Yeesh! This chapter was SO stressful to write! It took me forever and I didn't really feel 'inspired,' so I HOPE it turned out okay anyway. Lie to me if it didn't! (No, actually please don't!)

"Okay, I get the picture," Ed said dully as Winry pulled him out of the kitchen, which was the center of the house, through the hall that led to Meta's bedroom (which had not existed prior to Ed and Al transmuting that addition to the house) and past it, around the back way to the staircase, and up the stairs. "I get it, you're separating me from the situation. But what are you dragging me all around the house for? Is this necessary?" He tugged against her as she continued pulling his arm and leading him through the house, not glancing back. "Winry. What are you doing?" She continued dragging him around without saying anything. Quickly Ed realized where she was headed: Pinako's room. He halted, no longer allowing himself to be pulled along like an animal. "Enough, Winry. Talk to me."

Winry stopped then and stared ahead, but didn't say anything.

"Winry?"

Silence.

"Winry. Look at me."

She was shaking slightly.

"Are you crying?"

Finally, just as Ed was giving up on getting a response of any kind, Winry turned around in a blur of movement and less kissed his lips than attacked his face. There were tears on her face; Ed could taste them on her lips. Face aflame, he flailed a little and tried to figure out how to get her off without hurting her feelings. In the end he took the Occam's razor approach and simply put his hands on either side of her face to pull her away. However, she grabbed his wrists and freed her face from his grasp, then turned her attentions to his neck.

"Winry, what's gotten into you?" he asked breathlessly.

"Please," she mumbled against his skin, "just this once, don't overthink. Don't think at all. Just..." Her words trailed off and were replaced by the feeling of her tongue working against her skin.

Feeling unsteady, Ed threw his arm out and braced it against the nearest wall, which was actually the door to Pinako's room. "I don't understand."

"You don't have to."

"Is this why you pulled me all the way upstairs?" Her fingers dragged down his chest and left tingling wakes. Heat flashed to his groin. "Oh, God..." he groaned. "Please stop."

Her fingers paused and she tilted her head downward sadly, closing her eyes. A few tears dripped silently onto his shirt.

Ed shrank back. "No, no, don't cry at me!" he pleaded weakly.

"I... I..." Words failed her, and she closed the space he'd created by stepping backward, pressing her body irresistibly against his. Her lips found that sensitive spot just below and behind his ear.

"Winry..." he breathed. "What the hell is going on in your head?" The mixed messages were simply incomprehensible to him.

Her breath was hot against his ear. "Does something always have to be?"

"So where do you sleep?"

Luna looked up from the pan of vegetables she was stir-frying. "Pardon?"

Al temporarily re-covered the pot of rice on the stove after stirring it. "You've been sleeping here, right? Whose room have you been sleeping in?"

"No one's. I wasn't going to sleep in Pinako's or Eli's rooms for obvious ghost-related reasons. And..." She paused, looked down at the food, then back at him. "I didn't want to take yours, Ed's, or Winry's room. Partially because I hoped you guys would come home soon, mostly because it felt like stealing your space. I'm not a thief. I was trying to help you all, not take advantage of your home."

"You didn't answer my question," he pointed out.

"It doesn't make a difference." She removed the food from the heat and grabbed two plates from the cupboard, one for Meta and one for Joli. Everyone else could get their own food if they were hungry, but she certainly wasn't.

"I still would like to know," Al persisted, his curiosity piqued by her withholding of information.

"Hmm," she grunted noncommittally as she brought Meta's food out of the kitchen (Meta never left her room).

Al followed her and listened to the conversation.

Luna pulled on the light for the hundredth time today (Meta preferred to mourn in the dark and would turn it off when no one was paying attention). "Meta, it's dinnertime. Stir-fried veggies and rice."

Meta groaned loudly. "Already? I don't remember ever having eaten so often in my life."

"Three times a day," Luna said patiently. "Look, I know you don't have much of an appetite and I'm not gonna make you eat the whole thing if you don't want to, but you have to have some nutrition. Otherwise when you grow into a teenager you'll turn pointy like me."

"That wouldn't be so bad. You're pretty, you know."

Luna chuckled a little. "Just eat." She patted Meta's head, then stood and exited the room. She smiled a little when she caught Al looking at her from the doorway, also smiling vaguely, then suddenly something seemed to occur to her and she dropped her jaw and stared outright.

"What? What did I do?" he asked nervously.

"A passion-filled glare is fraught with emotion!" Luna grabbed both of Al's wrists and pulled him so that he had to drop to his knees in a crouch or he would fall. Then she pulled him closer until their noses were almost touching, and stared in his golden eyes with her dreamy silver ones. She spoke in a soft whisper: "Love is a deep and complicated emotion. Only true lovers can look into each other's eyes, even when the current of their thoughts is filled with anger and frustration, and see the person with whom they share an innate connection, really see—not just see, but observe, notice, view! When you are truly in love, there is a tie, a string—a connection between the eyes of you and your lover—this is what a man sees as his lover walks down the aisle with the wedding march playing—have you never noticed the face of the groom at that moment? How his face lights up and he grins the whole time as he looks at the woman with whom he wishes to spend the rest of his life? You can tell, when you look at his face, that there is no one else in the room, for him. It is only him and her and the rest of forever!" She paused to breathe, then continued. "It is strongest then, but there are other moments when you can see the string which ties two lovers together, and if you truly train your eyes, you can see the string even at moments when the casual observer would see naught but anger. In this way, even an infuriated glare can be charged with the passion of love!"

"Why were you looking at me?" she asked.

"I... don't... know?" He stepped back for no reason other than to give her space. "Why?" He was made more nervous by her ambiguous stare, and his own inexperience in the ways of women.

She shook her head, then walked away.

Al followed her into the kitchen. "Did I just accidentally screw something up, Luna?"

"Nope," she said simply. She went to the door and he saw a small satchel sitting on the floor off to the side where it wouldn't be in the way. The satchel was just big enough to fit her black-and-white notebook, and perhaps a book about palmistry, a pirate treasure map, 254 paperclips, or nine swordfish sandwiches. "I'm going out for the night," she announced, picking up the satchel. "You coming?"

He took her hand in what she hoped wasn't a strictly friendly gesture. "Of course."

Winry could tell that Edward was too confused to be properly enjoying himself, though she was using every trick she had learned since the very first time they had kissed. He continually asked what was going on, what she was thinking, why she was doing this, but there was no answer to those questions. Nothing she could explain in words, at least: Finding out that her grandmother had died meant that she was now the only surviving Rockbell anywhere. The feeling of aloneness was unbearable. She needed Ed right now like she had never known she could need anything or anyone. But how could she explain that to him? It sounded silly and cliché even in her head, such that she couldn't imagine trying to say it out loud. However, as long as she could drive him to distraction (and if the groaning noises of pleasure perforating his incessant questions about her motives were any indication, she was succeeding in just that), she wouldn't have to attempt to explain herself.

"Damn it..." he panted in her ear. "You're driving me c-... c-... cra-... zy..." He faltered at the C because her hands had stolen their way under his shirt and were snaking up over his tense abdomen. "Win... ry... stop."

"Let me..." she whispered in his ear, exhaling hot breath there. He shivered. "Let me have my way. Don't be so... nervous." His shirt was being tugged upwards the higher her hands got.

He closed his eyes, experiencing the sensation of her exploring. "I give up," he sighed finally.

Words she'd been aching to hear the whole time. "No more whining 'Stop!' and 'I'm confused!' then," she instructed.

"Fine," he said shortly, then caught hold of her chin with his right hand and pulled her face away from his neck so he could kiss her properly, while his left hand rested chastely on her hip.

She smiled against his lips and let her hands travel around his body, then she dragged her fingers down his back to listen to the noise he made, a sudden intake of breath, and to feel his body's reaction, a rippling of his muscles not unlike a cat.

He responded by laughing a little and moving the hand at her hip so that he could pull her flush against him, then he started kissing her neck for a change. "I've missed this."

She kept her eyes open even though they wanted to flutter closed. "We were sick. We couldn't."

"True. And even right now, we shouldn't." He sighed and lifted his head to look in her eyes, and his flesh hand left the small of her back so he could use his thumb to wipe her tears away. "You look tired."

"I feel tired," she admitted.

He shifted his weight. "Well—"

"No!" she said quickly. "Don't stop yet!"

He looked down at her with questioning eyes.

"I mean, just a little longer. Just a little farther. Please?"

Ed touched his lips to hers ever so lightly, then pulled away and frowned a little. "Since when am I unable to say no when you say please?"