Winry didn't like this. She didn't like how Anneliese had found out about Nora, and the difficult situation that had put Ed in. Winry didn't like how much contact Anneliese was going to be having with Nora, because by extension the rest of the family was going to be hearing a lot more from that woman. The things Pitt Renbak had told Winry about Nora didn't reassure her. According to him, she was a bit of a needy patient, but Winry knew that already. (Winry didn't even necessarily mind needy patients. They were only patients in the first place because they needed care, and caring was part of her job. But Nora's neediness, combined with her sense of entitlement and the upset she'd already caused to Winry's family, bothered her.) Pitt also said that Nora and Anneliese had been close the whole night they'd spent together at his house. Anneliese had sat on Nora's lap for most of it, and they'd even curled up together on the patient's cot. Pitt chalked it up to the two of them having been separated for so long, but something about it rubbed Winry the wrong way.

She didn't tell Pitt that they'd been separated because Nora hadn't bothered to contact Anneliese. Anneliese hadn't known the two of them were in the same town, but Nora had. She could've arranged to see Anneliese sooner, even if Ed and Winry hadn't wanted her to. But she didn't. She'd tried to use Anneliese in order to stay Winry's patient, to make Ed feel guilty. It didn't sound like the kind of mother who would lovingly cuddle her daughter for hours on end.

But Ed had promised Anneliese she'd get to talk to her mother, and going back on that wasn't going to help their relationship at all. Still, Winry wanted him to have as little contact with Nora as possible. So she insisted on being the one to make the phone calls to Rush Valley. In any case, she knew the engineer she'd referred Nora to better than Ed did, though that wasn't saying much.

Winry had thought it best not to refer her to any of her close friends, the way she had done with Pitt. He was nice enough not to ask too many questions, but it wouldn't have taken much to drag him into this family drama as well. Winry was friendly with Drew Mozer, but they were more acquaintances than friends. He was also a state subsidized provider and he did good work. Winry figured this arrangement would suit them just fine.

Once she got Nora on the line, Winry was planning to just hand the phone off to Anneliese and get some work done, but Winry realized she was curious. She wanted to hear how Anneliese acted around Nora, even if it was only one side of the conversation. So she started organizing some loose screws, keeping her hands busy while Anneliese was on the phone.

There wasn't much to hear. Nora did most of the talking, but Winry could guess what she was saying. When Anneliese spoke, she asked questions like, "Are they being nice to you?" or "Does your stump still hurt?" or "Are you getting enough to eat?" It sounded like a complete role reversal - like Nora was the daughter and Anneliese the mother. The only time Anneliese sounded like a kid was when they said their goodbyes. "I'm your little girl and I love you," she said.

When Anneliese hung up the phone, Winry couldn't help but say, "It sounds like you take care of your mother a lot."

Anneliese nodded. "It's just me and her at home, so we have to take care of each other. Especially when she got sick."

That was right, Anneliese had mentioned staying home from school to take care of Nora. "What about Peder?" Winry asked about Nora's last boyfriend. "Did he ever help take care of her?"

"He doesn't get her the way I do. Besides, he has to work a lot, and anyway, he left."

"Do you miss him?"

"No. I miss my mom." Anneliese's eyes flashed, and Winry knew she wasn't off the hook for having kept Anneliese from her mother.

"I'm sorry I lied to you," Winry said.

"Sure you are."

"Really I am. I want you to feel safe with us, and I know it's hard to feel safe when people are lying to you."

"It's hard to feel safe when you hate my mom."

Anneliese had Winry there. How could Winry feel anything but hatred toward the woman who'd raped Ed? "Anneliese . . . I love Ed. And she hurt him."

Anneliese's gaze dropped, and she started playing with her skirt. "Or you're just jealous," she muttered.

Winry shook her head. "I don't really have any reason to be. I trust him. He's made some important promises to me, and he's never broken one yet."

Anneliese clenched her fingers around bunches of her skirt, then let go. She looked back up at Winry. "You know a lot about automail, right?"

Winry hadn't expected the change in subject, but she said, "Of course."

"Is my mom always going to hurt like this? Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Oh, no, sweetie. She's still recovering from her port surgery, but once she's finished healing, she'll feel so much better. You've seen how Ed is - his leg doesn't hurt him at all, except for sometimes when it rains. She'll be okay."

Anneliese nodded. "Can you show me some things? Please?"

Winry definitely wasn't going to say no. Who knew, maybe she had a budding automail engineer on her hands. "I'd love to! Let me show you some of our works in progress. I've been working on this leg with a really high percentage of chrome . . ."

Al and Mei didn't travel to the capital much anymore. Once their railroad had been finished, the Emperor preferred to visit them in the Chang province. In their household, Ling could be a friend, brother, and uncle, rather than the distinguished persona an emperor had to put on. But now the Emperor had summoned them for official business, so they had spent the train ride over reminding their little girls Shu Jin and Yi Ming about court manners, especially that they had to refer to Ling as His Majesty and not Uncle Ling.

The girls weren't their biggest worry, though. They were bright three and four year olds and would catch on quickly. It was Ling's plans for Xing that they discussed in Amestrian while the girls were asleep. As the head of the Chang clan, Mei had been summoned to the capital for a meeting with the leadership of all the other forty-nine clans. It would be the first time they'd all been gathered together since Ling's coronation over a decade ago, and they weren't expected to simply attend the Emperor. Ling intended for them to negotiate national issues together - things normally left to the Emperor to decide. Al and Mei weren't the only ones talking about it.

What Al and Mei knew, and most of the Xingese nobility did not, was that Ling intended to be the country's last Emperor, in title at least. Ling had no children of his own, since he'd lost his ability to sire children when he'd become a homunculus. That was also something few aside from Al and Mei knew. To everyone else, Ling gave a variety of excuses as to why he'd not yet married. Mei was his heir, but she would only become Empress if he died before his plan was complete, and she would pick up where he left off.

Once he was gone, Ling wanted to leave Xing in the hands of a council of clan leaders. From their numbers, the council would elect a head that would serve for life. It wasn't exactly a democracy by Amestrian standards, and in effect wasn't so different from their current system, but Ling didn't need it to be either of those. He hoped it would bring about a peaceful transfer of power, compared to the bloodshed that had always accompanied Imperial succession before. This first council meeting was a big step toward Ling's vision for Xing.

Once they were settled in their chambers and the girls put to bed, Al and Mei left to meet Ling privately. It was normal for them to meet Ling as friends when they came to the capital, before they had to meet him as subjects. Al and Mei thought it would be best for the girls to see him privately later, after they had gotten used to interacting with him as Emperor. Not to mention, this meeting wasn't just for social reasons. Ling needed Al and Mei's alkahestry skills for a project no one but the three of them and Lan Fan knew about. They could hardly bring the girls for that.

Ling greeted the two of them with hugs, as did Lan Fan. They asked about the usual things - their trip, their daughters - which were both fine. "And what about Ed?" asked Ling. "Have you convinced him and Winry to bring their brood here for a visit?"

"Oh, you know. He gave me the usual excuses. But something new has come up. Listen, when you were with him before the Promised Day, was there anyone . . ." Al wasn't sure how to ask this. "Did someone - did she - did she take a kind of weird interest in Ed? Was there anything that seemed . . . off?"

"Off?" he asked. "Off how?"

"I don't know. There was only so much Ed wanted to tell me. But I guess something happened while he was with you. There's a little girl, Anneliese - she's ten years old and she's his daughter. She would've been conceived around then."

"Whaaaaaaat? Ed got somebody pregnant? Then? But he was so clueless!"

Mei snickered in agreement. Al probably would have as well, but this was different. It was true that sixteen-year-old Ed had been romantically dense, but his relationship with Anneliese's mother was anything but romantic. Al hadn't been sure how much Ed would be comfortable with him explaining to Mei. He told her he thought his brother had been taken advantage of, but what exactly that meant was a bit nebulous. All Al could think to say now was, "I don't think it was his idea."

"So you're trying to ask me if I know who the mother is," Ling surmised. "He didn't tell you anything about her?"

"Not much. I guess she needs automail now? She got sick a few months ago and her leg got infected."

"So she didn't have automail then?"

"I guess not."

Ling rested his chin in his hand. "Hmm. It's hard to say. We kept mostly to ourselves around that time. Greed reconnected with some of his old contacts and some of them were women . . . but I didn't notice anything between any of them and Ed . . . I'll have to think about it some more. And hey, another session can only help, right?"

"Right."

Lan Fan harrumphed. She hadn't approved of this project to begin with, but she went along with it because Ling insisted. They all knew better than to get in the way of something he really wanted.