Disclaimers: Don't own FMA.

A/N: Alphonse's POV. Aww, poor insightful Alphonse! ;; (Any typos, please excuse.)

-

Explanation Number Three

-

I can't help but smile every day during break, at school, when I look up and see all the girls giggling and talking to Winry about Edward or all the boys looking at my brother like he's a god, or the two of them clinging to each other and laughing heartily and joking with their few real friends. Every now and then I'll flick a note at him from a few feet away and smile bigger when he looks at me, startled, and then grinning. Every time my little notes read some type of our secret codes for our research. My stupid teasing of "teratomas" or "mini Paracelsus" or "you criminal" or my sincere little pencil recitations of the chemical make-up of a human body.

I have a really good friend named Kirk. During lunch break we sit near the swings where the littler kids run around and squeal and play. We watch my brother and Winry, and sometimes he'll look at me and say, "Your brother is really a good guy."

"I know," I say back. "He is, isn't he? And Winry is a good girl."

"Do you have to be the parent to them sometimes?"

I just laugh at him, and he laughs too. "Yes," I say. And we giggle and grin. "Sometimes I have to pry him away so we can do…homework."

No one can know about our research. Winry feels left out, but I know that it would be irresponsible and horrible for us to drag her into these deep waters with us.

I noticed everything change about mid-June. I could tell what they felt, but I could also tell they were both confused. The way that they would look at each other, the way that they would play games sometimes, the way that they'd talk; I never felt left out. I never did. That is the truth. I am very happy for them; I'm not jealous that they've found something deeper than a sibling relationship, because I know that I'll find someone too.

I can tell that my brother is ultimately torn between caring for me and making sure I'm not lonely, that and the ever-increasing and always mind-blowing and depressing and dismal studies, late at night, those and spending time with Winry. There's that looming cloud, always there, waiting for the moment when we attempt the illicit. I know he wants to cherish the time with her, because I know that he knows that things will never, never be the same after we do this.

It scares me, how intelligent my brother is. He tells me that I am so caring, so smart, so quiet – the stereotypical mouse that everyone loves. I told him once that I worry so deeply about how talented and profound he is.

"Be careful, Brother," I whispered to him as we studied one night. "Please." He looked up at me and his eyes were so big and endless, it sent shivers down my spine.

"The world is experimental, Al," he murmured back, the constant squeak residing in the echo-less corners of his voice. "Everything is dangerous and everything is wonderful. There is no careful. And we're in this together, you know. You watch your step as well."

I gawked at him and he gawked back. There was a weird tense sensation lingering in the candlelight that danced the shadows like marionettes on our faces. I stared into his bottomless amber eyes, getting more and more fearful as the seconds slipped by. He looked back at me, serious and poignant, the closest thing to the all-knowing god that I think (thought) I'd ever reach.

I respect my brother. I worry for my brother. I love my brother. He's all that I have, and I am content with that too. I trust my brother. I am so lucky to have such a deep, intense connection to him, a connection that crackles deeper in his blood than his love for Winry.

Is that selfish, to indulge in that bond so energetically?

I try to seem indifferent towards them. I try to hide my blushing at the fact that they are so intimate already. I duck my face into Den's fur, I turn my head away, I leave the room to talk to Granny, and I smile.

When Edward falls asleep without finishing all his schoolwork, as soon as he comes back, later, after staying up the hill longer than I have, I do it gladly. Sometimes I get irritated at his nonchalance or his recklessness, or his arrogance and mischief and constant mood swings. I swear he's as horrible as Winry, when it's her Time of Month, except he's temperamental all the time and she just cries often.

(My brother made me read books once, about this change called Puberty. I remember things very well.)

One night, Granny made a really big dinner. Bigger than her normal ones. She made quail, with lots of sauces and vegetables, and mashed potatoes and biscuits and sweet corn. Winry ate her usual small dish of everything, and I ate my full plate of everything, and Brother ate his proverbial three and a half dishes with mountains and mountains of everything.

She even had apple-pecan pie afterwards, which my brother then, to all of our amusement, ate almost half of. I'm not exaggerating.

Afterwards we all tried not to laugh at him because he was sitting at the chair with his empty dishes in front of him, his head tilted back, his eyes half open and his hands resting on the tabletop limply. If he caught us snickering, he would snap at us with a voice that sounded drunk. Winry was giggling and snorting behind her hand as she cleared the table. After Edward had enough of our obvious entertainment, he grumbled, "You guys are horrible." and tottered out of the kitchen into the living room.

The house was completely silent except for whispers between me and Winry, the clinking of dirty dishes, and Granny's gulping and exhaling and cackling at us. Now and again she would grunt through her beer glass, "You three, I swear." or "Who needs the newspaper when you've got the Elrics and the Rockbells!"

Finally Winry went into the living room to check on him. When she returned she was stifling red-faced grinning. "He's asleep, fast asleep," she squealed, turning the sink faucet on. "He's such a dork. He's so cute though."

She caught herself as Granny and I glanced at her simultaneously, both of us with a slight quirk of our lips. She blushed and started to wash the dishes with strange vehemence. Granny eventually waddled out of the room with her pipe to sit outside and finish up her night in the summer glow. Winry slowly turned the sink off, and, without looking at me, whispered, "I love him so much Al."

I smiled from the dining table and said, "I know, Winry."

"He's such an idiot."
"I know, Winry."

"But I love him."
"I know, Winry."

"…Have you ever watched him sleep, Alphonse?"

"Sometimes I look at him while he falls asleep on his book. I want to move it but I don't want to disturb him."

"He looks so at peace. When he's awake, he's always slightly troubled."

I remember that I got quiet, because I knew why. Our studies were getting more and more confusing, incomprehensible.

"He does, doesn't he?" I said after a minute.

Winry is just as unexpected as my brother, though Edward is so impulsive it's frightening. She turned that night and she hugged me as tight as she could.

"I worry about him, too," she told me. "I love him so much. I don't know if you can understand that."

"It's okay," I said, smiling more. "You know, I worry too. I think that's his goal in life, to make people worry their butts off."

She giggled. "Al, you're so cute. You're so devoted to making everyone happy."

I grinned at her and she hugged me tighter.

"I'll help with the dishes," I said, and so I did. And later that night I did all of Edward's homework. All he did was kiss Winry good night and stumble home to fall asleep on the floor in his room, curled up with the clothes strewn near the foot of his bed.

Everything nowadays echoes equivalency. Maybe I'm just studying too much, but I can't stop. I know my brother thinks that he's lacking, and he hates it. So I'm memorizing and reciting and soaking up all the information that he does, plus the texts that he's assigned to me. I'm making sure that I know everything, so that in case he breaks down, I'll be his back up.

"Equivalent exchange," Edward mutters around Winry, and when he's alone in the study with me he looks at me and says the same thing, but with different meaning. Around Winry it sounds so impish, provocative; and when he looks me right in my eyes and says it to me, it makes me apprehensive and makes my concern for him explode up into my mind again. Equivalent exchange, a warning or an assurance?

Equivalent exchange?