Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist

Chapter 8

Roy, Al and the kids sat at a café somewhere in central. Roy had taken one look at Al's pale face when he came home from work and decreed that Al needed to get out. Al had hurried to collect the babies as Roy dragged him out the door.

Al stared at the menu trying to decide between a chocolate or lime milkshake to have with his focaccia. Roy had already announced that he wanted coffee. With wasabi in it. The waitress had looked quite ill at the thought of that combination.

Finally choosing chocolate, Al relayed his decision to the nauseated waitress, who hurried off, musing that the hot ones were always gay, taken or weird. In this case, all three.

When they finally got their food – Roy called the waitress back, demanding that she put more wasabi in his coffee – they dug in, Al trying to make the twins drink their formula while at the same time eat his own food.

Roy, fiddling with his pocket, mused that Al needed more arms, and almost burst out laughing at the strange vision of an overworked, eight-armed Al that popped up in his head.

Al noticed that Roy was fiddling. "Is something wrong?" he enquired.

"Huh?" Roy was distracted from his strange imaginings. "Wrong? No!"

He looked away for a second, then abruptly stood up. Kneeling down in front of Al, he pulled a small box out of his pocket. "Will you marry me?"

Al gaped at him. After about a minute, he recovered from the shock. "Roy! Yes! Of course!"

Roy stood up, pulling Al into a sweet and passionate kiss. And their demonic daughter chose that moment to scream her head off. Al broke away to fuss over the child.

While Al was busy with the kids, Roy carefully took the ring out of the box – and promptly dropped it on the floor.

Finally, after Roy forced half the people in the café to crawl around on the floor looking for it, the ring was located and Roy slipped it onto a gently blushing Al's finger, as cheers and cat-calls rose form the crowd.

Riza jiggled her son, James, on her lap, wondering impatiently what in the world this was all about. She'd only just got back to work, after having her baby just a few days before Al. And now, not even a week after her return, Roy had called a meeting, had said it was important.

Absently pulling a pistol away from her son – the child had shown an unusual fascination with them – she muttered under her breath about why in the world Roy had to choose now to call his first meeting. He usually hated meetings almost as much as he hated paperwork.

Next to her, Havoc took a deep drag on a pen – Riza had forced him to give up smoking the second they'd realised she was pregnant. He, too, was wondering why the hell the colonel of all people had decided to call a meeting.

Staring at the pen, he thought about the ten or so empty tubes of wasabi he'd seen lying on the Colonel's office floor the other day. 'Maybe he's finally cracked…' he thought, while still contemplating his makeshift cigarette.

Suddenly, the object of their thoughts walked into the room – on time. Or, to be exact, six minutes early. Oh horror of horrors. The world was going to end.

Riza and Havoc stared at their usually tardy boss, who, whistling cheerfully, began to set up a projector screen. Little James quickly noticed that his parents' attention had shifted away from him, and took advantage of the distraction to quietly attempt to steal back Riza's pistol.

The two week old and already very determined baby, through many hours of practice, somehow managed to get the gun out of it's holster – then promptly realised it was far too heavy, and dropped it. It was off, shooting a hole through the Colonel's miniskirt, missing his crotch by about half a centimetre.

Roy was so focused on his task that he completely failed to notice the danger presented to his manhood. He was instead absent-mindedly thankful that his ears were still intact.

Eventually, the rest of the gang trailed into the room, all in varying degrees of lateness, and the meeting began.

Roy pulled some slides out. Everyone's attention was fixed on him, wondering what was so important to make the colonel of all people call a meeting. Everyone was sure it must be something drastic.

Roy put on the first slide. Everyone stared in shock at a picture of Al and the twins.

"Look at my kids!" skited Mustang. "Aren't they just so adorable!"

He switched slides. "See, here's Elizabeth sleeping, she's so cute…"

Everyone tuned out. They came back to reality as the 'meeting' ended, just soon enough to hear "…and everyone here gets a complimentary picture of my adorable Alex and 'Bethy, to treasure forever!"

Roy rushed around handing out photographs. Everyone, still in shock, accepted them. They'd all thought they'd never have to suffer through this again when Hughes had gone.

'I should have known he'd turn out to be a sucker for his kids…' thought Havoc dazedly.

Sorry about the wait, folks. I've had this and at least three further chapters written for months, but I've been too damn lazy to find a computer and post them. Everybody thank 'Da Devil' for yelling at me.