A/N: Heh. This one came pretty fast, considering. I hope you like it! I took a few liberties, but I think that's alright. Nothing I haven't been doing already.

Thank you to LDK, Dark Cat Food Lover, Breyannia, liliDreamer89, lizzylue skadoo, Odette12, shadow of eyes, and Guest for reviewing.

Title: Foundations

Author: liketolaugh

Rating: T

Pairings: None

Genre: Angst/Adventure

Warnings: AU

Summary: If Edward was one thing, he was fire. But if he wasn't careful, he was going to burn himself out. Or, Edward Elric is a mutant, Mustang disapproves of him almost burning down the office, and the Xavier Institute is wary of military operatives no matter how old they are.

Disclaimer: If I owned Fullmetal Alchemist or the X-Men, would I really be here right now?

"From the top," Ed told her, gold eyes sharp and intent on Kitty.

Kitty bit her lip, concentrating. "Ah, hydrogen…" Then , under her breath, "Hydrogen before HeLium…" Her eyes brightened slightly. "Helium, lithium. Ym… beryllium be boron… So beryllium and boron. And next, um…" She faltered.

Ed waited a minute before prompting, "Carbon."

She perked up. "Right! Beware CarboN. Carbon and then nitrogen."

Ed frowned, giving her a deeply confused look, head tilted slightly. "What's with that, anyway?"

"With what?" she asked, momentarily distracted.

"Those things you keep saying. Hydrogen before helium, beryllium be boron, beware carbon." He scratched the back of his head, shrugging. "I don't know, they just don't make a lot of sense."

"Oh." She smiled sheepishly. "They're nothing, really. Just little things to help me remember."

"To help you remember, huh?" he mused thoughtfully, moving his hand from the back of his head to rest his head on it.

Ed hadn't thought about that. He and Al had done something similar, he recalled, when they were first learning the Periodic Table – talking and joking about the elements as they memorized it. They hadn't even thought about it, but that had probably helped them remember, attaching memories like that.

They'd long since dropped the tricks, of course; Ed could, and did, recite the table in his sleep. But it hadn't always been that way.

He called up a memory, faint as a phantom lamp, and smiled. "Alright, I can work with that." He pointed at the table he was using as a visual aid. "Nitrogen and oxygen make laughing gas, and no one wants that." He glanced at her expectantly and was not disappointed; she laughed, realized what just happened, and laughed harder. He grinned at her.

Three days later found Kitty with the entire table memorized, with only the exception of those elements that had ridiculously short half-lives, which Ed assured her she wouldn't need unless she was setting up a chain reaction with some 'damned complicated alchemy'. Her relief had been akin to that of a freezing wanderer finding shelter (and Ed would know).

Still, she was slow to recall, and Ed wanted her to know it off the top of her head before he started in on real alchemy.

Kitty was quickly gaining confidence, though, uncertainty all but gone as Ed proved to her again and again that yes, she really did have the entire table memorized, something she had been sure, in the beginning, that she wouldn't be able to do.

For once, even Kitty had been too absorbed in their work to notice the passage of time, and it was Ed who noticed that it was long past the time by which he usually went, with dinner more than half over.

He stared at the clock for a moment, contemplating what to do, and then finally said, "Well. Damn."

Kitty started, pulled out of her focus, and followed his gaze to the clock. Her eyes widened.

"Oh," was all she said.

Then she jumped up and scrambled to gather up the books and put them away. Ed ignored her, shrugging and stretching lightly, automail creaking lightly in his ear as his joints resisted the motion.

He'd run out of oil annoyingly quickly, and had now been without for a few days. He wouldn't have minded, but damn, the squeaking.

He stood up and grabbed the last book, putting it away just as Kitty returned.

He looked at Kitty, smirked at her alarm, and prompted, "Atomic mass of oxygen."

She paused, frowned, and then smiled and said, "Fifteen point nine nine nine four."

He grinned, nodded, and moved right along toward the cafeteria, prompting her for masses, electronegativities, and atomic numbers at random.

When she got around to alchemy, she wasn't going to make a single mistake, Ed would make sure of it.

He kept quizzing her through getting their dinners and didn't even notice that there were people already present at their always-empty table. Kitty, one step behind, wasn't quite as oblivious – but almost.

Ed started as a flurry of motion signaled the other, previously unnoticed occupants of the table getting up and leaving. He stared after them, slightly startled, gold eyes wide and mouth open.

"Hey, free table."

A tray dropped beside Ed, making him jump, and a heavy body followed moments later. He looked over to find John smirked in amusement, tracking the retreating forms with a hot starlight gleam in his eyes.

"Assholes," Bobby muttered, sitting across from John and rolling his eyes.

"Ed?" prompted Kitty, glancing at them herself, then back to Ed expectantly with an intent smile.

Ed blinked, looking back at her. "Right…" He shook his head focusing. "Uh, electronegativity of krypton."

She bit her lip, then said confidently, "Three."

He smiled and nodded, opening his mouth to continue on, but was interrupted as Bobby cut across him, making him look over with a light scowl.

"What the hell are you doing that for?"

Kitty smiled, slightly embarrassed, and Ed shrugged, fingers tapping the table.

"Kitty asked me to teach her alchemy," he explained, smiling, bright and matter-of-fact like the evening light. "Step one's making sure she knows her chemistry."

Bobby frowned thoughtfully, calling to mind the casual ease and blue light Ed had used to make figures out of the table, and asked suddenly, "Can you teach me, too?"

Ed looked startled. "Uh, sure." He smiled a little. "Yeah."

"I want in," John announced, remembering some of the stories Ed had told them, few and far between but surprisingly interesting and often pretty hard to believe, even for them. "Like hell you're learning alchemy without me." He flicked his lighter, wondering if he could convince Ed to teach him the flame alchemy he'd mentioned his commanding officer using.

Ed's smile widened. "Alright."

Ed looked up at the clock on impulse, and his eyes widened. "Shit."

John, glaring at his copy of the Table, glanced up at him, still scowling. "What?" he demanded, annoyed.

They'd moved to the library not long after Bobby and John had asked to be included, Ed citing the need for the books he'd been using with Kitty (which he'd pulled off at random and discarded or used at will). Ed had declared Kitty done memorizing the table and set her to learning molecules instead, drawing diagrams from memory and labelling them with careful precision.

She was doing that now, muttering to herself, brow furrowed, fingers tracing the structures lightly. She'd been disappointed that she couldn't learn real alchemy yet, but she'd been satisfied when he promised to start telling her about basic alchemy principles next week.

Meanwhile, Bobby had taken to the Table surprisingly well, but John was getting frustrated. Halfway through, he'd demanded to know why they had to know this. Ed had scowled at him, and then sketched out a part of the basic information for the premise of flame alchemy.

John had been very interested. Ed didn't know why he was surprised. Since then, he'd been more intent, but no less irritable.

"It's getting late," Ed explained, hastily moving to gather up the books that had been cast aside once they were finished with them. "I'm gonna be late calling Al, shit…"

"Huh? But you don't call him 'til…" John looked up at the clock. "Shit."

"Yeah," Ed agreed as Bobby and Kitty, too, looked up and jolted into motion. "C'mon, let's get this stuff put away…"

Between them, the four of them managed to put all the books back in less than a minute, and then they were parting ways, Kitty with the diagrams tucked under her arm.

The moment they were back, Ed made a beeline for the phone, and Al picked up almost instantly.

"Brother?" Al asked, sounding relieved. Ed felt guilty instantly.

"Yeah, Al. Sorry for making you worry, I just got caught up… you remember I'm teaching Kitty alchemy?"

"Yeah," Al affirmed, sounding pleased as he always did when the subject was brought up. Ed couldn't fathom why. "Was that what you were doing?"

"Kinda." Ed grinned a little and leaned back, relaxing now. John rolled his eyes at him and went ahead and changed. "You remember Bobby and John, right?" He didn't wait for an answer. "They asked to learn, too, so I'm helping them out now."

"That's great, brother," Al said, even more pleased. "Are you enjoying it?"

Ed considered. Was he? He'd initially agreed to teach Kitty because she'd really wanted to learn, and she was one of the few friends he had in this place… but…

Ed knew his stuff. He knew it really well, could call up an array in the blink of an eye and the math in half that time, but explaining it had never been his thing – even Mustang sometimes got left behind. Doing it this way, from the ground up, it straightened things out for him, too, changing talent and gut instinct into something a lot more ordered.

And he kind of liked it.

It wasn't just that, though; Kitty was smart, he'd seen that from the beginning. Not alchemist-smart, not the way he or Al or Mustang or Armstrong were. But not stupid, like she seemed to think. And he'd liked leading her to that realization, helping her get just the table of elements memorized.

He'd seen what people could do, put under pressure, whether by force or by persuasion – things far beyond what they ever thought they were capable of. It was one of the many things he'd looked at, things he'd seen and marvelled at, wondering how he and Al had ever, ever, thought that they could create something so amazing.

"Yeah," Ed said thoughtfully, surprised at himself. "I do, actually."

Huh.

A week later, Ed took back every nice thought he'd had about teaching. All three of his friends were getting restless and impatient, and it was getting harder to keep them focused on the simple molecular structures and mathematical equations that they needed to know before he gave them so much as a hint toward transmutation circles. The demonstrations he gave more and more often, reminders of what they were working toward, were starting to be little better than buckets of water on a housefire.

Some of Ed's irritation, he admitted to himself, was nothing to do with them at all. He still hadn't gotten a chance to get his hands on any oil, and now it was starting to affect his movement, with small joints catching briefly and large ones grinding painfully every so often. He thought Bobby, at least, had noticed, too; he kept giving him odd looks.

With all three of them now on the same level, Ed spent his time switching between them, explaining harder concepts or adding something as needed. They were almost done; just a little farther…

"Are you sure we need to know this?" Bobby asked for the umpteenth time, rubbing his forehead as he glanced up from the paper Ed had given him.

Ed resisted the urge to imitate the movement and nodded, leaning forward, right arm laid across the table, to point with his left. "Yeah. See this equation? Applied to the right circle, it can freeze the ground solid." Which was why he'd given it to Bobby; in reality, he'd been pouring every random equation that popped into his mind into the sheets, but apparently he'd subconsciously tuned them to his friends' strengths.

Which was for the best, really. Bobby's eyes sharpened with reluctant interest and he nodded, going back to work.

Which was more than he could say for John. Ed sighed and made to straighten up, only to freeze as he realized that his elbow had barely twitched, locked into place.

As casually as he could, Ed sat back down, shoulder grinding slightly as it moved, elbow staying locked at a right angle as he let it sit comfortably in front of him. He leaned to the left and looked at John's sheet. Oh, he was done, smirking triumphantly like he'd won a great battle. Ed smiled.

"Great. That's about it, then, John." He glanced up at Kitty, who was fidgeting impatiently. "I know it's hard to wait, alright?" He grinned a little. "You should've seen Al every time he got a concept before I did. You'd think he'd swallowed half a pound of sugar."

Kitty laughed a little and relaxed, looking back down to her finished work.

That had been the hardest part, getting them to do the math sheets. John had complained loudly that they did enough of that in math class, but Ed had insisted, and then done the same sheets himself, right alongside them, making two copies of each paper just for that. It hadn't settled them, but it had gotten them to do it, which was enough for an exasperated Ed.

Ed wriggled his elbow discreetly and felt his elbow loosen up, relaxing as he withdrew it quickly, tucking it under the table as if to hide its dysfunction.

Which he wasn't. Obviously.

Soon enough, Bobby was finished, too, and the three of them stood up to go to lunch, with Ed promising to start explaining the principles of alchemy as soon as they returned (and internally thanking God it was a weekend).

It didn't quite happen that way, though; on the way back to the library, Ed's left leg jerked to an abrupt halt as the knee locked into place, as he yelped as he was sent tumbling forward.

His three friends stopped almost instantly, John giving him an odd frown and Kitty letting out a soft yelp of her own. Bobby made a false start forward, frowning, too.

Ed scowled up at them from the ground, hard, and reached back to knock at his knee harshly, loosening it back up. "I'm fine," he snapped irritably, pushing himself back up, gritting his teeth against the harsh grind of his knee. This was instantly countered as the knee froze again, together with his shoulder, and he snarled silently and hit them both, climbing up at last and stumbling slightly.

Bobby gave him a flat look, thoroughly distracted now. "Yeah, okay." He grabbed Ed by the elbow (the left one, thankfully) and pulled him forward. "Alchemy can wait-" Maybe not so distracted, then. "-you're going to see Hank."

"Dammit." Ed pulled out of Bobby's grip, scowling at him defensively. "I told you, I'm fine!"

"If by 'fine' you mean 'falling all over the place'," John said unhelpfully, smirking when Ed glared at him.

"If you don't go to Hank, I'll take Hank to you," Bobby threatened, arms crossed.

Ed scowled at him, one fist clenching and unclenching convulsively, shifting from foot to foot. "He won't be able to do a thing," he snapped, left hand going to rub his automail elbow.

"We'll see about that," Bobby snorted, disbelieving. "C'mon, it's not like he's going to hurt you."

Ed held his glare a moment longer, but finally bit out a, "Fine."

Bobby smirked triumphantly and Ed valiantly ignored John laughing at him as Bobby led him down the halls, presumably to the infirmary. Or something.

Ed hated his life.

Hank, as it turned out, was blue. Very, very blue. And also furry. And strangely sophisticated for all that.

Ed was startled out of his anger and simply stared at him, blinking in surprise. Hank smiled a vaguely dangerous-looking smile and held out his hand.

"Dr. Hank McCoy," he introduced formally. Ed reached out and shook it without thinking, withdrawing his hand quickly when Hank glanced down with a frown and a furrowed brow. "I've been intending to speak to you for some time, Edward, though I didn't expect it to be under such circumstances. What seems to be the problem?"

Ed wasn't particularly inclined to speak, so Bobby provided, giving Ed an exasperated look, "He fell down earlier and had a lot of trouble getting up," he explained to Hank. "And I think he's been having trouble moving for a while now."

"I'm fine," was all Ed said, weak and sulky even to his own ears.

Glancing up, he found Hank's face void of the look that usually decorated doctors' faces when they realized that he was one of 'those patients', replaced instead with a weary smile. "Well, we'll see," Hank said crisply. "Sit down on the table, please. I assure you, if you really are fine, this will only take a moment."

Grudgingly, Ed sat down on the checkup table, grumbling to himself. Hank smiled in slight amusement and John, Bobby, and Kitty all sat down in various chairs, Bobby giving him a suspicious look.

"May I see your leg?" Hank requested politely, bending down to look a little closer.

Ed scowled at him and pulled his leg up to himself, one arm protectively around it. "No."

Hank sighed. "Please, Edward, this will go far more pleasantly if I am allowed to examine you. If something is ailing you or causing you pain, I would very much like to be permitted to fix it."

"You can't fix it," Ed snapped, growling slightly.

Hank's gaze flickered upward and Ed belatedly realized that he had as good as admitted that something was wrong, but thankfully, Hank didn't comment, simply looking back down.

"Are we gonna be here all day?" John called out lazily, flicking his lighter.

"No one's forcing you to be here," Bobby sniped back, frowning at him. Kitty sighed.

"Don't fight," she insisted halfheartedly, eyes worried and on Ed.

"I'm not your enemy, Edward," Hank said patiently, giving Ed a kind smile. Ed started. "It's okay to seek help when you need it."

Ed stared at him for a long moment, head tilted slightly, gold eyes on Hank. Then Hank smiled as Ed reached down and started to roll up his black leather pant leg.

Within moments, the steel gleam of his automail became visible, and Hank's smile disappeared like candlelight in harsh wind. Kitty gasped, John hissed, and Bobby's eyes widened. Ed didn't look up, rolling up his pant leg with unnecessary focus.

Finally, he reached the point where the automail ended and left the surgery scars covered, numbly recalling that his friends were still here. He'd have asked them to leave, if he'd thought they would, but he'd known them two weeks and he already knew that there was no chance of that. And considering he slept in the same room as one of them, maybe it was for the best.

He let his hands fall back to the table but still didn't look up, gold eyes hovering on his automail knee.

"It's called automail," he offered to the silence. "A high-tech prosthetic limb." He looked up with a weak smile, failing thoroughly to hide his discomfort. "I ran out of oil, is all. The joints are starting to lock up – that's what happened earlier. My knee caught and it took a moment to get it moving again."

Another moment of silence passed, and Ed nearly squirmed, fever heat warming his skin slightly as they stared at him.

Then Hank broke it, yellow eyes blinking and focusing back down. "May I examine it?" he asked.

"Alright," Ed said quietly, not looking at his friends even as the sound of John's flicking lighter filled the room, fast and aggravated. Then, figuring it would be best to get it over with, he pulled his right glove off his hand, shed his red coat, and then reached up to pull his jacket off, revealing the automail arm as well. John hissed again and Bobby bit out something Ed couldn't quite make out, but was pretty sure was a vicious curse.

Hank didn't visibly react, though Ed thought his eyes dimmed slightly, and instead picked up the automail hand and manipulated the joints, brow furrowed. Ed took the chance to glance up at his friends.

John was scowling darkly, flicking his lighter viciously, and Kitty was frozen, eyes wide. Bobby didn't look much better than John, fists clenched and knuckles white. As Ed met each of their eyes, absently moving his own joints as Hank quietly requested, Kitty gave him a fearful, worried look, Bobby clenched his jaw, and John bit off a curse, pushing off to pace angrily.

Ed looked back to Hank, eyes caught somewhere between bitter and unhappy, and Hank asked him, "How long have you had these?"

"Two years," Ed said stiffly. Hank frowned.

"Two years since you've finished your rehabilitation?" he clarified.

"No," Ed answered, resisting the urge to snap. "Two years since I got them. I finished my rehab in a year."

Hank 'hm'ed and moved from his arm to his leg. Ed removed his boot without being asked, and Hank repeated the procedure from the foot up.

"Well," he said finally, straightening up. "I'm afraid I've never seen automail myself before, but for what little I know, it seems to be quite well crafted. Aside from the maintenance deficiency, it appears to be working fine."

Ed nodded, looking at him expectantly. Hank smiled, half apologetic.

"Sadly, we do not keep automail oil on the premises, but I'll speak to the Professor. Will machine oil do in the meantime?"

Ed wrinkled his nose, but nodded. "Machine oil's fine." The differences between machine and automail oil were small, but Ed knew from experience that they made a big difference. For instance, automail oil stank less, not to mention, was less likely to rub off on clothes. Good thing he liked black.

Hank smiled again and glanced at his friends. "Then I will go see about acquiring some for you."

He was gone before Ed had time to react.

No sooner had Hank left than John demanded, voice low and rough, "What the fuck happened?"

Ed winced and looked down, flexing automail fingers and watching as they moved jerkily, catching and releasing. He considered, for a long moment, not answering, but he looked back up at John's face, and Bobby's, and Kitty's, varying degrees of worried and angry and scared, and he answered, "I lost the leg doing something stupid… really damn stupid. Then I lost the arm fixing it."

"Does it hurt?" Kitty asked, worry not alleviated in the least, going over to pick up his hand the way Hank had. Ed let her and grinned.

"'Course not," he lied. John eyed him skeptically. His grin held.

"What kinda stupid thing?" John pushed, flicking his lighter open menacingly. Ed nearly rolled his eyes, but then recalled the question and sighed.

"…Alchemy rebound," he said finally. John's eyes widened and the lighter snapped shut, and Ed added hastily, "It's not common, I was working with pretty damn powerful alchemy. Worst thing the stuff you'll probably ever learn could do is knock you out for a bit, and even that, I'd probably recognize the mistake before you activated the circle. Hell, you'd probably recognize the mistake."

Bobby, shoulders suddenly tense, eyed him. Ed grinned weakly. Then he looked back down, kicking his left leg slightly, and said abruptly,

"Say. I promised to teach you some basic alchemy principles about now, right?"

Bobby gave him an incredulous look, and John couldn't quite hide his snort, the non-sequitar blowing the tension from the room like the wind blows smoke. "Seriously?"

"Yeah." Ed looked at them and grinned, pulling his hand from Kitty's. Kitty looked up at him, interested despite herself, eyes wide. "C'mon, sit down. This might take a bit."

They didn't quite sit down – well, Kitty and Bobby did, but John leaned against the wall and raised an eyebrow at him. Ed ignored him valiantly.

"The first thing my teacher ever taught me about alchemy," Ed told them, leaning back slightly to gaze at the ceiling, eyes contemplative and glazed with memory, "was All is One and One is All."

John snorted. Ed smirked wryly. Yeah, okay, so he'd had very nearly the same reaction the first time he heard it.

"All is One and One is All. This concept is represented in every transmutation in the form of a circle." He looked back down to them, still half-smiling in memory. "Teacher made me and my brother figure out the concept ourselves – threw us onto an abandoned island with nothing but a knife. That's not the only way to learn it, but it's probably the best."

Kitty's eyes had widened at his recollection, and Bobby had winced in sympathy. John just looked thoughtful. Ed shrugged.

"'Course, we can't really do that. But here's what it really boils down to: When you die, what will happen?"

John frowned, Bobby's brow furrowed in thought, and Kitty winced slightly. She was the first to answer, voice slow and hesitant.

"Well, I suppose my parents would be sad. My friends, too."

Ed shook his head. "No, that's not what I mean. Think about the world as a whole. What will happen?"

Another few moments of silence passed, Ed's objective achieved as each of his friends was wholly absorbed in the riddle. Finally, John spoke, frowning at the ground, hand stilled around his lighter.

"Your body goes into the ground and rots."

Bobby's eyes widened slightly as he made the connection. "And then plants use the nutrients to grow," he said, dawning realization in his voice. Kitty started, and a slow smile spread across her face, eyes brightening.

"And then animals eat the plants as food," she picked up enthusiastically.

"And people or other animals eat the animals," Ed agreed, smiling, eyes bright with his own memory of the realization. Deliberately keeping away the memory of the second, slap-in-the-face reminder. "One is All, and All is One. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it only flows in an eternal pattern, spread throughout everything. Every array represents this concept in the form of a circle."

"Damn," John muttered, a hint of grudging wonder in his voice.

Ed grinned and nodded. "Yeah. The second thing, just as important, is the rule of Equivalent Exchange." His left hand moved to the top of his leg, and Kitty tracked it, glancing up at his face as he completed the movement. His eyes were serious now, the light of enthusiasm gone. "This rule has two parts: the Conservation of Mass and the Conservation of Natural Providence…"

The seriousness in his voice, Ed figured, was what kept them listening.

But really, it was the implications of his hand on his leg.

They really were smarter than they gave themselves credit for.

Five weeks after Ed's arrival to the Institute, he was hurrying back to his room for the eighth time in two weeks.

His joints were moving smoothly again; the machine oil was doing fine as a substitute, and Hank had promised that they should have the automail oil within a week. Meanwhile, John was getting used to Ed no longer hiding the automail from him, and Ed's maintenance kit sat out in the open now.

He headed straight for the phone, ignoring John's amused smirk and traditional eyeroll as he plopped down on the bed, calling Al.

"Brother," Al greeted warmly.

"Hey, Al. Sorry I'm late." Ed smiled guiltily. "I got-"

"Caught up," Al finished, voice thankfully amused rather than tired or, worse, accusing. "I understand, brother. How are things going?"

Ed brightened. "You won't believe this, Al. So I've been teaching my friends for a few weeks now, right?"

"Yeah?" Al sounded interested. Of course he did.

"And I've been doing it in the library. I mentioned that people've been watching sometimes, right? It's weird."

"No," Al said, amused again. "But you have now. Go on, brother. What about it?"

Ed grinned, half amazed and half amused himself. "So a few of them come up to me today and ask if I can teach them, too."

"Really?" Al sounded delighted.

"Yeah!" Ed enthused, pleased himself. "Apparently they're really into chemistry and were interested in alchemy long before I got here." He laughed, a wry smile crossing his face. "Guess they weren't going to let any silly old fear get in the way of learning."

"Sounds like you, brother," Al said, amused. Ed chuckled and kept talking, telling Al about how he'd gotten them started and knew a lot more about how to go about it this time – he'd easily admit to himself that he'd been pretty clumsy about it the first time around. Was this how Teacher had felt, teaching alchemy to him and Al?

They'd been talking for a few hours, Ed just mentioning that they were often in the library pretty late, when Al said suddenly,

"You know, brother, you don't have to call me every night."

Ed stopped. "H-huh?"

Al's voice held a gentle smile even through the phone, even when Ed knew he couldn't possibly hold the expression. "You don't have to call me every night," he repeated. "I'll be alright, brother. I understand if you want to be with your friends, okay?"

Ed bristled, irrationally angry at a nonexistent foe. "No one comes above you, little brother," he said fiercely.

"I know, Ed," Al said soothingly. "But you have friends there. They're good for you, brother. And I'm coming there soon anyway; I can't wait to meet them. But I don't want to hear that there were things you couldn't do with them because you had to come call me."

Ed faltered. "Al-"

"I'll be fine," Al repeated.

Ed hesitated. "…Okay, Al," he said finally. "I get it." He smiled wryly. "I'll still call you as often as I can, though."

"I wouldn't expect anything less, brother." Al's voice was campfire warm, and Ed smiled.

Storm was frustrated. Five weeks they'd been working now, and they'd stopped making progress after two. Which meant three weeks of getting nothing done.

Just recently, though, Professor Xavier had suggested something to her, and Storm somewhat doubted that it was unrelated to the recent revelation of Ed's automail limbs. She called that to mind and sighed.

"Edward. How is it, exactly, that you control yourself?"

Ed, standing across from her, shifting impatiently from foot to foot, expression just a little worn out from their training session thus far, shrugged. "I kind of, I dunno, squash it, I guess. Just shove it down. A bit like the way I extinguish myself."

…Damn.

Storm sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Ed frowned at her. "What?"

"No, don't do that," she sighed, frustrated at herself. Of course. That should have been the first place she looked, but with how temperamental Ed was by habit, she'd dismissed the possibility out of hand. She needed to stop making assumptions with this kid. "Suppressing your power is exactly what you don't do, Edward."

He frowned at her. "But I'm supposed to be learning to control it, aren't I?" he said logically.

"Yes, control it," she agreed. "That's different." She removed her hand from the bridge of her nose and looked at him, hand landing on her hip, eyes intent. "Flame."

Frowning, but trusting her, he took a deep breath and fire flared across his face again. Not for the first time, she noted the slight smile that took over his face, and her gaze sharpened slightly. "Harder."

He opened gold eyes set in amber flames and looked at her quizzically, but obeyed; the fire expanded slightly above his skin, fire flickering faster from his clothes and hair.

"Harder." Her tone didn't change. He frowned, but the fire brightened, expanding and extending.

"Hotter." He bit his lip and closed his eyes, shifting slightly in concentration, and the color of his flame changed, lightening gradually. He opened his eyes again and looked at her.

"Hotter." Amber yellow to light white. "Hotter." Now she could feel it, several feet away. "Hotter."

This, she figured, was a good place to start.

So that automail problem you've all been waiting for has been solved - I don't think I've seen it done this way before, which I am proud of. And I'm sure you readers of Harry Potter/FMA crossovers can see where I'm going with this... and probably everyone else too. Anyway, so I'm pleased with this chapter and I hope you are, too. Thanks for reading and please review!