Chapter 11

Operation: Rescue Nina and Make Sure Ed Stays in The Hospital Until He Heals His Wounds

|-Edward-|

Edward woke up with the scent of chemicals in the air.

"What a way to start the morning…" he grumbled sourly to himself. He was against staying here in the first place. He would rather wake up in a dark and isolated cave rather than in here.

He turned his head to the side, noticing Andrea's presence. He was slightly surprised to see her sleeping so soundly, though there was a trace of little drool on the corner of her mouth. He smiled softly to himself, seeing the said girl in peace.

She didn't do much but cry the last few days. Edward mused. It was… annoying, but admittedly, it made him guilty.

He really didn't like seeing girls cry. Whether it was Winry or Andrea, it would make him want to bang his head against the door.

Though he couldn't help but stare at Andrea's face. Now that he was using his analytical skills, he could only now tell how long her eyelashes were. Dark brown hair seemed far ordinary and bland compared to Amestrian blonde, but somehow Edward couldn't imagine her wearing blonde. Better yet, he'd rather Andrea stay a brunette.

Then he recalled the colors of her eyes. Blue, with a hue of turquoise was it? It was weird, but unique. To others, her traits would contrast to her slightly tanned skin, but peach did seem to fit her.

Only when he noticed her stir did Edward realize that he was staring at her too hard.

'What am I doing?! Staring at her while sleeping would make her think I'm a pervert!' he scolded himself, ruffling his hair in frustration.

He heard a yawn and turned back to Andrea, who was lying down on her pillow with her face down. "So sleepy…" he heard her whine.

"Andrea," Edward called.

Said girl looked up from her pillow and a bright smile came up her face once she spotted Edward. "Ed! You're awake." She said as she sat up from her position.

She rubbed her eyes. "How's your wounds?"

Edward shrugged. "Better. But can we just get out of here? Unlike you, I didn't get a good night's sleep."

Andrea seemed to pipe up on this. "That's strange. Usually, you sleep like a log when you're tired." She commented.

An irk mark appeared on the older Elric.

"Hey Ed, when is the State Alchemist Assessment?"

Edward raised an eyebrow at Andrea. Why ask something like that?

"A week from now. Why do you ask?"

Andrea furrowed her eyebrows and looked down on her lap. "So it's a week from now…" she murmured lowly to herself.

"Why? What happens during the State Alchemist Assessment?" Edward asked, slightly curious of what was going on in the brunette's head.

Andrea blinked out of her own trance, looking up at Edward. She stared at him, as if she was trying to consider a thought. Edward only responded with an equally weirded out look of himself.

"I need your help in something." Andrea said.

"What is it?"

Andrea's expression was determined. "We're going to save someone."

Edward blinked. "What?"

|-Andrea-|

"We're going to save someone."

"What?"

I turned away, thinking. How am I going to explain this without having him freak out? If I remember correctly, having Nina become a chimera was one of the most traumatizing events he had encountered. In Brotherhood, he still wasn't able to let go of that horrible memory.

Whether he encountered that memory because he had to learn a life lesson, I do not care. I'm his friend, and I will save him the brain cells and trauma to live.

I pulled my legs together in my chest. "It's about your story, Ed." I explained. "In you and Al's story, you were supposed to go ahead to Shou Tucker's place and meet a little girl named Nina there, before going to the countryside and encounter Dr. Marcoh."

Ed raised an eyebrow. "Shou Tucker? I think the Colonel told us about him." He said.

I nodded. "Yeah, but since my presence here in the story is sort of mixing up the order here,"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well," I said. "You see, in your story… you guys never met me. I'm like, you know, a random character who just popped out of nowhere."

"So you're telling me that you're not supposed to exist?"

I rubbed the back of my neck, giving him a sheepish smile. "It's something like that."

"So you being here with me and Al is disrupting the… uh, timeline?" Ed asked for clarification.

I nodded.

"Trouble follows you everywhere, doesn't it?"

"I don't want to hear that from you, of all people!"

Ed ignored that. "So this girl named Nina. What was our connection with her?"

"Well, since I didn't exist in the timeline, both of you headed to Tucker's place and study in his mini-library about the transmutation of living organisms," I explained. "But then Al noticed Nina, and ended up playing with her."

"Of course he did," Ed said, not surprised.

"But while you guys were studying, one of you asked about Nina. When she told you guys that her mother left her and her father alone in this house at a young age, and that Tucker really never paid attention to Nina anymore, you were somehow reminded of your past."

Ed was quiet as I spoke. Maybe he was reminiscing an old memory.

"So… you guys started playing with her, and eventually you three became close friends." I added brightly.

The corner of Ed's mouth twitched. I smiled.

He looked at his lap. "It's good to know that we made someone feel better." He said contently. But then he frowned and turned to me. "But it's also sad that you originally didn't exist in the timeline."

I raised my eyebrow in confusion before a sly smile crept up my lips. Ed gave me a weird expression. "Andrea?" he asked warily.

I chuckled. "Ohoho, so you're going to miss me if I disappear, eh?"

"W-what?!" Ed exclaimed, his cheeks burning pink.

"You said that it would be sad for you that I didn't originally exist in the timeline," I pointed out. "I knew you liked me!"

"S-shut it! I only said that because Al would be upset if you were gone!"

"Really?" I asked, wiggling my eyebrows. "So you wouldn't miss me if I mysteriously disappeared from your sight?"

He twitched his eyebrow. "That's not— you are— gah! You're just like Al! Twisting my logic with your words!"

"Oh?" I said, feigning fake innocence. "But aren't you the scientist here? Your logic is the logic of the universe."

Ed looked at me jaw smacked before ruffling her hair in frustration. "I can't beat her in an argument!"

I laughed gleefully at his reactions. It was fun to tease him like this!

But then I noticed his face pale slightly. "Uh, Ed?" I asked.

"It's stuck." He stated.

"What's stuck?"

"… my auto-mail got stuck in my hair."

"… idiot."

So the next five minutes was used to untangle Ed's hair from his auto-mail.

"Ow! Don't pull it off my head!"

"I'm trying to be gentle as I could here!"

"Then be gentler!"

"Oh shut it! I'm not the idiot who got his hair stuck in a machine!"

"You shut up!"

"No way, pipsqueak!"

"What did you say, flat chest?!"

"Who are calling a flat chest, midget?!"

Ed was pretty sensitive about his height and that, I was fully-aware of. But what I didn't expect that he would have the nerve to tackle me down on the ground and pin both my arms using his flesh arm above my head.

"Get off me!" I said angrily, though secretly I was blushing because of the position we were in.

"I am not short!" he cried, a vein popping on his head.

And sure enough, someone just had to come in with their perfect timing.

Al's suit of armor was standing there on the entrance of the room, with Hughes beside him. They were giving us a blank and comical look, as if they weren't the least surprised with the scene.

A pause.

"… are we interrupting something?" Hughes asked.

"It's not what you think!" we shrieked at the same time with burning faces.

|-Andrea-|

After that… uh, event, I explained to Al and Hughes our plans of heading to East City.

"Ed, Al," I said, catching both boys' attention. "There is something I forgot to mention about Nina and Shou."

Both looked at me inquiringly. Hughes glanced at me curiously, and I felt goose bumps rise in my arm as the tension in the air thickened.

"Nina… her mom… Tucker told Nina that her mom abandoned them and left them for another family." I said. "But that wasn't the case."

"Then what was?" Al asked.

I was really uncomfortable saying this, but they had to learn the truth. "Tucker used his own wife in a transmutation experiment to create a chimera that understands the human language."

Ed's eyes widened in shock. Al gasped and Hughes was taken aback from the news.

"That was two years ago," I continued. "And now, since Tucker didn't get his last year's assessment approved, he only has another chance left. And he's—"

"Going to use Nina and Alexander?!" Al finished in horror.

I nodded.

Ed clenched his fist so hard, it started shaking. "That bastard! Doing that to his own family!"

Hughes looked as angry as Ed did. "I'll report this to the military. Since he's a State Alchemist too, we could check his records."

"It's no use. Now that the chimera he first created is dead, we have no evident proof that he had committed taboo. We'll have to catch him during the act," I explained.

"But then… what will happen to Nina?"

I blinked and turned to Al. I hadn't given that a thought. I was so focused and hell bent on saving Nina that I didn't consider the afterthought.

"She loves her father… and he's the only family he's got left. She will be heartbroken if she hears that the person she looked up at was the one who destroyed their family in the first place." Hughes noted sadly.

"But still…" Ed growled.

I was torn. What should I do? I couldn't possibly rip Nina away from her family. That would be cruel. But if I let her be, she'll be used as an experiment against her will and die by the hands of Scar.

I don't want neither to happen.

"I… I'll try and think of a way." I mumbled, turning away. How do I do that? How can I save her without breaking her inside? I can't do that to an innocent child.

Hughes stared at me, his eyes hard. He then sighed and turned towards the door. "I'll do my best and investigate his records. All three of you, whatever information was heard here stays here, got it?"

All three of us nodded in agreement. He nodded in approval before shutting the door behind him.

I sighed. Gah, life is confusing!

|-Andrea-|

"Ed, I'm bored."

"Then find something to do."

"But I don't know what to do!"

"That's not my problem."

I pouted. Since Ed was still stuck in bed, he decided to read some books based on Alchemy to refresh his mind. It was annoying that he could understand those books on his own. I had to ask Izumi for so many hints just to understand one chapter of a book! And it was the basics of a transmutation circle!

Alphonse turned to me. "Well, what do you want to do Andrea?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know! I just want to kill some time!"

"Then how about you go shopping?"

Both me and Ed stared at him. Ed was staring at him like he had just announced that Roy was pregnant with his baby, and I was staring at him as if he was my hero.

"Alphonse Elric, you honestly know a woman's heart." I said solemnly with a hand on my chest. I launched myself on Alphonse and hugged his armor. Despite him not being able to feel a thing, I still felt the need to give the armor some love.

Ed was just staring in horror at Al. I turned to Ed and clasped my hands together.

"Hey Ed! Can I have some—"

"No."

"But—"

"No."

"You didn't even—"

"No."

"How about—"

"No."

I sigh. "You're such a killjoy. No wonder you still don't have a girlfriend." I stated.

An irk mark appeared on the alchemist's head. "Shut up!"

"If only I had my laptop, I would be able to google myself out of this stupid situation." I murmured lazily.

Ed looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "Google? Laptop?"

I turned to him. "Those are one of the things my world has. Since Alchemy is near impossible on the other side, we mostly focused on improving our technology."

Al turned to me, slightly interested in the conversation. "Your technology? How so?"

"Well, instead of only trains and carriages as forms of transportation, we have other types of vehicles like cars and airplanes." I explained. "A car is like one of the cars in this world, but it's more advanced because there's a radio installed, an air-conditioner, and it's styled with more colors and designs."

Both brothers hummed in amazement. "Then what's an airplane?" Ed asked.

"An airplane is like a gigantic vehicle that has huge wings. It's mostly used for travelling in the air so we can travel to other countries or places in the world in a short period of time." I explained.

Ed gaped. "Impossible!"

"Hey, to my people in the other side, being able to transform objects into another form is impossible." I countered.

"Andrea, you said before that in your world, me and brother's life story is known by millions, right?" Al said. "Even our secret is known to them?"

I nodded. "Yep. But it isn't a secret anymore."

Ed placed the palm of his hand on his face. "Ugh, great. Just what I need. More people who'll probably think we're stupid because we tried to bring our mom back."

I frowned and walked in front of him. I pinched his left ear, to which he cried out in pain. I let go after a few moments, and Ed held his red ear.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?" he asked irritably.

I placed my hands on my hips. "Stop saying that. There are people who would think what you did is admirable. Remember what I said? I won't judge you for your mistakes. So stop making me want to slap you."

Ed gave me a scowl, but his blush betrayed him. Al chuckled behind us. "Brother, you're all red again." He teased.

The blush grew darker. "Shut up Al!"

|-Andrea-|

Ed and Al were really interested in my world. They kept bombarding me with questions about our technology and other things related to Science.

I wasn't exactly a big Science fan, so I couldn't give them really big details. That, and I didn't intend to reveal the secret to our world's technology yet. If somehow this side of the gate would gain advanced technology AND alchemy, it would be catastrophic. I mean, that would result to both gates imperfect and imbalanced, right?

Ever since Ed discovered that I used the stone to heal him, he protested when I offered again, and even though he hates the hospital, he would rather heal in his own time rather than use human lives for his own sake, is what he said.

I smiled at Ed when he said this. I guess he isn't called 'hero of the people' for nothing.

His injuries were stable and I told him that he was well enough to go back to travelling again. Ed cheered, saying that he could finally get out of this stupid hospital.

When we did, we made sure to tell Hughes. Ed nearly ditched on telling Colonel Roy, but both Al and I pinched his ears, forcing him to tell Roy.

I don't know who was more pissed off than Ed at that time.

Right now, we were taking a train back to East City so that Ed could personally report to his superior. He was fuming on his seat, and I was just staring at the window, wondering.

What should I do now? I could save Nina, but that's the plot twist of everything in the cannon. But no one deserves to be treated that way! She didn't even have a chance of life! But I can't possibly separate her from her father. Maybe I can just try and help Tucker with his State Alchemist Assessment?

Unknowingly, a sigh escaped my lips. Ed turned to me. "What's up?"

I shrugged. "I'm still thinking about Nina."

He didn't react. He looked at the window. "We'll find a way. Definitely. So don't worry." He then gave me a grin. "'Sides, frowning makes you look old."

I stared at him before smiling. "I guess so."

But inside, I was still ripping my hair out in confusion. Ed's attempt at cheering me up did help a bit, but all in all, I'm still mentally banging my head on a pole, figuring out what the fiddlesticks to do with my life.

Throughout the whole train ride, I couldn't catch any z's. It was so frustrating because each time I look at Ed, he's sleeping as if it's his job. So I decided to keep thinking about how to save Nina from her impending doom.

But the more I thought about it, the more I grew confused and frustrated. I tried doing everything to calm myself down; I ordered milk, talked to Al, thought about it until my brain exploded, but nothing!

So throughout the whole time, this question was in my head.

"What should I do?"

[A/N:] Guess who's back~

That's right people! xD I do hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was really fun to make! At first, when I uploaded the last chapter, I was so sad that I only had like, one response to it. But then a few days after, more people reviewed! It made me crap skittles because I was so happy! :)

Anyways, I have a reviewer who thinks that Andrea is close to becoming a Mary-Sue… AGAIN.

Okay, let me explain; Andrea only wanted to learn the basics of Alchemy with Izumi. The basics took her 5 months to understand and to learn how to do Alchemy. Compared to Ed and Al who understood the concept of Alchemy quite easily, Andrea was pretty slow to up-take.

Anyways, my next update will be soon. I do hope more of you send me your wonderful messages and reviews! Love ya!

Reviews are love~