Well, Kairi has now watched all of the FMA anime, and apparently this is inaccurate. Ergh. Well too bad! I started this, and now I'm going to finish it! And all of you will just have to deal with it! Errr… maybe I've been watching too much FMA. That sounded almost a bit Ed-ish… Oh! And a Very Happy Late Birthday to just another fma fan! Sorry I couldn't gift-wrap this for you… (And a very Merry Un-Birthday to everyone else!)

As you all know, AdventureAddict does not in any way own any part of Fullmetal Alchemist.

On wit' da show!

PpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPp

Chapter Twenty-Three – Relearning the Alphabet

Ed walked slowly into Robyn's room, afraid of the sight that greeted him. He could hear Al's footsteps clanking behind him, and for once was glad of the loud sound. They both stepped up beside her bed and looked down silently at the red bandana (1) covering the spot on her face where two eyes belonged.

"Al? Is that you? Is Ed with you?" Robyn asked as she reached out two groping hands that immediately came in contact with Ed's face. "Wow Ed, I didn't know you had such soft cheeks," Robyn said with a smile, making Ed blush and quickly pull away.

"Good to see you're acting like your same old self," Ed said with a slight scowl. Al looked down curiously at his brother and noticed that Ed was trying to hide a smile beneath the angry look.

"You know, she can't see you, Brother," Al whispered with a soft laugh, and Ed spun around to glare at him.

"Yeah, but she can hear you!" he hissed. "Shut up!"

"Hey you guys?" Robyn said suddenly and both of them stopped to turn and look at her, even though Robyn couldn't appreciate the movement. "I was wondering if you could help me," she explained, motioning down at the book in her lap. "I wanted to sign language so that I could understand people if I lost my ears, but I can't really," she trailed off softly, but Ed and Al both knew what she wanted to say.

"Can't really read the pages," Al whispered softly, his voice not only echoing through his armor, but the silent room as well.

"How are you going to understand Sign Language if you can't see?" Ed asked bluntly, instantly regretting the question. He knew from Al that you had to be careful saying things around people with different problems, (After all, something as simple as 'This dinner tastes really good' could get Al depressed) and yet he still managed to say things that were rude, inconsiderate, or just plain mean.

"I can do it like Helen Keller," Robyn countered simply, making Al look over at his brother.

"Who's Helen Keller?" he asked, and Ed sighed.

"She was born blind and deaf and learned to communicate with others by spelling words into their palms," Ed explained quickly.

It's more than that!" Robyn said in an astounded tone. "There's so much more! Books, movies, plays-"

"I'll help you learn," Al said cheerfully as he sat down next to Robyn. "It sounds like fun."

"Okay," Robyn agreed, and then tried to hold the book out to him even though she couldn't see where his hands words.

"Let's see," Al said as he gently took the book from Robyn. "Okay… this is A," he told her, holding out a fist with his thumb on the side. Robyn reached out both her hands and felt all of Al's fingers until she knew exactly what he was doing and then mimicked the gesture.

"Good!" Al said excitedly, and Robyn smiled back.

"Hey, your hands are really big," Ed said to Al. "Let me try one."

"Okay," Al said agreeably, holding the book out to his brother. "Do B next."

"Okay," Ed said as he looked down at the book. After a moment of consideration he held up his right hand like he was going to wave, and then bent his thumb against his palm.

"Don't your hands ever get hot wearing those gloves all the time?" Robyn asked as her fingers brushed against the cloth.

"You know why I can't take them off," Ed said with a hint of a growl. "Besides, I'm used to it anyway," he added softly. Robyn pulled her hand away from his and mimicked the gesture for B.

"Good," Ed murmured softly. "Al, do you want to do C?"

"Sure," Al said, making his hand into a large C shape. "This one's easy," he told Robyn, who smiled as she felt around his curled fingers.

"Knock Knock! Mind if we come in?" said a cheerful voice from the doorway, and Ed looked up to see two girls with long blond hair and short miniskirts standing in the doorway.

"We're from the yearbook committee at school," one of the girls explained as Ed wondered how they could wear so little when it was snowing outside.

"We want to put a page on you in the yearbook, Robyn," one of the girls explained. "Since, this is like all over the news and stuff." Robyn shuddered slightly at how the girls used her first name as if they were best friends or something.

"So can we ask you some questions?" the other girl asked.

"Sure," Robyn sighed, even though she knew she would hate the next few minutes of what these girls would call an 'interview.' In reality she knew it would be nothing like a real interview.

"Great!" one girl said happily. "This is Ally, and I'm Courtney!"

"Hi," Robyn said, rubbing her forehead with one hand. She knew she shouldn't have agreed to this. Why? Why had she said they could ask her a few questions?

"So what's your favorite color?" Ally asked.

"Purple," Robyn answered even though her brain was screaming to ask the girl why her favorite color was important when she had some weird disease no one had ever heard of.

"What type of car would you like to drive?" Courtney asked as Ally wrote down 'Purple.'

"Erm…" Robyn paused. She hadn't really thought in depth about that before. "How about…a… Mustang?" she said, saying the first name that popped into her head. Ed turned and gave her a glare, to which Robyn just shrugged her shoulders. Courtney wrote her answer down, and Ally looked at her sheet for the next question.

Either she couldn't read or had lost track of the conversation, because instead of asking one of the questions on the sheet, she jabbed her pencil at Ed and asked, "Is he your boyfriend?"

Awkward silence.

Whenever Ed had that question pop up with Winry back in Amestris, he always was able to answer quickly with something like, 'Hell no!' But now he was worried that if he said that he would hurt Robyn's feelings because he had said that he loved her. But they weren't officially a couple, were they? He didn't know that Robyn had almost exactly the same thoughts going through her head.

"Uhhh…"

"Errr…"

"Oh! They're so cute together!" Courtney exclaimed suddenly, looking between the two.

"Could we please move on to the next question?" Robyn growled as a hint of a blush coming to her cheeks. Only a few people could say she was cute, and Courtney and Ally weren't on that list.

"Okay," Courtney said as she scanned down the list of questions. "If you could have one wish, what would it be?"

"Um…" Robyn looked thoughtfully at Ed and Al. The one wish she had wanted for so long had actually come true. Who knew what would happen if she wished for something else? Besides, she didn't know what to wish for. She looked outside her window as she thought over the question. The ground was covered in snow, and even more was falling to the ground.

"I wish it was spring again," she said softly as she looked at a tree without any leaves on it. "Luke always made sure he was here for spring."

"Luke? Who's Luke?" Ally asked, looking over at Courtney for an answer. Courtney shrugged as she reached in her purse and pulled out some makeup. She quickly glanced in the small mirror before covering her face in another coat.

"Luke was her brother," Ed said simply as Robyn continued to look back out the window. "Move on. Next question. And does your boyfriend know what you're trying to hide under all that makeup?" he asked Courtney, who looked up in surprise. She wasn't used to people disturbing her out of her makeup ritual.

"Have you got a favorite quote?" Ally asked nervously. Ed was about to open his mouth to tell them to go away and leave Robyn alone when Robyn started talking softly.

"Confucius. 'Wherever you go, go with all your heart,'" she said while continuing to stare out the window.

"Thank you very much," Courtney said quickly, noticing the glare Ed was aiming at them. With that, both girls stood up and turned to go.

"I've got to study for my finals anyway," Courtney told Ally. "My mom will take away my cell phone if I don't get at least C's on all of them." Robyn suddenly turned away from the window to look at Ed.

"Finals are coming up? Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded. Ed winced and then scratched the back of his head.

"I… uh…" he stammered, trying to think up something to tell her.

"How far away are they?" Robyn asked. Ed tried to think for a minute before he answered.

"Two days."

"Two days?!" Robyn exploded. "Ed, you can't just blow off finals!"

"You know as well as I do that I'm not going to need a diploma from that school!" Ed said angrily. "I proved I was smarter than all that crap when I got this!" he said as he pulled the silver watch out of his pocket, letting in shine in the sunlight coming through the window.

"I know you don't need a diploma," Robyn said softly. "But if you get D's in all your classes, those foster parents of yours might ground you, and then you and Al couldn't come to visit me."

"Oh." Ed let her words sink in silently. She was right. She was absolutely right, and he was an idiot.

"Do you want us to help you study, Big Brother?" Al asked, and Ed sighed heavily.

"Sure, Al," he said slowly. "My backpack's here, so I got everything I could possibly need." He walked over to where he had thrown his backpack earlier that day, aware that both Robyn and Al were watching him.

"But who would want to study with books?" he asked sarcastically, smiling slightly. Sometimes it was nice to know that people cared.

T-H-I-S—IS—A—D-I-V-D-I-N-G—L-I-N-E

Ed walked silently into Robyn's room, wondering where Al had wandered off to. He had probably found some eight-year old with leukemia and was making them feel better by playing whatever games they wanted for hours, Ed thought to himself. That was the sort of thing that al did. Always looking out for others.

"Hi Robyn," he spelled swiftly into her hand. He had gotten good at spelling in sign language very quickly over winter break. Of course, he had realized that if Robyn did lose her hearing, then this would be his only way of communicating with her, which motivated him to learn the memorize the alphabet quickly. When they had been running laps in gym that morning, he had gone through the alphabet several times while he ran, just top make sure he knew it perfectly. He could now spell a sentence with his hands almost as fast as he could write it with a pencil now.

"Hi Ed," Robyn smiled back. "How was your first day back in school?"

"Horrible. I wouldn't have gone if I hadn't been forced."

"Sound just like your Anger Management classes," Robyn laughed slightly.

"Yeah, they're both just a barrel of fun," Ed sighed as he looked at the blond wig on top of Robyn's head, covering the fact that she didn't have ears any more. It would have been weird to not see any ears on the sides of her head, but it was also weird to see his hair hiding her earless head.

"Robyn I have to tell you a few things that I haven't wanted to tell you for a while," Ed spelled slowly. He felt a reassuring squeeze from Robyn's hand and then slowly continued. "First of all, you were right about being related to someone from Amestris."

"Really?!" Robyn said suddenly as she sat up a little. "Was I right about Rosé? She's got the dark hair and the purple eyes…"

"No," Ed signed, shaking his head at his own foolishness. Why was he telling this to Robyn? What good would it do her? "It wasn't Rosé. It was-" he paused, took a death breath and then continued, "It was Mustang. Roy is your grandfather."

Robyn was silent for a minute as she absorbed the information, and then her face suddenly broke into a slow smile. "He ended up with Riza, didn't he?" she said softly. "That's sweet. A little weird that I get to hang out with you, but sweet. What was the other thing you wanted to tell me?"

Ed wondered for a minute how she could accept that fact so easily, but then realized that this was Robyn he was dealing with. There were just some things about her he might not ever understand.

"Your condition is getting worse," he signed as he took deep breaths. "They're going to move you into a special room in order to take care of you better. And I don't know if-" he wanted to say that he didn't know if he would be able to find a cure for her, but he wanted to believe himself that he could be the knight in shining armor for once. He wanted to save Robyn as much as he wanted to save Al. If giving up another arm would save Robyn, he knew he would do it in an instant.

"Hey Ed?" Robyn asked suddenly, and he snapped his attention back to her. "Today is January third, right?"

"Yeah," Ed signed into her hand. "What's so important about January third?"

"It's your birthday! Duh!" Robyn said happily as Al walked into the room. Trotting happily behind him was a group of young kids in hospital gowns singing the birthday song.

Ed smiled. Even with her disease, she was still the same old Robyn. Al must have told her when his birthday was. It was good she had done this, Ed realized. He need a little break.

PpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPpPp

(1) She's a pirate now! Arr!

Well, another chap done. I think I can pull off two more chaps and then it's the end of part one! And then on to part two! I can't wait for some of the characters I'm going to introduce in part two! And Evil dude that gave Robyn the disease will finally get what's coming to him! Muahahahahahahahaha!! XD kay onto the next chap…