Acknowledgement

For Maria, Emma and Lucy whom I miss every day.

My everlasting gratitude to Vicky, Jess, Katie, Jen, Jamie, Emily, Mary, Veronica, Maggie and little Joey. You all know who you are but please also know that without your contribution, I wouldn't have been able to finish this.

My Big Bang team who (for some reason) doesn't hate me for piling so much work on them. Bookwrm389, I cannot tell you how much I value your insight and skill with punctuation. XxCookie MonsterxX, thank you for the last minute art. Sonja Jade, thank you for dusting off your amazing drawing talent and using it to illustrate my work so gorgeously – you really are a mind reader. A special hats off to enemytosleep for managing this colossal event so efficiently.

To maryh10000. mebh and Kittu9, thank you for being kind enough to give me a blurb for the jacket. You ladies are and always will be my "famous personalities".

The music that kept me writing, and that is now available in a fan mix that accompanies this story: Frozen © Within Temptation, 21 Guns © Green Day, Far Away © Nickelback, Mirror © Lil Wayne ft. Bruno Mars and My Immortal © Evanescence.

And of course, to Hiromu Arakawa who owns Fullmetal Alchemist for creating such beautiful and complex characters and the resulting intricacies in their relationship. Whenever I think of royai, the following quote by Zouberer S comes to mind.

"Dozens of novels should be written about us and still, it would all be one big understatement."

All of my FMA writing to date has been an attempt to understand how this unique relationship works. So far, I haven't found out that secret but I'm enjoying all the writing in the process. Perhaps there is no answer, perhaps their relationship really is "an equation that doesn't require a solution to prove its existence", it simply is. But I'll keep trying – and writing.

Just as I hope you'll keep reading and reviewing.