Shinobu stood up out of the bed and slowly walked out of the room and into the hallway on the second floor. Downstairs, she could hear Ed, Al, and Havoc talking amongst themselves. She really didn't want to talk to them; all Shinobu wanted right now was some alone time.

To the right, just down the hallway, she heard the sound of metal being forced to merge with metal. She walked quietly down the hall and peeked into the room where the sound was coming from and saw Winry welding to pieces of metal together. Already, the hunk of metal in front of her was becoming the shape that would become Ed's new arm. Needless to say, Shinobu was impressed by Winry's work, and her progress as to how fast she made the arm already.

Quietly, so that she wouldn't be heard, Shinobu crossed the room Winry was working in, and went out the sliding door that led to the balcony just beyond. She closed the door as quietly as she had crossed the room and then turned to lean forward against the white railing that separated her from falling to the dirt ground beneath.

For miles around there was nothing but grass, animals, streams, and a few crops. If Shinobu looked directly ahead, in the direction she and the boys had come from earlier, the train station was barely visible. Here and there, houses and trees dotted the otherwise bare rural village of Resembool. It seemed to her that the most exciting thing to do in this place was to be an automail mechanic like Winry.

At least, that's what Shinobu thought until she spotted, not too far away, the burned remains of a house that once stood next to a tree that had been so blackened by the fire from what could've been a house that it looked capable of snapping in half. She wondered what happened there, and what happened to the family who had lived in that house – if that's what it had been.

"I thought I heard somebody come out here."

Shinobu jumped and turned around to face a smiling Winry. "Winry!" Shinobu bent over, resting her hands on her knees. "Jesus Christ! You scared me half to death!"

Winry giggled. "Sorry about that." She looked in the direction her companion had just been looking; her eyes narrowed. "You're curious about what happened at that house…aren't you?"

Shinobu straightened up and looked back over to the ashes that she had been looking at. "Yeah. I was just wondering; that's all. Y'know, about the people who once lived there, and what burned down the house in the first place. Was there any loss of life…?"

"Life wasn't lost in the fire," Winry said, grabbing Shinobu's attention, "but life was lost in that house."

"Hmm?" Shinobu didn't quite understand. The first thing that came to mind was that someone had been murdered there, but her thoughts were interrupted when Winry said;

"Let's go there. I'll explain everything where no one can hear us."

"Okay." Shinobu followed Winry back inside, spotting the unfinished automail as they past it. "Don't you need to finish Ed's automail though?"

"I need a break anyway." Winry smiled back at Shinobu. "Besides, I've only been working on it for a day and you saw how it's progressing. I deserve a break!"

As the girls walked through the main area of the first floor, Ed asked Winry about his automail. All she said was that he'd have to wait two or three more days before it was finished to perfection. As they left, he was screaming something about her taking a break when she needed to be finishing up his arm.

Winry and Shinobu made idle chit-chat as they walked in the direction of the burned remains of the house. Just small things about the weather, things around the area – that had interested Shinobu the most – and about how reckless Ed was.

They stopped underneath the burned tree that looked like it could snap at any moment. The two stood in front of the ashes that had once been a house.

"Once upon time, Ed wasn't so serious and Al was a human, body and soul." Shinobu didn't look at Winry as the girl spoke, just at the ashes in front of her. "They lived in this house with their mother, Trisha Elric. Their father, Van Hohenheim, had left them when Ed and Al were still boys. Regardless of this, Ed, Al, and their mother lived happy and content.

"Ed and Al first started using alchemy in this house. Their mother bragged to everyone about her amazing sons who learned alchemy from reading a book that their father had left behind." Winry chuckled. "Their usage of alchemy helped everyone around Resembool, made their lives easier. The Elric family…they looked so happy all the time. It was as if nothing could touch them and ruin their perfect lives, their perfect family.

"Unfortunately, life was cruel to them. When Edward and Alphonse were ten- and nine-years-old, they found their mother laying on the kitchen floor dying. It wasn't but a week after, that she died." She sniffed to hold back her emotions as she told this story. "Her death was…hard, for lack of a better word, for Ed and Al. They stayed out at her grave for nearly two days after the services. Soon enough, though, they came to live with me and Granny." Shinobu didn't ask who Granny was, knowing that she'd probably meet her soon.

"It was only a few months later that their alchemy teacher, Izumi Curtis, and her husband stopped here for a place to rest on their way back to Dublith. Like Ed, she could transmute without a circle, and this caught the boys' attention. They became her students immediately, and left for Dublith.

"They never told me and Granny, in full, what happened during their training, and when we asked, they shuddered in fear." Winry laughed at the memory. "Even so, they came back six months after they left, stronger than ever.

"Even with their extensive training, though, Ed and Al did something…stupid." Shinobu looked over at Winry now. "Shortly after their return from Dublith, they tried the one transmutation that is absolutely taboo in alchemy: human transmutation.

"I'm no alchemist, and have knowledge of alchemy, but I do know that human transmutation is a taboo, and illegal by the laws of the state.

"Anyway, it's said that with human transmutation, the dead can come back to life. Needless to say, Ed and Al tried it and failed miserably. Ed lost his left leg, and Al his entire body. In order to save Al, Ed sacrificed his right arm to bind Al's soul to the suit of armor you see today.

"After the shock, and the screaming, me and Granny forgave them, happy that they were at least alive. Only a few days after, an officer from the military came here and offered Ed a position as a State Alchemist if he would recover somehow and meet him in Central.

"Ed was fitted with an automail arm and leg a week later. It took him a year to recover, and when he did, he went for the title of State Alchemist. As you know, he got it—the title of Fullmetal Alchemist. When he got it, him and Al came back here and burned down their house. They didn't even tell us they had done that, but we knew when we saw their back heading towards the train station in the light of that fire."

Winry looked over at Shinobu. "That's…well, that's entire story."

Shinobu looked sadly back over at the ashes. "This was…Ed and Al's childhood home? And they burned it down?"

"Yes."

She shook her head. "Why would they do that? It's not right! They don't understand how important something like a simple home could be, do they? I would give anything, anything at all to remember my childhood home."

"Huh?" Winry was confused.

"I have no memories of my past. My first memory is of waking up in the royal palace in Xing many years ago. I came here to find myself, and found that many people here recognize me for the person I don't remember."

"I see…"

Shinobu looked back over at Winry and smiled. "Thank you for telling me about their past. It must've been as hard on you as it was on them."

"Eh? Well, yeah, but it's not a big deal to talk about it now. Not like it was directly afterward."

"Yeah…"

The two stood their in silence for a while, just staring at the ashes of what used to be the Elric house. They might've stayed there longer if Shinobu's stomach hadn't started violently growling.

Winry started laughing while her new friend began to blush and clutch her stomach. "You're hungry. I would bet after not eating for a while. Come on, let's go home."

Shinobu nodded and followed Winry back to the house. Already there was the smell of some kind of stew spilling from the front door. The two exchanged a look of hunger and ran towards the house to eat.

…

Sorry this wasn't a very long chapter, but this was all I had for it.