from his own share of his notes and watched as she nibbled on the end of her pencil. She was trying to recreate and separate the tattoo marks onto a separate sheet of paper. Xiao Mei had taken to nibbling on a blank piece of paper while watching May jot down notes on another sheet. She hummed as she drew boxes around anything she considered relevant. "The only thing that catches my attention in particular is the marks over the stomach area. See them?"—she tapped her finger on the sketch—"If you ask me, it looks roughly like the alchemic symbol for the moon or silver. Do you mind finding some books that primarily contain references to either of those for me?"

"Sure." He scanned through the books until one dropped on his head. He groaned and held his head after the impact, but once he picked it up he saw that it was a reference book to lunar symbols. Coincidence? He looked up to see Xiao Mei at the top of the shelf with a smug look on her cuddly face. I think not. Al looked over to the table—the half-eaten paper having been abandoned by the little creature—and back over to the cat-sized panda with a questioning finger. "How'd you…"—he shook his head—"Never mind. Thanks."

"Found one?"

"More like Xiao Mei beat me to it." Al opened up the pages and looked over May's shoulder to cross examine the symbols. "Found it." He laid the book down next to her sketch and pointed to a matching symbol. "It's a match."

May clapped her hands together and laughed. "Looks like it! Now if we can find out how it fit into a circle…"

Al paced across the floor as he tried to come up with some theories. "I know that the moon is the symbol for the spirit…" He took to biting down on his thumbnail. "But there has to be something else…"

"We'll probably have to decipher the rest of the marks before we can make heads or tails out of any of this."

"Aw man."

May only shrugged and ushered Al back into a chair. Time seemed to fly as they tried to decipher the tattoos, headdesk the table every twelve frustrations later, bounce theories off one another, cross reference between books, and watch Xiao Mei make like Atlas and struggle to keep the mountain of books in place. They couldn't help but laugh once the mountain crumbled and half-buried the clumsy little panda.

"It'll be okay," May suddenly said a few minutes later. She, Al and Xiao Mei were all sprawled on their backs on the floor after the books had stolen up all the seats. The sunset cast a gold hue in the room and made for an almost relaxing environment.

"Huh?" Al asked as he tilted his head to get a better look at her.

He watched her at an upside-down angle as she brushed her long braids away from her face. "I know you probably don't want to hear that, but I'm serious." She blew a puff of air that whooshed through her bangs. "Of all the words I can think of, if I had to choose only one, 'stubborn' is probably the best way to describe Edward—right next to 'douche nozzle'."

She smiled warmly as Al laughed out loud. "'Douche nozzle' is two words, May."

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Yeah I know. Anyway, I know that he's a tough guy. We'll be able to get him back for sure."

Al's laughter died away and he met her eyes with sorrow. "But what if he—"

"I have forty-two siblings, Alphonse," she cut him off. "And I can't really say I have good relationships with any of them, if you don't count Ling. So I don't know what it's like for you and I can't just tell you that I understand." She reached out and held his hand. Al blushed as he thought of how warm and reassuring it felt. "C'mon," she said with an impish smirk. "If Ling can get turned into a homunculus and live to tell the tale, then Edward will be just fine. He won't stay down for very long."

Al remained quiet for a long stretch of time. If he was honest with himself, he'd admit that his doubts were somewhat lifted…but still… "What if…" he hesitated to bring the root of his worries out in the open. "What if he doesn't want to come back?" May raised a questioning eyebrow at him. He elaborated, "Brother never wanted to kill. He always valued human life over all things. But in Riviere, he—So many people died. What if he just can't live with himself over what he's done?"

May drew her brows together as she contemplated how to answer. Before she could say anything, though, the door to the small room swung open. "Major Elric?" a soldier asked as he peeked into the room.

Al absent mindedly wondered how he was found. He hadn't told anyone back at HQ… "Yes?" he asked as he pulled himself off of the ground.

The soldier—ranked Sergeant—gave a quick salute. "I have a message from General Mustang. 'He's awake.'"

Al froze as the words sunk in. A cold feeling of trepidation washed over him and he tried not to visibly freak out. He had been waiting. A pile of questions had been building up a mountain in his mind, but now… It was all blown away now that the time came for him to ask.

"Alphonse?" May asked. His train of thought was stopped as soon as he heard the worry in her voice. "Who's awake?"

Al met eyes with her. Her gaze never wavered as her dark eyes bore into him. "Selim Bradley…" Al answered slowly. "The first Pride…"

*Applauds myself* Three cheers for cliffhangers. If there're any mistakes, I am so sorry. I'm not feeling too hot after today's writing endeavor so you can't expect much out of me.

Oh and, anything spoken in Xingese was written in italics. In case you didn't catch that.

Warning!: Lately, I keep coming up with all these ideas for FMA oneshots! WTH!? So if some random oneshots begin to pop up on my profile then you may safely assume the worst. I'm being held hostage by my own creativity. Do me a favor and call the creativity police!

—Tenchiko