The night went on as Manami and Al sat on the floor beside her bed and continued their conversation, until…
Gurrrgle…
Manami looked down and placed a hand on her stomach. Yikes, that was a loud growl. Probably loud enough for Al to hear.
"You hungry?" Al asked with a small chuckle.
Yup, he definitely heard it.
"Guess so." Manami answered, smiling nervously. "I guess it makes sense… I haven't eaten today…"
"Huh? Even when you came back to the hotel before we did?" Al asked her.
Manami shook her head. "I stopped at the Hughes' place on the way." She mumbled quietly.
"And didn't stay for dinner?" Al inquired. He knew that dinner was a part of the routine whenever visiting the Hughes family, especially for Manami.
Manami sighed and turned her head. "I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to have an appetite, so I left beforehand."
Al hummed in response before going to stand up. "It's pretty late, but maybe late enough to where it's early enough that I can find some kind of breakfast food. In the meantime…"
He suddenly reached down to scoop Manami up in his arms, holding her bridal style.
"Wha..?" Manami's cheeks turned a bright red, that was thankfully masked in the darkness of the room. "What are you doing?" She squeaked.
"Getting you off the floor and into your bed." Al gently went to set her down on the mattress. "You should be trying to get to sleep at some point, you know."
"Uh…" Manami was rendered speechless, watching silently as he left the room.
What was that all about? Why was her heart beating so fast from just that?
Suddenly, Winry's words rung in her head.
"I just… I don't think you should give up so easily, that's all."
"!" She quickly reached to smack her cheeks with both hands.
"Snap out of it!"
Manami pouted to herself for a moment, recovering from the self-inflicted stinging on her cheeks before Al came back into the room.
"The dining hall was closed, but the man at the front desk went back there and found a pastry." He went to hand it to her.
"Thanks… you really didn't have to." Manami chuckled weakly, but didn't hesitate to bite into the pastry.
Mmm… whatever it was, it was topped with cinnamon.
"You gotta eat." Al said simply, going to sit on the floor at her bedside. "When's the last time you ate, anyway? Since you didn't eat at the Hughes'?"
"..." Manami stopped chewing as she remembered her last meal. Freshly boiled leather boot, in a bowl of gruel.
"I'd rather not talk about it…" She groaned, forcing herself to swallow the bite of pastry she had in her mouth.
"Huh?" Al blinked.
"Ask your brother." She croaked.
"O-Okay…"
They sat in silence as Manami continued eating the pastry until it was gone. She sighed softly in relief, then went to lean back against the pillows until her head touched the wall behind her.
"Feel better?" Al asked her.
"Much… thanks again." She smiled over to him.
"It's no problem…" Al shook his head. "Maybe something in your stomach will help you get back to sleep. It usually helps brother."
Manami's smile faded a little at the way he said that. It's been so long that Al had a body to feed… it sounded like he's forgotten how good it feel to go to sleep with a full stomach.
And here she was, denying herself food and sleep right in front of him… like she had said to him before, these were things that she and Ed regularly took for granted… and Al would never voice his frustrations about it.
Or maybe he did, but channeled it into scolding Ed and her to take better care of themselves. That was definitely like him.
Instead of saying something about it, Manami instead went to wiggle under her blankets to lay under them, then rolled onto her side to face Al.
"So…" She decided to change the subject. "Where do we go from here?"
"Hmm?" Al looked over to her.
"Do you or Ed have some kind of lead on where to look next?" She clarified.
"Oh…" Al looked up to the ceiling. "I believe brother mentioned wanting to talk to that Xingese girl."
"Why's that?" Manami blinked.
"Apparently we weren't the only ones who couldn't transmute when we were underground…" Al looked back to her. "Alchemists above ground couldn't, either."
"Huh… so Ed thinks the answer is to learn alkahestry." Manami sighed. "Yeesh… if I knew it was gonna be that useful, I would've tried to learn it when I was at Xing."
"Alkahestry…" Al echoed the word, going to look back to the ceiling.
"Not that it's any more likely we'd learn anything from Scar but…" Manami hummed. "I still can't help but wonder how he would know alkahestry? Or was he doing something completely different?"
"Fair question… we might never know." Al shrugged.
Manami sighed, but then went to yawn afterwards.
Al chuckled softly. "Should I let you sleep?"
"Mmm..." Manami hummed. "I just hope… I don't have another…" She trailed off.
"I already offered to stay, if you want." Al offered, looking over to her to see her eyes closed. "I can wake up if you start stirring again." He then chuckled.
"Heh, at least you'll be falling asleep in a bed this time…"
"Oh yeah… I fell asleep on you at the piano last time…" Manami's eyes slowly opened again. "I don't think I actually got to apologize for that…"
"That's okay, you don't have to apologize." Al shook his head. "Though you must've been really tired, to fall asleep on something cold and metallic like my armor…" He looked away.
Manami grew quiet. She felt her cheeks start to sting again.
"I don't know…" She mumbled quietly, going to close her eyes again and pull her blanket over her shoulder to sort of hide her face.
"I thought you were pretty comfortable…"
She was pretty drowsy, but not drowsy enough to let herself get away with that comment without silently scolding herself. What a stupid thing to say…
"... hmm," Al, on the other hand, sounded happy. "I'm glad…"
When it came to who treated him the most like a human, Al would always think of Ed, Winry, and Manami… but he noticed that— especially lately— something about Manami was different.
Sometimes, she would say something, or she would smile a certain way at him… and it would make him feel something that he couldn't describe. He felt that right now… and he reached up to put a hand on his chest plate. He swore that the feeling would well up inside, right here where his heart would be if he were in his normal body…
He was pretty sure it was a happy feeling… what else would it be? But it was only when he felt that kind of happiness, even if for a second, that he felt the most like a real human again.
Maybe it was because he missed her? Was he still coming to accept that she was really here, after all those years of being gone? Maybe his emotions were out of whack, because he was dangerously close to losing her again.
He then heard Manami's breath start to become slow and deep in between, and he looked over to see her fast asleep.
He watched her, recalling that she slept the same way that he remembered… on her side, with the blanket pulled over her shoulder, and the end of the blanket balled into a loose fist that she held over her mouth.
"... hmm," Al hummed, happily. "Goodnight, Manami..."
Manami groaned softly as she felt herself waking up from her sleep. Her eyes cracked open to see the sunlight peeking in through the curtains, which helped her come to.
She closed her eyes again as she stretched out her legs, down to her toes, before curling her legs back up to her body and opening her eyes again. Her vision had cleared and her eyes moved up to see the daylight covering the doors, walls, and ceiling of the room. She went to sit up and stretch her arms over her head as she let out a big yawn.
Despite the nightmare, Manami realized that she slept very well after the fact. She wondered if it was because Al was there until she fell asleep…
Al...
She looked over to her bedside to see that he wasn't there to greet her. It made sense, she thought, if Al ended up leaving the room after a few hours, or at least until Ed had gotten up.
Still, she felt a twinge of disappointment.
Manami tried to dismiss it in her mind and instead went to get dressed and properly groomed for the day. It wasn't until she finished that and returned to her bedside that she went to pick up her pocket watch to check the time.
"?!" Two in the afternoon?!
She quickly went to leave the room to knock on Ed and Al's door. No response. They must have left already…
She remembered Al mentioned that Ed wanted to see the Xingese girl, who she knew was at Doctor Knox's place… but she had no idea where that was.
"Well…" She sighed to herself as she went to walk down the hall. "If they needed me, they would have woken me up to bring along!" She convinced herself.
She would first start with going to the dining hall breakfast… or lunch, at this point… but after that, she considered the rest of the day to be a free day.
She was tempted to go back in her room and lay in bed all day… but then she thought of something else. She paid a good number of visits to Elicia and Gracia, but the last time she paid Maes a visit was… the day that she found out he was dead. Sobbed so harshly for who knows how long... and even fought with Mustang.
She figured that she should pay him a proper visit.
Manami arrived to the grave of Brigadier General Maes Hughes with a small bouquet of flowers. She remembered that, when she was little, she would go with her mother to visit Shiori's grave.
They would always bring a bouquet of Shiori's favorite flower... the Peony.
"Hope these are okay..." Manami mumbled, setting the bouquet down on his grave before going to sit down on the grass in front of it.
"I never got to ask which flowers were your favorite, but... well, these were my sister's favorite. I guess you've met her by now..." She forced a small smile at the silence as a response.
She imagined a few things she thought that he would say— if his words could reach her.
"She's like a little mini-you!"
"I'll take any flowers you give me!"
"Where have ya been?"
"To hell and back..." Manami sighed, tilting her head back to look up at the sky.
It was so odd, everything being so calm… there was no running, fighting, just a beautiful blue sky with white fluffy clouds crawling across it. She realized at that moment that she didn't like it.
Running and fighting gave her a reason to not think too much. Maybe that was why she had the nightmare? The last time she had another nightmare was probably the last time that things were slow… they were taking the train to Dublith from Rush Valley. Before they fought Greed, before Bradley killed that girl inside Al's armor...
That was almost a month ago, but it felt like it was only a few days… a week, tops.
"You've been gone that long already, huh..?" Manami looked back down to the tombstone in front of her.
"You would always say that time flies. I guess I know what you mean now."
Once again, silence.
"..." Manami sighed softly and went to stand up. "Silence doesn't suit you."
She forced a chuckle and went to stuff her hands in her pockets, looking over his name on the tombstone one last time.
"I should probably find Ed and Al. I have no idea what they're up to…"
But then, she remembered one of the last things Maes had said to her. Back in her old bedroom, after getting out of the hospital after the Lab Five incident...
"I trust you to lead those boys in the right direction and keep them, and yourself, out of danger."
"..." Manami sighed softly, her eyes narrowing a little. "I've been doing a real lousy job at doing that, haven't I..?"
And then she turned to walk away from the grave and out of the cemetery.