Here's the next chapter, ASAP as promised! Thank you for reading!

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Al was rushing around the kitchen half asleep, sorely regretting having woken his sleeping brother who had gone straight from being asleep to being ravenously hungry and had demanded bacon, hard boiled eggs and waffles ASAP.

Al threw open the cupboard, studying its contents for waffle ingredients and wincing when the phone's shrill ring pierced the air. He hurried over to pick it up.

"Yeah? Al here."

"It's Breda."

"Oh... Hi Lieutenant." Al wasn't sure what to say.

"Hi. I was just wondering if, um, if Dr. Yao has tried to talk Edward into taking group therapy." Breda felt awkward.

"Oh yeah. The first time he did Ed told him he could take his stupid therapy and shove it. Which of course made Dr. Yao think he needed it even more, so he came o me and I told him it was pretty much hopeless."

"Yeah... Havoc didn't want to go either. The General was thinking about ordering him to go, so that's kind of why I'm calling. Dr. Yao seemed to think Havoc and your brother would be good for each other to talk to since they won't go to therapy." Breda paused, waiting for a reaction.

"Really? Huh. I guess they might. They might at least get along. Almost no one can put up with Brother these days," Al lamented.

"Well, shall we set up a playdate for them?" Breda obviously thought the whole idea was very amusing.

"Does Lieutenant Havoc like the park by the penitentiary?"

--

"Where are we going again? I want to go to that museum again... LOOK! They're painting the grocery store!"

Al's hands tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles becoming even whiter than they had been before Ed had s tarted yelling about paint and grocery stores. He was still just learning how to drive and oftentimes, having his excitable and spontaneous brother in the car was dangerous.

"We're going to the park. We're going to hang out with Breda and Havoc," Al said firmly. Ed sighed loudly and made no further comment, which Al thought was odd. The younger Elric looked inquisitively at his older brother who was leaning his head on his hand until loud honking reminded Al to pay attention to the road. He parallel parked extremely carefully, then parked the enormous car and went around to the passenger side to help Ed out. He continued to hold Ed up from under his arms while Ed half-walked in the direction Al was steering him. Until they got near the bench and Al tried to sit Ed on it.

"Hey! I don't want to sit on the dumb bench, Al! "

"Fine! Get grass stains on everything!" Al yelled, laying Ed on his back next to Jean's wheelchair."Hey look. Not it's a flat bean sprout," Jean said to Breda who was sitting on the bench. Ed half-rolled over, clapped his hands and the next thing Havoc knew he was on his butt in the grass, his wheelchair in pieces around him.

"Brother!"

"You little ass-"

"Havoc!"

"You asked for it!"

"Time someone taught you a lesson!" Jean pulled his gun and fired four rounds into the grass around Ed who panicked, but couldn't go anywhere which actually saved him from infury

"HAVOC! Settle down, Buddy!" Breda grabbed Jean's forearm and Jean let him have the semi-auto.

Ed sat up, Al checking him over for obviously nonexistant bullet holes. Ed opened his mouth and quick as lightning Alphonse and Heymans exchanged a look and Al clapped a hand over his brother's mouth.

"OK, both of you need to calm down, you hear me?"

Breda looked back and forth from Ed to Jean. Jean was breathing slightly harder than usual as he glared reproachfully at Ed, then dropped his eyes to his feet. Breda could feel the man's muscles relax under his hands, but Ed was still fighting his younger brother for release.

"Edward Elric! Stop that right now, get a hold of yourself," Al yelled, holding Ed's arm and keeping one hand over Ed's mouth. Breda kept near Jean, fairly sure he couldn't do any better than Al when it came to calming Ed down. As Ed continued to kick and struggle, Jean suddenly raised his arm again. Leaning forward, he gave Ed a gentle, firm shove against the chest and told him, "Hey. Just chill, OK?"

Ed froze, trying to decipher the gesture. Dominant push? Gesture of peace?

Al let go and Ed scooted away with a snort of contempt. Breda and Alphonse cautiously backed off, hovering for a moment in case Ed tried to attack Jean. Ed flopped back on the grass to demonstrate his disinterest and his brother and Breda exchanged glances. This playdate was going badly.

The two of them exchanged smalltalk for another twenty minutes while Ed and Havoc remained silent, ignoring each other. Finally, Al decided to try leaving them alone. There was a definite possibility of someone getting hurt, but that was being around Ed for you.

"The Lieutenant and I are going to take a walk around. Don't kill each other."

Breda and Alphonse began to walk around the perimeter of the little park while keeping an eye on Ed and Jean, who didn't notice.

"...Those things are even louder than I remembered."

Jean was surpsied, glancing at Ed who was still on his back with his eyes closed. Jean didn't really know what to say to that and thought for another minute before saying anything.

"Did anyone ever teach you how to use one of these?"

Ed opened his eyes, caught just a bit off his guard, like he'd been holding his shield somewhere else.

"No," he shook his head.

"C'mere," Jean said, turning his wheelchair toward Ed. At first the young blond seemed grateful and willing, but as he sat up and tried to move toward Jean without actually crawling, he blushed and looked down, halting his efforts.

Jean wheeled toward him, which on grass took a lot more energy than on concrete.

"See, a wheelchair isn't so bad. It's like it automatically explains what's wrong with you so that people never ask and you never have to answer."

Ed wouldn't look at him but Jean recognized the all too familiar frustration boiling up behind Ed's face. It made him realize just how well he knew it, that he could see it so well in someone else. And yet he didn't know anything to say to Ed. Nothing anyone said made it any better for him.

He maneuvered his way next to Ed and pulled the cock back, locking open the chamber with a loud snap. Ed jumped a bit and looked up at Jean's hands.

"So, to open it, you pull this back," he explained. "And after you load it, you push this button down to close it." Jean slid a round button vertically south and the chamber snapped shut, making Ed flinch again.

"You're going to have to get used to the noise. If you jump at the sounds, you might do something stupid," Jean told him. Ed just twitched his nose.

"So to load it, you put bullets in this magazine, or cartridge, and then you put it in the gun through the grip, see?" Jean pulled a magazine full of bullets from his back pocket, then pushed it up into the bottom of the gun until it clicked into place.

"So then when you're ready to fire," Jean told Ed, "You wrap your hands around the stock and close your eye and you put the little front sight level with and between the back sights. Then you put your target, like that squirrel over there, right on top of your front sight and you squeeze the trigger as slowly as you can. You sholdn't even know when it goes off. It should come as a surprise..."

BANG!!!!

Ed's jaw dropped when a squirrel in a nearby tree squeaked and fell to the ground.

"Uh," Ed looked shocked, sitting bolt upright and the blond lieutenant felt bad for him. He reached down to give Ed a very awkward hug with one arm as Al and Breda came tearing toward them through the park.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd be upset."

"Ehe... well, I mean, no it's OK I was just surprised because I never knew you liked squirrel."

Jean looked at Ed closely. "What?"

Ed grinned. "Don't kill what you're not going to eat," he said. Jean's mouth opened and closed and yet he'd been taught basically the same thing when he was younger. Lately his pent up frustration had caused him to be quiet a bit meaner and he'd forgotten about that. And other things like it. He knew it, he just didn't really care. He snapped at waiters and store clerks when he was angry with himself or his coworkers and no longer held his opinions about certain highranking officers who Roy thought it best to suck up to.

"Hunh," Jean looked at the squirrel.

"ED! What happened!" Al bowled his brother over in concern.

"Nothing, Al."

Breda looked pointedly at the blond lielutenant putting his gun bvack into hits holster. Jean just shrugged noncomitally.

"How about we go home, now?" Al requested shakily.

"Fine. Whatever," Ed told him.

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Breda put a hand on Jean's wheelchair to steady it for him after parking the car in front of the dorms. As he wheeled Jean down the hall, he took a minute to get up the nerve to ask how it had gone with Ed once he and Al left. Havoc's answer surprised him.

"He almost settled down. He's just so embarrassed about his arm and leg that he doesn't know how to defend himself."

"Can I ask what happened with the gun?"

"Oh. I was showing him how to use it. I shot a squirrel."

"Ohh, you weren't trying to kill him," Breda said. Jean snorted and pulled his dormkey from a pocket on the arm of his chair. After wheeling through the doorway and waving goodbye to Heymans, Jean let the door fall shut on its own. As it creaked shut, Breda could just barely hear his friend say again, "I didn't try to kill him," murmuring the words as thought they had some other meaning.

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R&R and please, any suggestions or requests for this story will be welcomed and considered! Flames for this story, as history has shown, will be thoroughly laughed at and then ignored.