I just have to thank you all for the overwhelming response to my question last week! I was so shocked/amazed/grateful. We got over 250 reviews. Almost 260! Seriously, so much thank you I can't even describe it. I love you all so much. BIG HUGGSIES!

Pretty much everyone agreed that this is not longer/never was a oneshot collection. However many of you disagreed as to the action I should take. But there were enough people telling me to just keep writing it the way I am that that's the action I'm going to take.

If any of you want to know what the chronological order is, please PM me and I can give you the order. If you want to give me your email I can even send you the Microsoft Excel Time Line file (though if any of you do I am going to be cutting out anything that happens past this chapter. No cheats.)

And while we're talking about emails, I would just like to point out that you can't actually put your email in a review, censors it. So you can either be clever ( closet fullmetal fan at aol dot com ) or... not let me get your email?

Oh, and huge ultra-mega super thanks to Exile Wrath who added this page to TV Tropes Fullmetal Alchemist Fanfiction/Shippings page! Thank you! Though she did say "she could use some work, especially with the long AU chapters that pop up" but hey, I'm not bitter. XP Seriously though. Thank you!

And once again: THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! I LOVE YOU GUYS!


"Hello, little guy," Al crooned, waving his finger over the crib. The baby giggling and tried to grab his finger but kept missing it.

"Al, she's not a little guy, she's a girl."

"I'm well aware of that, Winry," Al said in the same voice he was using to address Sara. "She's one of the prettiest girls on the whole planet, it would be an insult to call her anything else."

"So why did you call her little guy?"

"… Because of the voice I'm using?" he said, looking up and returning to his normal voice. Winry rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "She really is adorable, Winry."

"Thank you, Al. I'm surprised at how good you are with her. She's not terribly fond of people she doesn't know. She doesn't even let Paninya hold her.

"Really?"

"Uh-huh." Winry wiped her oily hands on a towel. She was still not actively working, but they not even Al, Ed, and Mei combined was enough to get her to stop working in her workshop. She was still designing arms and legs and would occasionally go into her workshop to try to figure out a specific joint or gear when she needed to. Al and Mei showing up had only encouraged this practice as it gave her more babysitters to rope into watching the kids while she did so.

"Well I'm honored that Sara Elizabeth Elric thinks so highly of me."

"You should be. She's never going to get to bestow that honor upon another man ever again. To let them hold her?"

"Oh yeah," Al agreed, laughing. "Ed's going to kill any man who even thinks about touching her in the future. Boyfriends are going to be treated to the most extensive background checks that can be afforded by the entire Amestrian military."

"You'd better count on it," Ed said, walking in the room, Ben hanging off his pants leg. Mei was trailing behind. "I'm pulling every favor I have the moment a guy lays eyes on her."

"Edward Elric, don't you even think about it!" Winry said, hands on hips. "Do you want to ruin her entire life?"

"I wouldn't be ruining her life, I'd be saving it from horrible evil men who are trying to steal her from me.

"Evil men like you?"

"How am I an evil man?"

They started to argue and Al sighed. Benny was laughing and clapping his hands as his parent's fought, probably because they did it so often it was just entertainment for him.

"Come on, Mei, let's leave them to it." Mei smiled and followed him, grabbing the arm he offered her. It had been about two months since they had arrived in Rushvalley and in that time Al hand managed to, with a great deal of blood, tears, and effort, shed the wheel chair. He was now walking with the same cane he had been forced to use after getting his body back, something that he did partially regretfully.

"I never wanted to have to lay eyes on this thing again," he had said, lip curling when Ed presented it happily.

"Come on Al! At least people will stop mugging you in the streets because they think you lost a leg and that's why you're in the chair!"

Only partially true, as it turned out. A lot of automail engineers in the area had assumed that the reason Al needed the cane was that his automail was faulty and tried to convince him to switch to their engineering. "It's almost worse than when people were trying to figure out which automail engineer made my armor!" he had complained one day as they were out and about the streets.

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know. Around? I heard someone in town talking about a restaurant here that serves really good food, we could try to find that."

"Sure."

"Help me look for it. It's called uh… 'Reynolds Old Style' apparently." The continued walking, Al looking every which way. It was only after a few moments that Mei spoke up slightly nervously.

"Uh… Al?"

"Yeah, Mei?"

"… I can't read anything here."

He stopped walking and frowned turning towards her. What was she talking about? She read great! She read faster than he did… when the writing was Xingese… She had no idea how to read their letters.

"Oh."

"Yeah…"

"Okay. I know what we're going to do then," he said firmly. "You got to beat my head in with learning how to read and speak. Now I get to beat yours in. Come on."

And he turned around and started marching back towards the house.


Al had far too much fun.

He was enjoying every single moment and Mei felt bad for the first time. If this was anything like what she had done with him, she needed to say sorry. Her head was going to explode. There was just so much information to try to memorize. 26 letters that had to be combined in numerous amounts of way and they had to be the right letters in the right spot or it would be a completely new word and some words were spelled the same as other but they meant completely different thing and some letters had different sounds and they sounded different when they were combined with other letters…

She much preferred Xingese.

"How do you stand this?" she asked finally as Al made her write sentences. I love cats. I love cats. I love cats. I love cats.

"That what I thought as you were teaching me. Now keep going. When you're done you can learn a few more words! Carrot, table, oh, you are going to have so much fun with -el and -le. And then suffixes!"

She was severely tempted to hit him.

Reading was slightly better, but not by much. With writing she was able to simply let her hand memorize the letters and repeat them a handful of times. But with the reading she had to figure out things on her own. Al would help a little but he tried to make her figure things out herself.

"Al-ch-e-my"

"Alchemy."

"That's how you spell alchemy?"

"Yup."

"Why?"

"… because it is? Why does the symbol for cat look the way it does?"

"… I hate your language."

"You'll learn to love it."


"Recite the alphabet."

"A, B, C, D, E, F, G… H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P… uh… Q?"

"Q," Al affirmed, nodding his head.

"R, T—"

"R, S, T."

"… fine. R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y…Z."

"Very good!"

"I'm not a child Al."

"No, but you're learning the things a child does!"

"I could say the same about you learning how to read scrolls."

"You could. And I didn't punch you then, you can't punch me now."

"Try me."


She slowly started to get it. It was long in coming, but since it was all she had to do besides taking care of Benny and or Sara, she worked on it almost day and night. The biggest problem she had was the types of reading material they had in the Elric household: alchemy or automail. That was pretty much it. There were a few medical books (which also served as Benny's bed time stories).

But, yes, she did eventually get it. Winry let her try to help her out with customers (reading off who needed what with only a small amount of error-thank goodness). Ed wouldn't let her leave the house without her reading a paragraph from that morning's newspaper. Al sat there and grinned at her, whether because he was taking pleasure in her frustration or pride in his work, she didn't know.

When she got to the point where she could pretty much read anything that was given to her (albeit slowly) and was writing a fair deal as well, they started to loosen up. Winry offered her a position as a secretary of sorts, which though she was very happy, she declined. As a joke though, she sent a letter to Ling in complete nonsense (Ling pig first to be barbecued on the celebration of the first chair moon) just to see how he'd react to it.

Then she found one books she hadn't found before. It wasn't written in the neat print of a typewriter, but the slanted looped writer that used to make her heart jump when a royal page would bring it to her.

Al's Travel Journal.

She opened it up and tried to make sense of the first page.

This is Alphonse Elric, writing from an inn near the capital of Kinru of the country Xiongnu…


Al was having a pretty good day. He had taken a walk around the outskirts of town away from the crazy automail freaks and made it back without too much trouble. He was hopeful that he'd be able to rid himself of the cane soon and start walking on his own. He would be reluctant to leave Amestris and Ed again, but there was an idea that was starting to form in the back of his mind that he was very excited to start working on.

He walked into the front room of the automail shop and yelled happily that he was home. Winry called a hello back and he smiled as he took off his shoes.

"Where's Mei?" he asked his sister-in-law. He wanted to know where she was. He had found a book in the market that he thought would be perfect for her to try reading. It wasn't as complicated as some of the books they had at home, which would be a great advantage to her. Not that she wasn't intelligent, oh no she was very intelligent, but there's only so much practice you can get when you're trying to figure out the word "hypoglycemic" for the first time.

"I think she's in the common room!"

The shop consisted of two parts. The bottom floor was almost completely dedicated to automail, the shop, the front room, the machines ect. Upstairs was the living quarters, which consisted of four rooms, one bathroom, and a small living room of sorts that connected them all.

Sure enough when he mounted the stairs he found Mei curled up in one of the large chairs looking very absorbed in a book on her lap.

"Hey, Mei," he said brightly, walking over to her. He dropped the book on the table in front of her. "I got this for you while I was out. It's a romance novel. I thought it might be easier to read than one of Ed's advanced alchemy books. What are you reading now?"

He didn't wait for an answer but peeked over her shoulder and nearly had his heart stop.

She was reading his travel journal.

The journal in which is confesses his love for her.

Many times.

He looked closer at the words and realized she was on the page where he did so for the first time.

He snatched the book out of her hands so fast he didn't even quite realize he had done it.

"Hey!" she said, angry. "I was reading that!"

"No you weren't." She was glaring at him now.

"Al!"

"What?"

"Give it back!"

"No."

Mei crossed her arms angrily and started tapping her fingers against one arm.

"I was doing the same exact things you were, what's the big deal? Give it back!"

"It's mine."

"Al! I was getting reading practice that you told me I had to get."

"No with this," he said, shaking his head and putting the journal behind his back. So she hadn't read far enough. Thank goodness. Or maybe she had and was just acting like this because she didn't feel the same way and didn't want things to be awkward between them. Or she hadn't actually gotten that far. "I bought you a book to read, read that."

Mei glared again.

"Why can't I read it?"

"It's personal."

There was brief silence.

"But you were just about to confess something!"

Crap. She had almost gotten that far. He glanced flipped through the pages and almost shouted out in relief when he realized that the part where he actually said the words "I'm in love with her" was on the top of the third page.

"Nothing important. Now read your cheap romance novel. Which is spelled…?"

"Cheap, romance, or novel?" she snapped, clearly miffed.

"Any one."

"Fine. Romance: R-O-M-A-N-C-E."

"Very good. Enjoy." He flashed her a quick smile before standing up and hurrying into another room as quickly as he could, breathing hard. That was far too close. She had almost… what would he have done? How would she have reacted?

Al ran a hand through his hair, trying to calm his breathing.

Too close.

"… May I ask why you ran into my room acting as thought you just ran away from a handful of demons, Al?"

That did nothing to help Al's heart.

He jumped and turned around as fast as he could, catching sight of his brother lounging in a chair next to the queen-sized bed.

"Seriously, Al. I mean I was just here enjoying a sandwich when you run into here breathing like a pack horse…"

Al had to blink and hold a hand against his chest just to get his heart to stop trying to jump out of his chest, let alone slow down.

"What was that about Brother?"

"What do you mean, what was that about? This is my room, you ran in here. What's that in your hand?" Al looked down as saw his journal, still held tight in his hand.

"Nothing… just… nothing."

"Uh-huh… and why did you run into my room?"

"… No reason." Ed scrutinized his brother for a few minutes in which Al shuffled his feet awkwardly.

"Okay Al. I'll let it slide. But next time you have to give me a real reason or I won't be so lenient."

"Of course Brother."


They had been waiting for hours to make sure he was asleep. The figure opened the door as silently as they could, hoping and praying that the baby wouldn't wake up and blow the entire operation.

Stealthy as a shadow, they crept across the small living room and opened the door vertical to it. The door creaked slightly and they froze. But the occupant inside didn't make any sign that it affected them. The figure crept on.

Luckily for them, the object they sought was in plain sight. The man probably thought that no one would dare try to steal it here, in his place of rest.

The hand reached out and snagged the book right off the bedside table and flipped it open directly to the third page.

I'm in love with her.


Yes, I know they're not really speaking/reading English but I only speak/read English so... Please review. I don't think you realize how much it makes my day when you do