A/N:

Hey, I hope you guys like this chapter. The beginning is a flashback, just in case it's hard to tell. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: FullMetal Alchemist characters, references, and other related indicia © Hiromu Arakawa. Only Alexandra, Jonathan, Alan, Sophie, and Yuki belong to me.

FullMetal Alchemist

Chapter 2: Friends Till the End

"Auto-mail." With that, Alan turned on his heel and walked out of the room, leaving Alexandra alone with the hag that was supposed to 'fix' her arm. She looked at the woman with a scared expression, and she just smirked at the teen, showing rows of uneven, chipped, yellow teeth. Alexandra shivered.

"Well, girlie, looks like you got in an accident, huh?" Jeroh sneered.

"You could say that," Alexandra replied coldly.

"Ah, a feisty one, are you? Well, you won't be so feisty when you see what I'm going to do to you." She advanced towards the poor girl, pulling a painful looking needle out of her filthy apron as she came closer.

After about five minutes, Alexandra was kneeling on her bed with her face contorted in pain. She was breathing heavily and looking away from her arm. Jeroh was half standing, half sitting next to the bed with a kit full of medical supplies and a tool kit beside that. She was concentrated on Alexandra's arm, fusing wires, cutting skin, attaching nerves, and doing a whole bunch of other unpleasant things.

To be completely and brutally honest, the procedure hurt even more than when Alexandra had actually cut off her arm. The sound of the fusing and the smell of burning flesh made her want to throw up, but somehow, she hardly felt it. Her mind was on her parents. Her dead parents. What would she do now that they were gone? Was she going to live with her brother? They both had their separate bank accounts and their parents' fortune (which was actually an extremely large sum) had been split between them already.

A few hours passed. Alan was pacing outside the door, wincing every time he heard his sister shout out He hated that he had gotten out of the whole thing with nothing but a scar. He pounded the wall. It was so unfair! His sister had no arm because of him…but she deserved it, didn't she? She killed their mother and father, and almost killed him, for Christ's sake! Suddenly there was a whistling sound from outside, and before Alan could react, a huge explosion shook the small house. He was thrown off his feet and his heart sank when he heard an ear-shattering scream of pain from his sister in the room. He picked himself up and ran inside.

"Alexandra! Alexandra, are you alright?" he yelled over the noise of the continuing explosions outside. Alexandra was on the floor, covered in dust and pieces of wood, and various other parts that had come from the wall. Alan ran inside and took her arm. The wrong one, obviously.

"No!" she screamed. "No, don't touch!" Tears sprang up in her eyes as he let go. She stuck her other hand out to him and he pulled her up.

"Where's Jeroh?" Alan asked hurriedly, ducking as he saw more explosions through the gaping hole in the wall.

"She's dead, Alan…something hit her in the back of the head," Alexandra whispered. "Just like-"

"Shush!" Alan said, wrapping his arm around her waist and helping her out of the room. They had to get out of the house. The only trouble was, Alexandra was in nothing but a flimsy white patient's dress. Alan winced as he heard another explosion. There was no way they would be able to go to their house to get her some clothes. She was going to have to either wear something of his, or wear nothing. "Look, Alexandra, I didn't bring any of your things here…you're going to have to wear my clothes. There's no way we can get to our house. Is tha – hang on, what's wrong, sister? What's happened to you?" He stared at Alexandra. Tears were flowing down her face and she had her eyes shut tight.

"It's my arm, Alan," she said shakily. "Look…" Alan stopped and glanced at her arm. The sight of it shocked him beyond belief.

"W-what happened?" he asked, slowly bending down to take some clothes out of his bag.

"Jeroh…the explosion surprised her and her hand slipped…then something hit her hard and she collapsed. I…Alan, it hurts so much!" she shouted softly.

Indeed, it looked painful. It looked almost complete, but half of it was connected crooked and it was bleeding horribly. Part of the wiring was digging into Alexandra's arm and causing more bleeding. He gagged and covered his mouth. She stared into his eyes as if begging for help. He just grabbed something out of his duffel and shoved it into her arms.

"Here, go change," he said weakly, running off to the bathroom. He needed to throw up.

Minutes later, Alexandra and Alan were running through the demolished streets of their once peaceful city. They had been avoiding soldiers at all cost; apparently the city was under siege because someone very powerful thought that the Philosopher's Stone was somewhere in it. Alexandra was dressed as a boy, with baggy black pants and one of his collared shirts. They weaved their way through the streets, going around anyone who looked like they were on the bad side.

Suddenly they crashed into a soldier.

"Well, what do we have here?" the man sneered. "A pair of kids, huh? Well, we'll take care of you soon enough…"

"Leave us alone!" Alexandra screamed at the man.

"Yeah, bitch? Why don't you try and make me?" he asked, lifting her chin up with his fingers. Alan started forward to try and get him away, but someone grabbed him from behind.

"What the - what's going on here?" he demanded angrily.

"Oh, we can't have any witnesses to what we're doing, can we? So we're just going to have to blow you to pieces!" He laughed cruelly. "Get them, Anthony."

"No!" Alexandra screamed loudly, startling everyone. Her face was red with fury. "You know what, you bastards? I've had enough! I killed my own mother, my father, I almost killed my brother, and now my non-existent arm has been replaced by badly positioned auto-mail! So go fucking bother someone else!" She slammed her right foot on the ground and waved her arm in front of the man in her anger. Suddenly the man flew sideways, in the direction Alexandra had waved her arm. Her eyes widened and she stepped back into the arms of another soldier.

"Alexandra! What else are you hiding from me?" Alan asked, sounding hurt.

"Alan…how did I do that?" she asked in a whisper. The head soldier stood up and snarled.

"That's it. Blow the little bitch and her friends to smithereens. I don't want anything left of them but smears on the ground," he spat. Alexandra stomped her foot on the soldier's foot who was holding her. She thrust her arms forward and broke free. The head soldier flew backwards.

"That's it!" Alexandra whispered. She swiveled around to look at her brother and his captor. She quickly stomped the ground and thrust her arms sideways. The soldier flew into the wall and Alan was free.

"Come on," he shouted, "let's go!"

They both ran off to the edge of town, not really knowing where they were headed.

A Few Months Later

Alexandra leaned against the wall of a wet building then slid down to sit on the ground. She rested her head in her knees and started sobbing pathetically. It was raining and she sat alone under a dying streetlight. It had been about 3 months since she was separated from her brother…the last she heard of him, he had become a State Alchemist…and she was all alone. At some point in her travels, she had fashioned herself an arm brace that covered her entire left arm, made of steel, to keep her auto-mail in place. She was too scared to openly search for an auto-mail mechanic, so she hadn't found one. The brace helped a bit with the pain, but she was glad that it hurt a bit. It reminded her of the deadly mistakes she had made. She looked up at the streetlight as it sputtered out, and she sighed. With one swift motion, she whipped out a silver pocket watch from her pants pocket. She had given it to Alan when they had to separate, but he didn't want it. He said for her to keep it as a reminder of what they had been through. She hadn't seen him since.

She put the pocket watch back and held her head in her hands. Her tears mixed with the rain that was already pouring down her face. The quiet street echoed her small sobs. Suddenly there was a shuffling noise in front of her and the rain seemed to stop falling. Alexandra looked up. A girl, taller (and probably older) than she was, stood in front of her, holding an umbrella over her soaked body.

"Looks like you need a friend," the girl said with a smile. "My name's Yuki Aurion. I happen to be that friend."

Alexandra Yuuzai , 17 years old, walked down the street with her best friend-dubbed-sister, Yuki Aurion – who was 18 – arm in arm, giggling happily about some joke or other.

Alexandra had changed in that year after being separated from her brother. Her hair was the same colour, of course, and her eyes were still the same shade of blue, and her freckles still seemed to dance across her nose when she laughed. But Alexandra didn't change in appearance; she changed in soul.

She was constantly happy, and always made jokes with Yuki. She told funny stories just for the heck of it, and to make Yuki laugh. Hell, she was even the head of the choir at their local church.

Yes, Alexandra really seemed as if she was a whole new person. It was like she was now whole in spirituality, and she seemed happy about it.

But she wasn't. She was miserable. She was just very good at hiding it.

In the year of being best friends with Yuki, being her roommate, sharing secrets and laughs with her, she had not confessed her secret. She had not told Yuki that she had a brother who she missed terribly; she did not tell Yuki how she had killed her mother and father. She did not tell her that the brace on her arm was keeping her auto-mail in place; rather, she told her it was because her arm was weak.

Alexandra did not tell Yuki how she cried herself to sleep some nights, clutching her pocket watch and watching it glisten in the faint light of the moon that came through her window. She did not tell her best friend how empty she felt inside. She had a lot of secrets that she kept to herself. She didn't trust anyone, not even Yuki…it was the sad truth.

Of course, Yuki had her own secrets too. Aside from the fact that she liked to cosplay with herself (which Alexandra had actually figured out after stumbling across a bunch of pictures of her friend in a bunny suit) she was also a former State Alchemist, but she quit after the Ishvalan War. She hated mindlessly killing everyone. So, about three years ago, she turned in her pocket watch and came to this town, where she got a job as a baker's assistant to pay for her apartment. She shared it with Alexandra, who paid her share of the rent with the money she made as a singer at a bar, and as a clerk in a small candy shop.

At that moment, the pair stopped in front of a costume shop. Yuki skipped inside while Alexandra leaned against the wall of the store and waited. She closed her eyes.

"And where do you think you're going, pretty girl?" someone sneered from the shadows. Alexandra whipped her head around to see who had spoken.

"W-who's there?" she asked nervously.

"Oh, don't worry…" A figure stepped out of the darkness, followed by another. They were both holding a pair of handcuffs. Before Alexandra could use her so-called "powers" to help herself, somebody grabbed her from behind and lifted her off of the ground. "…we're here to help you." The two men, sheathed in cloaks, cuffed the girl's hands and feet and then dragged her into some dark building.

Alexandra woke up about five minutes later, after being drugged by the strange men. She found herself in the center of a huge transmutation circle that was already glowing. She tried to scream but she had been gagged. She looked around nervously and saw something lying next to her. Her vision was blurred, but it seemed to be an outline of cat. Suddenly, she felt wind circling around her. A few seconds passed, and she fell backwards onto the cold concrete floor, unconscious.

Yuki had come out of the store and Alexandra had jerked out from her little trance and smiled at her friend. She was sporting a new hat, one with bunny ears that were fuzzy and floppy. With a grin, the two set off down the street together. Alexandra's cat ear twitched under her own cosplay style hat (with cat ears) and they chatted contentedly about random things.

If only they knew the secrets they were keeping from each other.