Author's Note: (Disclaimer: You know the drill; I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist in any way, shape or form).

If you couldn't tell by now, I'm really into angst and romance and I feel like a lot of the previous chapters have been really heavy on the angst…sorry about that, it's a habit that I'm trying to break. Anyway, I don't remember if May (and Xiao-Mei) was in the original anime series but I really liked her in the Manga and wanted to incorporate her into this story somehow…so she should be showing up in a few chapters :)

Quixotically yours,

AL

P.S. This chapter isn't really necessary to the story…just a bit of fluff before they all go their separate ways =]

It was unusually sunny for a day in late autumn and the weather had managed to stay fairly cheerful despite winter's fast descent upon the country. The house was calm and still-the room silent save the sound of my father's tempered breathing. He hadn't woken up after falling unconscious until eight or nine the night before just after the doctor's assistant had dropped by with all of the information that he had promised.

He was up and about for a few hours this morning as well but grew tired of being babied and fell back into a feverish sleep. This worried me. Was it natural-sleeping so much? Even in his condition…the mind can only take so much restoration. I sighed, sitting at the desk beside his bed once again-a deep sense of guilt heavy in my gut.

I was so lost in the nothingness of staring off into the distance that I hadn't heard the door open.

"Hey." A conspiring whisper. I glanced up to see Rolland standing in the doorway. He titled his head, gesturing out into the hall, "Let's take a walk."

I stole one last glance at my father before hesitantly getting to my feet to creep across the room. "Where is everyone?" I whispered as we made our way downstairs. It was unusual to see the Rockbell house so empty. He shrugged, "They're all doing their own things I guess. My dad became all dark and brooding after what happened yesterday, mom went to go talk some sense into him…but I have this bad feeling that they're doing something that I really don't want to know about."

I smiled as we stepped out into the chilled afternoon air, "it's nice…what your parents have."

He pretended not to notice what I had said and continued as we trotted down the front steps, "Pinako's still asleep I think and Winry ran to the store…she says it's to get all of those special foods the doctor recommended. Alina made friends with couple of little kids nearby so I asked Ava to take her over to play with them for a bit."

"That's good," I said softly, beginning to feel lame for such inadequate replies. We continued down the dirt path, surrounded by open pastures and a barren tree every so often. I had no idea where we were headed, but it was nice all the same. "So…how are you holding up?"

Rolland always came off as very chivalrous to me. I feel like it's something that he inherited from his father-the big macho ego and 'knight-in-shining-armor' bit. Although beneath the surface both Mustangs had this persona, they hid it well-playing it off as casual concern. It was nice…a subtle show of affection rather than the brutish 'I'll protect you!' routine. Because of this, I smiled in an attempt not to appear too miserable or pitiful, "I'm alright, thanks."

"Uh-huh," he said slowly, easily seeing through my bullshit.

I turned to him with my hands in my pockets and admitted casually, "fine, I'm a mess. I was just told that my father is dying while my only other remaining blood relatives are literally living in a different universe. There's a war here, I'm sure there's still a war going on there and in the past year or so anything I once thought I knew about this world, about life, turned out to be a lie and apparently I really don't know the man who raised me half as well as I thought I did. But other than that, I am superb. Really, thank you, I'm holding up just fine."

I let out a deep breath and glanced sheepishly at Rolland after my embarrassingly sarcastic tirade. He raised his eyebrows but never did his pace vary. He continued walking with his hands in his pockets just as I was. His silence fueled my venting and I felt the need to press on, "but I can't be mad at anyone. Oh, no, this was all me! I forced this upon myself and everyone else. That stupid book…if I had just left it alone we wouldn't be here! Some many things would have gone differently…Mischa…I killed her. I told her that I would protect her, I would always have her back and I couldn't do a thing!"

I shook my head as hot, angry tears began to swell up in the corner of my eyes, "It was all me. My father and Mischa and you! Your family would be fine…you would be fighting beside your parents in the military and none of these horrible things would have ever been said…it was my existence that ruined everyone else's lives…my father had plans. Real plans-he was going to make something of his life but-ah!"

Before I could turn to see what was going on, my feet were free of the ground. The sheer force of his body knocked mine forward and, losing my balance, I hooked my arm through his before gravity got the best of me-pulling us down together.

"What was that for?" my voice cracked as I laughed, wiping the excess water from my eyes, the crisp scent of grass hovering in the air around my face.

"You were spouting a lot of crap back there so naturally I had to push you out of the way in case a car came and ran you over or you got struck by lightning for being so irrational. It was for your own safety." He rolled onto his back, smirking.

"Naturally," I replied, breathless and sarcastic in the calm of the afternoon. I closed my eyes and exhaled, realizing how completely ridiculous and nonsensical I had been just moments before.

Don't flatter yourself. None of this is your doing. This is the course of events and you are just another small creature caught up in the flow of things. Nothing would be different even if you never existed.

A small voice in my head told me. It sounded familiar, as if it belonged to someone I once knew. It wasn't reassuring or comforting but rather straightforward and critical. But it was exactly what I needed to be told. I opened my eyes; feeling almost relieved, and took in the scene around me.

Patches of shade dappled our faces and torsos-the small shadows of what few leaves were left on the tree that we had stumbled below. The fallen leaves littered the ground and crunched every time I adjusted my body in the slightest of ways. "So," Rolland began, picking up a withering leaf, "there's this place in the West City that is in need of a 'biomechanical surgeon'."

He snickered softly, "I guess that's what they're calling it now. A friend of Winry's phoned from Rush Valley and asked her to take the job since she's one of the best…but she isn't willing to leave your dad in his condition…"

"So you're going to do it?" I asked quietly, concentrating hard on the pieces of sky visible between the branches and scarce foliage of the oak tree.

I was compelled to press on when he didn't reply, "The west is bordered by Creta, you'll be in the middle of a war zone." It was a statement-plain and simple and devastatingly apathetic. I wasn't angry or upset, somewhere deep inside maybe, but on the surface I really didn't know what to feel.

"Yeah," his voice was light, like the wisps of clouds I watched become scattered by the breeze, "but I'll be helping people…it's like what you said earlier-It's time that I stopped running from the real world…I believe your exact words were, 'grow a spine'."

He turned the leaf over in his hand while holding it up to the sun and I smiled watching as rays of sunlight danced against the fading red leaf, "it was something to that extent."

"…I'm going to Ishval."

His eyes sparked with curiosity as I said this and the leaf slipped through his fingers and sailed to the ground. "Yeah?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," I replied, in the same tone, "there's a trade route from Ishval to Xing and it cuts directly through the desert."

"You're really going there? "

I propped myself up on my elbows and nodded. "Good." he smiled and closed his eyes, "I looked over the directions the doctor's assistant brought by yesterday, they're simple so it shouldn't be hard to find that girl he was talking about-May, was it?"

"Mmmhmm…he said that she was the best."

I glanced at Rolland before averting my eyes to the sky. I had majorly calmed down and from my renewed sense of serenity, hope blossomed. I wasn't so worried about everything anymore, because something was telling me that everything was going to work out in our favor; that the happy ending my father and all of the others always deserved but received was just around the corner. We only had to wait a little bit longer.

"Hey, Rolland?"

"Hmm?" His voice was quiet, sleepy.

"I'm really sorry…for all of those stupid things I was saying back there…I honestly don't know what came over me but I swear it won't happen again."

He opened his eyes and lied there for a moment, blinking at the sky, before he rolled over onto his stomach. "Don't worry about it," he shook his head with a sympathetic smile, "it happens to the best of us."

I nodded gratefully as a small, whimsical sigh escaped my lips, "so this is what it's like to be the future of the world…"

Rolland chuckled softly, "It's all about the youth. After all, my father always says that *'the duty of youth is to challenge corruption'."

I laughed, not at his cheesy albeit spot-on imitation of his father but rather at this feeling. A light feeling of utter bliss knowing that these were our lives and it was our future…our decisions and mistakes to make and no one could stop us.

Distant noises of playing children wandered our way and I couldn't help but think of everything that had happened in the past few days.

"…your parents seem constricting," I said thoughtlessly as the words just rolled off of my tongue, "but they really care about you."

"I know," he muttered softly, fiddling with a blade of grass.

"They're lucky…that they have each other."

Rolland smirked, "where's all this coming from?"

I sat up and shrugged, "old thoughts…I never saw it before but it's almost alarming how different a relationship with two people who like each other and two people who are destined to be together are."

He laughed as I shifted to lean against the trunk of the tree, "you think my parents are destined to be together? Isn't that a bit of a stretch?"

I shrugged again with a casual half-smile, "Your dad showed me a picture of a family friend…Hughes? It was a picture of his wife and daughter. That very same man, er-his parallel self in the world I came from…he lived in the building across the street from us. A cozy little place above a flower shop that his wife ran…they had a little girl that was the same age as my youngest cousin…anyway, his wife and daughter living in my world were the same as his wife and daughter in this world."

Rolland's obsidian eyes seemed to brighten with interest as I continued, "there's no way that can be a coincidence…I wonder if it means that we're all destined to be with one person regardless of the universe."

He raised his eyebrows incredulously, "soul mates?"

"What?" I rolled my eyes, " don't act like it's some silly invention of my girlish mind, these ideas have been around since the first recorded civilizations-there was one story in particular that we had in my world…I bet you have one just like it here."

"We'll see," he commented, still sounding doubtful, "tell it to me."

"Okay," I took a deep breath and tried to resurrect all tidbits from grade school mythology that I'd pushed aside long ago, "…well, there was this one legend…it stated that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and one head with two faces, but there was this god who was afraid of their power and split them all in half, condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half in order to be complete."

Rolland titled his head, his eyebrows furrowed, "shit, you're right."

He finally sat up and then raised his palms to me as a sign of defeat, "there's something similar to that in these ancient scripts found in the ruins of Xerxes-the scrolls were nearly impossible to decipher but a lot of scholars got the gist."

I smiled, "doesn't seem so silly now, does it?"

"It would explain that bizarre-o dream you had about Winry being your mom…if she and your dad are destined to be together then they would have found one another in your world too."

I bit my lip uneasily-it made sense, but I didn't like what that would mean. "It makes sense…she said that she could never be the one he loved…that she wasn't the right one…"

"I'm just throwing out ideas; it doesn't mean that anything is true…:

"Yeah," I said softly, "but you have a point. I don't know…but your parents are lucky. I think of them and then I think of my aunt and uncle…and there's such a big difference. I don't doubt that my uncle loves my aunt, but I feel like they aren't destined to be together but instead just sort of…settled with each other because they felt like they were running out of time."

"Why does everyone feel that way?" he asked, his slightly bronzed face illuminated by the afternoon sun.

"Feel what way?"

"Like they are running out of time?"

I rested my head against the trunk of the tree and gazed out at the ever-expanding sky that stretched just beyond our reach. "Maybe because they don't want to admit that they aren't brave enough to use the time they have to do what makes them happy."

"Maybe," he repeated and then added a solemn-sounding, "It's good then…that we're going our own ways.

"Yeah," I smiled, "it's about time that we make something of this provincial life, don't you think?"

"I do," he smiled in return as we sat and watched the time of our last day together slowly tick by. Big changes were under way and the future had suddenly become alarmingly obscure but it was alright, because we were not afraid.

* "The duty of youth is to challenge corruption" is a real quote by Kurt Cobain.