"A good teacher can inspire hope,

ignite the imagination,

and instill a love of learning."

-Brad Henry

Amelia sat by the kitchen counter, making sure her cord was untangled as she set up everything. She had her big bowl, the ice was still in the freezer, now all that was left was to wait for the rest of it. Strongine was watching over by the door as Amelia got her cord and plug, waiting for the family servant to come back with what she had asked for.

"So… what kind of experiment did you say this was again?" She asked, looking at the smaller girl curiously as she stayed by the kitchen entrance, making sure to stay out of the way of the different cooks that were moving in and out to prepare lunch for everyone.

"It's one about electricity." Amelia said, "I just… I saw this on the internet once, I think it'll work. I mean, it should work."

"Saw it on… what did you say?" The woman tilted her head to the side curiously.

"Never mind. Look, I just need my watermelon and I'll be ready to go." Amelia said, making sure the cord fit into the outlet plug. While the Armstrong family home had outlets, there was only maybe a total of 10 in the entire estate, and that was saying something since it was such a massive place. They only ever really used them for radios, and maybe a telephone or two, and that was considered luxurious. She couldn't really wrap her head around it, how all of this was considered luxury when she thought it might be a hundred years ago. She still wanted to check all of her social media that she no longer had access to. Now that she had her phone back, it was almost like she was feeding an addiction that she had been sober from for too long. Not a bad kind of addiction, like meth, but more like a harmless one - like an addiction to chocolate.

"Alright! Here we are, Miss Seymour." Amelia perked up when she heard someone calling her name, seeing the servant coming in with a large paper bag in her arms. She was the same one that had woken her up by rolling her out of her bed, the small, stout woman whose body was clearly more muscle than fat like it appeared, blonde hair pulled back, with one curl sticking straight up off her head for some unknown reason. She found out that her name was actually Bernice. She took the bag on the island in the center of the kitchen and put it down, "It took me a little while, but I found you a couple medium-sized watermelons, and a can of iodized salt." Amelia ran over to the bag and reached inside for the watermelons and put one inside her water-filled bowl, going over to the refrigerator to get the ice. "I don't know why you wanted iodized salt over regular sea salt, as that tastes much better, but I got it for you."

"Yeah, yeah, thanks Bernice." Amelia dumped the ice in the bowl, reaching over for the can of salt, dumping some of it in the water. She reached for her plug and pushed it into the rind, and put the other end on her phone, waiting for what felt like hours, when it was really just a few seconds, and she finally saw what she wanted.

The little flashing image of a battery, with a little red line at the bottom of it. "Yes!" She cried out in victory, "It works! It's charging!" She couldn't help but jump around excitedly, just that much closer to her old life again.

Strongine came over, looking down at the little set up she had, "Well, I'm glad that it's working, whatever it is that you're doing." She said, patting Amelia's shoulder, almost knocking her over again. "So, what does it do when it's charging?"

"It doesn't do anything, at least, not yet." Amelia said, "We have to wait until it's gotten to a certain percentage of battery life, and I can use it again."

"Okay, and then what will it do?" Strongine asked.

"I think the better question that you should be asking is 'what won't it do?'" Amelia said with a smug smile, holding it up to her, still making sure that she wasn't removing the plug, "This little device is a phone, a music player, a calculator, a library of books, a gaming device, a connection to the largest information source in the world called the internet, it is everything." She put it down, "Once it's working, I can prove it to you."

"My! What a technological innovation!" Strongine said, clapping her hands together excitedly, "It sounds exciting. I look forward to your demonstration." She smiled at her, "In the meantime, though, why don't we practice a bit on the piano? I'm sure if we-"

"I'm not doing your concert, Strongine, we've been over this." Amelia snapped, interrupting her, "Besides, having a little piece of my home back is way more important than piano lessons." She looked down at her phone, waiting for the lock screen to come up so that she could have something to do again.

Strongine let out a sigh, "Alright, fine. Just make sure you're not staring at that thing all day. You still have alchemy lessons with Alex in a couple hours."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be there." She said dismissively, her eyes glued to the little electronic device, thinking of all that she could do with it once it was charged up.

"You promise?" Strongine asked, "You seem distracted."

"I'll be there, I promise." Amelia looked over at her, looking her right in the eye, "I'll be there for my lesson, okay?"

"Okay." Strongine started to make her way out of the kitchen, "Well, have fun waiting for your little… everything device." She headed through the archway while Amelia stayed by the counter, staring at her phone, pressing the home button to see how close the battery was to being completely charged.

Amelia let out a groan as she looked at her phone - it wasn't even at 4%, or at least a percentage where it would be able to show her more than just a flashing image of a battery with low power. How long had she been waiting now? She had no idea, there wasn't exactly a clock in the kitchen. She had thought about borrowing the timers that the chefs had, but they were currently in use as they prepared lunch for everyone. The whole place smelled of spices and steamed vegetables. She might have found it pleasant if she hadn't been waiting for her phone to charge. It felt like it was taking forever.

She heard the sound of something banging down the hall, getting rapidly closer. The moment she realized they were footsteps, she turned around in time to see the doors to her teacher slamming open the kitchen doors, loudly shouting her name, "AMELIA SEYMOUR! YOU ARE LATE TO YOUR ALCHEMY LESSONS!"

"You don't have to yell!" She shouted back at him. "And I was going to go! I just…" She stopped as she looked down at her phone as it kept charging. "I'm busy." She watched as her teacher went over to where she had been looking, "Please don't mess with that."

"This is what has kept you busy?" He asked, picking it up, bending over slightly since his massive size couldn't really hold a phone cord easily while it was plugged into the watermelon, "Did you do this yourself?"

"Yeah, it's all I can do, considering none of your outlets match my plug." She said, walking over to take it out of his hand and put it back on the table, but he kept it just out of her reach, "Oh, come on! That's my phone!"

"And you managed to find a way to use electricity through a watermelon?" She could see the edges of Armstrong's moustache turn up in a smile, "What excellent thinking! I did not know you were so talented with chemistry! There is hope for you after all!"

Amelia's brow furrowed, "What do you mean 'after all'? I did everything you told me to do! Did you think I was some idiot that couldn't learn anything?" She didn't realize she was pouting when she had finished, hating the idea that someone considered her incapable.

"Well, you've shown so little interest in your previous lessons, I couldn't help but think this was going to be a long and arduous process," Armstrong replied, his hand going down and patting the watermelon in the bowl, "But now I see that you are more than capable of understanding the magnificent art that is alchemy!" Amelia shooed his hand away and he moved it, "We should begin your lessons right away, so that you can absorb as much knowledge as possible!"

"Fine, gimme a second." She carefully moved her lips around her phone so that she held it with her mouth, her hands going around the bowl that held her watermelon that her phone was still plugged into and picked it up with a grunt, "Okeh, yet's go." She said with her phone in her mouth, starting to make her way out of the kitchen.

"It can't be necessary to bring that with you." Armstrong said, coming up in front of her, "Just leave it behind."

"I'm naw yeeving my hfone in da kitchen!" Amelia couldn't really be understood without her lips, so the larger man took it out of her mouth, "That's the most valuable piece of technology I own! I'm not letting it out of my sight!"

"Very well, I suppose we have little choice if you will not leave it on its own." Armstrong said as he reached for the plug and pulled it out of the melon, starting to walk down the hall.

"HEY!" Amelia shouted in protest before she slammed the bowl down on the counter, icy water sloshing out of the bowl, and rushed after him. She reached for the phone but he held it above her head, "Give it back! That's mine!" She knew she sounded like a child, even felt like one as she tried to jump for it, "It's my phone! It has to charge! What the fuck are you even going to do with it?!" She kept trying to reach for it as they walked into the hall where they normally had their lessons.

"Here, you can take it back," He put her phone down on the table, and she was quick to scoop it up with the charging cord and the plug, glaring at him angrily. She saw him pull out a little piece of paper from a nearby book that he had put on the table (and now that she looked there were quite a few more books on the table than there normally were) and put it down, drawing a perfect circle before adding in a few more extra shapes, some triangles and a big square in the middle, the four corners touching the circle he had drawn. "Let me see the end of it." He held out his hand for the plug, instead of just taking it like Amelia expected. She reached and pulled the plug off from the cord and handed it to him. She watched him put it down, "Do you know what this item is made of? It's elements?"

"I don't know." She shrugged, "Some plastic, maybe some copper from the circuits?" She really had no idea.

"Hmm… I suppose I will need to come to understand it another way." Armstrong said before he clapped his hands and put them down on the paper. Amelia had no idea what he was talking about, though she started to get worried when she saw blue sparks flying up from the paper, watching it flow over the little plug before it started to change. She could see one of the metal sticks changing, and it turned sideways, like it was always meant to look like that.

"Whoa." She looked at the finished result, amazed that he had just changed it like that without even thinking about it, and she watched as he picked it up and plugged it into the wall - it was a perfect fit for the outlet there. "Oh my god, you fixed it!"

"No, I did not," Armstrong said, holding up his hand as he corrected her, "I transmuted it. I took what it was, understood it, deconstructed it, and reconstructed it to better fit our purposes. Now you can keep an eye on it and still be able to focus on your lessons!" He smiled proudly at his success and Amelia was quick to rush over and plug her phone in, her face lighting up as she saw the little battery show up on the screen that told her it was charging.

"Yes!" She couldn't help smiling widely as she knew that it would charge much faster like this.

"Now then," Armstrong put his hand on her shoulder, gently pushing her to her chair, "Let's begin with your formal alchemy lessons."

"Oh." She was significantly less disappointed with having to do the usual lessons if it meant she could have her phone back once it was over. She took her seat and her teacher came in front of her, passing a text book over the surface of the table, and she opened it up to the first page as he started his lecture.

"I'll give you a basic introduction before we start to attempt anything," He cleared his throat, "Alchemy is an incredibly powerful science that allows one the power to transmute any form of matter into another kind of matter, it's incredibly useful and has a great deal of purposes. It has three steps, which I mentioned to you before when I transmuted your little device: understanding, deconstructing, and reconstructing. And while it is good to know the steps, it's also best that you know the first rule off of which alchemy operates, can you tell me what it is?"

She looked up at her teacher, surprised that he was actually asking her to participate in this, "Uh… no idea." She said, shrugging.

He nodded, as if he knew she wouldn't know, but he did look sort of pleased that he got to answer his own question, "The first law of alchemy is known thus: it is impossible to create something from nothing. If one wishes to obtain something, something of equal value must be given. This is the law of equivalent exchange." He looked at her, "This is what gives alchemy its necessary limits so that its power is not abused for the wrong reasons. Likewise you cannot change inorganic matter into organic matter, nor can you do the reverse, and of course there are many similar limits such as that."

"Okay." She was actually learning something about alchemy. She doubted they had gone through his entire family tree, but maybe Hughes had actually said something to him. Okay, good. This was good. This was a start to her not going to jail. She sat up a bit straighter and looked through the book, glancing at the different paragraphs and over the interesting… circle things. She would have called them pentagrams if they had a star in them, but they didn't.

Armstrong watched as his student showed much more attention towards her lesson than before, and he smiled, feeling very pleased with her eager desire to learn. Perhaps it was best to just jump into alchemy, rather than go through his family history as he was taught. She wasn't an Armstrong anyway, he supposed this information couldn't be as useful to her as it was to him. He probably should have realized that faster… But for now, he was glad to have a student who was willing to pay attention. So he moved on with his lesson, talking about the importance of the processes of alchemy, describing how she needed to have a memorized knowledge of the chemical makeup of the different objects she would be transmuting in the future. Amelia nodded along, though she paused the lesson just after he started going into detail to ask for a pencil and paper to use to take notes, and the Major was more than happy to supply them.

Amelia wrote down everything she could remember, and she was glad that he was patient with her when she asked him to repeat something so she could make sure she got it down since it sounded important. Alchemy was a complicated science, as she quickly found out from listening to her introductory lecture, and she needed to make sure she understood everything that she could. She wrote notes and kept writing until her hand was sore and cramping, and she kept writing after that. She made sure all of her attention was focused on Armstrong, knowing that she was going to need everything that he was telling her so that she wouldn't go to jail. And she had seen it in action, and she had to admit that she was looking forward to using that kind of power and ability. Armstrong discussed the importance of understanding the elements, and understanding potential and kinetic energy, how this ability was something that could come easily to some, but not to everyone. "You should know that it's very much a possibility that you will not be able to perform alchemy." He gently warned her, "Alchemy can be difficult to learn. So you'll need to be ready to put forth everything that you have for these future lessons."

"Maximum effort, got it." She grinned up at him, "I can do this. I'm ready to learn alchemy." She was able to do advanced chemistry back home, alchemy would probably be a much harder version of that, but she was ready to do whatever it took to avoid jail time. Her grin fell away as she saw her teacher's face burst into tears, though he still tried to be composed, so it just turned into salty waterfalls running down his cheeks, "Uh… what's wrong?"

"YOUR SENSE OF DETERMINATION IS SO MOVING!" He shouted, and she shrieked as he picked her up out of her seat to hug her, "I PROMISE YOU THAT I WILL DO ALL THAT I CAN TO TEACH YOU THE MAGNIFICENT ART OF ALCHEMY, MY EXCELLENT STUDENT!"

"Put me down! I can't learn jack shit if you don't put me fucking down!"

Their lessons continued for hours, to the point where she hadn't even heard her phone go off when it was fully charged. She copied down notes until the sun was starting to make its way down in the sky. Armstrong was in the middle of explaining the power of the transmutation circle when the clock struck 3, signaling that it was time for their lessons to end. "Well, we've covered a great deal in the general knowledge. Tomorrow we'll get into the practical." He said with a smile.

"What? But you didn't finish what you were saying about the tectonic energy." Amelia looked up at him, and he was moved by how disappointed she sounded, "Oh, no. I see that look on your face, don't you dare hug me again."

"My apologies, but it's just such a difference to have such an interested student. It moves me a great deal."

"Yeah, and that's fine or whatever, be emotional all you like, just don't touch me." She sneered as she fiddled with her pen, "Can you at least wrap up what you were saying about the energy of the tectonic plates? That sounded really important."

"As much as I would enjoy nothing more, I have duties to attend to for Amestris." He started to move around the table and Amelia started to get up to follow him.

"Okay, well can you at least summarize it before you go? Like, just give me the highlights or something for the notes." She said, holding out the notebook and pencil she had been using for the last few hours. She backtracked before she realized she was about to leave her fully charged phone in the room, grabbing it and stuffing the charger rather unsuccessfully into a pocket as she started up the voice recording feature on her phone, "Look, you don't even have to wait for me to write it down, just say it so I can record it and write it down later." She held up the device as high as she could as she followed her teacher into the hallway, hoping to get it closer to his mouth, but he was still pretty tall and she couldn't quite reach.

"I am afraid there is too much for one to simply leave it summarized." The Major did sound genuinely sorry that he couldn't further her lessons.

"Oh, come on! We're finally making progress on teaching me, and you're just bailing?" Amelia didn't want to stop here, she needed to get as much information in as much time as she could or she would face jail time. She wasn't ready to go back to that tiny cell after experiencing how nice it was here! Not that she would be staying here when her lessons were over, but if she could help it she wasn't going to go to jail without a fight.

"Master Alex, the car is ready for your departure." One of the servants came up to inform the Major.

"Thank you, Samuel." The Major turned to look back at his student, "Just study the alchemy text book I've given you, it should be sufficient."

"But what if I have questions? No one else in your family performs alchemy, and I'm pretty sure the only person that did is your old man and I doubt he remembers this stuff as well as you would." She kept trying to convince him to stay, she needed to figure out how this worked, damn it!

The Major looked and felt conflicted. Of course he wanted to stay behind a while longer with his clearly determined student who was so eager to learn the magnificent art of alchemy, but he couldn't abandon his duties to his country, either. Not when there was a rampaging murderer targeting state-certified alchemists. They had been working with those cases for months, and the body count was getting so high it was put on priority in every investigations department in the country. He looked down at his young student, her eyes looking up at him, and he felt almost as if he was looking into the eyes of a puppy, begging for a good home with a good family after suffering such a great deal at the hands of another.

He let out a sigh, "Very well, you may join me at my office," He relented, and Amelia smiled, "And I will continue your lessons in the car, but once we arrive you will need to study on your own. Hurry and fetch the alchemy textbook." She had already turned around before he finished his sentence and was rushing to the dining room that acted as a study and grabbed it before coming back, her charger cord knocking against her leg all the while with the plug in her pocket and her phone in the back pocket of her jeans (which were being washed every day at the Armstrong household. It was nice that she had an excuse to wear them all the time now).

She followed her teacher out into the car and started recording him as he explained how an alchemist gained energy for transmutations from tectonic energy that comes from the movement of the earth's continental plates. She didn't write it down since that gave her a bit of motion sickness, but she was glad that she had her phone with her to get it down later.

They soon arrived at the building known as Central Head Quarters and they got out. The Major told the driver to be back in a couple hours so he could return home in time for dinner and he went back to the estate. Amelia followed behind her teacher, asking a couple of questions to clarify about how alchemy worked in a way that she could understand. It was a completely new science to her, and she needed to make sure she knew it inside and out. The Major was more than pleased to answer and did so with patience that she would later be surprised he had, most of her tutors never had to deal with so many questions, but she imagined they would have been very annoyed.

When they walked into the building, Amelia noticed there were so many more people in uniform walking around, chatting or carrying paperwork somewhere. Her questions became fewer as she looked around everything, following her teacher as he greeted a few of the other officers around them as he walked through the halls. She followed him into a hall that read "Investigations" and saw a few desks pushed together for work spaces for others as well as separate offices for those that she guessed were higher up in rank.

"You work in an investigations department?" She didn't really see him as the type, with his muscle she would have thought he would be a drill instructor or something.

"Yes, we work to solve the more dangerous crimes that take place within Central City's walls." The Major said as he made his way to his desk, which was separated from the workspace of others, but was still in the same room.

"You solve crimes for Central? Not for the military?" She was a bit lost, wasn't it the police's job to make sure that crime wasn't a thing in the city?

"We solve both." The Major said as he sat down, gesturing to a chair for her to do the same.

"So… you're like a cop?" She tried to picture him in uniform - he probably would be pretty intimidating as a police officer. . Not that he wasn't already intimidating as military, but a police officer would be kind of scary, too.

He looked at her oddly from her phrasing of the word, clearly not knowing the meaning, so she elaborated, "Doesn't Central have, like… I don't know, an organized police force?"

"There is a civilian movement that works in that direction, but there is no formal police force for the city." The Major clarified once he understood her question, "Amestris is a military state, meaning that there are no formal political offices that hold more power than those of military rank."

"Really?" She was shocked, she knew she had been running back and forth between military, but she had always assumed that the country still had things like mayors or politicians or presidents or something. "So, the military runs the entire country? Isn't that kind of…" She couldn't really find the word she was looking for. She had always been told a military state was reflective of a dictatorship, but as far as she could tell it wasn't really like that. Dictatorship implied that there was no voice for the people, no way for them to say what they wanted without facing punishment from the regime in some way or another.

"The military does run the country, yes." The Major clarified when she couldn't finish her sentence, "And we do everything we can to keep the people of Amestris happy and safe within our borders, as well as promoting the intelligence and creativity that comes with learning the alchemical arts." Amelia's words kind of died as she heard the Major's passionate description of what his country does for its people. He seemed to… he really did seem okay, and it wasn't like he had treated her horribly (the exercising sessions were things that she disagreed with, but she knew that was for her betterment in the end).

"I guess so." She relented and looked around the office, seeing plenty of people answering phones and doing paperwork, and some other doors put aside for separate offices, "So, whose offices are those?"

"Those offices belong to the lieutenant colonels and colonels that work in the investigations department as well." He said, "You know one of them already, Lieutenant Colonel Hughes is one of the investigation department heads."

"He is?!" Amelia almost hoped she wouldn't see him. He was weird enough when he last saw her, shoving pictures of his daughter in her face. "Uh… how often do you see him?"

"Oh, every day. The Lieutenant Colonel and I are good friends." The Major replied with a smile, "And of course much of my paperwork requires approval from him." Amelia grimaced and looked for a chair where she could sit down and took a spot.

"So… about the tectonic plates again? I have another question." She began again into their lecture as the Major started into the pile of paperwork that was waiting for him. He seemed to be happy to answer her, though when more and more people came up with papers for him to review or sign and she eventually put a pause on her questions to let him work. She started to just read from the alchemy book she had been given, occasionally waiting for an opening in the Major's work so that she might ask a question for clarification.

After an hour or two, a pair of soldiers came through the doors, saluting the Major, and he returned it and stood up before they spoke. "Major Armstrong, sir. Lieutenant Colonel Hughes is asking to speak to you about the recent alchemist murders." One said.

"Then I'll see him now." The Major looked back at Amelia before turning to the pair, "While I'm gone, would you look after my student? Just make sure she doesn't go anywhere she's not supposed to."

"Why can't I come with? Why do I need babysitters?" Amelia asked, a little offended that he would have someone watch her like she was a kid. She wasn't a kid, she was 16.

"I'm sorry Amelia, you cannot argue with me about this." The Major insisted, "If you have questions, write them down and I will answer them when I return." He left without another word and Amelia frowned, watching his back go out the door before she sat back in her chair. She glanced up at the pair of soldiers, a man and a woman, who glanced at her awkwardly. The man had long blonde bangs that framed his square jaw, and the woman had short brown hair, and a mole on her cheek just under her eye.

"What?" She snapped.

"Nothing!" The man said quickly, throwing up his hands defensively, "Just uh… Are you the one we heard about?" He was quickly elbowed in the side by the woman and he let out a grunt.

"Probably," Amelia replied shortly, figuring even a place like this had a rumor mill, "The trespasser who needs an alchemy teacher, right? That's me." She looked back at her book, "Which is bull because I didn't trespass shit."

The two soldiers glanced at each other, "Well…" The woman spoke up, "In any case, the Major is a great alchemist, so I'm sure you're learning a lot from him."

"Yeah," She said, turning her attention back to the book for a while. She got to a new chapter and started reading, trying to ignore the fact that she was sure the other two soldiers were staring at her.

"So… how are the lessons going?" The male soldier asked and Amelia looked up at him.

"They're going fine." She said shortly.

After that, they stopped talking to her. She was glad they seemed to understand she wasn't interested in conversation with them and they were leaving her alone. Though that didn't stop them from talking to each other, and she could hear every word.

"She's not like the Major at all, do you think they get along?"

"Who knows? Far be it from him to turn down someone who needs help. You remember how excited he was when he signed up for it?"

The blonde shuddered, "Yes. Private Hanson still has bruises from his 'embrace.' I feel sorry for the guy."

"Why? The major seems really happy with all of this."

"No, I meant Hanson. He's okay but the bruises are still there. But yeah, I'm surprised he's taking it so well."

"At least she's well behaved. You don't really expect that from a prisoner."

"No, you don't. So I guess that's good for him. He probably needs that on top of these murders…"

"He's a potential target, too. They're only doing it to state-certified alchemists." There was a pause and Amelia decided then to speak up.

"Who's targeting state-certified alchemists?" She took a little pleasure in watching them jump up from her question.

"You heard all of that?" the woman asked.

"You're literally four feet from my seat, and you weren't exactly whispering." She commented dryly. "So, what are you talking about?"

"Well… there's this murderer that was over in the east that targets state alchemists in very… uh, unique ways. His signature is pretty well known." Amelia didn't ask for details, "But there haven't been any reports, but people did mention someone with his description getting on a train to Central, and we're all a bit nervous to say the least…"

"So, how come this guy is targeting state alchemists?" She asked.

"No one really knows." The man said, "It could be any number of thing, the military is… well, the military. We've all done some things that we're not proud of, and with the wars we have going on in the west and the threat of war in the north and south, it could be for anything."

Amelia was kind of surprised to hear they had such activity going on. On her end, there hadn't been a lot of military activity on her country's borders, but it sounded like these guys were on bad terms with everybody. "So… no one knows who this guy is or why he's doing it?"

"We have a basic description, it's hard to miss. He's apparently described with a massive scar across his face in the shape of an X." The woman said.

"And you can't find this guy?" Amelia was kind of surprised that would be missed so easily.

"He knows how to slip away from us, we don't have many sightings of him at all, not recently." Both of them seemed very discouraged at the news, and she could understand why.

"Do you guys have names?" She asked, deciding to switch to a different topic.

Again, they were both a bit surprised, "Uh, yes. I'm Sergeant Brosh, and this is Lieutenant Ross." He answered.

"I'm Amelia." She held out her hand to them, both of them taking turns shaking it. "So, do you guys work here, too?"

"Yes, we're both part of the investigations department." Brosh said, "We serve under the Major."

"So, he's seriously your boss?" The pair nodded to answer her question, "Okay, so let me ask you this: Is he any different at work than what I've seen of the guy at home?" The pair glanced at each other with a shared grimace, both recalling memories that Amelia couldn't imagine about the Major's behavior.

"No." They answered at the same time.

"The Major's always been a bit… emotional." Brosh said apprehensively.

"Not that it's a bad thing to have a boss that's so sensitive," Ross said quickly, coming to his defense, "But sometimes… it's just…"

"Overkill?" Amelia finished for her.

"I was going to say overwhelming, but that works too." Ross said with a small laugh.

Amelia spoke with the pair of soldiers a little longer, asking questions about their work, making small talk, just little things for a while until the Major returned back to his office - with a familiar face in tow.

"Well, I had to see it to believe it." Hughes said as he came over, watching Ross and Brosh salute him before saluting back and letting them be as they were. "So it is true, you are stable enough to be out and about in public without your handcuffs."

Amelia rolled her eyes, "Oh, yeah. I begged the Major to put them on me before we left and he refused." Her words were dripping with disdained sarcasm.

The Lieutenant Colonel only chuckled, "I'm amazed you've still got that attitude, too. I would have hoped the Armstrong family and their general mannerisms would have rubbed off on you."

"Yeah, right. I can't imagine ever acting like that." She scoffed, "They can go nuts with it, but the day I rip my shirt off to show my muscles will be the day hell freezes over." Hughes laughed and the Major went around to his desk again.

"In any case, it's nice to see you not behaving like a fugitive and more like a student." He said, "I'll be sure to let the Fuhrer know you're studying hard." She nodded silently, though she was at least glad to get some recognition of the hard work she was putting in, "The Major tells me you're quite the inquisitive one, how is it going for you so far?"

She shrugged, "It's science, but I think I'm starting to get it." The colonel nodded in approval.

"She has been a great student thus far." The Major praised, "She absorbs the knowledge like a sponge."

"Sort of." Amelia muttered, knowing she still had a long way to go.

"Then you should make a good alchemist someday." Hughes said with a smile. "I'd love to chat more, but I'm just here to drop off some work." He held up a manila-colored file with some papers inside.

"You can give the sergeant that work." The Major said, pointing to Sergeant Brosh, who took the file from the lieutenant colonel.

"Well, best of luck to you, Amelia. I hope your studies go well." Hughes said, saluting her before he made his way out.

"Thanks." She said, looking back down at the book where she had made so many notes and scribbled the answers to her questions from the Major. There was a lot about this science that she still didn't understand, and she had no idea how to actually transmute something, or even how they managed to get energy from the shifting of tectonic plates through a drawing of a circle and change lead into gold. And it was only day one… She was going to need all the luck she could get if she wanted to avoid prison.