After 6 months I finally have another chapter up! Yay... I was going to wait to post the new chapter until I'd made it all the way through editing the previous chapters, but I decided most of you would probably rather just have the chapter. Just keep in mind that I am working on updating previous chapters, but have only posted up to chapter 10. SO if you're going to go through and reread the whole thing to remind yourself what's going on in the story (or if you already had and you were wondering why it was wonky) that's why it's weird.

But here you go!

"I can't claim that I knew him all too well," Mei said softly, placing the cup of steaming tea on the table in front of Al before sitting next to him and tucking her feet up by her body so she was leaning against him. "But I know he was very close to you."

"He was my only friend here for a long time," Al said softly, putting his arm around her waist and leaning his head against the top of her hair.

It had been two weeks since he had heard the fate of Fei, and he was still having trouble conceptualizing it. The funeral had been the day before in the Bao Province. He had only returned to the palace a few hours previously, and almost immediately his presence had been demanded by the Empress. He hadn't exactly been sure what to expect, especially when he heard her yelling at someone quite emphatically upon arriving at her door, but after the grumpy Elder had walked far enough away Mei had dragged him inside her room, dismissed her guards and pulled him into one of the tightest hugs he had ever been privy too. That had let to him sitting on the cushion in front of the table where she hosted visitors while she prepared tea for him.

"I know, Al… I wish that there was something I could do, but I'm not actually… I can command armies, but I can't help you where it matters most."

"No, Mei," he said quickly. "You're fine. In fact, you're being more helpful than I think you realize." He hadn't been able to tell Ed or Winry. He hadn't really known how to. So having Mei there, someone who understood how close he and Fei had been and didn't have to be told about his demise… it was more helpful than anything else he could think of.

"I just wish I could do more," she said, turning around and brushing his blond bangs away from his forehead. "You've been able to help me so much, I only want to return the favor."

He smiled softly. "I know. And I know it won't change a thing if I tell you that you don't have to do anything."

"Of course it won't." He smiled at her, probably one of his only smiles since hearing the news. She smiled back at him, but it faded quickly, replaced by a look of worry. She pressed her lips against his forehead, then hugged him tightly again.

"I'll be okay."

"I know."

He drank from the cup of tea she had laid out for him in the silence and she let him think.

"Did you know about his mother and father?" he eventually asked.

She paused before answering. "Yes. Unfortunately it's not an uncommon story. I've hear far too many like it."

Al dropped his gaze, staring at his tea.

"I saw his father at the funeral and I just couldn't imagine what it would be like to want power so much that you'd be willing to do that to another person. And I don't understand how he was his son."

"Did you ever get to meet his mother?"

"No… Fei always wanted for us to go on a trip around Xing, exploring all the different provinces. He wanted to show me his home… now that can never happen."

The pause that had become the signature for this conversation took over.

"He took after his mother," Mei offered weakly. "It's really not all that surprising that she believed everything Dao told her about loving her. People like her and Fei… they're too good for Court."

"What about you?" he asked, nuzzling the side of her head with his own.

"What about me?" she asked, her voice part perplexed, and part apprehensive.

"You said people like her and Fei are too good for Court, what about you? Do you think that you're a part of the corruption?"

Mei stilled against him.

"I don't know," she said guardedly.

"Mei?"

"Yes?"

"This is me. This is Al. You don't have to be on your guard around me."

"I don't know what you're—"

"Yes you do. It's me."

She hesitated for a moment longer, then finally her body relaxed. "I meant what I said. I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not."

"Mei—"

"I've tried to make things better for Xing, but when I look at what I've done it looks like all I've managed to do is borrow from Amestris to pay Drachma and make a handful of people ever richer than they already were."

"You're not borrowing though. Not really, you're using their money yes, but you're using it to help make yourself more self-sufficient. That's a good thing."

"I know. And logically that's what I tell myself. But there's still so much anger… I wonder if I'm doing any good at all."

"You are," he assured her. "You're doing wonderful things for Xing. It's just… moving slower than you would like."

She spared him a smile before shaking her head. "I was supposed to be the one comforting you, silly man. Not the other way around."

He smiled slightly again. "What if I take comfort from comforting other people?"

"Then you, Alphonse Elric, are a rare man indeed."

"I take pleasure in that, actually."

"So do I," she responded. "I really don't know how I was so lucky as to have you for a friend."

"Friend?" She turned a little pink, but then straightened up and kissed him gently on the lips.

"Friend. With… romantic attachments."

Al smiled, grinned really, and kissed her back. "I can take that."

Mei moved back to her previous position, leaning against his side. He kissed the top of her head and she sighed, whether out of pleasure or exhaustion, he didn't know. She did, however, grab one of his hands and hold it. The silence that fell between them that time was more comfortable, especially as Mei began almost massaging his hand.

In fact, he was so comfortable that his eyes began to drift close and no matter how he tried he couldn't keep them open.

When Al woke up, Mei was no longer in the room. He looked around, but simply couldn't find her anywhere he looked. There wasn't a note, but his now cold cup of tea still sat on the table. So he had been asleep long enough that that had gone cold. There weren't any windows in this room, seeing as it was in the center of the palace for safety reasons, so he couldn't tell by how light or dark it was. His only bet was to wander outside the room and figure out by the traffic in the halls.

He really hoped he hadn't slept through the whole night. If that was the case, it was good thing that Mei had left, lest they be discovered together in an inappropriate situation. Even if they'd been discovered in an entirely appropriate situation, across the room from each other, people still would have talked. And talking was the last thing Mei needed, especially with something like what had happened already on her plate.

Actually, Al thought as he paused with his hand on the doorknob, they would have to be more careful in general in the future. Now that the provinces weren't safe for nobles anymore, they would be sure to start flooding to the palace. There would be more people than ever crawling around, watching them. He briefly even wondered if they'd have to stop meeting together at all, but quickly dismissed it. With all the stress that she was under, there was no way that he would abandon her. Beside, everyone had known that they were friends long before they developed any kind of romantic relationship.

They hadn't been caught yet.

It wasn't as if they were doing anything all that scandalous. But things in the Xingese court had a tendency to get blown wildly out of proportion. Only a few days after Fei's death, he heard stories claiming that fifteen nobles had been killed in their own beds without even getting the chance to beg for mercy. Al didn't think that even fifteen nobles resided in the Bao Province, let alone the Capital all at the same time. If news got out that Al and Mei had spent a night in the same room together, he was positive that by the end of the week stories would be circulating about the Empress being pregnant with a foreign bastard child.

Nor for the first time, and certain not the last, Al cursed the fact that they had to deal with politics like this.

Sometimes Al wondered in his heart of hearts what it would have been like if Mei had never actually gotten the Philosopher's Stone. If Ling had found it, or if it hadn't been found. She wouldn't have become Empress without it, for sure. Then again, if she hadn't become Empress, the Great War would have still broken out and Amestris might not have had Xing to count on as an ally. Maybe Al would be too dead to worry about a romantic attachment to a would-have-been-Empress.

Al shrugged back the sleeve of his dress shirt to look at the watch he had around his wrist, flinching slightly as the memory of buying it out in the market with Fei rose to the forefront of his mind. He had slept the whole night, in fact, a session of court had probably already started, which meant that he could either not attend or arrive late. Arriving late would surely bring more attention to himself than he wanted, but if he simply never showed, odds were that no one other than maybe Ling or Mei would notice. That aside, he wasn't sure he was ready to face the whole court already, so soon after Fei's death.

Instead, Al made his way to the library where he planned to lose himself in the thickest alkahestry textbook he could possibly find. As he approached the doors however, another memory attacked him. Him and Rikui waiting, standing guard outside the library doors during the attempted… protest? Siege? He still wasn't entirely sure what the episode was supposed to be.

He wondered how she was doing. He hadn't received any word from her. Had she heard about Fei? Most likely. How had she reacted? She had never been as close to Fei as Al had been, but they had all been friends.

Al snorted. He had only made two friends while in Xing: one had since been killed by a political revolt and the other one had left because he broke her heart. And then there was him, desperately in love with a woman the world refuses to let him love.

With that train of thought on his mind, he walked into the ancient library. He loved spending time here; the collection of texts housed here was probably one of the greatest archives on the planet. He had had almost unlimited access to the State Alchemist's Library because of Ed's position, but most of those books had been reprinted or updated. These texts and scrolls were originals, some dating back centuries. They were priceless pieces of history that made Al giddy in a way that even the rows upon rows of books the Central Library hadn't.

Instead of heading to the section of the library he knew he could find alkahestry texts, however, Al found himself wandering to the political history area of the library, perhaps the only area that outgrew alkahestry. There were records of the Emperors here dating back to even the clan leaders that preceded the First Emperor, Xing, housed here, but that wasn't what he was interested in. He surveyed the shelves upon shelves of knowledge, then began to pick through them with his eyes, searching for anything that caught his attention.

After nearly three hours of reading titles and first pages, Al emerged from the shelves. He quickly located one of the men, Liu Liou that most often worked in the library.

"Master Elric," the man whispered when Al approached, bowing. Al reciprocated the gesture, then straightened.

"I was hoping you would be able to find me a book or two on a particular topic."

"What topic would that be?"

"Political revolutions in Xingese history."

Liu touched a finger to his lips, thinking. "I know just the books, Master Elric. Unrest in Xing by Cuong Pho or Revolts and Revolutions by Peng Xing."

Al blinked, surprised he had managed to come up with such an immediate answer. "That's wonderful. Are these both books I can take from the library or would I have to read them here?" Some of the older texts you had to stay in the library to read, so he just wanted to check and make sure.

"They can be taken from the library."

"Excellent. Where are they?"

"They are not currently available," Liu said, staring at Al evenly. "They have already been requested."

"Oh." Al frowned. He supposed that made sense, he couldn't have been the only one interested in a topic like this in the current time. He was just surprised that anyone from the Xingese court would bother to find a book to read about it. "Do you know when the books will be returned?"

"They should be available for your perusal sometime in the next three weeks. I can have a message sent to your room if you would like."

Al thanked him profusely, bowed again, and turned to left, but paused at he was heading towards the door.

"Out of curiosity, who was is that checked the books out?"

"Prince Ling of the Yao clan."

Al blinked in surprise. He hadn't realized that Ling was interested in the library, let alone taking a book out of it. Then again, if it was only Ling that had the book, he would be able to go talk to him and see about maybe reading them while Ling wasn't. So that was actually rather good news. He nodded at Liu, then continued on his way out of the library and back into the hall. It might be a bit much to ask, but he'd like to spend some time with Mei again this afternoon before she got absorbed in another task.

All 34 of them were executed in the front courtyard of the Bao palace and their bodies hung outside for the birds. The Dao man watched, smiling the whole time. Officials from the palace arrived shortly after the executions and expressed displeasure at the swiftness in which they had all been killed, but did not make any orders to stop the desecration of our brothers' bodies.

We are in dire need of assistance.

Hua Pang gripped the letter tightly, then reached out for a clean sheet of paper and a pen to write with. He had good news to spread.