A/N: Sorry for the short wait, but I'm back and a year older to boot. Thanks, once again, to everyone that reviewed or just stopped by to read. You guys rock!

I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, or any of its characters

Education

Al sat outside the shut door, his gigantic knees pressed against his chest. The muted sunlight, struggling to shine through a half-open window, hit Al's armor and fragmented. Al watched the light patterns being made and listened with half an ear to the really heroic amount of noise coming from behind the closed door. This particular symphony of sounds was as familiar as Brother's face; he couldn't remember a period of time in his life when he'd been without it.

At least, it was familiar to Al, and therefore it didn't bother him. But there were other people inside Headquarters, and the noise really was bordering on ridiculous. Al didn't know whether to be amused or insulted by the fact that everyone who'd expressed concern over the amount of sound had stopped once they'd seen it was connected with an Elric.

Havoc turned into the corridor, tapping his pack of cigarettes against his palm. He stopped when he saw Al, curled up patiently outside the door.

"Hey, Al," he said. "What're you doing out here?"

Before Al could answer, a pair of shrieks battered against the door, so loud that the window rattled.

"Do you know how long it takes to make a quality piece of automail? Weeks, and all because you can't take care of it! I mean, it's not like I'm making new parts for anything useful…like height adjustments!"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SMALL HE COULD SLED BACKWARDS ON A COAT BUTTON?!"

Al sighed, and gamely swallowed a laugh at Havoc's horrified expression as he realized who was behind the door.

"Ah," he said. "Our friend Winry is visiting from Resimbool. She sort of surprised us, and Ed didn't have a chance to…um…clean up his automail before he saw her. She's the one that makes it for him, you see."

Havoc attempted to pick up his jaw, which was hanging in the vicinity of his shoes.

"She called the Major short," he whispered. "Does…does she have a death wish?"

"Honestly, Ed, you're such a reckless klutz! How do you expect me to keep making these for you when you're so hell-bent on breaking them with your stupidity?"

"I'm not stupid! Maybe if you made it a little better, my automail wouldn't break every time I tapped someone!"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"

Al sighed and rubbed hand over the back of his metal neck.

"She's just…high-spirited," he explained. "Actually, she and Brother have a lot in common. They're both so proud."

Havoc's face drained of all color. He swayed dangerously on the spot, and Al worried for a moment that the man might faint at his feet.

"Alphonse," he finally said in a strangled whisper. "Are you telling me that she's like Ed? That there's a female version of your brother walking around?"

"I guess you could say that."

If at all possible, the volume behind the door escalated.

"My automail is the best there is, you arrogant alchemy freak!"

"Don't call me a freak, you auto-junkie!"

"Hand-clapping party magician!"

"Obsessive wrench lover!"

"GLORIFIED REPAIR MAN!"

"LOUD-MOUTHED HARPY!"

THUNK.

Al winced sympathetically as the sound reverberated through the door. Ed released a sound that a watermelon might make when smashed with a hammer, and then there was silence.

Havoc's eyes were all but popping from his skull, and the only color in his face was a faint shade of green.

"What happened? Is it over?"

"Well…,"

The door burst open, and Havoc jumped back with a scream that his fellow officers would have shot him for. On the threshold stood a figure that was all but vibrating with rage. Long blonde hair fell around a face white with fury, and dominated by huge blue eyes snapping sparks more powerful than any Mustang's gloves had ever produced. In her delicate fist she clutched a wrench big enough to set Havoc's knees shaking.

"Alphonse," she snarled. "Tell your brother that he can come beg me to fix his automail once he's done being an idiot."

"Okay, Winry."

Havoc made himself as small and insignificant-looking as possible as the girl swept by, stomping down the hallway hard enough to shake the paintings.

Al picked himself up and ducked inside the now-open door, Havoc hot on his heels. The room inside looked like the victim of some natural disaster. Pieces of furniture were ripped, tipped, and scattered. Papers that had previously been in neat piles covered the rug like snow. And in the midst of it all, the Fullmetal Alchemist lay flat on his back, his eyes spinning like roulette wheels and a small continent growing on his forehead.

"Brother," Al sighed.

He picked his way through the wreckage of the room like someone who'd seen and survived this particular war many times. He scooped Ed off of the floor and set him on his metal lap so that he could check the bump.

"Well, it's not bleeding," he said. "Winry's aim must be off today."

The answer Ed gave was nothing more than a string of vowels sounds.

"Honestly, Brother," Al said, as he waited for Ed's vision to consist of more than a galaxy of stars. "When are you going to figure out that there's a way to flirt with Winry without forcing her to beat you up?"

"Flirting?" Havoc's voice jumped at least seven octaves. The high-pitched sound forced a pitiful moan of pain from Ed's mouth, as it drilled a spike into his throbbing head. "What do you mean, flirting? They were screaming at each other!"

"Well, sure," Al agreed. "That's just the way they do things. I told you they were a lot alike, remember? And you know how stubborn and hard-headed Brother is…"

The sound Havoc made was something akin to a squeak.

"Flirting," he repeated dumbly. "That was flirting. Then what will they be like when they actually get together?" Al didn't think it was possible for Havoc's face to lose any more color, but now the man went positively translucent. "What if they have kids? Oh, God. I have to…go. I have to…warn the Colonel."

The personnel that caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Havoc returning from his cigarette break later agreed that the poor man was in dire need of a vacation, as he was obviously on the edge of a complete and total breakdown. Why else would he be stumbling down the hall like someone staggering away from a fistfight, and mumbling under his breath, disjointed sentences about psychotically violent demon children and the end of the world?