A.N.) I wish you all a happy AlMei Week!

Disclaimer) I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.

Drastic

"Are you sure, Mei?" Al asked, almost excited by what he was hearing. At first this caught him completely by surprise, but now that he had processed her words, this was great. Though, he was a bit skeptical considering he knew this Xingese princess very well, and this was definitely not something he'd expect from her. "You've just never seemed that interested in it before…"

Mei did her best to look her average, determined self, trying to hide how nervous she really was. She told him to meet her outside the library of the Imperial City, hoping to find an excuse to spend time with him. Now that Al had achieved a fairly admirable completion in alkahestry training, she realized that it would be difficult getting time with this foreigner. With his research, two chimera friends, and her idiot brother, she found that her dear sweet Alphonse was always so busy. Some days she'd only see him once (in her eyes that was unacceptable). Sure she was busy herself, but… she missed him.

Which is why she knew she had to do this, even though she sort of wasn't really interested in this field!

She forced herself to smile and nod, while Xiao Mei did the exact same thing from her shoulder. "Yes, I want you to teach me alchemy!" Raising her dukes, she talked more ferocious. "I think the knowledge that you are applying to your research could be vital for my own. And… I'm… interested," she ended with a dry, weak tone.

She was up to something, Al was sure. She wasn't a very good liar, and both of them knew it. Mei could only pray he'd take her bait despite so.

The only blonde guy in Xing had stared for a moment, making it obvious that he was wondering why she'd lie. His first thought was to confront her, but this was indeed a chance to spend time with his best friend and talk about alchemy. He couldn't refuse it even if he wanted to. "Well… the first thing I learned of alchemy was from one of my dad's books, which was the Law of Equivalent Exchange," he started, edgy of scaring her away.

"Will you share it with me?" she probed immediately. He let her pass with no trouble; now to take full advantage of it.

This was definitely a change for him. For once, he got to be a teacher. He grinned. "Of course!"

They began to walk to the more secluded place of the palace garden. On the way, they talked, but not of alchemy, but more of good times/idiot brothers: Al told about Edward's many humorous antics, and Mei spoke of Ling doing… Ling-things, while poor Lan Fan was driven to exhaustion trying to keep up with him. It was nice to be together. Xiao Mei even forgave Al's neglect enough to go sit on his shoulder for half the walk.

Eventually they made it to the field of flowers and Mei remembered she had to be a student again. This was a chance, she reminded herself. "So… will you tell me that law?"

He jumped slightly, like he was in his own little dreamland when her voice called to him. "Okay," was his response before starting the lesson. "Humankind cannot obtain without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is the Law of Equivalent Exchange, and has been the basic law that explains all alchemy."

Mei just nodded in awe of how fluid his voice seemed to recite that. Also, she thought he looked so pleased to be thinking back to his early days of learning, memories of his brother and Resembool, his mother. This would make any struggle of learning worthwhile, she was sure.

They found a place to sit and talked about many basics of alchemy; the only problem was how difficult it was for Mei to clearly grasp what she was hearing. She found almost no similarities to alkahestry that she could use to her advantage. Deconstructing and reconstructing matter made since enough. Then there was this entire conversation on some guy's theory, then another on another guy's theory.

The worst part was by far was when Alphonse tried to show her how to use tectonic energy in place of the Dragon's Pulse. Dr. Marco had explained it before, and Alphonse was excellent in proceeding to teach her about it, but when it can time for her to actually try…

Alphonse had put his hands on the array which had been engulfed by blue light. When it finished some of the ground had disappeared and was replaced by a little horse toy. "See, Mei? It's Easy!"

"You just transmuted!"

Mei sighed to herself. It got so overwhelming, Xiao Mei even abandoned ship and left to go chase birds.

Oh, Alphonse… he was adorable with how excited he was talking about this stuff, which was why Mei didn't regret a moment of it. Though, she couldn't help but daydream a little about all the other stuff they could be doing instead of talking about alchemy. They could have gone to markets or the bamboo forest or even the training grounds. She was starting to think anyplace would have been fun if Alphonse was there, but this didn't exactly fit her idea of a romantic date.

"Mei?" Al called, waving his hand in front of her face.

She squeaked, surprised by her carelessness. It never occurred to her that she would be caught drifting, but he had so much information, she should have known she'd miss something. Would he be angry, upset, hurt? Mei felt so guilty at the thought of making Alphonse sad—Oh no, he'd never forgive her!

One could see how surprised she was when he smiled his same princely smile and chuckled at her expression of a child caught making a mess. "Mei, are you ready to let this go and do something else now?"

She was disappointed when he didn't say "give up" because that would have made her determined enough to see it through to the end. But he didn't, and now all she could do was look defeated and mumble. "We can't! We have to keep going!"

"Why?" was all he asked, but he was still smiling at her. He was amused by her! Not that she could blame him; she probably did look kind of silly right now.

"W-well…" Just tell the truth, a tiny voice in her mind said (sometimes she thought it was Xiao Mei using Mei-Telepathy). "We don't spend as much time together as we used to, and I miss you, so if I was your student we could…" I've been beaten, she thought. Completely humiliated.

"Well Mei, you could have just said that you missed me, because…" That smile turned into a cheeky grin, an Elric family trait, she guessed. "I've missed you a lot too."

Well, all's well that ends well right? Mei felt a little foolish even after they talked and decided to go get some food, she was quick to cover it though with mountains of teasing humor. None of that worked though, because he seemed to be just as good with playful words, it made her blush.

"What? So you're not going to make some kind of romantic banter on the Equivalent Exchange and us?" she asked thinking her suddenness would catch him off-guard.

"No. That kind of weirdness is more up my brother's alley," he said smooth like. He was ready for anything apparently. It was one of the perfect attributes of her knight.

A.N.) Perosnally, I believe endings aren't my strong-point. Not in school essays, not in fanfiction. It's nerve wrecking.

Anyways, please review.

And happy first day of AlMei week for all!