"I'm sorry dear, what was that?" Mei smiled and shook her grey head slightly at her husband.

"It's nothing, Al."

"No, what was it? My ears just aren't the same anymore."

"I said that we should probably bring a gift for Adam."

"… and… and why do we need to bring a gift for Adam?" he asked, frowning. "I guess my memory wasn't what it used to be either."

"Oh Alphonse," she said, though there was nothing but affection in her voice. "Things just aren't the same anymore." He chuckled. She sat down next to him on the couch and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"No, no they aren't," he agreed, kissing her hair. "But what is it? Why does he need a gift?"

"Mckayla's due date is in a few days."

Al blinked. "I thought that wasn't for a few more weeks."

"No, tomorrow is the 20th and her due date is the 25th, I'm sure of it."

"Oh. Well then by all means. Should we get her a uh… a toy seems to cliché. We need to get her something special. Something from us."

"Something from us… I don't think Mckayla would appreciate us giving her baby a set of alkahestry knives."

"No, probably not," Al said, chuckling. "Maybe not a textbook on how to teach young children alchemy either."

"No. Something special… useful too."

"What about a cradle? Those are always useful."

"Hmm," Mei said tapping her chin. "But how would that be personally from us?"

"I could make one myself for her," he suggested. She nodded her head in acknowledgement of his idea, but still seemed discontent with the idea.

Then she gasped slightly. "What about… what are those things that dangle above the baby's head?"

"A mobile?"

"Yes! We could give her one of those. Especially from us."

"The frame that holds it up could be an alkahestry array."

"Exactly! There could be little figures of a cat, a panda…"

"An armor head."

"An armor head! Maybe a dragon, an alkahestry knife…"

"A Flamel cross."

Mckayla gave birth on her due date, and was thankfully recovered enough that she and Adam both managed to make it to the Elric-Chang family reunion two weeks later. Emily had brought her entire family in from Ishval so that they could all be together and meet the newest addition to their family.

"Grandpa!" Omer cried out, running towards his grandfather.

"Hey!" Al said, hugging the only grandchild that had gotten his gold eyes back. "It's good to see you."

"It's good to see you too, Grandpa!"

"And Mei! You're getting so big! No more pigtials?"

"I'm almost 14 years old, Grandpa, I'm not a little girl anymore."

Al chuckled. "I can see that." He gave her a hug as well, hugged Emily and then Moshe.

"Where are Zhou and Tucker?" he asked after returning to the living room where most of the family was gathered, talking and moving around.

"Zhou said he couldn't come and Tucker's going to be late," Nina told him regretfully. "He couldn't get his boss to give him the day off, so he's just going to take his break at the end of the day so that he won't miss too much."

"He's going to miss all of the fun!"

"That's what I think!" Evelyn cried out, ever the precocious 16 year old. "Elric family-get-togethers rock!"

Al frowned at her. "… rock?"

Evelyn paused before shaking her head. "You're so old, Grandpa. They rock. They're awesome."

"… you're speaking words to me. I know you are."

"Oh, Grandpa." He grinned and ruffled her hair.

"I'd like to see you do so well if I started talking about conjunctions between alchemic representations of carbon and dichromate alloys in accordance to Durnoli's Theorem."

"Yeah, but that's complicated alchemic theory. I'm just talking."

"I'd understand you better if it were complicated alchemic theory."

She laughed and bounced off, leaving him to shake his head and greet some of his other grandchildren.

Omer made quite a commotion when he tried to show off how far he had been progressing in his alchemy lessons and accidently blew up the table. Mei (his granddaughter Mei) was then able to show off how much she had been learning by repairing the blown up table.

Omer and Evelyn got into a fight over some singer that they disagreed about. Autumn nearly gave everyone a heart attack by falling down the stairs. Tucker showed up about an hour after they started to a warm welcome. Anne proudly showed off the engagement ring on her left ring finger to anyone who would look at it.

Al had a very nice conversation with Sydney's husband James about political stability in the West while Mei told Sydney about being pregnant with Emily, which generally made Sydney rub her own bulging stomach and proclaim loudly her thanks that she did not have that situation.

The best part of the entire night was easily the moment when Al got to hold his first great-grand child.

The little bundle of flesh was placed in his arms after dinner. The baby has spent the entire evening so far being passed around between Mei, April, and the female cousins, and very occasionally the mother. It was only after insisting that great-grandpa got the chance to hold Margaret Mei Elric.

She didn't have any hair yet, and her eyes were still blue, but they were already darkening. She would have her father and grandfather's eyes. At least the color. She didn't have Liwu's shape of eyes. He actually didn't recognize the shape so they must have come from somewhere in Mckayla's family tree. The sweetness in there though, in innocent and calmness…

Al was glad that he had never gotten around to getting rid of the old cradle now. He hadn't wanted to and held on to the hope that they might one day use it. He had vaguely thought that they might adopt a child sometime in the future, so they might be able to use it one day. It turned out that that day would come far sooner than they had thought.

Mei stood with the child in her arms as he quickly set it up and moved it to their room. The boy didn't seem to want to fall asleep though, and they both stayed up with him.

"I'll take him," Al eventually volunteered when he caught Mei's eyes drooping.

"No, Al, I'm fine," she said blinking hard and sitting up straighter. "You don't have to give up your sleep…"

"No, it's fine. I'm used to staying up through the night. And I'll have pretty good company."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure Mei. Go to sleep."

"… Okay. But wake me up if he starts crying or you don't know what to do."

"I will. Go to sleep."

She eventually did and Al was left one of two awake human beings in the house.

"You're a miracle you know. A complete miracle. You're a human being, created by human beings. There's no alchemy or science that can create something as perfect as you. You're completely unique and you work exactly the way you're supposed to. And you're more than just a machine, you have a soul. You can think. Even right now your brain is trying to figure out what these funny noises coming out of my mouth mean.

"It's amazing."

The boy stared back up at Al with completely calm dark eyes. Then the little boy let out a little hiccup. Al smiled before rocking the boy back and forth. Twenty or so minutes later, Al was the only person left awake in the house.

Oh it would be hard to give this little boy up when they found his family. It had only been a day — a couple of hours! — and he was already half in love with the child.

"Hi, Margaret," he whispered, waving a finger in front of her face that she watched carefully before trying to grab onto it with her tiny hands. So tiny they didn't seem possible. "You're a miracle you know. A complete miracle."

"Hey, Dad." Al looked up and grinned at the sight of the man walking towards him.

"Hey, Grandpa." Liwu winced.

"Don't call me that, it makes me feel old."

"You'd better get used to it, Son. You only ever get older." Something that Al knew by now very, very well. He couldn't hear, he couldn't remember most anything, he, for the third time in his life, had to rely on an infernal cane to help him move around the house, and reading even with glasses had become a near impossibility.

"Something I'm quickly learning. I don't know where time went. Adam was just born two years ago, he's not old enough to be a father!" Al laid a hand on his son's shoulder.

"How do you think I felt when I first became a grandfather? I was ecstatic, of course. My little girl was a mother. I was a grandfather. It was an exciting proposition, the whole future ahead of her. A new life being born. But at the same time I knew that I was moving on from something. She wouldn't be my baby girl anymore. She was someone's mother."

Liwu took a deep breath, then smiled at his father. "Thanks, Dad. I'm really glad that you're here, that you get to meet her."

Al smiled down at the little girl that was still in his arms. She hadn't made any noise while they were talking, content to instead gurgle and stare at his face. He wished he could remember what it was like to be that young and still trying to make sense of all of the different features of a human face.

"So am I, Liwu. So am I."

Eventually, mothers had to reclaim their babies and Al had to hand his great-granddaughter back to Mckayla.

"She's really so well behaved," he told her, smiling.

"Thanks, Grandpa." He had insisted that all of his grandchildren's spouses (of which there were two and one soon-to-be) call him grandpa. It didn't seem right any other way.

"She reminds me of Liwu when he was a baby. He was just the quietest, happiest thing. I was in for a rude awakening when we had Emily and realized that Liwu was an exception, not a rule."

"I was not that bad!" Emily protested from where she was drawing an diagram of one of the new arrays she had just discovered for her mother. "Just because Liwu was perfect—"

"Sweetheart, you practically took it as an offence that you were brought into the world early and decided to take it out on your poor parents," Mei said, smiling herself now.

"Hey!"

"I'm perfectly sure I was an angel as a baby," Nina commented.

"You were probably a devil," Zhou remarked in response. "My parents said that I was a perfectly calm baby, but all of our children have been nightmares to deal with, so they must have gotten it from you."

"Dad!" three voices protested all at once (Ling was playing Frisbee with his cousin Mei in the backyard and Zhou hadn't managed to get time off of work to come).

"I was not that bad!" Tucker claimed. "Mom said that I practically did nothing but sleep!"

"Most babies do practically nothing but sleep," Emily informed her nephew.

"Or cry. Or eat. Or throw up. Or scream. Or—"

"Yes, Moshe, I think that's enough helpful comments for today." The Ishvalan grinned at his wife, but relaxed back into the couch.

"But I wasn't that bad," Tucker repeated dogmatically.

Zhou chuckled. "No, Tucker, you weren't that bad. You were probably one of our best. I think Zhou was actually the hardest baby. But he was also a really easy teenager. You… not so much."

"That's not fair!"

"At least you haven't had the same problems with him as we had with Liwu," Mei said calmly from where she was still pouring over the array Emily had drawn for him. "We were positive that we would never get any grandchildren from him."

"Oh we have no worries about that from Tucker." The boy who had been earlier protesting his innocence as an infant turned red and mumbled something about it not being his fault if he liked meeting new people.

"He's introduced us to more girlfriends than we can count, and none of them have stayed around for longer than four months. I don't know what's wrong with this generation. I had… four before I finally started dating Zhou."

"I hadn't had any before I started dating your father," Mei said, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, yeah, Mom, but you had been in love with Dad since you were twelve."

"I was eleven, actually when I first got a crush on him."

"Were you really, Grandma?" Abigail asked, eyebrows high.

"I was. Remember, I was raised back when Xing had fourty three possible direct heirs to the throne. As the Princess from the Chang clan I had no hope of actually getting picked by the Emperor to succeed him, so I traveled to Amestris where I met your father. I was at the time in love with his brother, but Ed was horribly nasty to me. When I realized how kind Al was, I fell in love with him. And it never went away the entire time I knew him, so I never bothered trying to find anyone else."

"Thought plenty of other people tried to find you," Al said, chuckling. All the grandchildren in the room stared at him with raised eyebrows and inquisitive expressions. Even Nina and Emily looked surprised at the comment.

"I don't think I know this story, Dad."

"You don't?" He raised an eyebrow himself. "Your mother and I had in a relationship for a few months. It was quite the attention grabber, for some reason. The Princess, third in line for the Throne of Xing is suddenly in a relationship with an Amestrian? People seemed to think it was interesting." Mei smiled and rolled her eyes. "But it seemed like all of a sudden all the rest of men in Xing realized that she was taken and they could kiss their chances at getting close to the Emperor through her goodbye. So practically overnight, Mei became the most eligible woman in all of Xing… despite the fact that she was dating me."

"I tried to keep him from finding out, but someone told him and I had to explain the entire thing to him."

"It was that that finally convinced me to propose to her," AL confessed to the children and grandchildren. "I knew that there was only one way to keep them off her for good and that was to make sure everyone knew that she was mine."

"I didn't know that," Emily said softly.

"And you proposed to her in the middle of the Elric Treaty signing, right Grandpa?"

"I most certainly did, Anne. Uncle Ling made the mistake of asking me to say a few words and I used them to point out a particular spot in the treaty I had written and propose. She said yes of course."

"That's so romantic, Grandpa!"

"Wasn't it?" Mei said, smiling at him from across the room. "Grandpa is actually quite romantic."

"Really?"

"You've heard about the Mei Flower Array right?"

"Yeah. We learned about it in school. The first practical mix of alkahestry and alchemy."

"Your grandfather created it for our three month anniversary, completely unconcerned with the fact that he had just made history and a major breakthrough in alchemic research. He only cared about growing me a flower that I had been disappointed we had never been able to make grow before."

"Awww, Grandpa! I want to marry someone that sweet!" Evelyn claimed.

"Why aren't you as sweet as your grandpa?" Mckayla asked Adam, who was finally being allowed to hold his own daughter.

"I thought you thought the way I proposed to you was fully satisfactory!"

She smiled and leaned against him. Al grinned at the sight of all of them.

"I love you all, you know that, right?"

Everyone stopped and stared at him. He made eye contact with as many of them as he could. His three wonderful children that he had been so blessed with, ten terrific grandchildren (though three were currently not present), two grandchildren-in-law, one great grandchild. And of course, his heart seemed to fill with warmth when he looked at her, one amazing wife.

"We all love you too, Grandpa," Autumn responded easily. Everyone chimed in with choruses of agreement. Mei held his gaze however, and her smile matched his. Someone else made a comment that sparked conversation, and Al just sat there staring into the eyes of the most amazing person on the planet. Her eyes never left his and Al knew that even though he had been staring into those eyes for 62 years now, ever since the moment when she had developed that crush they had been discussing earlier, he didn't think he would ever tire of seeing them.

"I love you too," she mouthed, those same eyes getting watery.

"Yes," he mouthed back. "But I love you more than you can ever know."

This chapter was a lot of fun to write :D

IT'S FINALLY HERE GUYS. ALMEI WEEK! Today's prompt is 'Scars', and the rest of the week's prompts can be found on last week's chapter. I haven't written my submission yet (this took priority) but I've already read and reviewed one person's submission for it, I'm happy to read anyone else's (as long as it doesn't go above a T rating)! That's the point of this week after all, to ENJOY THE AMAZING FLUFFY AWESOMENESS THAT IS ALMEI!

Also...

There's only one chapter left.

Guys. I am seriously not ready for this. I'm like in shock. I can't even wrap my head around the idea. I've spent literally two and a half years of my life on this story. There have just been so many people who have helped me along on this journey there is no way that I could possibly thank you all enough...

Next week I am spending all of Saturday (minus the time I spend working on the prompt Siblings for AlMei week) rereading all 124 chapters. Then I will write the final chapter on Sunday. Then I will cry.