Yay, new chapter, and probably one of the longest ones I've got! I really hope I didn't do too terrible on this one, it was kinda rushed to be honest. So much school, not enough time to write.. Speaking of school. English, we were writing essays, and I was trying to spell trasmit. I dont know how many times I had to cross it out because I kept trying to spell transmute instead..

Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, nor did I make up the game Hangman.

Chapter 9

~Alphonse's POV~

Al had to admit, trains weren't his favorite things to be on for hours on end. It beat all the nights that he had to face alone, since he couldn't sleep, but there wasn't much to do. Within a half an hour of boarding, his older brother had fallen fast asleep, his head resting against the window. It wasn't much of a surprise to Al; Ed slept a lot nowadays.

What did surprise him was that Tara seemed to be enjoying the long train ride. She watched everything, everyone, with a huge grin on her face. Her eyes no longer showed the tiredness she had in them earlier, or the fear of the major (it had taken some fierce persuasion to get him to sit in his own seat). She seemed to observe every detail, yet could never stay fixed on one thing. Al watched her. It warmed him up to see her change in attitude, to see her... happy, for a change.

After a while, he finally tried to conjure a conversation. "You seem to be really interested in something out there. Whats so eye catching?"

Tara, who had been watching something intently from the window, jerked her gaze from whatever she was staring at and smiled at Al. "Well, I find everything interesting! I've never been on a train before!" She grinned happily at him and started bent down, starting to look through her bag.

Alphonse was bewildered. How could she have never been on a train before? It was one of the only ways to get back and forth through Amestris, unless you had a car. But even then, trains were much more efficient, going longer distances and all. It just didn't make sense to him. She kept saying that she wasn't from Resembool, even though that's around where they found her. So where was she from, and how did she get there?

He looked up abruptly as he found the girl in question prodding him gently with the tip of a pen. Tara looked up and grinned at him. "You're looking bored. Do you want to play a game?"

A game? "Okay," Al hesitantly agreed. "What is it?"

Tara took a small notebook from her bag and set it on her lap. Skipping all the way to the back for a reason Al didn't know and didn't question, she began writing what seemed to be all of the letters in the alphabet at the top of the sheet of paper. "Its called Hangman."

What!? "What does that mean!?" Al was mortified at the thought.

Tara looked at him curiously. Then she realized what he meant and began to laugh. Al didn't understand what was so amusing. So she explained. "Don't worry, we're not really going to hang somebody!" Al sighed with relief, causing her to grin again. "Basically, I'm going to think of a word. Then I'm going to write down how many letters it has, like this," she explained, showing him how she drew seven spaces on the paper in a line. "We'll start with something easy. Now all you have to do is guess a letter. If you think you know the word, say it."

Alphonse looked at the paper. "So it has seven letters in it? And I can pick from any of the letters in the alphabet?" Tara gave him a nod, so he looked at the paper again and tried, "A?"

Tara crossed out the letter A at the top of her paper. Then she wrote the letter in the first space. "Good! Now guess again."

So he tried again. "I?"

Tara looked at the spaces, her eyes flitting across each one. Then she made a tsk sound, crossed off the I, and drew what looked like a hanging platform on the side of the paper. Seeing his confusion, she explained once more, "That letter isn't in the word. So you get a body part. In this case, its only the hanging post. But once you run out of body parts, or guess to many letters wrong, you lose. You have to try to guess the word before then. Try again."

That made a little more sense to Al. So he guessed one letter after another, until they were left with three body parts on the hanging post and the word. Peering closer, Al racked his brain (metaphorically) and tried to think of what the word was. It looked awfully familiar, as if he'd seen it before, possibly when he was studying alchemy with his brother.. Wait! "Is it Alchemy?"

Tara grinned and wrote in the rest of the letters. "Good! You won! Not bad for your first time."

Al felt almost proud. "This is kinda fun. Do you play this a lot where you're from? I've never heard of it."

He noticed her gaze darken slightly, but she smiled at him nevertheless. "Yeah. It's pretty popular, but its more of a child's game. I just thought it might help pass the time a little bit, that's all."

Al waved his hands slightly. "I didn't mean that I don't like it," he denied. "I was just curious."

Tara just shrugged. "It's fine if you don't really find it all that interesting. But if you want to keep playing, then I accept your challenge." She grinned. "Now you do exactly what I did. Think of a word and write down spaces for however many letters are in the word. I'll try to guess it."

~Edward's POV~

Ed opened his eyes slightly. Sitting up, he yawned loudly and stretched his arms out. Train rides were quite boring to Edward, so he usually passed the time by napping. However, unlike most times he slept, no dreams disturbed him. It was rather refreshing.

"Oh, you're awake, brother. Did you have a good rest?" Al spoke to him from where he was sitting. Ed nodded to him, then narrowed his eyes curiously at a notebook sitting on Al's lap. There were many little drawings of what looked like little men on some sort of hanging thing and letters all across the page, some in what he recognized to be Al's writing, and some of what he assumed to be Tara's, who was staring at the page with narrowed eyes. He looked at Al skeptically. "What are you doing?"

Tara answered before Alphonse had a chance. "Its a game I used to play a lot. You can join in if you want. And Al, is it Kitten again? You used that one a couple rounds ago!"

Al wrote in the letters and defended himself, "I couldn't think of anything!" Making Ed roll his eyes. Watching the paper as it was handed back to Tara, he noticed something sticking out of the pages slightly. He watched it for a few seconds before Tara's hand brushed over it, pushing it farther into the pages of the notebook. He looked up to find her looking down at him, eyes narrowed. Ed was almost afraid that she would start yelling at him, but she simply turned back to Al, continuing their game. Edward just couldn't shake off his curiosity. Whatever it was, Tara didn't want him to see it.

Trying to get his mind off of what the object was, he listened to them play, guessing letters. It wasn't for a while until they started to get to the end of the round. When they started to get there, Ed looked at the paper and read it. He didn't understand what it meant. There were a lot of blanks. What kind of word had a bunch of blanks in it?

He then noticed that Tara was grinning slyly at him. "Any more guesses, Al?"

His brother leaned across the sheet and examined it. Edward watched as Al took the pen and counted the spaces lightly. Al sat up quickly and stared at Tara, his eyes narrowing slightly. Ed stared at him nervously as Al began to laugh. "Are you sure I should say it?"

Tara gazed at him, her eyes filled with amusement. "Yes. Yes you should." Ed looked from one to the other. What are they talking about?

Al looked at Ed. "It says, "Edward is a shrimp,"."

Ed's howl of anger echoed throughout the car, causing Tara to burst into a fit of laughter. Glaring at her, Ed hissed, "What is with you people and calling me short? I'M NOT SHORT!"

Tara smirked at him. "Lets just call it payback."

Ed looked at her incrediously, "Payback for what!?"

Tara looked as if she was about to reply, but the train whistled and screeched to a stop suddenly, causing her to fly backwards and hit her head roughly on the seat. Ed was alert in the next second, listening for any sounds. They couldn't be anywhere near Central, it had only been an hour or so.

His suspicions were confirmed by the sounds of rushing feet, and a cocking sound. He knew that sound all too well. The sound of a gun, ready to fire. Standing up, he turned to Al and Armstrong. "Look alive, we have company."

Uh oh.. Company..

I was hanging out with my friend who also likes FMA. We were at a restraunt and got bored, so we stole some of my brother's crayons and just started playing hangman, mostly coming up with FMA related things. I just got the idea and thought it might be a fun little way for them to pass the time on the train. I tried to actually write out what the paper said, with the spaces and everything, but I couldn't get it on there. Sorry.

Review? Please?