Y'know what's weird? Okay, so, except for the first one and the latest five or so chapters, all of the chapters for this story have about 30 hits, give or take a few. The latest five are newer so they're only in their teens, and the first chapter is the first chapter so it has like 110 hits this month. However, there is one chapter that does not follow the rules, and that is "What Ed Bought 2: End Flashback." That one, though it is not the first chapter nor in the latest five, has an abnormal amount of hits: 50. It's strange. What's so special about that particular one? Was it especially loved by y'all? Readers, if you do review, would you satisfy my curiosity and tell me what your favorite chapter so far is? I simply MUST get to the bottom of this oddity!

To Harryswoman, Fall of the House of Elric, and S J Smith, my three repeat reviewers: I would like to publicly announce that I love you guys eight thousand times more than all of my nonreviewing readers and three thousand times more than my review hit-and-run-ers. At some point I should get around to dedicating a chapter to you three. Well, I guess mentioning you guys is almost like dedicating a chapter to you, anyway. BUUUTTTT regardless, I'm going to specially dedicate a chapter to each of you individually. Yay!

Even without this increasingly long author's note, the following chapter is pretty freaking huge. It's another one of those I-couldn't-figure out-where-to-break-it-off situations. Plus, the final sentence of this chapter is, in my opinion, a really excellent stopping point, especially since the chapter after this one is another letter from Haven, and today is the final day of Double Daily Chapter Week. It just worked out better as a long one. (And I mean long. It's like 1400 words, not counting this AN.)

Okay, without further ado, REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW, I don't own FMA, and REVIEW!!!


As soon as Al was inside the house Ed turned his attention back to the girl in front of him. Her heartbeat had sped to about once a second. Still way too slow, but vastly improved in such a short time. He bent low over her and put his ear by her mouth to listen to her breathing and relish the sound and the tickle of air on his ear. Alive. Safe. In Haven's words, "timely."

Without warning, Winry stirred. She was still lying on her back, and her elbows bent and moved so that she lifted herself and leaned on her forearms while turning her head to look in bewilderment at the ground. "Get off me. Ed. Can't move." Her voice was slurred and very soft, but that was what it sounded like she said.

"Winry, you're awake!" Ed said in surprise and sat up straight. Winry appeared to be struggling to sit up, so he reached around her waist and pulled her into a sitting position.

She clapped her hand to her forehead and said, "Ah. Dizzy. Sunny. My head. Ow."

"Sorry," Ed said, sounding as dazed as she.

"Why're we outsi—oh!" She stopped midsentence and started struggling against Ed's arms. "Oh God, let go of me. I'm gonna be sick!"

"Oh, shit. Seriously?" He released her immediately and she fell forward without support, groaning.

"Yeah, seriously." She groaned again. "Ahh, I don't want to be sick on the lawn…"

There was a split second where Ed thought about doing the romantic thing that guys were supposed to do in stories and books, that is, holding her hair back for her and the whole nine yards, but he squashed that notion quick. Nobody wants to watch somebody else chuck their guts, regardless of how much they love each other.

"Uh, uh…" Ed stuttered, looking around wildly as if a convenient bucket or large hole would magically appear. Oh, wait. 'Magic.' Duh. He scrambled around her so he was a few feet ahead of her, clapped his hands, and with a flash of light the dirt moved so there was now a largish hole in front of her. "Uh, there you go, Win."

"Th-thanks," she managed to say, and then without preamble she bent her head over the hole , wrapped one arm around her abdomen, put the other hand up to her forehead to hold her bangs back from her face, and heaved.

Ed had been prepared to avert his eyes and pretend not to notice anything, but he quickly realized he couldn't sit back and watch her suffer alone. He knelt by her side, pulled her hair back with ore precision than she had been able, and rubbed her shoulder until it was over. When she was done, Ed released her and clapped his hands, and with another flash of light all the dirt was back in the hole so it was impossible to tell it had ever been dug up.

Winry was apologizing over and over again. "…don't know what's wrong with me today, I'm so sorry, I fell asleep and I meant to be awake when you guys got here so you could explain it to me in person, and Grandma said—"

"No, Win, it's not your fault!" Ed cut across her. "Al and I have worked out that it was probably terrorists of some sort—"

"Terrorists?" she repeated in alarm.

"It's complicated. I'll explain later, I promise."

"Uhh, okay, I'll hold you to it, then. Where's Alphonse?" she asked, suddenly remembering him.

"Right here," said Al, kneeling beside Pinako, who had also woken up and was refusing to be treated like a sick person. "I ran inside to get some blankets. Here, Brother."

Ed caught the wool blanket that was thrown in his direction and unfolded it, then flung it over Winry's shoulders. She shivered a little, as if she hadn't realized how cold she felt until she'd received the blanket. Ed got up, walked to the place where he'd dropped the stuff he'd brought with him while he and Al had been running for the house, grabbed his red cloak, and walked back, then wrapped the cloak around her as well.

Ed looked at Al, who had given up on stubborn Pinako and was now sitting next to Den, petting the bewildered dog. "Did you find anything?"

Al knew what he was talking about. "No, nothing out of the ordinary. I didn't even find anything that could tell us how the gas got inside the house in the first place."

"Huh." Ed frowned and looked down at the ground, trying to think of places where they could look for the next set of instructions. He was interrupted from his thoughts when Winry made a confused noise and pulled the blankets off of herself.

"Something wrong?" asked Pinako.

"There's something… inside my shirt," she said, sounding perplexed.

"Inside your shirt?" Al repeated. "What is it?"

"Feels like a piece of paper." She let the blanket and Ed's cloak fall off of her shoulders, then lifted the hem of her shirt, exposing her stomach, and a piece of paper folded in half and sewn with large haphazard stitches to the underside of the garment. "It is a piece of paper. How'd it get there?" She pulled it away from her shirt (the weak stitches gave easily; it was so poorly done it could have been sewn by a left-handed five-year-old) and turned the paper over in her hands several times.

When he saw the cut-out newsprint words one side, Ed was both relieved and horrified at the same time. Relieved that the instructions had been found. Horrified that they'd gotten that close to Winry. Relieved that they'd gotten that close and not harmed her—it surely would have been easy if they'd wanted to, given that Winry must have been passed out at the time. Horrified that there were, in fact, more instructions. Relieved to know that someone from Haven had been here less than an hour ago; it meant they couldn't be far away now.

"It says 'Haven,'" Winry said. "Wonder what's inside."

Ed snatched it out of her hands before she could open it, then unfolded the paper and scanned it himself. Al walked over and read over Ed's shoulder.

"All right," said Ed when he was done reading. He was trying very hard to control his voice so Winry and Pinako wouldn't get too suspicious. "Winry, Grandma. Run inside and pack a bag. Wait. Actually, don't. You've probably still got a lot of the nerve agent in your system, and if you go in there you'll probably pass out again. Al and I will get some stuff for you. It's about 2:45 right now, right, Al?"

"Sounds right."

"Why are you packing bags for us?" asked Winry.

"We're leaving Resembool."

"But why? Did those terrorist people say you had to take us with you?"

Ed folded the note and put it in his pocket, then turned without responding and headed inside. Al gave Winry her answer: "No, they didn't demand anything like that. Actually, they specifically told us they didn't care either way."

"Then why...?" she asked, becoming frustrated with the lack of explanatory answers.

"It's just that you're involved now. We can't leave you alone. We can't let this happen again."

"If the terrorists didn't threaten us, then they must have something else planned. Grandma and I should be fine, right? Right?"

"We can't be sure about anything yet." Al turned away and headed for the house after Ed had already gone inside. Over his shoulder he said, "You don't know what it was like when you were dead."


Yay! They're not dead! And as I mentioned in the opening AN (aka that long one at the top of this page which you barely scanned before rushing ahead to the chapter) the last line of this chapter was a really good stopping point for me; I felt that it gave this chapter a sense of closure, which is good since the next chapter is another letter from Haven (That is also why there will be no chapter preview for it, by the way.)

Remember, today is the last of the double-chapter days! If you want me to start posting daily, leave a review and tell me so; if not, the next chapter posted will be on Sunday. (There will also be one on Monday to celebrate, what is it, President's Day, that we have off from school for? I don't even know, all I know is that there's no school, and that's reason enough for me to post a bonus chapter.)

REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! (Oh, God, I've become a review troll. What can I say? I like reviews. They make me happy. Every time I come home and there's a review alert in my inbox, I get a little giddy. So leave me some! Plus, reviews make me write more! If it ever so happens that I get more chapters in queue in my Document Manager than will fit, I will promptly post one of them to make room. Which means, if your reviews can give me incentive to write enough, you might get a few random bonus chapters sometime!)