Sorry sorry sorry about it being late, I got one of the last pieces that I needed for my best friend's birthday present (her birthday is on Friday and I still need to actually get it printed and cut and sent off) and I spent a lot of time working on that and then I had to go to my Grandma's for Easter and she really doesn't like it when people bring their computers/technology instead of spending time, so I didn't work on it there... but I did get it up this week! I've got to get credit for that, right? Because of that though it's not nearly as long as the past couple of chapters have been. Sorry.

"Everyone gather around," Al said, grinning as he gathered his small family together. Well, his small family plus his daughter's best friend Zhou who's family refused to celebrate the Amestrian New Year prompting him to celebrate it with the Elrics, plus Gracia, Chris, Chris's girlfriend Victoria, and his nephew Benjamin, who was in Central during the New Year trying to find a job in Central.

Even though the boy had followed in his father's footsteps in pursuing alchemy, he hadn't quite been able to shake the hours spent in his mother's workshop watching her craft new lives for other people. So after working for his mother for a few years, he was now looking for a job in Central alchemically creating new alloys that could be patented and used for automail. Al had been happy to take the 25 year old in while he was job searching, which saved Benny the cost of renting a place.

"I would like to say, before the New Year, that I'm so glad that all of you could be here. Mrs. Hughes, you will always be welcome in our home."

"And you in mine." He smiled at her.

"As will you Chris, and as long as you don't break his heart, Victoria, you will be welcome too." Chris chuckled before putting his arm around his girlfriend's waist. "I don't think I could get rid of you if I tried, Zhou," Zhou blushed, but Nina just laughed and Liwu punched him lightly on the arm, "and it's been a pleasure to have you stay with us the past few weeks, Benny."

"Thanks, Uncle Al."

"I wish the best 1944 to all of you. May it be the best year yet."

Everyone cheered in agreement.

"I think we have about a minute left until midnight."

They all dispersed, though none of them went far.

"Alphonse." Al turned around and ducked around his son and daughter to reach his wife.

"Yes, Mei?"

"I just wanted to make sure that we were next to each other when the New Year came. We have to make our wishes together, after all."

Al grinned. Ever since that moment when they were teenagers when Mei had dragged him through the streets of Xing to see the New Year's fireworks and they told each other of their goals for the year, it had become a tradition between them to tell the other what their desires for the new year were. Amestrian New Year or Xingese, whichever they had more access too.

"I can't think of a better way to spend the beginning of the New Year."

"Good." Al moved so that he could hug her from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder.

"Are you sure we should have let Emily say up this late?" Mei asked as they both looked out at the crowd. The nine year old was chatted animatedly about her alchemy studies to a Gracia that was smiling and nodding, even though Al was fairly sure she didn't know any of the words coming out of his daughter's mouth.

Al chuckled. "Do you think we could have kept her asleep and in her room?"

"No, probably not."

"Exactly. She was going to be up anyways, it's better to keep her up and in a place where we can keep an eye on her rather than have her unsupervised in her room. She might have tried to transmute her own fireworks and set the house on fire."

"Oh, I supposed you're right."

"Of course I'm right, my dear."

"I thought the wife was always supposed to be right."

"Can you honestly say we have a typical relationship?"

It was Mei's turn to chuckle. "No, not really. Not many people met fighting for their lives. Even fewer traveled to distant lands to find their love."

"Yes, forget about alchemy or any other friends in Xing. I came because I was desperately in love with a beautiful Princess and I wanted to sweep her off her feet onto my white horse and ride off into the sunset."

"Exactly."

Al grinned before kissing the side of Mei's head. "And if I'm not mistaken," he raised his voice, "we have about 15 seconds left till midnight. So, Chris if you would mind giving us a countdown."

Chris nodded and pulled his pocket watch out of his pocket. Well, his father's old pocket watch.

"Twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six."

The rest of the room chimed in on counting down the rest of the number.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Everyone in the room cheered and Al caught sight of Chris sneaking a kiss with his girlfriend that made him grin. Especially when he nudged Benny and pointed it out. The two were close enough in age that they had more or less grown up at the same rate. And even though they hadn't exactly grown up next door they had interacted enough that they were almost like distant cousins. He was going to watch what happened, but found something tugging on the front of his shirt and he was suddenly yanked down a little less than a foot to meet his own wife's lips.

He grinned, place his hands on her hips while hers found their way into his hair.

"Mom! Dad!"

They pulled apart and Al grinned at his daughter's mortified face. "What's wrong Em?"

"Stop kissing! It's gross!"

"It's a sign that we still love each other. You should be glad that we still love each other after all the time I've wanted to kill him," Mei said, keeping her arms around his neck.

"Yeah, but it's gross!"

Al's grin widened before touching his lips to his wife's again.

"Dad!"

"I just love you so much, Mei."

"Mhmm." She murmured kissing him back.

"MOM!"

"… that's weird, Uncle Al." Chris commented, still slightly pink from Ben's ribbing.

"Says the boy that was just kissing his own girl. Just because I'm old I can't kiss my girl?"

"I think it's sweet," Gracia commented, and Victoria echoed the sentiment, which made Chris stutter and try to take back what he had said.

"You get used to it with my parents," Benny said, prompting his cousins to laugh and Emily to grimace again.

The gathering finally ended around 1:00, by which time everyone was exhausted. The children plus Benny all went to bed while everyone else bundled up and left for their own destinations. Al and Mei even skipped their usual nightly routines in favor of passing out as soon as they hit the mattress.

The next morning dawned clear and crisp, and everyone woke up late.

Because there was no school for these few weeks and Al didn't have work that day, he prepared a special breakfast for the family, which all of them thanked him for as they woke up at their own times and filed downstairs.

Mei came first, already mostly ready for the day followed by Liwu ruffling his now short hair and yawning widely, Emily already awake and dressed with her hair in twin braids bouncing down the stairs, and then Benny with his blond hair falling around his shoulders and antenna sticking up stubbornly. For a moment Al almost seriously thought that it was his bother as a teenager walked down the stairs.

Nina was the last, and perhaps the least in terms of being awake. Her hair was a frizzy mess because she hadn't taken it out of the braids she had been wearing it in the night before and she was still dressed in one of Al's t-shirts and Xingese styled pants.

"Good morning, sleepy," Emily chirped when the zombie finally arose from the dead. Nina raised an eyebrow before ruffling Em's hair.

"Oh go back to bed, you humming bird."

Emily didn't, just grinned and bounced off to talk to Benny about alchemy. She had loved having her older cousin over the past few weeks.

"What time is it?" she asked as Al handed her her plate of breakfast.

"It's almost 11."

"Wow I slept late. Sorry."

"I'm not the one that's sorry. You're the one that's breakfast went cold."

She snorted slightly. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Al left his daughter to eat her eggs in peace and joined in on a conversation that Mei and Liwu were having. Then the phone rang. He moved to go get it but Nina was already up and moving towards it.

"Hello? Yes this is Nina."

Al glanced away from her, continuing the conversation… before hearing the phone drop.

He turned around sharply to see Nina standing there, the phone dangling from its chord. Her mouth was open before quickly being covered by a hand. By that time all conversation in the room had died as everyone stared at her.

"Nina?" Emily was the only one brave enough to ask. Nina just shook her head, repeatedly.

"Sweetheart," Al prompted, moving forward. "What…"

"Katie," she sobbed, tears starting to fall from her eyes. Al frowned, as a dark feeling fell over him. Katie was Nina's best friend. The only person that had a chance of being considered a closer friend was Zhou.

"What?"

"Katie was driving home from the New Year's Party she was at last night and, and… someone else on the roads was drinking… they hit her… she's… she's… dead."

Al went to the funeral with his daughter. He hadn't known the girl particularly well, nor her parents, but he couldn't let his little girl go alone. She had been so heartbroken the past few days. He had done his best to comfort her, after all he had had his fair share of deaths in his life, but she seemed inconsolable.

The funeral was very well attended. It seemed that Katie was the same sort of girl that Nina was, friendly to everyone even if you didn't want to be her friend. It seemed like everyone in the school knew her, and most of them showed up to give their respects to the girl that was kind to so many of them.

Al stood almost at a distance the entire time. Nina embraced friends and friends embraced her when they saw her. Upon reaching Katie's mother, she pulled Nina into a hug that looked near bone crushing. That was perhaps the moment that brought Al the closest to tears. The grief in the parents' face. Their little girl had been taken from them in an instant. Who's to say that couldn't happen to Nina next? To Liwu or Emily or Mei? The thought filled Al's veins with terror.

He wasn't sure what prompted him to go and speak to the parents, but he did and offered them his deepest condolences. When they learned that he was Nina's father they thanked him deeply for raising such a wonderful girl to be their daughter's friend. Al waved away their credit.

"Nina's one of the rare souls in this world that's just naturally kind to every soul she meets. Well, except someone who tried to mess with her family. I'm just incredibly lucky to have her in my life." He glanced over to where Nina was currently tucked in Zhou's arms. The Xingese boy had been the only thing that had managed to comfort her at all the past few days.

"Well we can't thank you enough for bringing her into our Katie's life. She was a wonderful friend and I know she meant the world to her."

"I'm so sorry for your loss." The mother sniffed and smiled slightly.

"Seeing all of these people here to honor her though… it almost makes it better. It means our daughter changed every person who came today's life in a way that will make them remember her forever. And that's all we ever could have hoped for our daughter."

"Nina?"

Al was surprised. He had searched the crowds searching for his daughter after speaking to the parents to see if she was ready to go home or not. Not that he was anxious to leave, he just wanted to be there when she was ready to.

He hadn't been able to find her anywhere though. A whole half an hour after speaking to Katie's parents, he finally found someone who told him that he thought he had seen her walking among the other tombstones.

It took another ten or twenty minutes before he finally found her standing in front of a tombstone he didn't even knew she knew existed.

Nina Tucker

1910-1914

"Nina… what are you doing here?"

She didn't answer for a few seconds. He debated reaching out and pulling her into a hug, but his hand didn't seem to want to move.

"I come here twice a year."

"What?"

"Here. To visit her grave. One on my birthday and once on her's."

"… why?"

"I've never forgotten. Do you remember when you first told me about her when I was a little girl."

"Yes."

Nina still hadn't looked at him, just kept staring at the tombstone. "She was the same age I was. It terrified me. I didn't understand how something so horrible like that could happen to someone who was just like me."

"Nina—"

"And then you promised me that it wouldn't happen to me."

"What?"

"You promised me that you would never let anything like that happen to me. You promised to protect me. And Elrics always keep their promises, right?"

"Right. And I've never broken it."

"I know, Dad. And I'll never forget it. But I come here twice a year to remind myself of that promise. That no matter what happens, you'll never let anything bad happen to me. Except… Dad, what if it was something like this? What if it was just a sudden car crash?"

"That's the reason your mother learned alkahestry, you know. She witnessed a man nearly slice off his foot in the rice paddies and couldn't stand being helpless. So she demanded to learn something that would allow her to help people. I can't tell you how many times that moment has saved my life."

"I know… which is why I want to be able to do something like that too."

"Sweetheart?"

She looked at him for the first time, squaring her shoulders. "I want to be a nurse."

"Really?"

She lifted her chin as well. "I do. I want to be able to help people too. Maybe if she had managed to get treatment sooner or if someone was there that could have helped her… she wouldn't have died… That's the right thing to do isn't it?"

Al smiled before giving into the urge he had been repressing for the past few hours, pulling Nina against his chest in a tight hug. She wrapped her arms around him as well and he kissed the top of her blond head.

"Of course it is. And I couldn't be prouder of you."

She pressed herself tighter against his chest and Al reaffirmed his grip.

"I won't ever let anything happen to you. I won't."

"You might not be able to do anything to stop it from happening."

"No, but that won't stop me from trying. You're my little girl, there's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

"Okay, Dad," she whispered, before pulling away from his chest a little. "So does that mean you'll pay for me to drop out of school and get a tattoo?"

"Ha. No."

"What happened to Elrics keeping their promises?"

"Well, technically I'm a Chang."