How to Get What You Work For

by PurpleTurtle21

After a friend attempts to perform alchemy from one of her favorite anime shows, Amelia finds herself on military property and about to go to prison for trespassing, until the Fuehrer offers her a chance: She gets a one-year trial period learning under a certified alchemist and if she passes, she gets a get-out-of-jail-free card. Now if she could only find someone to teach her…

25. Seekers of the Truth

The drive to Lieutenant Hawkeye's apartment didn't take very long. Really only just a minute or two after Edward found them a car. Neither of them really enjoyed the idea of walking the mile or so distance to her home, so they were lucky the cabs were still running even as the day was waning. After paying the driver, the two of them headed inside the building and up the stairs to Hawkeye's floor.

"You know… I have no idea what this woman is like." Amelia found herself commenting as they went up the stairs, "You seem like you know all the people under Colonel Mustang's employ pretty well."

"Yeah, well, I'm one of his men, too." Edward said as they walked, "He's my Commanding Officer. He's the one that told me to come and sign up for the state alchemist program."

"Really?" Amelia had no idea their relationship went that far back. "So, you must know Lieutenant Hawkeye pretty well."

"Well enough," Edward sighed as he rounded a corner and went up another flight of stairs, Amelia following, "I know she's a sniper, she's good at what she does. We don't really talk much outside of work, though. Or about anything other than work."

"She's a sniper? That's kind of cool." Amelia said as they reached the second floor, "...It also kind of explains why she had a gun ready for you… How long has she been a sniper?"

"Um… I don't know. I know she got her nickname The Hawk's Eye from her kill count in Ishval." Edward said. "I don't know that she's done any other wars or anything, though."

"Was it high?" Amelia asked.

"I don't know the exact number." Edward shrugged. As they came up to a door, he paused, "Oh, wait. I think this is it." He reached up and knocked on the door, only to be met with the sound of barking from the other side, making Amelia stiffen.

"She has a dog?!"

"Just the little one." Edward said, knocking again as he didn't seem to get an answer other than the sound of the barking dog, "Hello? Lieutenant Hawkeye?"

"Who is it?" A voice called from the other side of the door.

"It's Edward!" He called back, "I'm sorry for visiting so late, but I came to return what I borrowed from you!"

"I'll be right out!" Hawkeye called back, and Edward stepped back from the door, although the barking hadn't stopped in all that time. Amelia stepped behind Edward as she was sure the dog would come running out as soon as the door opened.

"How big is the dog?" She asked Edward, trying not to look like she was cowering behind him, though it was clear she wasn't eager to meet the barking furball on the other side.

"He's not very big, he doesn't even come up to my knee." Edward said, "I think his name is… Black Hayate."

"What?! What kind of name is that for a dog?" Edward shrugged as an answer.

"Why are you so scared of dogs, anyway? He's just a little thing." Edward tried to reassure her.

"Dogs are nasty! They came from wolves! You know how dangerous wolves are?"

"Sure, they evolved to be less than half their original size." Edward chuckled, "Trust me, you've got nothing to worry about with Black Hayate. The Lieutenant has him really well-trained, I promise."

The door opened and a little black mass shot out, rushing out and jumping up, Edward gasping and grunting as he was knocked to the floor in surprise, while Amelia jumped back up against the wall. Hawkeye just saw the display with wide eyes from the other side of the door, looking down at her dog as it barked and looked back up at her happily as if expecting praise for jumping up and getting Edward on the floor. The woman was dressed pretty plainly, a shirt and some loose pants, with a sweater hanging around her shoulders, and her blonde hair hanging down, clearly wet. Had she just come from a shower?

"No, Hayate. Bad dog." She said in a calm, yet firm, tone of voice. The dog called Hayate jumped off of Edward and went around to the side while Edward pushed himself to sit back up. She gave him an apologetic smile, "Sorry about that."

"Don't worry, it happens all the time." Edward said as he looked up, and he glanced into her apartment, seeing a few small towers of boxes, "What's with all the boxes? Are you moving?"

"No, I just haven't had the time to unpack since I moved in." Hawkeye said, looking back at the boxes she had in her room, letting out a small sigh, "They'll probably have to stay that way a while longer." Knowing what lay ahead of her for tomorrow, Edward couldn't help but wonder about her thoughts on this sudden change.

"So, I, uh… I heard you're working for the Fuhrer." Edward said as he pushed himself to stand up.

"Yeah," She looked over at Amelia, "Miss Seymour, it's good to see you again."

"Um… yeah, you too." She glanced over at Black Hayate, who stood there looking happy, panting and his tail wagging as he looked back at her with his brown eyes. "Um… he's trained, right? I'm not super fond of… dogs."

"Yes, he's trained, don't worry." Hawkeye said, "Why don't you both come in? I'll make you some coffee. You look exhausted." Amelia looked over at Edward, and he glanced back at her. Truthfully, while both of them were no longer covered in grime and dirt, they did look pretty tired from the way their days started, and now ended. They both walked in, Hayate following, weaving expertly between their feet as they closed the door behind them, "I heard a little about your situations, too. And what Fuhrer Bradley said about reassigning Amelia." Neither of them were very happy to relive that memory. The two of them took a seat at the one table in the apartment, Edward reaching into his pocket to pull out the gun he had borrowed, still stained red.

As Hawkeye came back with a cup for each of them, she noticed the gun on the table and picked it up. She opened up the magazine and looked it over, "It's caked in dried blood." She commented.

"Oh, right! Sorry, I guess I should have cleaned it first before I gave it back." Edward said sheepishly.

"It's alright, I'll just clean it." Hawkeye replied as she held onto it, going over to get everything she needed, "I apologize in advance, but it's going to make everything smell a little oily."

"That's fine," Edward said, glancing at Amelia, who nodded with him. She took a sip from her cup of coffee.

"This is really good." she complimented, looking up at the Lieutenant.

"Thank you, I'm glad you like it." She said, returning to the table and taking a seat across from Edward as she started taking the gun apart, depositing different pieces carefully into a small tub to soak and get the blood off, watching the liquid cleaning solution turn red as the blood mixed in with it, "It looks like things got pretty serious."

"Yeah…" Edward sighed, "But I didn't use it. I didn't have to." Hawkeye nodded as she continued taking the gun apart, cleaning off the bulk of the dried-on blood before depositing it in the cleaning solution. There was a beat of silence before Edward said, "Well, it… I couldn't pull the trigger." The older woman looked up at Edward as he admitted this to her. Edward looked down at his lap shamefully, "It's pathetic, huh?" Amelia frowned as she heard him saying this, "If I'd just… well, I was just useless."

"You were not." Amelia countered.

"But even when that guy was closing in on you, I couldn't…" Edward frowned and trailed off, not wanting to speak about that with Hawkeye too much. Amelia remembered seeing him pointing the gun at Father, but he never fired it, which she hadn't thought about too much until he mentioned it.

Hawkeye noticed his hesitation to speak about whatever the incident was, and she went back to cleaning the gun as she spoke, "Tell me what happened."

"You know Scar? I found out he murdered Winry's parents." Amelia and Hawkeye both listened as he spoke about it, "She found out, too. She picked up a gun, and she could have shot him, but deep down I knew that would be wrong… And all of a sudden, that gun seemed like something evil." He looked down at his cup of coffee, scowling at his reflection in the brown liquid. "The next thing I knew, I stopped her… but I honestly think she would have shot him if I hadn't been there. She could hardly stop crying once I got the gun away…" His grip tightened around his mug, "And it's my fault… I've got no resolve. I only managed to make things worse."

"Ed…" Amelia knew that Winry had found them, and they had mentioned she knew about Scar, but she didn't know the extent of what had happened. Facing the murderer of her parents must have been a terrifying moment in its own right for her, it was no wonder she wanted to kill Scar for it. She didn't realize Ed had done something to stop it from happening altogether. Even if he hadn't, she was sure Winry would have cried regardless of the outcome. That kind of moment sticks with you and causes all kinds of emotional rollercoasters whether the person dies or gets away.

"You're just dwelling on this stuff because you made it back alive." Hawkeye said, getting his attention, "You need to stay focused on living, that's how you'll help Winry." Edward let out a small hum, lifting up his mug to take a sip of coffee, "How else can you protect her?" He let out an agreeing hum as he started to drink, "After all, you love her, don't you?"

Amelia choked on her drink, and Edward spat his out onto Black Hayate's unsuspecting face. Love? He loved her? Amelia had never thought about it, but it did make sense. They grew up together, they knew each other really well, they helped each other out… She didn't know why, but the thought of Edward being in love with Winry irked her a little bit.

Edward, after his spit take, looked back up at the Lieutenant, his mouth hanging open and cheeks red as he stammered out a response, quickly shaking his head back and forth as Hayate did the same to clean off the coffee on his face, "No, no, no, no! It's not like that! We've just been friends since we were little kids!" He stopped and got a nervous smile on his face as he continued defending himself and denying what the Lieutenant had said with a cracking voice that didn't sound convincing at all, "She's like family to me! I-I mean, of course, I'm gonna protect her, you know?" He glanced over at Amelia, laughing nervously as he met her somewhat shocked gaze before going back to sipping his coffee as an excuse to stop talking.

She sipped from her own cup, unable to help feeling a heavy weight taking its place on her shoulders. Edward liked Winry, it seemed… at the very least, he cared about her a great deal. With the way he treated her, and the promises he had made to her… she probably should have caught onto it earlier. Why did that bother her so much, though? Edward was his own person, he could like whoever he wanted. It wasn't her business… still, there was an aching feeling she got as she imagined Edward and Winry together, and she tried to bury it by gulping down a bit more coffee.

It really shouldn't have bothered her so much, but it did.

"What happened with Scar, I'm sorry. This only added to your burdens." Hawkeye seemed unphased by Edward's reaction, starting to put the gun back together, and the room was silent a while longer as everyone seemed to grow somber.

"I've got to ask: does it ever feel like a burden to you?" Edward asked, knowing that the Lieutenant had seen her fair share of fighting.

"I've lost the right to look at it that way." She replied, focusing on the gun as she kept putting all the cleaned pieces back in place, "So, I'd be wrong to complain. I'm not proud of it, but I've killed too many to feel sorry for myself. Besides, I can't deny that I'm the one who chose this path."

Amelia felt the Lieutenant's words add even more weight to the atmosphere in the room, and she couldn't help but wonder what it had been like for her. She knew combat could get intense, but her combat experience never really grew too much outside of a few things… she knew basic defense, but that didn't mean she was any good at fighting, she had frozen up when she faced Bradley and Gluttony. She had managed to fight them eventually, but she still was too afraid to face them at first. She had never really seen anyone that faced her with killing intent, nor had she faced anyone with the intent to kill them… which was probably a mistake on her part, given that she wasn't facing humans in her last fight.

Edward gulped as he took in the weight of the room, a little nervous before asking, "You mean Ishval?" Hawkeye didn't reply as she continued to reassemble the gun, "Can I ask you about that? Would it be alright?" Amelia looked up at him, a little surprised that he had asked her. That wasn't necessarily something she wanted to talk about or relive, most people don't… but she didn't say anything against his question as she couldn't deny her own curiosity about it, too.

After she put the cleaned magazine back into the gun, the Lieutenant spoke again, "Ishval is a harsh and barren country, filled with rocks and sand. Considering the terrain, it's not surprising that it would give birth to such a stringent religion, or that its people would be so earnest and resolute. It's only natural that a faction of the population would protest the country's annexation by Amestris. Their mistrust was soon justified."

"You mean… when that soldier shot that kid?" Amelia asked, and Hawkeye nodded.

"That one bullet changed everything. Their mistrust turned to outrage, and dissidence spread like a contagion." Hawkeye continued, "It soon escalated to a civil war, and the fighting lasted seven long years until a simple one-page document determined the Ishvalan's fate. Executive Order 3066: The official order to initiate the Ishvalan War of Extermination." She let out a long breath, putting down the completed gun, though she didn't let go of it, "It was like Hell on earth. The air was tainted with the smell of human decay, and the desert sand soaked up the blood like a sponge." Amelia and Edward were in awe as they listened to her story, both a little horrified and a little amazed as they listened to her description. Neither of them could really imagine it, but neither of them were sure that they wanted to picture that. "Most combat is blind, a normal soldier might fire erratically without a clear target in mind, but it's different for snipers. Someone is sure to die when we pull the trigger. Where other soldiers don't always have a direct line of sight of the effects of their actions, snipers do. And, of course, the state alchemists. At the time, I was still in the academy, but my skill was enough to put me on the field before I had finished everything, and I was promoted up a rank."

"I…" Amelia spoke up, getting their attention, "I know that Major Armstrong was involved in the fighting, but he never really seemed open to talking about it." She looked up at her, "But… there was this one night when I saw him sleeping, and it looked like he was having a nightmare. He opened his eyes for a second, but he wasn't really there, I think he was still half-asleep… and he begged me for forgiveness." Edward's eyes went wide at her description, "I just told him I did and to go back to sleep. Do you know what it was he did in Ishval?"

"I don't know the details," Hawkeye admitted, "But I do know his work was mostly in preparing Ishvalans for firing squads, creating alchemical walls to trap them." She looked down at her gun, "I also know he was dismissed earlier than the rest of us because he had a nervous breakdown. He refused to follow orders, and more than once I heard he was caught by other alchemists aiding in the escape of some Ishvalans in the fighting." Amelia's eyes widened. Of course, the soft-hearted Major wouldn't be able to bear the fighting, but to help them escape? He risked his career to do that, "Those were only rumors, though. If they were true, they didn't escape very far, and he would no longer be a Major."

"Right…" She sipped her drink again, contemplating that image of Major Armstrong creating a wall where people would die. She had seen him create massively artistic projectiles and weapons without much effort. It wouldn't have been difficult for him to do something similar during the war… would it? Maybe making walls was all he could bear to do, instead of attacking them directly. He didn't have to pull the trigger on the guns, so technically he wasn't directly responsible for their deaths, but he still trapped them in places where they would be unable to escape. She remembered the old locket he had given her, with his old picture in it. That young Major, fighting in that war, soft-hearted and traumatized to the point of having a nervous breakdown… She saw him in a very different light as she considered all of this. He was a man who had seen the worst, maybe even done the worst, but every day she knew him he was all about positivity, about beauty and finding it in the right places. He found reasons to move forward and clung to them, and maybe that was what helped him to get back into a healthy mindset. He wasn't just some muscle-headed show off with a heart of gold anymore, he was a man who had seen everything, ran from it and decided to make the world better for it. At least, better in his own Armstrong way.

"We always ended up hearing about the different work the alchemists did," Hawkeye mentioned, "Colonel Mustang was one of the most prominent ones you heard about. With his flame alchemy, he could empty an entire building of dissidents in a matter of seconds, set the entire thing aflame and burn everyone inside. There was also the Iron Blood Alchemist Bas Gran, he was pretty prominent in his own skills as well. His work got him promoted to Brigadier General shortly after the war. And there were others as well, but I've only ever heard about them, and I never actually met them during or after the war. In fact, the only alchemists I remember meeting in the war were Colonel Mustang and Solf J. Kimblee." Hawkeye said.

"Who's Solf J. Kimblee?" Edward asked, having never heard the name.

"He was known as the Crimson Alchemist," Hawkeye explained, "His specialty was creating explosives from alchemy." Edward's brow furrowed as he heard this information.

"I don't know him… did he resign?" Edward asked.

"He was arrested on five counts of murder." Hawkeye answered, giving the two teenagers another shock, "He killed five of his superior officers in an alchemical explosion, he's been in jail ever since, waiting for his death sentence." She looked down at the gun, finally releasing it from her grasp as she put it aside, resting it away from her on the table, "I still remember when I first met him, back before he had been arrested. I was speaking with Mustang and he had introduced me to General Hughes, all of us just Majors at the time. We were… we were trying to figure out the war we were in, how we could fight and kill the people we were supposed to protect." She reached for her coffee up and held it up closer to her face, "We were all naive, and it was our first experience with combat… we didn't understand the genocidal war, how alchemy was being used to hurt people rather than help them. Kimblee overheard everything we said, and he said he was surprised at our behavior."

"We were soldiers fighting in a war, and it was our job to do what was asked of us, no matter how much we didn't like it. He didn't share our sentiments at all, and pointed them out to us very plainly… He went so far as to ask me if, even though I was unhappy, I took pride in my skills as a sniper as I killed someone." Her expression hardened a little at the memory, "At the time, I didn't have an answer, and I still don't. But he had told all of us that this was our choice, and we shouldn't have expected anything different going down this path." She didn't meet either of their eyes as she spoke, looking down at her drink as it cooled in her hands, "There was something he said that I've remembered since that day, "The only thing worse than death is to avert your eyes from it. Look straight at those you kill, don't take your eyes off of them, and don't ever forget them, because I promise that they won't forget you." Amelia and Edward were a little horrified at that description of Kimblee.

"It sounds like… he wanted to fight, almost." Amelia couldn't help commenting. Hawkeye nodded in agreement, "That can't be a totally stable mindset, someone wanting to fight and kill… what did you say he was an alchemist expert in?"

"Explosives, he could turn almost anything into a bomb, given that they had the right materials present," Hawkeye said, and Amelia grew a little pale at that. The destruction he must have caused was massive with that kind of alchemy… "His expertise got him a lot of attention in that war, and I understand he had a good relationship with his commanding officers." She took a sip from her own cup of coffee for the first time since they had started talking, which had gone a little cold by now, "It didn't take long after that, the Ishvalans were slaughtered. With no other options, the Ishvalans surrendered. The High Priest of Ishvala, Logue Lowe, offered himself to the Fuhrer on behalf of his people."

"And… that ended it?" Edward asked.

"Not exactly. The Fuhrer denounced his effort of self-sacrifice, saying that his life wasn't equivalent to the remaining Ishvalans alive there." Hawkeye said, "He said his life wasn't enough to call off the extermination, that one life was one life and nothing more. Of course, he was met with backlash from the High Priest and his followers that had joined him, saying he would feel the wrath of God." Amelia and Edward shared a glance at the mention of the word 'wrath' knowing that the irony behind that particular statement, given the Fuhrer's true identity. "He told them that their god wasn't real, and that god was just a means of control that inspired fear, and that if he was going to be struck down it would sooner be by their hands than God's." She let out a small sigh, not approving of those words at all as she took another gulp of her drink before resting it on the table, "The extermination efforts continued some months after that… until the entire nation was under control by Amestris. All the Ishvalans living in the region had been killed, and those who had escaped had their lives, but not much else. The very last man in the Dahlia region was said to have been elderly, wounded and left behind. His last words were to curse the nation of Amestris, and all the soldiers involved in the extermination." Amelia and Edward remained silent as they took in all of this information, hearing this story. It was all incredibly sobering to hear it from the mouth of someone who had been there and experienced all of it.

"And… that was it?" Amelia asked.

"That's it," Hawkeye said, "The war soon ended, and we were all discharged and returned to our homes. I continued my work at the academy, graduated, and moved in underneath Mustang's command, where I was assigned to be his assistant. He told me about his goals to become Fuhrer, to change the country so it benefited the people more than it did its officers and gave me the task of watching his back as he proceeded." She sipped from her cup again, "And to shoot him in the back if he ever deviated from that path."

"Those are some big goals…" Amelia said, putting down her empty cup of coffee, having drunk all of it throughout listening to the Lieutenant.

"But even if the Colonel does become the Fuhrer, how will that change the fact that this is still a military state?" Edward asked.

"Well, it won't." Hawkeye said, "The first thing we'll have to do is restore power to the parliament. We'll take it back from the military and make it democratic again."

"That sounds a lot simpler than it is…" Amelia said, knowing that it wouldn't be as easy as just becoming Fuhrer and deciding 'welp, no need for me to be here anymore, let's bring in the parliament!' Though she couldn't really picture the Colonel acting like that. Well… maybe a little, just for giggles.

Hawkeye nodded, "Only after the full extent of the military's corruption has been brought to light can this country move forward."

"What do you mean?" Edward asked.

"For example, those who were praised as heroes during the Ishvalan campaign will be brought to trial as war criminals," Hawkeye said.

Amelia and Edward's eyes went wide at that news.

"That's right, in a just, peaceful world, after all that we've done, we'll be seen as mass murderers." Hawkeye continued.

"And the Colonel's trying to make sure this happens?! Isn't that just like committing suicide?!" Edward demanded, surprised that these were the full extent of the Colonel's plans, and how badly they would turn on him if it was done the way he wanted. Hawkeye just nodded once as an answer, "But the homunculi were the ones pulling the strings…! They caused the civil war!"

"Even if they were the ones responsible for it, we were the soldiers who carried it out," Hawkeye replied firmly, determined in standing by the Colonel and his plan and still shocking Edward that she was willing to die for this better future that was promised by Mustang. "You should never avert your eyes from death, never forget the people you've killed. Trust me, no matter how much time passes, they will never forget the ones who killed them." It was Kimblee's quote given back to them, applying to her in a way that showed she wanted to take responsibility for what she had done, to atone for those she had killed in the war. In a way, Amelia thought it was almost noble.

Edward thought differently, his hands clenching into tight fists. "It's not right…!" He growled out.

Hawkeye didn't seem to react to his anger, or rather she kept calm in the face of it, giving him a gentle smile as she said, "You don't have time to worry about us, your hands are already full." Edward looked up at her as she spoke, "You need to look after your brother, Ed. And you need to get your bodies back." He had calmed down, but he still looked sullen, knowing the future that Hawkeye wanted was one he didn't want for good people like her, "You better get to it, you got plenty of people waiting for that day." Edward was quiet for a moment, knowing that she was right, and he needed to prioritize everything that he had control over. This plan, as much as he didn't like it, wasn't one of those things.

He nodded and looked at her, that determination to rush towards his goal burning in his golden eyes, "I'll get our bodies back, and Al will help me." He glanced over at Amelia, who smiled.

"I'd like to help, too." He smiled back at her, and he looked over at the Lieutenant.

"Um… thank you for the coffee, but we should probably get back to the hotel," Edward said, standing up, and Amelia did the same.

"It was good to see you," Hawkeye said, "Maybe we can have some more another day."

"Yeah, maybe." Edward agreed though both of them knew that wouldn't be possible while she was the Fuhrer's assistant, not with the way things were currently going. Still, there was always the promise of a better day, and neither of them seemed to let that go as Edward and Amelia walked out of the apartment, leaving the Lieutenant with her cleaned gun, her dog, and three empty coffee cups.

"I'll let you know if I hear anything new," Hawkeye said as he started to reach for the door.

He paused just before he opened it, looking back at her, "The Fuhrer's basically hired you to be his hostage. Will you be alright?" He asked, concerned for her, especially after hearing everything she just told him.

"Well, it's all in how you look at it, I guess." Hawkeye said with a shrug, "This close to him, it just means I'll have a better chance to kill him in his sleep." Amelia let out a small chuckle, taking it as a joke, though she wasn't entirely wrong about that, either.

"You scare me," Edward replied with an amused smile, opening the door and letting Amelia leave first before he stopped, "Oh yeah," He turned around to face her again, "Pass this on for me: tell the Colonel that Scar is back."

"Sure thing, no problem," Hawkeye said.

Hayate started whining as Edward began to leave, so she picked him up and brought him to the door to see him off as he and Amelia started walking into the hallway. He glanced back after a moment, "Hey, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, what is it?"

"I just want to say thanks for telling me about Ishval," Edward said.

Hawkeye smiled and nodded, and Hayate let out a small bark in farewell as Edward and Amelia continued on their way out of the building.

As they got outside, she looked over at Edward, "That was…" She couldn't really find the right words to describe how she felt, "I mean… she didn't leave anything out."

"Yeah…" He sighed out, "Even though we're not even adults yet."

"Right?" Amelia let out a small laugh and Edward joined her. The two of them walked in pretty comfortable silence together down the street. The cab services were still running, but neither of them seemed eager to find one to take them back to their hotel, taking this time to walk and absorb everything they had heard. "It was really heavy."

"Heavy?" Edward repeated the term as if he had never heard it before. "Yeah, I guess that's a good word for it."

"There was just… a lot." Edward nodded in agreement, "...How old do you have to be to go into the military academy?"

"Well… you have to have at least finished school, so about… maybe 16? 17?" Edward shrugged. "I'm sure the Lieutenant was a little older than that when she went in."

"Yeah, but she can't have been that much older than us…" She wrapped her arms around herself as she thought about it more, "I can't even picture it, going to war that young. Like, what if war started tomorrow? What if you had to go off and do what alchemists do like they did back then?" Edward grimaced.

"I can't even imagine it…" He said, "I mean, after all that she said, I have a good picture of how it might be, but experiencing it myself?" He shook his head, "I have no idea how I would react."

"Me, either." Amelia agreed, "It's just… I mean…" She sighed, "You have an idea of how you think you'll be, but that's probably just how you want to be. You don't know how you actually are in situations like that… and the fact that she came out of it and still wanted to be a soldier? To do all of this for that kind of outcome? That's impressive."

"Yeah, it is." Edward agreed, "Lieutenant Hawkeye is a pretty amazing person."

"She really is." Amelia agreed.

They walked a little farther, and Amelia and Edward were both quiet as they thought over everything from that brief meeting, but also a little bit more about their own goals. "Ed… what will you do when you get your body back to normal?"

"What?"

"I mean, what do you want to do once you get your arm and leg back?" She asked, and Edward frowned, trying to think.

"I guess… I'd give a call to Granny, and Teacher, tell them I'm okay." He looked down at his automail hand, "Look forward to the rainy days again. And start writing with my right hand again."

"You're a rightie?" Amelia asked, holding up her right hand, "Me too!"

"Alright!" Edward reached up and the two of them high-fived with their right hands, though it was a little more painful for Amelia since his right hand was made of metal, "Oh, sorry."

"It's fine." Amelia sighed as she brought her hand back to herself and waved off the pain, "I should have known what I was getting into with that."

The two of them shared another laugh as they continued walking. "What about you?" Edward asked.

"Me?"

"What's your goal? To become a state alchemist and get your pardon, right?"

"Well… I mean…" Amelia thought about it, "I would like that, yes, but honestly? If I get the chance, I'd rather go back home." Edward's face fell a little as she mentioned that.

"Home? After all that stuff you said about your parents? What about the Armstrongs?"

"Well, yeah, I love the Armstrongs, don't get me wrong!" Amelia said quickly, "I love the girls and Teacher and all that, I do, it's just… I mean, home is home, you know? It's everything I've ever known." She put her hands in her pockets, "There's a lot of things that I miss that Amestris doesn't have. Like Christmas, for example. Or any Christian holiday, so that means no Christmas, no Easter, no St. Valentine's, or St. Patrick's - which honestly, I could take or leave St. Patrick's Day, but you get my point."

"So, you'd just want to go home for the holidays?" Edward asked.

"Well… kind of. Amestris doesn't really seem to have any." Amelia said.

"We do too!" Edward said, "We have New Year's Day, we have Founder's Day, we have the Harvest Festival, all kinds of stuff."

"Yeah, but none of that is Christmas, or Halloween, or Easter." Amelia replied she let out a small sigh, "Look, if you were in my situation, you would be in the same boat." Edward relaxed a little bit more and the two continued walking.

"Well… I mean, we can probably do some of that stuff here. Maybe we just do it and you don't know it, we could just call them by different names." Edward tried to argue.

"Maybe, but I'm pretty sure Thanksgiving has come and gone in the time that I've been here, and I haven't seen anything." She replied, and she shrugged, "It's not a huge deal, it's just something I miss." Edward was quiet about it, shoving his hands in his pockets as he looked away from her. Why did it bother him so much that her goal was to go home? She was right in that, if he were in her shoes, he would be doing the exact same thing and trying to get back to Al somehow, but the idea of her leaving them behind just to go back to a life that she didn't seem particularly fond of… leaving them behind to go back to parents who neglected her, leaving them behind just for some holidays he had never heard of, leaving him behind just to go back to a life where everything was the same for her, leaving him behind…

It really shouldn't have bothered him so much, but it did.

"We can… recreate it?" Edward suggested, "So you feel more at home?"

"I wouldn't ask you to do that," Amelia said, smiling at him, "But thank you. That's kind of you to offer."

"Well, what's your favorite holiday, then?" Edward asked.

Amelia let out a breath and took a moment to think, "I don't know that I like any of them in particular… I always end up getting dragged into my mom's holiday parties with all of her 'influential' friends and making small talk with these total assholes who're super overdressed with an overinflated ego to match." She took some more time, "Though… I guess one of my best memories is a Christmas one."

Edward looked over at her, "Tell me about it."

She shrugged, "I mean, it wasn't even a big thing, looking back, but it meant a lot to me as a kid." She smiled a little bit as she thought about it, "My dad almost always works Christmas. I don't know why, but he does. He prefers to spend more time in his office than he does at home with a vain wife and a kid that he doesn't… well, I think he likes me to some degree, but he just doesn't express it well. Anyway, I knew it would be another Christmas where he wasn't there, and I had brought it up to him a few nights before Christmas eve, we were both eating dinner around the same time. Apparently, me mentioning that I always noticed he was working when I was about seven years old got to him. So, a few days later, Christmas morning comes around, and I wake up to the smoke detector going off, so I freak out and rush off downstairs to see what the cause was, and it was my dad. He was trying to cook up a Christmas breakfast for me, and he had burnt his really bad attempts at a pancake-shaped like a Christmas tree." She laughed a little, "He looked so embarrassed, and he was a total mess, and the pancakes he made were still terrible, but he stayed over that morning. No business calls, no leaving in the middle of everything to go to work, he just… stayed. He opened presents with me, he told me his favorite Christmas story, and we stayed in our pajamas until 3 in the afternoon watching Christmas movies… it was the first, and last, time I spent nearly a whole day with my dad."

She straightened up as she pulled herself out of her memories, "He's still a workaholic, though; always has been. But… he tried. He sent me little messages on holidays to try and be supportive. He'd come in late to work on major holidays to spend mornings with me… but he stopped doing that a couple of years ago. Still, that one day meant a lot… And it's more than I can say about my mother."

Edward listened as she described that moment to him and found himself picturing him and his own father in a similar situation. He frowned at the ache it caused in his chest and pushed those thoughts away, but picturing a young Amelia happy and smiling with her dad… he could see how that mattered to her.

"So… Krissmas is your favorite holiday?" He asked, "What's that like?"

She shrugged, "Well, it goes back to this weird pagan tradition about burning logs and decorating trees to try and keep the cold out, so you'll bring in a big tree and decorate it with little ornaments and stuff. Then you get presents for everyone you like, and you stick them under the tree by Christmas Eve so you can open them up on Christmas morning. And after a bunch of celebrating and playing and doing whatever you want to do because it's Christmas, you have a Christmas dinner with your family. Mine were always a huge pain to go to because my mom is estranged from her family, and my dad's family are on the other side of the world, so it's normally just the three of us with so much food that we could never consume all of it." She shrugged, "It's weird out of context, and totally over-marketed back home, but it's fun."

"It sounds nice," Edward said, smiling at her. She smiled back and the two of them kept walking.

"So, since we're talking about holidays, what's your favorite?" She asked.

"Oh… well, uh…" He paused, "Does my birthday count?"

She laughed, "Yeah, sure, we'll count it as a holiday. When is it?"

"It's February 3rd."

"That's not too far away, I'll have to remember to get you a gift."

The walk wasn't much longer before they decided to just get a cab and take it back to the hotel so they could finally rest after such a long couple of days, and they definitely needed it. It was a little difficult since it was a little late, but Edward managed to hail one on their way back and they got back to the hotel relatively quickly. As soon as they arrived at their hotel and made their way inside, they saw a familiar suit of armor heading up the stairs ahead of them.

"Al!" Edward called out to his brother, and he turned around at the sound of Edward's voice, Amelia following behind him.

"Brother! Have you been doing repairs all this time?" Alphonse asked, clearly worried about how much time his brother had spent outside of the hotel doing work when he should have been resting.

"I'm fine, Al." Edward reassured him, starting up the stairs, "Come on, I have something to talk about with you."

"Oh! Uh, okay!" Alphonse followed him up and Amelia moved behind both of them up to their room where Edward sat down on the couch and Amelia sat across from him. Alphonse joined them, listening as Edward told him what had happened, how he had returned the gun to Lieutenant Hawkeye, who had told him everything about Ishval and her time there. He relayed everything to his brother, not leaving out any details that he had been told, and as Amelia listened, she realized what he was saying was almost verbatim what the Lieutenant had said. She was a little surprised that he had such a good memory that he could retell everything like that.

At the end, it was even later, and Alphonse just sat and absorbed everything as they had after that talk, "That's terrible. It's tough to even hear about Ishval…" He said, with the unspoken sentence of 'I can't imagine what it would have been like for me' which was a sentiment Amelia and Edward shared.

"And she didn't hold back, even though I'm practically a kid." Edward commented, he looked down at his automail hand, "They say an alchemist is one who seeks after the truth, and yet…" He brought his metal fingers into a fist, "I knew nothing about what happened in Ishval."

"You think the Colonel's concerned about what happens after he gets what he wants?" Alphonse asked.

"I know I would be if I were him," Edward replied.

"It's a big risk he's taking. And a big change." Amelia said, "It would be a lot of work before that happens. He might be knocking on death's door by the time it finally comes…" The two brothers nodded in agreement.

After a beat of silence, Edward looked up at his brother, "Hey, Al?" Alphonse looked over at him, "What are you gonna do when you get your real body back? I mean, afterwards."

"Well, let's see…" Alphonse took a second to think, "First thing, I really want to eat some of Winry's apple pie." Edward laughed a bit at his simplistic answer, that was the thing he most wanted to do once he got his body back, of course it was! Amelia smiled, thinking it would be a good day for Alphonse to be able to eat and drink again, and sleep and dream once he got his body back, "And what about you?"

Edward let out a small hum, "I've been so busy trying to get our bodies back that I haven't even thought about what happens next." He stood up, stretching out his arms and grunting, "I guess the first thing, I'll make some courtesy calls. Let Granny and our teacher know we're all right."

Alphonse nodded in agreement, "Yeah, of course! They've both helped us out so much." Edward nodded along with that, "And you know what? They'll be smiling when they see us."

"I'm sure everyone will be smiling when they see you in your body, Al," Amelia said, and he let out a small chuckle. She could swear he was smiling through that armored mask, even though it wasn't possible for it to move and make that face.

"That'll be nice, just to see them smile." She was glad that they were looking forward to making others happy once their bodies were restored to them. He stood up, "I know things are rough right now, but I'm starting to cheer up!"

"And it's pretty contagious, too." Amelia joked, the two of them sharing a laugh.

"It's not all bad, though," Edward said, "I think I found a trace of hope for us." Alphonse looked over at his brother curiously, "You know how our alchemy wouldn't work when we were under Central Command? Guess what? It wasn't working above ground, either."

"But… what about Scar, and that girl?" Alphonse asked, noticing that one big difference in what Edward was saying. If it was out for everyone above and below, it would make one wonder how they were still able to fight with their alchemy.

"Exactly, they were the only ones that could use it," Edward said.

"Well, if that's the case, they're doing something different. Something with their alchemy we don't know about." Alphonse said.

"Yeah, which means we haven't hit a dead-end yet." Edward grinned, knowing that they had hope of fighting and beating Father and his homunculus goons was something to be ecstatic about. "I think tomorrow, we'll talk to that little girl about her alchemy, figure out how it works and see how we can change ours."

"That's probably a good idea, I left her at Doctor Knocs's house to rest up, she'll still be sleeping for a while," Alphonse said.

"And we need our sleep too." Amelia said, standing up and stretching, "It's been a long couple of days, I'm really looking forward to sleeping in a bed." Edward sighed.

"Yeah, me too… I haven't really slept much since before I was in Gluttony's stomach." He said.

"Then you really need to sleep, Brother!" Alphonse said urgently, putting his hands on Edward's shoulders and starting to push him towards his room, with Edward protesting the whole way, "You need to get to bed now and start sleeping so you can wake up better tomorrow!"

"Jeez, Al! I'm going, I'll be fine!" Edward said, but still had Alphonse pushing him into his room, "Okay, okay! I'll go to bed!"

"You better!" Alphonse said before he closed Edward's door for him. Amelia let out a cackle at the sight of Edward being pushed around by his younger brother like that. "And you should get to sleep, too, Amelia! You really exhausted yourself after crying so much yesterday!"

"Alphonse, don't say that so loud!" Amelia hissed at him, not wanting Edward to know she had cried over him. As he started to come over to her, she jumped up, "Ahh! Alright, alright! I'm going, I'm going!" She said, rushing off to her room and closing the door behind her so Alphonse wouldn't have to push her in. She heard Alphonse letting out a little laugh behind the door, and she shook her head as she went to go and change out of her clothes.

After going through her nightly routine and changing into a comfortable nightgown, Amelia found herself feeling tired like everything had caught up to her at once. She turned off the lights and nearly collapsed on the bed, covering herself in blankets as she felt her exhaustion starting to catch up with her. She had woken up in the early morning after crying herself to sleep the night before after trying to fight a homunculus, then followed that same homunculus for miles, met his creator, was almost killed by him, and then threatened by yet another homunculus before helping Edward with alchemical repairs. Yep, it had been a hell of a day, and she was very tired.

It didn't take her long to get to sleep and stay asleep.

---

Amelia and Edward both ended up sleeping in the next morning, both of them having needed the sleep and were glad for it. After dressing themselves to prepare for a day of working on alchemy with the little girl they had found - Alphonse said her name was May Chang - they got some breakfast before they started to head out. "Oh, we should probably call ahead," Amelia said, "I mean, she's at Dr. Knocs's place, right? We don't want to just show up unannounced to his house." Plus, he had a bit of a grumpy attitude that she didn't want to have to deal with if they just showed up without warning.

"Yeah, I guess we should…" Edward said, going over to the hotel phone. Alphonse had gotten his number while he had gone over yesterday to deliver the message to Lan Fan, he had stayed for most of the day to help the doctor with cleaning up around his house and such since he didn't want to return back to the hotel right away just to be alone. After Edward dialed in the number, it started to ring and soon enough was answered by the unhappy, gruff voice of their acquaintance.

"Yeah, who is it?"

"Hello, Doctor Knocs, this is Edward." he said, trying to be polite with him, "We're just calling to let you know that we'll be heading over to your house."

"What the hell for?" The doctor demanded, "If you're going to dump another patient on me, so help me, I'll-!"

"N-No, no! Not that!" Edward said quickly, "The girl Alphonse dropped off at your house yesterday is still there, right? We wanted to talk to her."

"Oh, she's gone."

Edward stopped what he was about to say in response, having expected him to say something else, "What do you mean she's gone? The little obnoxious girl left?"

"Yeah, sometime this morning." The Doctor replied.

"But she- Where was she going?" He asked.

"She didn't tell me." Doctor Knocs answered, and Edward let out a frustrated grunt before hanging up the phone, turning around and starting to walk out of the hotel.

"Wait, she left?" Amelia asked, following after Edward, with Alphonse joining her.

"We can still find her!" Edward declared.

"How? This city is massive, and we don't have any idea where she was going or how to find her!" Amelia replied.

"She's right, we don't have any clues!" Alphonse agreed.

Edward looked back at them with a grin, "But we do have a clue. Remember her weird little cat?"

"The one that looked like a panda?" Amelia asked.

"How many cats like that do you think there are in this city? I doubt there's a lot." Amelia frowned.

"I mean, I know statistically you're probably right, but at the same time wouldn't it just be easier to ask if people have seen her, not her cat?" She asked, crossing her arms.

"In a city full of all these people, you really think someone's going to pay that much attention to a short little girl? Even if she is in Xingese clothes, that's not much to stand out. But not everyone walks around with a little cat on their shoulder."

She supposed she couldn't fight Edward's logic on that, though she still didn't think that was much, "Alright, fine. So, how would we go about looking?"

"Well, first, we'll probably need to find a way to make it clear what we're looking for." Edward went over to a table that had been put aside that had a stack of paper and envelopes - apparently, they were complimentary from the hotel for people that wanted to send letters. He took a page and started scribbling on it, and soon came back with a picture of a very strange looking creature with a long jaw, long arms, tiny claws, and narrow eyes. "See? Now people will know what to look for and be able to tell us."

"Um… is that a crocodile?" Amelia asked, causing Alphonse's armor to shudder as he held back his laughter. Edward's face turned red.

"It's the cat!" He said, shoving the picture in her face.

"It doesn't look like it. Or any kind of cat, really." Amelia said as she took the drawing from him, "I mean, where are the ears?"

"They're right there!" Edward pointed out the little nubs at the top of the skull.

"Oh." Amelia looked at the drawing for another minute, and Edward started to relax, thinking she saw the cat in the picture, only for her to hand it back to him, "You can't draw for shit." Edward snatched his picture back.

"Well, then let's see you do better!" He snapped.

"Gladly." Amelia took the pen that was there for letter-writing, taking another sheet of paper and drawing a somewhat simplistic version of the cat, but it was pretty straightforward. A round little face, a round belly, four little legs and she added a little smile to make it cute. She turned around and presented her drawing to Edward, "See? Much more recognizable."

"Oh, come on…" Edward grumbled, crossing his arms as he looked at it, "Doesn't even look real. It just looks like a panda bear."

"The cat looks like a panda, Ed. Of course the drawing is going to look like a panda bear." Amelia replied dryly, handing him the picture, "How about I make the sketches instead?"

"I can draw just fine!" Edward said before going back and drawing yet another picture of the cat, with similar results to his first drawing, "There! That looks like a real cat!" Amelia frowned, and Edward stormed off, "Come on! Let's go already!" She looked back at Alphonse, who giggled a little now that his brother was gone.

"Ed's never been very good at drawing anything other than a transmutation circle." He said between laughs, "But your drawing isn't too bad, either. I think it should work."

"Yeah, that should do us." She said, and she quickly doodled out another one so she and Alphonse could have separate sheets of paper before they went out, already finding Ed going up to one person after another, asking if they'd seen the cat. Amelia rolled her eyes, "Oh, boy. He doesn't take criticism well, does he?"

"Not always, you know how his temper can be," Alphonse said, sounding amused as he watched his brother go around showing his picture to everyone he could.

"I'm almost tempted to call him shorty just to get him to stop making an idiot of himself…" Amelia said before she and Alphonse went back to asking the people Edward had just spoken to, briefly explaining that his drawing wasn't entirely accurate and that this picture was closer to what they were looking for. Her favorite was when Alphonse promised that his drawing was accurate and the creature they were looking for wasn't the "weird alien" in Edward's drawing. They didn't really get many people saying they had seen her, so they started moving a little closer to Dr. Knocs's neighborhood to ask around there.

As the day started to wane, and they had spent quite a few hours asking around about the cat and the little girl that owned it, they hadn't gotten much, if any leads. A few people mentioned seeing her, but they didn't remember where she had been going, and they hadn't spoken to her, either. By the time they had finished, they hadn't come up with much. Edward and Amelia were resting their feet on a bench as the street lights started to come on.

Edward sighed, "Seems like this search is getting us nowhere."

"You know, they might not be in Central anymore," Alphonse said.

"Well… maybe we should regroup, figure out our other options?" Amelia suggested, but before she could get an answer, a car pulled up near where they were sitting, with a familiar face at the wheel.

"Fullmetal," Mustang called from inside, and Amelia stood up from the bench, as did Edward.

"Colonel? How did you find us?" He asked.

"How?" Colonel Mustang gave a rather pointed glance to Alphonse, "Your brother doesn't exactly blend in." Alphonse sulked a little at that, but he couldn't argue with it. He was a seven-foot-tall suit of armor, after all. "Just what are you doing wandering around the city, anyway? You're not going on another fishing trip for Scar, are you?"

"No, I'm not that reckless," Edward replied.

"There's a lot of evidence that says otherwise," Amelia commented, earning her a scowl from Edward that was silently telling her to be quiet, and she childishly stuck out her tongue at him as a rebellious refusal.

"In any case, I don't think you need to be skulking around after dark," Mustang replied, making Edward direct his scowl to him. "Get in, I'll drive you back to your hotel. I've got some business I need to take care of near there, anyway."

"We don't need to go back yet," Edward replied, and Amelia nudged him with her elbow.

"Ed, we've basically asked everyone that lives here. I don't think we're going to get any more results than we've already got." Edward frowned, "Look, we'll go back to the hotel, get some dinner, and figure out our options and try again tomorrow, okay?" He sighed, relenting.

"Alright, fine." They started to file in, Amelia joining Edward and the Colonel up front as Alphonse took up the entire back seat.

"So, if you're not looking for dangerous criminals and inhuman killers, who are you looking for?" Mustang asked as he drove down the road.

"We're looking for a little girl." Edward said, earning him a questioning eyebrow from the colonel, "We think there's something she's doing with her alchemy that we might be able to use to our advantage, something so we can fight the guy who made all the homunculi. She was in town yesterday, but we have no idea where she is now."

"Here," Amelia pulled out one of her drawings she had made of the cat, "We're using her cat to try to find her, we've been asking everyone about it. Ed says people in Central are more likely to have seen that than her face." Mustang looked over the drawing.

"He's not wrong about that." He said as he looked over the picture before putting it aside, "What's so different about her alchemy?"

"She uses Xingese alkahestry, and we don't know how but it's something really different than our own alchemy. We think using it against the homunculi leader is a better option than relying on our own alchemy." Alphonse explained.

"You don't say, Xingese alkahestry… it sounds promising." The colonel commented, "I'll ask around, and let you know what I find."

"Thank you, but I don't want to get any deeper in debt to you than I already am," Edward said.

"Speaking of, you owe me some money," The Colonel said, turning to hold out his hand to Edward, "So how 'bout you cough it up?"

"EYES ON THE ROAD!" Edward shouted at him, and Amelia let out a shriek as the Colonel narrowly missed another car coming down from the opposite way, swerving around them before getting back on track. In their panic, Amelia had clung to Edward as he pushed himself against the wall of the car until they were heading straight again and he calmed down, "Geez, you remembered that from yesterday? Come on…" He glanced over at where Amelia was still clinging to his automail arm, and she let go, a little embarrassed that she had held onto him so tightly… hopefully, he wasn't able to feel that since his arm was made of metal, "How much did I borrow? 500 cenz?"

"It was 520 cenz," The colonel corrected snappishly, "Don't con me."

"I'm not conning you! I'm just not a penny-pincher like you are." Edward snapped back as he dug into his pocket to get some change. The colonel grimaced, obviously not pleased with that title as he asked for the correct amount of change back.

"I'm sorry, Colonel…" Alphonse apologized on behalf of his brother as Edward pulled out the 520 cenz he needed to pay him back. As he looked down at the change and thought over everything he had heard about the colonel from the lieutenant and everything he planned to do, he decided to change his mind.

"I'm just gonna hold onto this," he said, holding onto his change, looking over at the colonel, "But I promise to pay you back when you become Fuhrer."

Colonel Mustang stiffened, his eyes narrowing at Edward as he blatantly stated his ambitions, "Who told you?" He asked in a cold tone of voice.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye told me," Edward answered. "And she told me about Ishval, too." The Colonel nodded, not seeming entirely pleased that Edward knew, but he didn't say anything against it. Their ride didn't last much longer, anyway. After rounding a corner, the Colonel pulled up to their hotel and stopped just outside the front entrance.

"Thank you for the ride, Colonel," Amelia said as she started to get out of the car with Edward and Alphonse.

"Fullmetal," Edward looked back at the colonel at the sound of his title, seeing the smirk on the colonel's face, "Go on and keep that money for now, but you will pay me back." It seemed he was agreeing to Edward's promise of paying him that money he owed him after he reached his goal of getting into the Fuhrer's seat. He smirked right back at the man.

"Alright, and when that day comes, I'll borrow some more change." he promised, "And I'll pay that back when this country's a democracy. And when that day comes, I'll ask to borrow even more money from you."

The Colonel's smirk fell as he leaned against his steering wheel, "You're not planning to let me off the hook for a very long time, are you?" He sighed.

"Now you get it." Edward said, reaching for his still-open passenger door, "And you better not worry the Lieutenant, either!" He slammed the door, making the Colonel jump from the sound, as well as from his demand of not worrying Lieutenant Hawkeye. He still smirked at his commanding officer, "Thanks for giving us a ride."

The Colonel looked at this boy that had just called him out on his ambitions and decided to withhold money from him until he reached them. He couldn't deny that he liked the challenge Edward presented, if a small one. "Sure, see you later." He said, smiling as he started up the engine again and drove down the road. The group watched as he left, and then stopped a block or so away from the hotel to meet a pretty woman that was standing at a streetlight on the corner. Mustang gave her a charming smile as he came out of his car, "Sorry to have kept you waiting, Madeline."

"Oh, Roy! You're late!" Even though she admonished him, it was clear she was happy to see him. "Be honest, you were late because you were with some other girl, weren't you?"

Roy laughed, the trio able to hear his entire conversation as he opened his car door for her to get in, "Don't be ridiculous, darling. I'm not clever enough to two-time you." He said as he closed the door behind her and got around to his side and drove off again.

Amelia was honestly a little stunned to have seen the whole thing. Sure, she had thought the Colonel was handsome when she first met him, but it was a little weird to see him flaunting it like that to get a girl into his car.

"Are you serious?!" Edward snapped, "That 'business' he had to attend to was a date?!"

"And I can't believe he's doing that in the middle of everything that's going on!" Alphonse agreed with Edward's outrage.

"Wait, does he normally do that?" Amelia asked as she walked with the two brothers inside the hotel.

"The Colonel's a pretty well-known flirt. Shameless, lots of girlfriends, stuff like that." Edward grumbled as he walked in with Alphonse.

"I guess I should have known it, what with that handsome face of his," Amelia said as she walked up the stairs with them.

"Handsome? You think he's handsome after seeing that?" Edward asked.

"Well, I mean, he's objectively a good-looking guy, Ed. Even if I think it's a bad time for him to start dating after all the shit that's going down with the homunculi and whatnot." Amelia argued back.

"I hope I never turn into that kind of adult," Alphonse said as they got to their room.

"Me, neither." Edward agreed as he unlocked the door and stepped inside.

"It took long enough," A voice greeted them from the darkness of their hotel room, making Alphonse and Edward jump into fighting-ready poses, Edward making sure to get in front of Amelia as he looked at who was waiting for them in the dark, "I was getting tired of waiting."

"Wait… Old man Fu?" Edward recognized him after a moment, and the trio relaxed as the older man got up from where he was sitting on their couch, "How did you…? Wait, do I really have to ask this? You guys keep coming in through the windows…" Edward sighed. The old man came around the coffee table in front of the couch to them, "What are you doing here?"

"I need you to take me to my granddaughter," Fu said, and Edward's eyes widened a little.

"Oh… Lan Fan, right… You probably haven't seen her in a couple of days."

"Wait, Lan Fan has a grandfather?" Amelia had no idea. She had only ever met Lan Fan with Ling, she wasn't aware he had another bodyguard. Though, when she took a closer look at him, she recognized him, "Oh, yeah. You were there in the desert with us."

He nodded to her, "It's good to meet you again." He said with a bow, which Amelia mirrored respectfully, trying to be polite.

"Um, right…" She looked back up at the boys, "Lan Fan is… recovering right now." She grimaced, "She… um… She went through a lot to protect Ling."

"And where is the young lord?" Fu asked, and when no one answered him right away, and everyone had a look of hesitance on their faces, his expression hardened, "Take me to see my granddaughter."

---

The trip to Doctor Knocs's home wasn't very long, but it certainly felt that way as they escorted Fu. Amelia told him a little bit about what happened when she had joined them in their attempt to capture a homunculus, and that Lan Fan received an injury that she was certain she wasn't able to recover from, but she didn't go into detail about losing her arm too much, though Fu seemed to understand what she was saying easily enough. When they arrived, Doctor Knocs answered the door, looked down at them, and scowled.

"I thought you weren't coming. I already told you she left," he said.

"We're not here for that," Edward said stepping aside to let Fu step forward, "This is Lan Fan's grandfather."

"Oh. Well, come on in, I guess. I'll go get her." He said, tapping out the ashes from his cigarette before letting them come in. He waved for them to wait in the living room, and Amelia looked around the place. It was a bit of a mess, with books towered on top of each other in little piles in each corner, as well as some piles of newspapers neatly stacked on top of one another in front of some cabinets.

"Wow, what a bunch of junk." She had never actually been inside of his house, but it didn't look like it was very inviting, "I guess he doesn't get many guests."

"I don't think so." Alphonse agreed as they waited downstairs. Soon enough, Doctor Knocs came back, followed by Lan Fan who was wearing what must have been a spare set of Doctor Knocs's pajamas and a jacket. The left sleeves of those clothes empty as she was helped to come join them in the room. She met Fu's eyes, but then looked away from him as if she were ashamed. Amelia came over to help Lan Fan sit down on the couch. She hadn't seen her since that escapade with Gluttony, but as far as she could tell it looked like she was recovering well enough, which was something of a relief.

There was a heavy silence bearing down on all of them as Fu stood in front of his granddaughter, looking at the state she was in with an intense stare.

"You lost your arm, you couldn't protect the prince, and look at you now…" He said, looking down at her with that disapproving expression. Lan Fan didn't say anything in her defense, just holding onto her clothes at her left shoulder, where her arm was no longer there as if to make sure that it was still gone. No one said a word as they looked at each other, thinking this must be a hard moment for both of them. Amelia had been filled in on their situation somewhat, that they were bodyguards of Ling and took their roles very seriously, so knowing that Ling was gone and couldn't return (as far as they knew) and all of that happening under Lan Fan's watch… she supposed she could understand how he was upset.

Fu raised his hand and brought it down, slapping Lan Fan across the face, shocking everyone.

"Hey!" Doctor Knocs came up and grabbed his hand as he pulled it back a second time, holding it back as he tried to slap Lan Fan again, "What do you think you're doing?!"

"How dare you call yourself a member of the chosen clan!" Fu snapped at Lan Fan, "You shameless-!" He grunted and fought Doctor Knocs as he kept holding him back.

"Cut it out, old man, she hasn't recovered yet!" He held him back as Fu kept trying to go to her, "I told you to stop!" And after a moment, it seemed that Fu lost that energy and relaxed, though the doctor still held onto him. Fu's expression changed from that harsh disapproval to a face of disbelief, and obvious concern.

"It's really gone…" He said, looking down at his granddaughter, almost looking as if he might cry, "Your arm… you lost your arm…"

"Please forgive me, Grandfather…" Lan Fan said in a soft voice, "I'm sorry…" Her voice broke as if she might start crying, too. Fu stepped forward, Doctor Knocs stepping back as it seemed that he wasn't going to hit her again. He reached for the empty sleeve of her jacket, holding it in his shaking hand as he looked at it.

He fell onto his knees as he pressed the sleeve to his face, "You fool… you damned fool…!" He shuddered, and no one said anything to him as he seemed to shed some tears for what had happened.

There was a beat of silence before Doctor Knocs said, "I'll… go make some coffee." Taking this as a moment to give them some privacy so they could talk and grieve a little, the others followed. Amelia walked with them into the kitchen. As the doctor started to make a pot, Amelia glanced back at the living room. She could no longer see Fu or Lan Fan, but she could just barely hear the sounds of their whispers to each other.

"I haven't seen her since we were in the safe house…" Amelia said as she joined everyone in the kitchen, keeping her voice quiet so she wouldn't disturb them, "I feel kind of bad that I haven't come to check on her. I was there when it happened, too…"

"Well, you've been busy the last couple of days." Edward said, and she gave him a small, wry smile, knowing he had been right there with her for a lot of those "busy" times. He mirrored it.

"Right…" She sighed, leaning onto the edge of one of the dining room chairs in the kitchen. She thought about what it must be like for Lan Fan to have lost her arm like that, and then glanced over at Edward's right arm, where she knew his automail was hiding underneath his coat, "Do you…?" She trailed off, not sure if she should ask the question she wanted to ask, but she already had Edward's attention.

"What?"

"Well… I mean… you probably have… something of an idea of what Lan Fan is feeling right now, don't you?" She asked, looking up at him hesitantly, knowing this wasn't the most prudent question to ask.

He nodded, "Yeah, it's… kind of hard to describe how you feel about it those first few days." Edward answered, glancing down at his automail hand before shoving it into his coat pocket, "It's like… you keep waking up each morning expecting it to still be there. It's a hard thing to accept at first, but she's pretty tough… I think she can handle it." Amelia nodded silently in agreement, and they were still quiet as Doctor Knocs finished brewing his coffee pot and poured a few glasses of it, as well as getting a drink of water from the tap for Lan Fan. The living room seemed much quieter and as he walked in with the drinks, Fu stood up from where he had been sitting beside Lan Fan and let him come in. Whatever they had been talking about was over now, and so everyone felt a bit more comfortable coming back.

Amelia took one cup as Edward did, deciding to make use of the Doctor's hospitality.

"I promised Lan Fan that I would introduce her to an automail engineer," Edward said, knowing she would want a replacement as soon as possible.

"We decline," Fu said, surprising them. "We appreciate such a kind gesture, but you've already helped us enough. We can find an engineer on our own if we must."

"But… we have to do something…!" Alphonse insisted.

"The enemy has now clearly seen Lan Fan's face. We refuse to risk the life of your engineer friend." Fu said, again refusing. Lan Fan nodded her head in agreement.

"Well… I mean, I guess if you're sure." Amelia said, feeling guilty for not really being able to help them out, but if they were going to refuse help there wasn't much they could do about it.

"Alright then," Edward said, "Thank you." Fu nodded his head towards him before making his way over to Doctor Knocs, who looked down at the shorter, older man as he undid the headband he wore.

"You're the only reason my granddaughter is still alive," He bowed his head and put his hands together in front of him as he did so, "You have my gratitude."

"What?! Do I look like the kind of doctor that wants gratitude?!" Knocs snapped at him. Lan Fan stood up from the couch and walked over behind her grandfather, looking up at him with a soft smile.

"Thanks, Doctor Knocs. Thank you for saving me." She said, giving him a small bow of her own.

The doctor looked at her for a second, hesitating before he scowled and snapped, "Just clear out already! I'm not such a pushover that I'm gonna let you take my bed for an extra night!" He waved them off, grumbling as he stormed out of the room. "Now, get out." Despite his protests, there was something about the way he reacted that told everyone in the room he was actually a little glad to receive the praise, and glad that he had done a good job on helping Lan Fan heal.

Fu turned to his granddaughter, speaking to her in Xingese which Amelia noted sounded very much Chinese to her (even though she barely knew the language at all). And Lan Fan nodded, with Fu pulling out some folded-up clothes and presenting them to her, and she started to take them into the other room before she paused and looked back.

"Amelia? Would you mind helping me get dressed?" She asked, and Amelia jumped before nodding.

"Uh, yeah. Of course." She said, going to follow her into another room. They closed the door behind them, and she helped Lan Fan out of her pajamas so she could wear the shirt and skirt that Fu had packed for her. "Huh… why did he bring you these clothes?" When she looked at them, she remembered the outfit she had seen Lan Fan wear before, which was more armor than clothing and definitely made her appear as a man.

"It's to help us blend in among the Amestrians." Lan Fan explained as she started to take off the pajama pants. Amelia turned around with the shirt and paused a little at the sight of Lan Fan's bandages around the remains of her shoulder and her chest. She couldn't help looking at it, seeing that obvious lack of a limb, and the reddish-brown stains that spoke of old blood. "Amelia?"

"Oh, sorry!" Realizing she was staring, she quickly came over to help get her shirt on, which was a button-up - unfortunately for Lan Fan. She would need help getting this one on right. She helped her arm into the sleeve before she started doing the buttons from the bottom up. "I… um…" The bodyguard looked down at Amelia inquisitively, "I'm sorry… that I wasn't able to do more when we were running like that."

"There's no need to apologize." Lan Fan said, "Though the sentiment is appreciated." Amelia let out a small hum as she kept helping her.

"It's just… I didn't really do anything to help that day." She said to Lan Fan, "I couldn't help you fight off Bradley, and I couldn't help stop the bleeding after you lost your arm, and then there was everything that happened with Gluttony, and Ed…" She paused as she reached the top button and she pulled away, "I just… I felt like I couldn't really do anything that was really helpful. I'm a good alchemist and all, and Ed says I have a lot of potential, but… that doesn't mean that I'm making good use of it." She turned around and went to get Lan Fan's skirt, bringing it over to her, and Lan Fan took it from her since she could put that on herself. "I just… I feel like I'm kind of just… there because I have to be, you know?"

When she realized that she was saying all of this to Lan Fan without really knowing anything about her, she stopped, "Sorry, I don't know why I said all that. You don't have to answer that question…"

"You said it because you couldn't say it to anyone else." Lan Fan said as she pulled up the skirt and straightened it. Amelia was a little shocked at her reply, and how it felt like she had hit the nail on the head. She couldn't deny that she felt like she couldn't really say anything about that to Ed and Al. As good as they were to her, they weren't necessarily best buddies, and she wasn't sure they wanted to hear about her insecurities and complaints about her lack of being able to help.

"Well… I guess." she agreed, "But I… I don't know how I'm supposed to stop feeling like this."

"You train harder, and you get ready to fight." Lan Fan said, stepping into the shoes that her grandfather had provided with her outfit, and reaching for the jacket, with Amelia coming over to help her put it over her shoulders. "Once you're ready for that, you won't feel like you're there because you have to be."

"Right…" Amelia smiled. She knew that answer was probably one she could have gotten on her own if she had just taken the time to reflect, but it helped to have someone to talk to, even if only for a moment. "Thanks, Lan Fan. I hope you find an engineer soon and get a new arm."

"Thank you." Lan Fan said, and she stepped out. She joined Fu, who had changed into a two-piece suit and tie, having taken off his armor as they started to leave. Edward, Alphonse, and Amelia left, walking opposite them after they left to go and find their own engineer to assist them.

Amelia looked over at Edward as they walked, glancing back over her shoulder to see Lan Fan and Fu walking down the sidewalk together. She looked back at Ed and asked, "Hey… how long does it take someone to get some automail outfitted?"

"Well… it didn't take me very long, it depends on how many bells and whistles you want, and how much pain you're willing to go through." Edward said, "But recovery and rehabilitation normally takes about 3 years."

"Jesus, that's a long time for Lan Fan to wait…" She glanced back over her shoulder again, seeing the two of them now gone from sight before going back to Edward, "Did it take you that long, too?"

"No, I did it in about one year," Edward said with a boasting smile as his chest puffed out.

"Yeah, and it took him a lot of effort just to do that." Alphonse commented, deflating the puffed-out chest pretty quickly, "Granny warned him he'd be spitting up blood doing it that quickly, and she wasn't wrong. It was pretty dangerous to Edward's health to do it too fast."

"Oh, wow." Amelia looked back at Edward, "And despite all of that, you're standing up and walking around on your metal foot."

"Yep, it takes a lot of dedication to heal that fast," Edward said.

"Or maybe just sheer anger. I can see you using that energy you use to scream at people to help you heal your busted arm and leg." Amelia joked, and Edward frowned, though Alphonse laughed.

"I think Edward could power Central City with all of his anger!" He laughed.

"Right? I bet he could power a third- no, half of Amestris with that pissed off energy!" Amelia kept joking, the two of them sharing a laugh about it while Edward grumbled.

"My temper isn't that bad!"

"Yes, it is." Amelia and Alphonse replied at the same time, which just made him sulk more.

"Ah, whatever." He brushed it off grumpily, "We should just go back to the hotel and regroup. We'll have to keep looking tomorrow."

"I'm not sure that just looking for this girl is our only option." Amelia said, "I mean, surely there are other resources than just asking around for a girl who knows this stuff, and might teach us? We have no idea if she'll even agree, and I don't know how comfortable I am at the idea of doing it by force…"

"Well, what are you suggesting?" Edward asked.

"There's got to be more resources than just one individual person who might not even be in town anymore." Amelia said, "For all we know, she could have left Doctor Knocs's just to hop on a train and get out of here." Edward grunted, clearly not liking that idea, but he couldn't deny the possibility of it.

"Alright, fair enough… we should probably check out the library, too." He relented, "How about this? We'll spend the morning looking for her and any clues about her cat, and then we'll go to the library after lunch to study up on alkahestry."

"You seriously want to keep looking? We asked around for hours today and no one gave us any useful information." Amelia complained.

"Come on, Amelia," Alphonse said, "it's a good compromise for both of you." She sighed in response.

"Alright, you make a good point." She said, "And whatever we don't learn about the Xingese girl-"

"May," Alphonse interjected with her name.

"-May, we'll learn about alkahestry at the library." She said though this was one of the times she desperately wished for the convenience of the internet. She could just put "alkahestry" into a search engine and be well-versed in the subject after about 30 minutes. This way of doing it would take a lot longer and she definitely wasn't thrilled about the idea, but it was really the only option they had. She'd tried a bunch of times to get her phone to work, but with no satellites to redirect her requests, there was no signal at all. She missed the internet.

"Okay, now we're good." Edward said, "We can go back, grab some dinner, and go to bed."

Edward chatted a little with Alphonse about what he was going to eat for dinner, and Amelia took a moment to reflect on that brief time she spent with Lan Fan, "Actually, Ed…" He looked over at her, "Do you think you and I could run some alchemy drills before bed?"

He looked at her in confusion, "You want to run drills? You always whine and complain every time I put you through them!"

"I know, but… I feel like I really need to perfect my transmutations." She looked down at her hands, "I got through the portal, but that knowledge isn't much good if I can't transmute things properly. I really need to work on transmuting organic material, and I could probably stand to brush up on other kinds of alchemy too." She looked up at Edward, "I want to get serious about this."

He was a little surprised at her seemingly sudden determination to learn more about alchemy, "Um… alright, sure. We'll run a few more drills before we go to sleep tonight." He said, "I'll figure that out over dinner…" He reached up and scratched at the back of his head, "Man… I don't think I've actually taught you any alchemy since we came up with that plan for Gluttony. I could probably stand to brush up on a few things, too." He reached down with his automail hand and poked at his stomach, "I'm getting a little flabby."

"You sure you want to pick a fight after we spent the whole day wandering around?" Alphonse asked in a teasing sort of challenge, and Amelia looked up at the armor, befuddled. What did he mean by picking a fight?

"Alright, tomorrow morning then. First thing." Edward said, and Alphonse nodded in agreement.

"What are you guys talking about?" Amelia asked.

"Oh, well, the way we were taught is that we train the body as well as the mind," Edward said, and a lightbulb seemed to switch off in his head, "Hey, you should join us, too!"

"No." Amelia said immediately, "I had to do that with Armstrong, and I hated it. I'm not waking up at five in the morning just to go running!"

"We don't run in the mornings, we fight!" Edward said with a toothy grin.

"Dude, I'm not fighting you!" Amelia refused, "I would totally lose!"

"And that's why you should fight, it'll give you a chance to be better at it later," Edward said.

"Absolutely not." Amelia refused again.

"Well, I'm your teacher, so you can't really say no." Edward said with a teasing grin, "And, you know if you disobey your teacher…" He left the threat hanging in the air to mess with her, which Amelia didn't like at all.

"What, you'll send me back to Bradley?" She snapped, and Edward's joking expression was immediately lost.

"No… No, no. I would never do that." He said, "Look, just… the fight we had before isn't going to be our last fight. It would probably be good for you to at least pick up some ways to defend yourself." Amelia couldn't deny that he was right on that front, but she really wished he wasn't. "Hey," Edward reached out with his flesh hand to her shoulder, the two of them stopping in their walking, "We'll take it easy on you. We know fighting is really hard when you've never done it before."

Alphonse put his hand on her other shoulder, and she looked up to see the armor giving her a thumbs-up, "If you really want to get better, this is the best way to learn." He said, "And we won't be too harsh with you. Our teacher was pretty harsh on us, but that's what made us such good alchemists in the end. We'll work with you in the way that helps you most." He promised.

Amelia glanced between the two brothers, seeing their earnestness in their desire to help her get better, and she sighed, "Okay, fine. Just try not to leave any bruises or anything."

"Can't promise that!" Edward said with a grin, "You're definitely gonna have bruises, and be really sore, but that's all just the learning process."

"Oh, you guys suck!" Amelia snapped, which just made the two brothers laugh. "...I'm in for a hellish morning tomorrow, aren't I?"

"A little bit. Sorry." Alphonse said, and Amelia sighed.

"This is what I get for trying to be good at something…" She took in a deep breath, "Well, I guess it can't be helped. You get what you work for, and I'm going to have to work hard if I want to get good at any of this."

"That's the spirit!" Edward encouraged her, "Take your ass-beating with a smile!"

"Do you seriously have to call it that?!"

Despite her protests and her fears, Amelia knew deep down that she was in good hands.