-*.-*.-*.-*.-*. notes -*.-*.-*.-*.-*.-*.-

I do not own FMA, nor do I wish to.

This chapter has a PG rating. Swearing

italics are inside thoughts.

-*.-*.-*.-*.-*. story -*.-*.-*.-*.-*.-*.-

That stupid prince was back. Mooching food and just generally bothering people, people being Ed. This time felt much worse because this time it was apparent that he knew her secret, and Ling was not very good at secrets. He kept asking Ed if she needed dating advice, asking how long she'd been a girl, asking if she liked boys. Ed suspected Ling was probably irritated for not having realised it on his first visit even though he had clearly been preoccupied with the whole 'finding immortality' thing... and then losing it.

Currently Ed was sitting in a chair in the living room of her apartment, her first actual apartment, which she'd just moved in to yesterday, by herself. It had a little shop below it where she could open an alchemical repair business.

She'd spoken to Al and Winry about it and they'd been really excited for her but couldn't come into Amestris until after the baby was born. Only a few weeks left now and she'd be an aunt-

"Hey!"

Oh right, the 'prince'. "What!"

"It looked like you were off in la-la-land there for a moment. Why didn't you tell us you were a girl? Did you really need to hide it? Does Mustang know? Does Hawkeye know? Have you told anyone? What's your real name? How old are you? When did you get your arm back? Where's Al? When did you get this place?"

Ed zoned out again, how could a prince not know what 'shut up and get out' meant? Probably just never had it applied to him. She huffed.

"What?"

"Nothing." She waved her hand in the general direction of the fridge. She hadn't heard the last few questions but it must have been pretty close to what he wanted because Ling bounced off in the direction indicated and came back with a stack of sandwiches.

She'd been out of it again for a few minutes while the prince was eating, the only moments of silence she'd got since his arrival, when the phone rang, and because she wasn't as on-the-ball as Ling was, he made it to the phone first.

"Hello?"

…

"Sure, she's right here."

Ling turned to hand the phone to Ed and seemed genuinely interested why her mouth was hanging open. "What?"

Ed couldn't even muster up some anger. Did he really just expose her like that, so off-hand, in such a blasé way? She punched him through the living room and grabbed the receiver before it had time to fall. This better be Al or Winry.

"Yeah?"

"WHAT THE HELL FULLMETAL?!" dammit "WHO WAS THAT AND WHAT DID THEY MEAN 'HER' ?"

Of course it had to be Mustang. She sighed but wasn't able to think of anything intelligent to say by way of explanation, so she just went with her default: "Fuck off pervert, what do you want?"

There was only sputtering on the other end for a moment, then, "EXPLAIN YOURS-"

A vein popped up on her forehead so she hung up. It didn't sound important. Besides, that problem was at least 20 minutes away and this problem was still in her house.

Ling bounced back out of the kitchen for a seventh time that afternoon, now with a plate of beef, "Is this all the roast you have left? I think you need to go shopping."

Her eye twitched, maybe she needed to call Mustang back so he could bring the homicide unit on his way over.