Disclaimer: I don't own FMA.

After stopping for directions twice, I finally reached Pinako's house. I knocked on the door and Pinako answered.
"Yes?" She asked. I smiled at her.
"My name is Lynette La'va, and I'm a state alchemist. I came with Edward back to Resembool and wanted to check up on him before I got a train home." I said. Pinako let me in, grumbling under her breath.
"Now they let more children in the military..." She muttered. I sweat dropped as Pinako had me sit down on a couch in the living room while she went to go get Ed.
"You ok?" I asked as Ed took a seat next to me. He sighed.
"That bastard is back." He growled. I laughed.
"That's what I would say every time my mom came home after a fight," I laughed. I patted Ed's shoulder.
"How long are you going to stay here?" I asked. Ed shrugged.
"Maybe one or two days. Aren't you staying with me?" Ed asked. I shook my head.
"No," I sighed, "I'm going to take a train back. I have a really bad feeling that Mustang is going to attempt another half-brained scheme of his. Lucky for me he's harder to kill than a cockroach." I laughed sheepishly. Ed sweat dropped but poked my arm.
"It's getting dark, you should stay here tonight." Ed said. I shook my head.
"No, I couldn't possibly-"
"We have a spare room you can stay in." Pinako appeared at the door.
"I don't want to impose on you." I said. She shook her head.
"You're not imposing. It's fine." Pinako said. I smiled at her.
"Thank you so much!" I said gratefully. Pinako nodded and disappeared down the hall. I looked back at Ed and sighed.
"You win, I'm staying."
"I knew you would."
"Shut up." I rolled my eyes as Ed grinned at me.
"I thought you wanted to get away from all the 'big city noise'." Ed said, raising his eyebrows. I flapped a hand at him.
"My boy, I can't enjoy myself if I have the feeling Colonel Pyro is about to cause more major distraction in Central, and I can't help but worry Al and the others'll get caught up in it." I said, "But I'm sure they'll be fine. Al and Colonel Pyro are made of some tough bricks." I said, making Ed laugh.
"Right about that." After he said that, there was a slightly awkward silence.
"So, are you any closer to getting home?" Ed asked. I nodded, remembering my talk with Hohenhiem.
"I have almost everything figured out." I made a fist and stared at it, "I just need a little more time and a little more information. I'm almost there." I said, looking at Ed. He was about to say something when I interrupted.
"Well, look at the time." I said nervously, "I have to find out which room I can use and put my stuff away. After I think I'm going to help Pinako with dinner. I'll talk to you more tomorrow. Okay?" I said. Ed nodded and I quickly hugged him before walking out of the room, hiding a smile on my face.
I could get used to this.

~

That night, I was running, away, through the darkness. Trying to get away. I suddenly stopped in place, under a streetlight. Something came into view. Something white.
It was a lion.
It approached me, as if it were stalking its prey, eyeing me closely. I felt a pure emotion that moment, as pure as any ever. I was afraid, so much my knees shook, as the lion got closer, finally close enough to see it towered over me. It looked me right in the eyes.
It's eyes were golden.
My legs nearly gave out on me. I needed to run. I needed to escape. I was going to die. I was going to get killed, and fade away. I'd be gone.
Gone.

~

I woke with a start, my head beaded with sweat. I gripped the sheets in pure fear as my eyes registered the darkness around me. Despite my fear, I made myself get up. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.
I crept silently over to the door of my room. It wasn't my first time waking up in a place different than I was used to. But it still felt like it.
I snuck down the stairs just to spot a light on farther down the hallway. A figure was beside the doorway, but it was too far in the shadows to clearly see it. I was on high alert as I tiptoed down the hallway, starting to hear snippits of conversation from the lit room.
When I finally got close enough to hear the conversation, I could see who the figure was. It was Ed.
"Are you saying that thing they transmuted wasn't their mother?" I heard Pinako say. My blood froze.
I saw Ed, who had a face on him that I never wanted to remember. The pain, the shock, the despair. It was frightening.
I grabbed Ed's hand and intertwined my fingers in his as I pulled him quietly away, up the stairs, and to his room. I shut the door as Ed walked to his bed and turned on a dim lamp by the bed. I could still see the hurt on his face.
"Hey, hey," I said softly, taking a seat by Ed and rubbing his back soothingly. "Are you alright?"
"Tomorrow." He said.
"Huh?" I asked, confused.
"I am going to dig up the body tomorrow." Ed said. I sighed shakily.
"I'll help. I just want to make sure you're alright." I said. Ed looked at me uncertainly. I squeezed his hand comfortingly.
"We'll start in the morning. Now, get some sleep." I said, giving Ed another hug. After he looked at me.
"Why do you give me a lot of hugs?" He asked suddenly. I smiled at him.
"Because you're adorable when your sad, and it makes me want to cheer you up. I try my hardest to make all the people I care about happy." I said, walking to the door.
"Sweet dreams," I said, teasingly blowing Ed a kiss as I stealthily crept out of the room and back to mine. I felt much better.
And all I could think about as I went to sleep was a certain blonde alchemist.

It was dark the next day. Gloomy clouds loomed over Resembool as Ed, Pinako and I hiked to the remains of the Elric house.
When we got there, I could see Ed clutch his shirt tightly. That's when I remembered his stumps ached whenever it rained. The moisture in the air of something.
As Pinako tried to coax Ed into heading back, I started to dig in the appointed area.
A little while after Ed and Pinako joined me, it started to rain. Ed stopped for a bit to cough up some kind of fluid and Pinako patted his back, while I kept digging even more vigorously. I needed to get this done so he could go back and relax.
This happened a few times, but finally Ed hit something.
"Here!" Ed exclaimed weakly as he knelt down and pushed away the remaining dirt with his hands. He grabbed a lock of hair that he had somehow found in the dirt, and rushed over to a bucket Pinako had brought that was filled up with water, and he washed the hair off before holding it up for him to see it. He was silent.
"Granny, mom's hair was a light chestnut color, right?" Ed asked shakily before turning his head to look at us with a horrified expression, holding up the lock of hair for us to see. "This is black."

"This femur is much too long," Pinako said, observing the bone after we had dug up the entire skeleton. "And I'm pretty sure this pelvis is male." Ed fell to his knees, holding his face in his hands.
"It was impossible all along," he said, turning to look at the sky. In FMA, this was one of my favorite parts, because Ed with wet and slightly wavy hair is the hottest thing ever, but it was much more serious in real life.
"And all this time, I thought I was missing something, but it was impossible..." Ed looked at the ground again, before starting to laugh. It scared Pinako, and she told him to stop, but I think I was the only one who really knew what it meant. I felt relieved.
"Get a hold of yourself, Ed." Pinako said. Ed stopped.
"Let's go home now." Ed said, staggering to his feet. And so we gathered up our materials and headed back.

It was still dark and raining when I entered Ed's room with a towel. He had changed, but his hair was still wet.
Ed was sitting in his bed, staring out the window.
"Ed, you need to dry your hair if you don't want to get sick." I said, approaching Ed and sitting behind him. He let me take out his braid and run my fingers through his hair before starting to dry it with a towel.
"Are you ok?" I asked after a little while.
"I'm ok." He said softly. I sighed. I wanted to laugh when i came here. To joke. But I guess that's impossible if I choose to stay with Ed. All I can do now I guess is help them through their miseries and push them forward, and weed out any unnecessary tragedies. That's all a glitch like me is good for, after all.
"Are you really going back?" Ed asked quietly. I closed my eyes.
"Yes."
"How long?"
"At least a week, a month at most." I said quietly. I leaned my head against Ed's back, "I'm sorry."
"Do you have to leave?" Ed asked in almost a whisper.
"Yes," I replied, starting to tear up. "I am not strong enough to stay. I'm tired. I grew up when the saddest death was my goldfish. I can't stay here and watch people die. I can't. I admit it, I'm weak. And if I stay here, I'm going to get killed trying to protect someone else. I'm not like you. I can't just get over anything. I'm suffering. I have to keep everything bottled up, but I can't take it anymore. I want to see Katya and Emma!" I cried. This brought back memories.
When I was in fourth grade, I transferred schools, leaving Katya behind. Emma came with me, but she was absent a lot that year. I was always a crybaby, but I could always trust Emma and Katya to be with me. And cheer me up. So when they were both gone, and when I started to cry, I would always sit on a bench and the only thing I would say to everyone else was Katya and Emma's names. Because they are the only two people in the world I trust. I know they won't let me down. But they're back in my world, so I have no one I can truthfully talk to here. It hurt. And now the pain was showing.
"The two people I love are in my world! I can't trust anyone else... No one else... It's too painful..." I sniffed, before laughing slightly. "I probably seem pathetic to you. I'm sorry that I'm more useless than you've must've thought."
I found myself in Ed's arms moments later, his warming embrace comforting.
"You can trust me." He whispered."You don't have to isolate yourself from me." Those words where just what I needed to hear.
But instead of pushing myself away, like I should've, I let my tears flow. All the stress, anxiety, distress, weakness, and pain was washed away, leaving my face all red and stinging from the acid in my tears. I straightened myself and looked at Ed cautiously.
"If I trust you," I said, "You have to promise me one thing."
"What?
"Promise you won't trust me."
"What? Why?"
"I don't want to hurt you. Just promise, and I will promise I won't go back to my world until this whole adventure is over with. I'll stand by you through this." I said, looking Ed in the eyes. He stared back.
"I promise." He said firmly. I smiled a bit.
"Pinky promise?" I asked, holding out my pinky. Ed rolled his eyes but still wrapped his pinky around mine.
"So much like you. Fine, I promise." Ed said. I smiled up at him fully, bouncing back from my depression.
"Thank you." I said. And so, we were just staring at each other, until something happened.
Ed started to lean in. My heart was thumping hard in my throat as I realized what he was doing, and leaned in a little too, and we got closer... And closer...
"ED! LYNETTE! LUNCH!" Pinako shouted, knocking hard on the closed door. Ed and I, startled, jumped away from each other in surprise. Heat flooded my face as I touched my face.
My internal fangirl attacked me with vivid thoughts. No matter how long I'm with the brothers, I don't think that'll change. And to my embarrassment, my nose started to bleed. I cursed as I got up.
"Ed, I'm going to go to get something, you go ahead." I said, quickly escaping the room. I ran to the bathroom, stuffing tissues up my nose and washing the blood off my hands.
Stop doing that, I scolded myself. I can't help it, a voice protested, and besides, it's not my fault you get a nosebleed every time you think of something romantic. You get a nosebleed even if you think of kissing someone. Even your body is attuned to your prejudice against romance, the voice said. I sighed and dried my clean hands, taking tissues soaked with blood out of my nose to find, to my pleasure, the bleeding already stopped.
And so, I paraded down to the small dining room, scooping up some food that Pinako had made before taking a seat at the table. My arrival was followed by an awkward silence.
"So," Pinako said, breaking the ice, "When will you be leaving?" I swallowed before answering.
"After this I am going to pack and get the quickest train to Central. I have a very bad feeling that someone is going to do something stupid tonight. And Ed," I said, "I advise you to stay here another night until the rain stops. It's supposed to stop tomorrow morning, so I think that's alright." I said.
"She does have a point in keeping you here." Pinako pointed out, "And besides, you barely visit. Stay a while."
Ed looked a little helpless, since Pinako and I had already agreed on the arrangements.
It didn't take me long to pack my stuff. After saying goodbye, I sprinted at top speed to get the one o'clock train to Central.
I only hope the Colonel hasn't put his half-brained scheme to action yet.

Hey guys! OH LYNETTE IS STAYING! Just like they say, where there's a will, there's a way. Apparently Ed had a will to keep Lynette there, so she made a deal. IT IS AWESOME! MUHAHAHA!
Questions, comments, concerns?
My lovely readers, please review~
Thanks!