Well, finally, my new computer has arrived and it's all set up. I've learned a very important lesson from this whole ordeal: back up your content. I used to have this external hard drive connected to the computer and copied everything in there, but I never returned it after my summer holidays, so now I've lost part of the story. I'm kind of depressed about it, which really doesn't help, and I'm trying to rewrite what I lost now. We'll see how that goes.

I'm aware I have unanswered comments, here and generally everywhere, but right now, between studying and other real life things that aren't looking all that bright, I have little time to dedicate to fanfiction in general, and I prefer to use the time I do have on writing. Still, know that I love every single comment I get, and I like to reread it whenever I'm down or need a boost, so please, keep them coming. You're all great and I thank you very much for the support :)

Chapter 6

Ten days after their return, Olivier and Roy found themselves standing before Grumman's desk. Olivier had been biting back comments for the last half hour; this was an official meeting with the leader of their country, so she couldn't just snap whatever crossed her mind.

She didn't glance at Roy, but she was sorely tempted to do so. While they hadn't talked about it, they both had known that Grumman might consider the option of opening political channels with the other world. What Olivier wasn't so pleased about was the order that they would be the ones in charge of negotiations if the attempt was successful.

"If I may, sir?" Roy spoke once Grumman was done detailing the security measures to ensure the project remained a secret until the right time came. Grumman nodded. "I believe it might be beneficial to let Emperor Ling Yao know about the situation."

"Oh?" Grumman prompted, raising his eyebrows. Olivier turned to look at Roy.

"It would help improve our image and future chances at treaty negotiations if once this project reaches the public our neighbouring countries see that we shared such information with our only ally, and this way we could bring some more valuable assistance to the research team."

"Alphonse Elric and Mei Chan?" Olivier asked, catching onto Roy's train of thought. Ling Yao had been involved in the Promised Day, so it wasn't as if he didn't already know Amestris' darkest secrets. The advantages of letting him know about this project far outweighed the disadvantages.

"You want me to lead a military research project?" Ed asked, letting his incredulity take over his voice. He had dropped down on one of the couches in Mustang's temporary office, and couldn't say he was surprised by Grumman's decision until this particular tidbit had left Mustang's mouth. "And Grumman agreed?"

"Of course he did, he knows how skilled you are," Mustang replied, reclining back on his plush chair in a very un-general-like manner. "And you can't claim you aren't interested; I've seen you read the books."

Ed shrugged. He wasn't going to argue that point, he was interested, and leading the team meant he would have a say in what was and what wasn't developed.

"I'll talk to Winry, she'll brain me if I make that decision on my own. What will you do about East? This will take long, you can't keep Miles away from Ishval until you get back."

"I know," Mustang said with a sigh. "I was thinking of borrowing Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong. I need someone who will obey Captain Hawkeye."

Ed cackled. It was a pity that a captain couldn't be officially in charge of such a large base, because everybody knew Hawkeye was the one who ran Eastern Command.

"I want Al," Ed said, satisfied to know there wouldn't be some pompous asshole messing up all the progress in Ishval.

"Of course. I need someone who can make sure you won't bully the other scientists too much." Ed stuck his tongue out at Mustang, who just smirked. "And speaking of other scientists, the Fuhrer would like you to ask your teacher if she'd be interested in joining the team."

Ed's blood froze.

Havoc was waiting for them when Roy and Riza stepped out of the train at the station in East City. Olivier had left yesterday to arrange everything at Briggs (because Briggs was a smaller base, and given the fiasco preceding the Promised Day, she had gotten Grumman to agree to let her men handle things in her absence) and Edward and Winry left Central a week ago to pack properly for a longer stay at the city.

"Is everybody waiting?" Roy asked once they were in the car.

"Yeah. I don't suppose you'll tell me what's going on now, will you Chief?"

"I'd rather deal with the incredulity just once."

Havoc glanced at the rear view mirror, where Roy could see Riza shaking her head. Havoc's eyebrows went up. Anyone who knew Riza Hawkeye also knew that if she thought something was complicated, then it would boggle most people.

To avoid having to repeat himself more than necessary, Roy had asked Havoc to have his team and Miles waiting in his office. The only member of his team who wasn't currently stationed at Eastern Command was Falman, who was still at Briggs, and Olivier had agreed to send him down to Central to join Edward's research team, as his memory would prove extremely useful. As for the rest, Roy intended to send First Lieutenants Ross, Breda and Catalina to Xing with the pertinent messages for Emperor Ling Yao, Alphonse and Mei Chan after the briefing, and let Miles return to Ishval.

Stepping into the Central City station was like walking into an entirely different world. Central was nothing like the cities and towns that could be found in Xing, and it certainly didn't resemble Resembool at all, the only place in Amestris Al had visited since he left for Xing the first time.

Had anyone else sent those letters, Al would have believed they were joking, but he knew Brigadier General Mustang wouldn't pull a joke large enough to bring Al back all the way to Amestris, and much less do so using Lieutenant General Armstrong's name. If she didn't kill him for it, then Al would. Ed's letter had also helped to convince Al, Mei, Ling and Lan Fan that it was no joke. The letter, if it could be called so, only had six words, but they were something Ed would never have written unless it was the truth.

Ling, bullshit's true, Mustang isn't lying.

Al had shaken his head when he had first read it, because only Ed would send such a letter to the ruler of a country.

Al secured his bags in one hand and offered the other to Mei to help her down from the train. She didn't need the help, but Al wanted to savour his last moments with her without Ed teasing them for absolutely everything (not that Ling was much better, but at least he was busy most of the time).

Mei blushed, but accepted his hand without the fuss that would have accompanied the gesture three years ago.

"Alphonse Elric!" a very familiar voice exclaimed and Al held back a grimace.

Of all the people...

Both Al and Mei turned to face a quickly-approaching Alex Armstrong.

"Lieutenant Colonel!" Al greeted, smiling despite what he knew was coming. "It's nice to see you."

Al was sure this had been Ed's doing.

"I don't know what you're complaining about," Ed grumbled after Al had punched and then hugged him. "That was nothing. I had to ask Teacher to help with a military project."

Al winced in sympathy.

"What did she say?" he asked. Knowing what the project was about, Al suspected Teacher might have been interested. After beating the crap out of Ed for daring to request such a thing.

Ed smirked.

Al barely had a moment to feel the chills run down his back before he found himself flat on his face.

As it turned out, Teacher had agreed to help.

"Anything else we should add?" Olivier asked sarcastically, looking at the very long list of topics they were supposed to find books about on this second, scheduled trip.

Everybody shook their heads. They had spent the entire morning composing the list of what they would start on, which comprised everything from the culture of the wizarding world to airplanes, something Edward Elric had proclaimed to be the most interesting project to start on. While Olivier herself would like to see some of the weaponry developed, she had to agree that airplanes were extremely tempting and useful, both in civilian and military terms, and so did Roy and Grumman, so they had been approved as one of the larger first projects.

Aside from essentially building a library for the repurposed laboratory three, Roy and Olivier had the mission of locating the exact coordinates of the Ministry of Magic.

Nodding, Olivier turned to Roy.

"Get on with it, Mustang," she said.

With a nod and a hidden glint of excitement in his eyes —alchemists, seriously— Roy wrapped his arms around Olivier and clapped his hands before Olivier could turn to see who had snickered at the sight. She had a very likely suspect.

A moment later they were standing in the middle of the same alleyway where they had first appeared, dressed in civilian clothes, with weapons properly hidden under said clothes and the implicit permission to transmute as much gold as was necessary.

They had books to find.

"You've got to be kidding me," Ed said in a despairing voice. "Mustang, tell me you're fucking kidding me."

Under different circumstances Al would have found it hilarious that Ed was basically begging to Brigadier General Mustang of all people. As things were now, Al felt more like joining Ed. Brigadier General Mustang didn't look very amused himself.

"I'm afraid I'm not," he said with a grimace. "We'll have to figure it out. I brought every book we found on the subject."

"I can't believe this," Teacher said, browsing through one of said books. "Are these people serious?"

"Looks that way," Lieutenant General Armstrong said. She was the only one who looked amused. Then again, she didn't have to decipher this nightmare. "I'll be off to report to Grumman, you lot get started on that."

Al sighed. He had been looking forward to the generals' return after a week of interviewing government-approved scientists while he tried to prevent Ed from offending them mortally and/or punching them. But now Al thought he preferred the interviews.

"This bullshit reminds me of Gluttony's stomach," Ed said with a grimace.

"You're not helping, Brother," Al said.

These wizards manipulated space against all logic. Brigadier General Mustang had proved so by bringing over a hundred books in a bag that by all accounts shouldn't have fit more than three. They needed to figure this out because, obviously, the Ministry of Magic was in one of these magically-created spaces.

"Shouldn't there be more people in here by now?" the general asked, looking around at the tidy but mostly empty laboratory. The only ones present right now were the general, Ed, Al, Mei, Teacher, Falman and Sheska.

"They'd only get in the way," Ed said waving his hand dismissively. "We'll bring the minions in when there's something for them to do."

Al didn't bother to tell Ed to stop calling them that. It had proven to be useless.

Olivier leant back in her chair and held back a sigh. This was the third day of meetings she attended since her return, though she knew they had been going on since before she and Roy had left to find the books. For all that they had progressed this could be the first meeting. The brass were still arguing over the general structure of the letter they intended to send, posturing and trying to one-up each other in every single detail. With Roy at the lab trying to solve the issue with the magically-generated space Olivier didn't even have someone to exchange exasperated looks with when a general decided to turn what could have been a simple sentence into a full blown speech.

Olivier fingered the handle of her sword and reminisced fondly about the satisfaction she had felt when she could finally kill the generals in Bradley's command. Her gesture must not have gone unnoticed, because Grumman cut Hakuro off and reminded everyone that they really needed to advance with this task.

Sometimes it was useful that the old man noticed more than he let on.

"I'm keeping this thing," Ed announced, his arm buried shoulder-deep into a tiny bag that he could fit in a pocket. After various failed attempts and successful ones at a smaller scale, Mustang had finally mastered the spell —Ed repressed a shudder— that created these enlarged spaces.

"It's a pity you can't buy those wands in bulk," Teacher said. She was reading one of the books about said wands. "It'd save us some time. This is nonsense." She waved the book around to emphasise her point.

"We can put the annoying minions to work on them," Ed suggested. He had already decided he wasn't going to focus on the hocus-pocus projects. The brass wanted wands to be one of the main projects, and while Ed technically understood why, he had no intention of subjecting himself to that nightmarish project. Fortunately, Mei had expressed her interest in it, so she was in charge. Ed almost pitied her minions.

"Don't be like that, Brother," Al scolded him, predictably jumping to Mei's defence. "We'll share the more annoying scientists."

"They won't last a week," Mustang said from the table he had occupied. While he was gone, Ed and the others had revised the array and came up with some potentially useful modifications, and now he was catching up on them.

"Don't be like that, Brigadier General," Al said, as polite as ever.

"That's too generous," Teacher tacked on with one of those expressions Ed had come to fear. "I doubt they'll last even a day."

"Please, don't terrify our scientific team, Mrs. Curtis," Mustang said with one of his fake polite smiles, amusement clear in his voice.

Ed shook his head. He didn't know what was more terrifying, the fact that Teacher had decided she liked Mustang after the Promised Day or Teacher being friends with Olivier Armstrong. Probably a mix of both, given that Mustang and Armstrong were together. Something Ed wasn't going to think about.

"Okay, let's get started," Ed said. "If you're done catching up, Mustang, we've got more modifications to do."

Rufus Scrimgeour wasn't having the best of weeks. On Monday a strange letter had appeared inside the Minister for Magic's office, somehow bypassing every single security ward in the Ministry. Fudge, who had been paranoid ever since his dispute with Albus Dumbledore on June, had immediately summoned the aurors to test the potential threat. The letter itself had no spells on it, and Scrimgeour had mentally snorted at its contents when he had read it out loud at Fudge's request.

The concept of another world was laughable even for a wizard, and he would have dismissed it altogether if not for the fact that whoever had sent the letter had managed to get it all the way to Fudge's office without the letter going through any of the security checks first.

That was how Scrimgeour had found himself casting further detection spells that afternoon —Fudge didn't want anyone to learn that there was a way to get into his office, and had insisted on extra tests and security measures. Scrimgeour had assigned a team led by auror Kingsley Shacklebolt to check the Ministry's security wards and ensure there were no breaches in them. Adding further security would take some time and bureaucratic leaps, though, given the different departments that would have to be involved in the task.

When Rufus returned to the Minister's office late that evening to report that there were no security breaches and the letter truly had no trace of spells on it, he was greeted by Fudge's positively giddy announcement that the Department of Mysteries had been studying the likelihood of other worlds existing for decades now, which gave credibility to the letter.

Aside from a greeting and general introduction by a man who called himself "Fuhrer Grumman" and claimed to be the leader of a nation named Amestris, the letter requested that if the Ministry was interested in sending a letter in response they should place it on the same spot where the first one had appeared the following Monday at ten in the morning. That was how Rufus, as head of the Auror Office, found himself spending the entire week in meetings with the Minister and the Head of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement Amelia Bones as they tried to compose a suitable response that conveyed the Ministry's interest in establishing a working relationship with this wizarding society that had mastered such an impressive magic before they could.

"I miss the lab," Roy muttered into the pillow. He had dropped face first on the mattress as soon as they had reached Olivier's bedroom after a too long day of meetings with the brass. The Ministry of Magic had responded to their letter, and now they were working on the next one. The only good thing about the meetings was that the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, had requested a response by next Monday, so there was a limit to how long the generals could babble. It was still too long.

Olivier snorted.

"I don't know what you're complaining about; you avoided the meetings over the first letter. This is a walk in the park in comparison."

Roy turned his face enough to glance up at her.

"If it's so bearable, then why did you spend most of the meeting glaring around the room?"

"I didn't feel like being stuck there for dinner again."

They had been. Despite how good the food was, there was something inherently depressing about having to eat dinner in the Command conference room because part of the brass thought it would be a terrible idea to share basic information about the structure of their country that anyone could learn from reading a couple newspapers.

And meanwhile at the laboratory they had started working on the interesting projects. Edward had tracked Roy down yesterday at lunch for the sole purpose of gushing about aeronautical engineering and laughing at Roy's misfortune.

"At least they haven't argued over sending someone else as diplomats," Roy muttered, still feeling incredulous over the fact that he had come to look forward to the day they would leave. Given his and Olivier's relevance in the government over the past three years, he knew Grumman would have wanted them involved in this one way or another. At least leaving for the wizarding world meant they would avoid a good number or brass meetings.

"They don't have the guts," Olivier said derisively.

Roy had to concede the point. One good thing that had come out of the Promised Day was that generals no longer underestimated Roy or looked down their noses at him, and Olivier had been terrifying generals since before Roy joined the military.

"How tired are you?" she asked.

Roy opened his eyes. He hadn't even noticed he had closed them.

"That depends: why do you ask?"

Olivier huffed in amusement.

"You're not a teenager, Mustang."

"Fortunately for you," Roy said without missing a beat. "You'd be in trouble if I was."

Olivier walked over to the bed, her clothes discarded at some point while Roy was busy feeling miserable, and knelt next to him.

"Those meetings leave me with a lot of energy to spend," she said, grabbing him by a shoulder.

"I guess I can help you with that," Roy offered, and let himself be pushed onto his back.

"I thought so," Olivier said, leaning over him.

Fortune was finally smiling on Cornelius Fudge. After a couple years of unfortunate events marring his tenure as Minister for Magic the opportunity to make it into the history books as one of the greatest ministers of all times had finally presented itself. The minister that opened their society to an entirely new world. He wanted to jump in excitement at the very thought of it.

A second letter had arrived from Amestris, this one speaking of a society very different to theirs and yet extremely promising. A world that somehow had managed to keep wizards and muggles together without the muggles' ignorance and fear of magic causing a division the way it had here, and a society with a stronger military structure. Learning from them might be the answer to counter the threat that Dumbledore and his followers posed to Cornelius and the Ministry.

He was so excited that he needed to talk about this in depth with someone. Unfortunately, Dolores was already gone and dealing with the disaster that was Hogwarts under Dumbledore's poor direction and young Percy Weasley still hadn't proven himself trustworthy enough for such a conversation. The answer had come to Cornelius when Dolores —who Cornelius had told about this development during her weekly report— had mentioned they should start working on the arrangements to welcome and impress their potential allies once their talks went past letters. Who was better to help with such a task than a high-standing member of their society used to both politics and impressing people with impeccable taste and experience on all manners of celebrations?

Madam Bones hadn't been very pleased at Cornelius' suggestion that they should bring Lucius Malfoy into the efforts for the more social elements of these meetings, but Dolores had agreed that he was an excellent choice, while Rufus had remained neutral on the matter. Thus, now Cornelius was trying not to pace across his office while he waited for the time of his scheduled meeting with Mr. Malfoy. Cornelius was certain he would be very impressed with this accomplishment; he had certainly been very helpful ever since Dumbledore had shown he was losing his touch with reality.

To be continued

A reminder that I got a tumblr (maisstories dot tumblr dot com) for updates on my writing and the occasional drabble and one shot that I don't post anywhere else. I love answering questions and getting any kind of support means a lot to me 3