"Okay, Al, you ready?" Everything was set up; Ed and Al had carefully calculated everything they would need and how much of it. They stood in front of a large, somewhat stupid-looking pile of materials, which was itself on the left side of the house. Most of the side of the house had been knocked out, a task the girls had had a lot of fun with earlier that day (Ed had avoided Winry while she'd been armed with the sledgehammer—just a precaution), but the gaping hole was about to be the attachment site of a large new two-story addition to the house.

It had taken three days to gather everything they would need, and ages to convince Winry that Ed was able to transmute without hurting himself. (He'd transmuted her clothes into a tight salsa dress to make the point, in response to which she'd hit him over the head with a wrench and insisted he change them back, which he'd done while laughing hysterically.)

"Yeah," Al assured him, "I'm just repeating all the materials' compositions in my head. This is a lot of thinking."

Ed chuckled. "Okay, on the count of three: One, two, three!" They both put their hands together on 'two' and slammed them on the ground on 'three.'

When she saw the bright flash of light of the transmutation beginning, Joli shrank back into Eli's arms and whimpered. "Sh," he whispered in her ear. "It's just alchemy."

"Is she that scared?" Winry asked, frowning. "It's just a little light and sound."

Meta looked a little shaken too. "It's freaky."

The four were in front of the house, watching the transmutation take place—Pinako was inside, having opted to work on an automail order for a customer. Alchemy didn't impress her much. (She was like Izumi in that she thought one should do as much work as possible with one's own hands, and both were of the opinion that it built character, but Pinako was unlike Izumi in that she wasn't inclined to dropkick anyone who disagreed with her.)

Ed and Al transmuting together meant it didn't take long at all. They stood up when it was over and looked at their handiwork, then high-fived. "Excellent. Now all we need to do is paint it," said Al.

"And put in furniture," Winry reminded him as she stepped forward to join them.

"True… We'll make you do it all," Ed joked.

She withdrew a wrench from her pocket and tapped him on the head with it as a token gesture. "You're annoying."

"Let's go see how it turned out inside," Al said, and he headed to the porch.

Winry noticed Meta lean in close to Eli and murmur something in his ear. He shook his head and responded in a low voice, then she shook her head violently with her lips pressed tightly together. He sighed, passed Joli off to her (Joli was capable of standing on her own of course, but she was having an I-want-to-be-coddled moment and wouldn't let herself be put down) and stepped closer to where Winry and now Ed watched them curiously.

"No! Not right now," Meta said, stopping him by grabbing his arm.

"Oh, fine. Picky," Eli accused, taking Joli back from her. "I'll wait till you're inside, how's that?"

Meta didn't answer, she just stepped around him and headed inside after Al.

"Come on, Ed," Winry complained, "Work with me here."

He shrugged away from her unnecessarily helpful hands. "I can walk on my own, Win."

Winry pressed her lips together. "I wish you wouldn't, though…"

"Don't worry about me," he told her. "Why don't you go inside and check out the addition? You can start planning what you'll do with the furniture," he suggested.

She raised an eyebrow at him, judging his condition, then apparently decided it was okay and went inside.

Eli set Joli down and told her to 'follow sissy inside', then stopped Ed before he could follow the group.

"What do you need?" Ed asked, perhaps more rudely than he intended because he was still irritated at Winry's overeagerness to help him.

"Um." Eli looked away nervously. "My sister was curious…"

"About what?" Ed crossed his arms. "Get to the point, kid."

"Well, she just asked me a minute ago… if alchemy is really hard? Because you and Alphonse just sort of clapped your hands and then 'magically' the house came together, and she wanted to know why people don't do that more often. Why don't people build buildings with alchemy all the time? And if it's because alchemy is too hard to do, how come you did it so easily?"

Ed suddenly became more interested in what Eli had to say. Despite her obvious animosity for Ed, was Meta interested in alchemy? "Well, you can tell your sister that yes, alchemy is hard, and Al and I are an extenuating circumstance as far as the actual process goes—most people can't do alchemy without a transmutation circle, like we can. Also, transmuting something as big as a house is pretty complicated because the building materials are so varied. Does that answer your question?"

Eli nodded. "Um. Thanks, I guess. I'll tell her what you said."

"Why didn't she ask me herself?"

"Um, you can't tell anyone I said this, but Meta is kinda scared of you."

"Scared of me?" Ed repeated. "How come?"

Eli pressed his lips together nervously. "She's gonna be mad at me if she finds out I told you this…"

"I won't tell anyone," Ed assured him. "Why is your sister so scared of me?"

"Well, Meta is certain that you're still angry about… well, everything, and she thinks you're planning to kill us in our sleep… or something…" He faltered under Ed's irritated gaze. "Sorry. It's not me, it's her…"

Ed had to be silent for a moment just so he wouldn't scream. "I would never go so low to attack a bunch of little kids in their beds," Ed growled, then sidestepped Eli and stormed inside.

"Ed, are you okay?" Winry asked as Ed slammed the front door behind him and came stomping through the kitchen to loudly clomp up the stairs. He ignored her completely. Winry frowned and poked her head in the doorway of the new addition to speak to Al. "Ed's throwing a tantrum, I think."

Al had his head tilted at the upper level, listening to Ed's loud footsteps. "Maybe Eli accidentally called him short?" he suggested when he noticed Eli slinking through the front door a few moments later, looking disturbed and scared (he always looked a little like the latter—he had permanently terrified-looking eyebrows).

"Probably," Winry said. "Let's team up. I'll talk to Eli, you talk to Ed, then we'll compare notes."

"Can we switch jobs, Winry?"

Winry frowned in confusion. "Why?"

"Well, you're the only one who can make Ed lie down and rest, and if he needs to be talked to anyway, you might as well kill two birds with one stone. He's going to be even more of a bother about staying in bed than before, now that he's been allowed to get out to do the transmutation, and it's important that he stays still since if he's that angry he's going to want to be moving around a lot. Also, Eli likes to open up with me more than anyone else save Meta, so he'll be easy to talk to."

"Okay," Winry agreed when she saw that his reasons were solid. "I'll talk to Ed."


Tap, tap—someone was very timidly knocking on Ed's door (well, not his—the door to the patient room to be exact). It was Al probably, or Winry. "Go away."

"Ed, can I come in? Please?" Yep, it was Winry.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I'm pouting. It won't work if you're in here." He could hear her giggling on the other side at his defiant-child voice.

"Why won't it work?"

"You're distracting." He said it uncertainly, like a question.

"I'm coming in," Winry warned, then she opened the door.

Ed was sitting on the edge of the bed with his elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands. Pouting, just like he'd told her.

Ed sighed loudly. "Go away, Winry."

"Why?" She closed the door behind her and leaned on it, slouching. "What happened?"

"I feel like a jerk." He slumped back and laid on the bed, staring at the white ceiling. The patient bed was narrow; his neck hurt holding his head up at that angle, but he ignored it.

"How come?" she pressed.

"The kid." He waved his hand vaguely, as if that gesture added information to his answer. Then he dropped his hand—he felt somewhat lethargic, and movement was tiring. That was weird, actually. He was angry, oughtn't he be energetic? Whatever.

Winry sighed loudly. "You're not helping."

"Don't care. Just go away."

"Why?"

"I want to be alone."

"Oh, is that all?" She pushed off from the door and came over to sit beside him on the bed. "Then I'll be alone with you, how's that?"

"No better than being alone alone."

There was a silence while Ed pouted. He wasn't so much upset that Meta was afraid of him—just that she'd thought he was capable of such a thing. It was a heavy blow to the ego—did he really come off so horrible that she thought he'd be capable?

After what felt like a long time, Winry looked down at Ed. "Are you done wallowing yet?"

"Nope, still pissed."

"Mm," she grunted, and became silent again. After a moment or two of sitting up like that, she got lazy and lay down next to him.

A few minutes passed. The silence rang in Winry's ears.

"Now are you ready to—?"

"No."

Another minute.

"Now?"

"Still no."

"Too bad." Winry stood up, put her hands on her hips, and stared at Ed, assessing. "All right, get up," she said presently, and she grabbed his flesh arm (not his automail, she knew she might hurt him if she pulled too hard and stretched the skin around his ports) and tugged.

"No." He went limp; Winry couldn't budge him but an inch.

"Get up."

"No."

"Dammit, Ed!" Winry flung his arm down in frustration.

"What?" He could tell by her tone that he was in trouble—Great. Now Winry's mad at me too.

"Why do you have to be so obstinate?"

"I'm an asshole. Leave me alone."

"Stop it! No, you're not!"

"Oh yeah? Then explain to me why that little girl thinks I'm going to kill her in her sleep!"

"What?" Winry was at a loss for words. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever—"

"I know!" Ed sighed and tried to calm his tone. "She wanted to know about alchemy, Winry. That was what she asked Eli in the lawn. She was scared to ask me herself, so she made her brother do it. I asked Eli why she was scared of me, and that's what he told me. She thinks I'm going to hurt them. …I feel like such an ass. I can't believe I give people that impression. I mean, what's the point of even—"

"Stop it, Ed." Winry stepped forward and pulled at his arm again; this time he cooperated and sat up.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Only you would get so upset," she said, shaking her head with a small smile gracing her lips. "And over the wrong thing, at that."

"What's the right thing to be upset about?" he demanded.

"Well, there isn't really a right thing, I guess. But—"

"See—"

"But that's not the point I'm trying to make," Winry continued over him, sighing loudly to point out her annoyance at his attempted interruption. "You're upset why? She has a valid reason to be afraid of you, albeit an incorrect one. Just because it's something you would never do doesn't mean you're the only person in the world like that. Try to understand where she's coming from, Ed: Not only does she have to come to terms with the fact that her father just died—which is bad enough as is—she also just realized that without her father, there was no one in the world who wanted her. It's a hard blow to the ego of someone so young. So imagine how confused she must be that people who by all rights should hate her guts are taking her in and treating her like family. She must be the most confused little girl on the planet, Ed."

Ed frowned and tried to follow the explanation. "I guess that's a lot to have on your mind," he ceded, "but how do you know she's even really feeling all this, Winry? I mean, it's not like she talks to anyone but Eli."

Winry cast her eyes downward. "I don't know if it's my place to tell, but… Every night Meta's slept in my room, I've heard her crying. She has nightmares, she cries in her sleep. I can't imagine how it must be to sleep so fitfully, and then wake up every morning so early in the morning and take on all that responsibility with Joli… She must be exhausted."

Ed sighed. "I feel so bad for her now. Guilty, I suppose… My situation was so different from hers—I can't really compare, I guess."

"You didn't grieve for your father," Winry pointed out.

Ed rolled his eyes. "Don't bring that guy up. There was no reason to 'grieve' for him—he tore our family apart, Winry, I hated him."

"I know," Winry sighed. "It worries me, actually."

"What, that I don't give a shit?"

"Yeah, Ed, that's not normal!"

"Winry, there are people who deserved to be mourned… Nina, Hughes. My father just wasn't one of them, at least not to me."

"I hate that, you know."

Ed smiled and ruffled her hair as he stood up. "You don't have to worry about me, Winry. I may not be mourning my dad like you want me to, but I still know how to be nice to people who are mourning their losses."

Winry stood up as well, when she realized that he was ready to go back downstairs. "So you're not going to pout all day like you planned?"

Ed tapped her shoulder lightly with his left fist to indicate that he got the joke. "Nope, I've changed my mind. I'm gonna go downstairs and be real nice to her until she realizes I'm not going to hurt her."

"And then what?" Winry quipped. "As soon as she decides you're nice, you're going to be a jerk to her?"

"Ha, ha. You're not really that funny."

"You thought the 'bondage is sexy' thing was funny the other day."

"That was funny. Hey, now that I'm thinking of it, aren't you going to force me to lie down? Knock a wrench in my skull or something?"

"I don't know, would that work?" Winry asked. "I figured you were going to ignore me anyway, so it's no use wasting words."

"Your undying confidence in my ability to take care of myself is reassuring."

Winry rolled her eyes. "You're not cute, Ed. Where's my wrench…?" She started patting her body as if searching for it.

"No, no, no, no!" Ed said nervously. "That's not necessary, Win."

"Oh, so you'll be getting back into bed of your own accord?" Her voice couldn't have sounded more innocent.

"Um. After I go apologize to Eli for being short with him earlier?"

"Fine, but I'm going to hunt up a wrench if you're not speedy, Ed."

He shook his head with a falsely mournful expression. "Wow, Winry. You know, you're not cute at all, either."


Ed went downstairs and took Eli aside to apologize. It was awkward, so he tried to make it as short as possible.

"Look, I'm sorry I was kind of a jerk earlier. You caught me by surprise with that comment and I got unnecessarily upset."

"Um. Um." Eli was at a loss for words.

Ed chuckled and patted Eli's shoulder. "I know how you feel. Hey, you know you've got real skinny arms?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm built small. That's why everybody thinks Meta is my twin, 'cause they think I'm a nine-year-old."

"Well, you should build your muscles," Ed said simply. "It's not hard."

Eli rolled his eyes. "You make it sound so simple," he muttered as he dismissed himself by walking away.

"Wow, you look like you're really bonding with him," Winry commented, joining him.

"He's a fun little kid," Ed said lightly. "He's short, like I was."

"Was?" she repeated doubtfully.

"Pardon? What's that?" Ed rested his elbow on her shoulder to make a point about how much taller he was than her. "Sorry, Win, I can't hear you from all that way down there."

"All right, you've made your point." She poked his stomach, being careful of his bandages, and shrugged his arm away from her shoulder. "Anyway, I'm a girl, so at least I have a right to be short. You had no excuse."

"Yeah, yeah," he dismissed as he sidestepped her to head out of the kitchen, "you don't have to tell me you're a girl." This last part was so quiet she could hardly be sure that that was what he'd said, and she certainly doubted it because it made no sense! Unless… okay, so that was something to think about… Was he saying he'd noticed?

"Hey, Ed, aren't you going upstairs? That's what you told me…"

"No, there's one more thing I have to do."

"Ed, come on!" she protested. "You act like nothing is wrong, but I saw that injury myself! And I know you haven't been taking the painkillers they gave you. How can you possibly be telling me it doesn't hurt?"

"It does, Win, but you're underestimating me. I'm fine for now. And it's just one more little thing I have to do. After that I'll lie down like a good boy and suck down all the nasty antibiotics just like you want—I promise."

"You don't have to be so condescending when you talk to me," she said, pouting a little as she walked away (she'd left a cup of tea on the kitchen counter).

Ed went through the kitchen (which was essentially the center of the house) into the new wing and located Meta, who was sitting on the floor playing with Joli and some little wooden dolls and furniture that Joli had been allowed to take when they'd left their house. Eli was sitting with them, but he wasn't doing much of anything because he'd just sat down.

"Meta?"

The girl looked up and pressed her lips tightly together when she saw who it was. "Yes?"

"Would you come with me for a minute? Outside?"

"Um." She looked at her brother. "Eli…?"

"…Can peer out the window and watch us the whole time if he wants to."

Eli gave her a go-find-out-what-he-wants look, so Meta stood. "Okay, then."

"So, I heard from your brother that you were curious about alchemy," Ed said by way of introduction as he led her outside and down the road.

"How far are we going?" she asked.

"Just down to that little trio of trees there." He pointed. "Anyway. Alchemy?"

"Yeah, I… thought what you and Alphonse did was really neat."

"You wanted to know how complicated it is?"

"Um… yeah."

They stopped in front of the trees Ed had pointed to earlier. "Alchemy isn't really that hard if you know what you're doing, but it takes a lot of study to perfect. Al and I have been doing it since we were very small.

"The basic idea is very simple: The basis of alchemy is 'equivalent exchange.' You must give something in order to get something in return. The difficult part is in the fact that you have to know the composition of what you have in order to transmute it into something else. For example," here he reached up to one of the trees and snapped off a dry stick, "a piece of wood. Cellulose, lignin, hemicelluloses, and 5-10% of a few other things. Mostly made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, which is why wood is such good fuel for burning. Now watch." He bent down to the ground and set the stick in the dirt, then drew a transmutation circle with his finger and put his hand to it. It glowed for a few seconds, then when the light ceased and Meta was able to see again, it had changed into a little wooden armchair of the same proportions as Joli's other little toys.

"Oh!" said Meta, and she reached out to pick it up despite herself. "Can I give this to her?"

Ed smiled. "Sure. You can go give it to her right now. That's really all I wanted to show you."

"Um…" Meta held the little chair carefully, as if afraid to break it. "Um. Thank you." She said it like a question.

"You're welcome."


This 'monster' chapter was originally three shot ones, and since they're all related I thought I'd just merge them. A lot's happening in this one, and I can't really go into as much detail on every bit, but...yeah.

So, guess what? The twins (my little sisters Samantha and Stephanie, off of whom Joli is vaguely--very vaguely, though they share a haircolor-- based) are having their third birthday party today! So that's my other excuse for this chapter, which is TEH (purposeful typo!) LONGEST I'VE POSTED FOR THIS STORY SO FAR. I hope I get lots of reviews for this one, what with all the stuffz there is to talk about.

This chapter represents somewhat of a turning point in the Meta-Ed dynamic--I explained how Meta starts to somewhat idolize him, and this one is mainly focused around Meta, even though she has surprisingly few lines in this one. She's not one to talk a lot, unless you're talking about something interesting to her--such as Joli's well-being; Meta never ignores a question if it's about her baby sister--or, as we'll find later after she starts school at Resembool Primary, alchemy (which I've decided that third, fourth and fifth-graders have a unit on in school--because honestly, even if most Amestrians can't do alchemy, they ought to at least have learned about it in school! That'd be like us not learning physics and chemistry--ridiculous, right? Even elementary-schoolers understand 'what goes up must come down.') So this chapter was pretty Meta-centered.

I'm making a really big point to myself about not letting the OCs even come CLOSE to eclipsing the main characters in this story! I've seen a lot of reader interest in the Erlich kids, so I'm trying to develop the children's characters while keeping the spotlight on Ed and Winry (which is pretty much the focus of this fic, as you'll surely have gathered) and it's becoming fairly difficult to do both, so I had to somewhat change my method to 'focus on one aspect, okay, done, now focus on the other,' and of course the focus of this one is, as I've already said, Meta.

Soon I'll be introducing another OC, kind of a spacey-poet type, whom I am really enjoying having in my head, however, she needs a name! If any of my reviewers want to put some input, that'd be appreciated--though I'm leaning pretty heavily on naming her Luna (not only is this the name for the chemical symbol which represents silver in alchemy, so it's relevant to FMA in a way, and furthermore Luna means 'moon' so it seems to fit with the spaciness of the character, but it's also a smartass reference to Luna Lovegood from HP, who is similarly spacey). What say the readers?


Next chapter: This was mentioned briefly in earlier chapters, but Ed never did tell Al and WInry about his fatal injury when Kimblee belw up the tower. How will they react?

"I had to use alchemy to seal the wound, and then luckily Kimblee's chimeras turned on him and took me to a doctor to really make sure everything was all right."

"You used alchemy to seal it," Winry repeated flatly.

"But that's impossible. I mean, Mei did that with Scar's gunshot wound, but that was with Xingese healing alchemy," Al continued, "and Kimblee was able to do it with the Philosopher's Stone, but that was the Philosopher's Stone. Those were both extenuating circumstances. There's no way you can just—" He stopped midsentence and stared at his brother, slackjawed. "No. No. No. Oh my God, Ed, you didn't."