"Alphonse!" Mei said, glaring at him.

He looked up from his book, concerned. "Mei?" he asked, mildly.

She balled her hands into fists, and put them on her hips. "You forgot again," she accused.

"Forgot what?" he asked, feigning innocence.

She burst into tears, and Al suddenly felt like a jerk. "I didn't forget," he told her softly, pulling her into his arms. The bulk of her belly got in the way, but he didn't mind. The child in Mei's belly was still such a miracle to him that it took his breath away sometimes. He avoided saying this to Mei, of course, to whom it was rather less of a miracle and rather more of a daily misery.

"You didn't?" she asked, black eyes looking up at him, still filled with tears.

"I told you I wouldn't," he said, slyly. He reached into his waistcoat. "Ginger candy, just like you asked for."

She took the packet from him, and flopped herself in among the pillows on the couch. "You are so cruel to me, Alphonse," she lamented. "Why, oh why, did the Emperor ever force me to marry a commoner like you?"

Alphonse grinned. "Your brother owed me favors," he said. "I tricked him with my evil foreign cunning." What Ling had actually done when Al had broached the subject, of course, had been to laugh himself breathless. Then he'd wondered aloud why the Elric brothers were both attracted to women that could break them. Then he'd wished Al luck, with the unspoken addendum that he'd need it. Al had never been stupid enough to pass that conversation on to Mei.

"Well," Mei said with an air of long-suffering patience, "At least you remembered this time." She popped a piece of ginger into her mouth.

Al got up and came over to the couch. Mei sat up long enough for him to sit down, and then leaned back into his lap. "Not much longer," he said, quietly, brushing his fingertips reverently over her belly.

"That's easy for you to say," Mei said, scowling at him. He leaned down and kissed her on the nose. She was right; pregnancy did not agree with her. She'd been throwing up the entire pregnancy, which he had been told (at length) was unusual. Now, in the last weeks before the baby was going to be born, she was short-tempered and hot and miserable and it hurt her to walk.

"Do you want your feet rubbed?" Al offered, and it was the right thing to say, apparently, because she smiled at him.

"Alphonse!" she said, smiling beatifically, "You do love me." She shifted around so that her feet were in his lap. They were tiny- all of her was tiny. Al picked one up and started rubbing it gently with his thumbs, paying attention to the pressure points of the foot. He always felt enormous next to her. He'd actually worried about that size difference early in the pregnancy. He'd gone so far as to pull the midwife aside and ask if Mei would be okay, carrying his baby. She'd laughed at him, and told him it was a little late to concern himself about that. He'd looked so stricken, though, that once she stopped laughing at him, she had reassured him that it would be fine. Women were made to give birth, after all.

"Mmm," Mei purred, happily. "What are you thinking about, Alphonse? You look so far away!"

"Just about how beautiful you are," Al said, and that was apparently the right answer, too.

/Alphonse/, she said tenderly, switching to Xingese. She used the honorifics for honored husband.

/Mei/, he answered, smiling, correctly using the honorifics meaning beloved wife.

"You are lucky, Alphonse," she told him, haughtily.

"I certainly think so," Al said, grinning. "But why do you say?"

She fixed him with a particular glare. "Because alkahestry gives us the means to relieve the pains of childbirth," she told him. "Otherwise I might never forgive you."

Al laughed, and started rubbing her other foot.