A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews/alerts/favorites! :) Hope this next chapter is satisfying as well.
Just so you understand how the timeline works, this happens 2 years, 4 months before the prologue.

CHAPTER 1:
-2 YEARS 4 MONTHS
(They have unchanging routines.)

"His name is Martin," Winry chirps into a phone receiver, "and he's a Doctor. And really, he must be the smoothest doctor I ever met. I went in for a routine checkup, and left with a dinner date at that new restaurant down the street."

The automail mechanic stands alone behind a counter, blond hair tied back in a messy bun, cleaning off her workstation with one hand while grasping a phone with the other. She giggles into the phone before adding, "Yes, Rebecca, he is handsome."

More giggling. "No, I don't want this to turn out like Richard. As much as I enjoyed the two months of endless 'passion', I think my crotch would appreciate the break."

The conversation continues like this for another hour; the girls talk about their hopes for Martin - he is almost the smartest man Winry has ever dated - and previous boyfriends and lovers that had never quite fit the bill. They dream and they fantasize that the perfect man will come along some day: handsome, smart, witty, respectful, sexy, and charming.

And then a patron enters and Winry stops dreaming long enough to adjust a man's automail for the coming summer, replacing some of the joints with parts that have a higher heat capacity. When he leaves, a long 90 minutes later, the lone mechanic closes the shop and goes shopping for something to wear on her date. It's a black tie restaurant, so nothing in her current wardrobe will work; even as a gorgeous, 25-year old woman, the mechanic only owns a handful of feminine clothing that she hasn't outgrown.

Perhaps it is because Winry is a woman possessed by her work; even as she is purchasing a pretty little dress from that overpriced boutique she always avoided, she is thinking about her work. Schematics sketch themselves in her head as she heads back to her shop, and as soon as she is back in those doors, she is transcribing her dreams to paper. Her fingers move so quickly that she is burning graphite trails onto the sheets of paper. She breaks her train of thought only to attend to another patron for a few hours, but as soon as he leaves, she is back to thinking, to planning, to creating.

Winry works until the sky bleeds with the reds and yellows of dawn, then collapses onto a workbench. Sweet sleep comes for a short four hours, then she returns to her automail work. It never ends.

Laughing uproariously, Edward slams a shotglass onto a wooden table and barks, "That's five! How many did you drink? ...Don't bore me already!"

It's 3 AM, and the former State Alchemist is sitting across the table from a brutish man that is easily twice his size. A small crowd has formed around them, urging the drinkers on with their cheers and jeers. A young, scantily clad lady wraps her arms around Edward as he pours his opponent his fifth shot. The concoction is some poisonous mix of Vodka and Godknowswhat that tastes like Sin, but does a beautiful job intoxicating the crowd. The room is already spinning for him as he takes ahold of his sixth shot, holds it up in the air for the onlookers to cheer, and gulps down the liquor in one violent movement.

For the next few hours, everything is a drunken haze. Ed gets into a fight with another regular at the bar, but the match ends prematurely when the other brawler is knocked unconscious by the burly bartender. A number of desperate but voluptuous girls flirt with him throughout the night, and he finally takes the most scrumptious one back to his apartment, where he can't remember...

By the next day she is gone along with a few coins from Ed's wallet, though he'll never know it. It's far too early for him to be moving around, but he has a lunch appointment with an old colleague that he feels obliged to attend. He fixes himself a quick hangover remedy that he's learned from years of being on the scene, takes a quick shower, and stumbles out of his rathole.

His longtime colleague is waiting at a nice restaurant downtown; it's the type of establishment Ed would never enter on his own. But because Roy Mustang is treating and because it is dimly lit inside, he does not protest this time. He ducks into the restaurant and before one server has the chance to chastise him out for his casual attire, another one remembers that Ed is Commander Mustang's special guest. The two lead the famished, hung-over Edward to the former Colonel's private booth.

Roy Mustang does not scold Edward for being late to their meeting - he must've expected it, for he had a light novel with him - and instead calls a server over and orders quickly for the both of them. The guest chugs down his ice water as Mustang remarks, "Up late last night?"

"Maybe something like that," Edward responds dryly, realizing that he doesn't truly know the answer himself.

"I knew it was a good idea to choose a restaurant with little light."

So the Commander had predicted Edward's train of thought. "...Bastard."

"I would've ordered a drink for you, Elric, but I didn't think it was a good idea. Unless you still want that morning-after Bloody Mary."

"Don't you dare test me, Commander. I can only be civil for so long."

With a scoff, Mustang begins a monologue on his plans for the future of Amestris. Their meeting is far from a lunch between business associates, however; in fact, Roy is venting more than anything else.

No, Edward isn't part of the military anymore, and doesn't intend to join it ever again. As a result, Roy is vague; he dances around details, only providing his meal companion with state lines for information and filling the silence with humorous anecdotes. And although Ed seems too intent on finishing his pasta to be listening to the Commander properly, Roy knows the young man is quietly calculating as he eats, dissecting every spoken word until they are tangible fragments of the truth.

By the time lunch has ended, Edward has barely spoken, but leaves content. A free meal and a wealth of information; Mustang was always good with codes.

And Edward was always good at cracking them.