Woohoo! I actually got it posted on the right day! This is awesome! *hops around happily* Sorry for going on vacation. If it makes y'all feel any better, it sucked. ^^ But according to my reviews the wait had you on pins and needles, which is exactly the response I was going for, so yay!

Please review; I don't own FMA; I love you guys!

"I'm going to tell her when she gets here."

"Tell what?"

"About that model you made of the epidemic."

"It'll just scare her even more. And it's not definitive anyhow. No, it's better to wait and tell her about the change of plans once she gets here, but we definitely shouldn't tell her we're probably already infected with the fever."

"Whenever she gets here," Al said, looking out at the railroad for signs of the train, which was delayed. "You have our tickets?" he verified, glancing back at Ed.

"They haven't gone anywhere in the last ten minutes, Al. Since when are you the impatient one?"

"Sorry, I'm just nervous. I wish Winry's train would get here already."

"Is that it now?" Ed asked, pointing at the gradually enlarging black spot in the place where the railroad tracks met the horizon.

"Hope so," said Al, and they fell silent to watch the train roll in. As soon as the doors opened Winry was the first person off, and she looked around the station wildly for a moment before her eyes lit on Ed and Al, who had already taken up their bags and were heading over to her.

"Change of plans," Ed said when they were close enough to speak. "We're going straight home on the next train that's coming in."

Winry hugged Al for a minute, then hugged Ed for a much longer minute. He couldn't help wondering if he had the fever already, and if the simple touch had just passed it to her. "How come we no longer have to wait two days for news?" she asked.

"Al and I found out that no mail or phone calls are getting south," said Ed. He purposely left out the part about how they knew that. Winry never asked, as if she knew she didn't want to know.

When Ed was worried about something, he became fidgety and restless. Conversely, Al became very still. Winry did neither of these things in favor of staring out the window (or, if there was no window, some inconsequential inanimate object in the near distance) in silence. Every now and then she would wipe her eyes, when the tears in them became so that she could not see. For the first hour of their train ride home, you couldn't have found a more silent or serious or tense or solemn group of teenagers. This would have continued for the rest of the six-hour ride, was the train not interrupted only an hour out.

First, there was a long wait, and all the passengers mumbled among themselves and were very confused. Then all of a sudden, soldiers in their blue uniforms burst onto the train car. "Everyone remain calm," someone said. The soldiers fanned out, and one came to stand in the aisle right beside Al. There were fifteen altogether. Once the soldiers were in position, three nurses (in Amestrian uniforms with red crosses on their hats, breast pockets, and a very large one on their backs) filed in and went to the first three rows of passengers.

"What's going on?" Al wondered as they watched the nurses give the bewildered passengers brief examinations, checking the eyes and scalp before moving on. Whenever a nurse finished with a passenger, she would turn to the nearest soldier and nod or shake her head. The soldiers all had little red and green playing-card-shaped objects, which they were passing gout to the passengers: green if the nurse nodded; red if the nurse shook her head. Very few people got red cards.

"Why do you think they're looking at everyone's hair and eyes?" Winry asked.

"Hey," said Ed to the closest soldier. When he turned, Ed asked, "What are they doing?"

"Sorry, kid. Official military business. Can't tell the civilians." He turned away again.

"Clearly he doesn't know who he's talking to," Ed mumbled in an aside to Winry and Al, standing up and digging his watch out of his pocket. "Excuse me, Warrant Officer," (he had memorized the pattern of stripes on Amestrian soldiers' uniforms), "My name is Edward Elric, otherwise known as the Fullmetal Alchemist. I'm a Lieutenant Colonel, in case you were wondering if I outrank you. So, let's hear what's going on here." He smirked smugly.

Warrant Officer Jacob McKay saluted Ed upon seeing the Fuhrer's seal on his State Alchemist's watch. He seemed a little sheepish. "The train has stopped at a fever checkpoint. That's what the nurses are looking for."

"Let me guess," said Al. "The red cards are for the people who have got it." Only two people had gotten red cards so far.

That's stupid, Winry thought. If even one person's got it that means we've all been exposed. But she didn't say anything out loud.

"That's right," said Warrant Officer McKay.

"Where do the red card people go?"

"All I know is that they're quarantined."

"Quarantined..." Ed repeated, frowning. "For how long?"

"I have no idea, sir."

"Where do they go?"

"Don't know, sir."

"Stop calling me sir."

"Yes, sir."

Ed opened his mouth as if to speak but no words came to him, so Winry spoke up. "You don't know where they go or what happens to them there. So what do you know? Why are you soldiers even here?"

"If the passengers resist..." Officer McKay was still addressing Ed (because technically Ed was the only one he was allowed to tell private information to), "It's our job to make sure the nurses can do their job."

"Have many passengers been putting up a fight, then?"

"Sometimes fever diagnosees insist they don't have it, and they can get violent when we pull them off the train."

"What do you do about families?"

"What?"

"What if the parents in a family have the fever but the children don't? Where do the kids go?"

"If a single person in a party has the fever, chances are that other people have the fever and aren't.... shoot, what's the word? Showing signs of it yet."

"You mean symptomatic," Winry supplied.

"That's the word. Yeah, if one person in a group has the fever, we red-card everyone."

"That doesn't seem fair," Winry said softly.

"It's almost our turn," Al observed.

The people in the seats behind them got red-carded, which had the effect of setting everyone (except Warrant Officer McKay, who had had the fever years ago and was therefore immune) on edge.

"Alright, who first?" said the nurse cheerfully. She had dark hair and an honest face. "How about you, dear? Ladies first?"

"Ladies first," Winry repeated shakily.

"Don't get upset, it's very quick," said the nurse as she grabbed a light from her pocket and shone it in Winry's eyes. "What color are her eyes, normally?" she asked Ed and Al.

"Blue," said Ed.

"What kind? Sky, turquoise, robin's egg...?"

"Darker."

"Was it a very bright blue, like lapis lazuli? Or duller, like deep water?"

Ed hesitated. He knew Winry's life depended on an exact answer. He waited so long that Al answered. "Ocean."

"Okay, then..." said the nurse softly, and she clicked the light off. "Pull your pony out, please?"

Winry complied, yanking on the ponytail holder so hard it snapped instead of coming out cleanly. "Dang," she muttered, stuffing the snapped band into her pocket to throw away later. The nurse started examining Winry's scalp carefully as if searching for ticks. After a moment she leaned away.

"No color change evident at the roots. Jacob, you can give her the green. All right, son, it's your turn." She pulled out her light again and looked at Ed. After a moment of blinding him with it, she pressed her lips together suspiciously. "His eyes aren't normally brown, are they?"

"No..." said Winry nervously. "Gold. He has gold eyes too," she added, pointing at Al.

"They're not brown, are they?" Ed asked.

"No, but brown will sometimes lighten to gold if someone has the white fever, so I had to check. If your eyes are really that color then it's probably not the white fever. Unbraid your hair, please."

"But I thought you just said I didn't have the fever?" Ed questioned.

"Just do it, Ed," said Winry, who couldn't bring herself to point out that she'd said "probably not the white fever."

"Don't order me around," Ed groused as he obeyed her.

The nurse looked very carefully at Ed's hair as she had looked at Winry's, but it was over quickly. The nurse glanced significantly at Officer McKay when she was done, then went over to Al.

"Same eye color as him?" the nurse verified.

"That's right," said Al. "We got it from our father."

"Huh" was all she said.

"What's the verdict?" asked Warrant Officer McKay, almost jokingly. (He had done this routine too many times to take it seriously.)

"Are you traveling with these brothers?" the nurse asked Winry.

"Yes, I am..." she said uncertainly.

"Okay." The nurse turned to Officer McKay. "Red card them all, Jacob," she said briskly as she moved to the next group in the row.

Winry jumped up, staring after her in indignation. "What?"

"Sorry," said Officer McKay, taking her green card from her and replacing it with a red one.

"But—I don't understand! We aren't sick!" she spluttered, looking at Ed helplessly. "Tell him we can't possibly be sick. He'll believe you, you're the Fullmetal Alchemist and all that!"

Of course, knowing what they knew and hadn't told her, Ed and Al couldn't say anything.

"Get whatever you brought and had off the train," Warrant Officer McKay instructed. "There will be people out there to tell you where to go from there. Please don't, y'know, touch anyone or whatever."

Al and Winry just rolled their eyes at this instruction, but as Ed passed by Officer McKay he couldn't resist the temptation to wriggle his fingers in a ghostly, I'm-gonna-get-you way. Officer McKay only shrank back for a second before he remembered he was immune anyway and smirked.

Ed could have sworn he mouthed the word "short" as they stepped out of the car.