"Ed, I don't think this is a good idea."

"Of course it's a good idea."

The Elric brothers were sitting with Winry Rockbell on the floor of her little automail workshop in Rush Valley. The reason for their visit to the Valley was a boring State-ordered one: Colonel Mustang had received word of con alchemists wheedling money and goods out of unsuspecting citizens in the area, and had sent Edward and Alphonse to 'dismantle' the situation. With Major Armstrong as babysitter, of course. Ed suspected that Mustang simply wanted to get rid of them at Central (such petty cases were hardly the brothers' typical sort of assignment), but he wasn't complaining. They both loved visiting Winry; Ed perhaps more so than his brother, although for different reasons that he would never admit.

The little motel where they had been staying for the past two days was sleazy but snug, and the manager's cat had just given birth to a litter of kittens, much to Alphonse's absolute delight. Ed had had to drag him by the helmet plume to get him to leave that evening so that they could visit Winry. Well, he'd dragged Al's helmet, anyway, and the rest of his armour had quickly followed suit. His brother was like a sappy toddler when it came to felines, especially the midget variety.

Normally, Ed would have simply left him, but he was too anxious to arrive at Winry's on his own. Besides, it was their last chance to spend time with her before they returned to Central in the morning, and the Major had insisted that they be in bed by ten thirty.

It was now nine pm, and the golden light of the lamps scattered about the workshop was warm and cozy.

Ed was teaching Winry alchemy.

Yeah, yeah. He knew it was probably stupid. But he was desperately looking for things to do to avoid awkward silences (he hated awkward silences), and anyway, perhaps he could impress her while he was at it. Who knew? Maybe she was a natural.

"But we spent months reading manuals of research and information before we even tried transmuting," Al continued, "You can't just dive in with no experience like this. It's dangerous!"

"The best way to gain experience is through practice, Al. You know that from working with automail, don't you, Winry?"

The girl looked over at him from where she was studying the chalk symbols on the floor, the long blonde hair cascading over her shoulder seeming to glow in the lamplight. "Yeah, I suppose. It certainly is the most efficient way to learn new things."

Ed turned smugly to regard his brother. Even sitting down, Alphonse's armoured form towered over him.

"Teacher wouldn't agree with this," Al said quietly, his small voice uneasy.

Al was right, but Ed was hardly going to concede. Certainly not in front of Winry, anyway.

"I'm not going to teach her anything too complicated," he explained, "And besides, it'd be nice to know that Winry can protect herself from danger when we're not here."

She raised a sceptical eyebrow at this. "Are you implying that I'm not already capable of doing that?" she asked, a dangerous undercurrent to her tone.

Ed desperately tried to backpedal. He failed dismally. "Um…no…I, er…"

Winry went from pretty to pretty terrifying in a heartbeat. "I DON'T NEED LITTLE BOYS TO LOOK AFTER ME ALL THE TIME, ED! I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF!" she yelled, jumping to her feet.

Ed leapt up too, furious. "JUST WHO DO YA THINK YOU'RE CALLING LITTLE?!"

They rushed at eachother and collided in a knot of flailing limbs and automail, kicking and punching and – was she biting?

They rolled around the room, bumping into shelves and reducing the transmutation circle in the middle to a haze of chalky smudges. Alphonse ran forward and frantically tried to separate them, his shouts barely audible above the shrieks and snarls coming from the grappling teens.

"Hey! Guys! This isn't how we do things! Knock it off!"

"Oh, I'll knock it off, alright!"

Ed felt a jolt in his metal arm and wrestled in alarm as he watched Winry yank out something in his shoulder pivot. Then she gave the limb a jerk and wrenched the entire thing clean off, sending it sailing across the workshop to land against the rear wall with a crash. He wriggled out from beneath her and stood staring at his wrecked arm lying on the floor, mouth agape.

"What'd you do that for?!"

She stood to face him, shoving her fringe out of her eyes, her face flushed. "I would say you fight like a girl, but that'd be a compliment," she said. Her eyes glinted cheekily.

"I'm an excellent fighter!" insisted Ed.

"Who just got his arm ripped off by a girl."

Aaaaaaargh!

Al piped up from behind them. "And I'm still better than you."

"OH YEAH? TRY ME!"

"I don't like to duel when my opposition is, um, exposed."

Ed stopped, confused. "What d'ya mean, 'exposed'?"

He followed Al's line of sight and looked down at his groin. There was a large rip in his pants, and they weren't covering nearly as much as they should.

"HEY!" he yelled, scrambling to cover up the important bits with his remaining hand. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME EARLIER?!" He blushed furiously, the hair on his head standing on end.

Alphonse started giggling hysterically. Winry joined him. Ed turned to her, outraged.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE LAUGHING AT?! IT'S NOT FUNNY!"

"Oh yes, it is!" she gasped, snorting for a few seconds before adding, "Little boy!"

Al was only just able to grab him in time before he eviscerated her. He ran on the spot, yelling incoherently, and thrashed as he tried to escape Alphonse's steel embrace.

"Calm down, brother! It was just a joke!"

"I'M GONNA TURN YOU INTO A PUMPKIN, WINRY!" Ed roared.

The girl simply rolled on the floor, guffawing wildly. Tears streaked her dusty cheeks.

"LEMME AT HER, ALPHONSE, GODDAMMIT! LEMME AT HER!"

[ SpongeBob Narrator voice: "Two hours later…" ]

Ed stood wearing one of Winry's grease-stained work aprons, fuming as he glared at her. "I'm still turning you into a pumpkin," he vowed.

"But I thought alchemy only worked through Equivalent Exchange."

"Oh, it does."

Alphonse hastily cut in before things could turn ugly again. "Guys! Are we doing this or what?"

Edward's glare didn't flinch. "Winry, I swear, if you give me a chicken leg by accident, being turned into a Halloween decoration will be the least of your worries."

"Don't give her any ideas!" said Al.

Winry cracked her knuckles. "Don't worry. I'm taking notes."

They had managed to successfully guide Winry through some small transmutations earlier, one of them resulting in a small metal duck being forged from a bolt. She was a quick learner indeed and Ed was thoroughly impressed, albeit a tad disconcerted, too.

Now their childhood friend crouched down and placed her palms at the edge of the fresh transmutation circle on the floor. Ed watched nervously from where he stood in front of the wall. Tendrils of blue light began flickering from the runes, and his battered automail arm resting at the center of the circle slowly lifted off the floor, hovering and wobbling. Beads of sweat glistened on Winry's brow above her determined frown. Her arms were trembling.

He was starting to think that this was maybe a very bad idea after all.

"Brother…" began Alphonse.

"Quiet, Al!" he hissed, "She's concentrating!"

Dust from the workshop floor started to swirl as the flickering tendrils gathered. Winry began to tear up, and she looked up at Ed in alarm. Their eyes met.

Aw, no…

Winry sneezed.

A blinding flash illuminated the room, rendering everybody instantaneously stunned. When the glare finally faded and Al and Winry had recovered from the shock, they saw that Ed was pinned to the wall, a large lump of misshapen metal enveloping his face. A single lock of straw-coloured hair protruded from the top. His automail arm was nowhere to be found.

From inside the lump came a hollow, muffled voice. "Well. That didn't quite go according to plan."

Shaking herself out of her daze, Winry leapt up from the circle, swearing, and rushed to grab a crowbar from the countertop before setting to in a frenzy as she tried to pry the metal monstrosity away from Ed's face.

Al continued to stand in the corner, stars swimming in front of his eyes, utterly speechless.

Winry grunted and gasped as she strained desperately with the crowbar, yielding no results. Defeated, she tossed the tool aside.

"Ed, can you breathe?!" she shouted.

"Yeah, there're a couple of air holes," came the indistinct reply.

"And your face? Are you okay?!"

"It's kinda like a bowl. My pretty face is fine. And no, I'm not okay, you idiot!"

She opened her mouth to launch back a retort, but Al, finally come to his senses, leapt between them.

"That's enough! The crowbar's obviously not going to work. Lemme see if I can fix it."

He gently shoved Winry out of the way, then clapped his hands together with a metallic chime and placed them to either side of Ed's head. There were more flashes of blue light (controlled, this time), and when they subsided, Ed was free and his automail arm was restored at his shoulder. He winced and lifted it, working the joints to test their range. Everything seemed to be functioning well enough.

"There," said Al, "That was a close one."

Ed took a breath to snap at him, but at that moment there was a deafening crash from the large metal door at the front of the workshop. They all turned to face the sound, alarmed.

"EDWARD AND ALPHONSE ELRIC, IF YOU ARE IN THERE, I DEMAND THAT YOU OPEN UP THIS DOOR IMMEDIATELY!"

They blanched.

Major Armstrong had arrived, and it was past their bedtime.

The Major stood glowering down at them, arms akimbo, his bald head almost brushing the ceiling.

"Just what have you boys been up to? You were supposed to be back at the motel and in bed by ten thirty. It's now eleven forty-five!" He seemed to notice Winry for the first time. "Hello, Winry! My apologies for the intrusion. How's business going?"

All she could manage was a squeak.

"Oh, excellent! I'm glad to hear it!" He returned his attention to the boys. "Well? I'm waiting."

It was Ed who managed to stir himself to respond. He let loose in a gush of babbled information.

"Er, everything's okay. We were just, uh, teaching Winry some basic alchemy. She accidentally pinned my head to the wall with a blob of metal and almost decapitated me, but I'm fine now. We're fine!"

"Your head?" exclaimed the Major, "To the wall? With a blob of metal?!"

His bellowing voice reverberated painfully in the confines of Winry's workshop. They eyed him nervously, sensing an episode looming. Major Armstrong stared back at them with wide eyes from beneath his heavy brow. Then the thunder struck.

"OH, EDWARD ELRIC! YOU POOR LITTLE BOY! TO HAVE TO GO THROUGH SO MUCH AND STILL COME OUT IN THE END SO HUMBLE AND GRACIOUS! I CAN ONLY IMAGINE WHAT IT MUST BE LIKE FOR YOU!"

He reached with both hands for the front of his shirt. The three teens cried out in panicked unison.

"No, not the shirt!"

The Major ripped his shirt dramatically away from his body with a flourish and broke down into a waterfall of tears, weeping uncontrollably, his mighty pecs and abs sparkling in the lamplight. Ed, Winry and Alphonse clung to eachother in fright.

"YOU POOR CREATURE! NOBODY SHOULD HAVE TO ENDURE SUCH TRAGEDY SO YOUNG! JUST WAIT UNTIL COLONEL MUSTANG HEARS OF THIS!"

"NO! You can't tell Mustang!"

The Colonel would burn them alive if he found out that they'd been teaching Winry alchemy, and that was nothing compared to what he'd do if he discovered that she had almost killed Ed with his own arm.

Armstrong peered down at their fearful expressions through brimming tears. Then he sniffed and wiped his eyes with a giant fist.

"Very well," he rumbled, "I won't tell Mustang."

The others breathed a sigh of relief.

"However, it is past your bedtime, boys." The Major turned to Ed. "No pudding for you."

Ed immediately began to protest. "Hey, that's not fair –''

"And no more kittens for you, Al."

"But…but Major, they need me!"

"That's enough for tonight. Come along, now."

The goliath stomped out of the workshop. Alphonse rushed after him, desperately trying to convince him to change his mind. Ed was just marching out after them to do the same when he heard Winry coming up behind him.

"Ed?"

He halted in his tracks, halfway across the street, and slowly turned around. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry about what I said earlier." She looked down at her toes. "Well, not quite. But I figured an apology was called for, given that I almost decapitated you and all."

Ed was flustered by her proximity and struggled to process her words. He sensed the Major and his brother stopping a distance away.

"Um, no problem. Really, it's fine."

Winry's face lit up. He was struck by just how beautiful she was.

"Okay, good! Have a nice rest of the evening, then!"

And she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

Ed's entire body went rigid, and he felt like his head was on fire.

"Sleep well!"

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Winry was already walking back to the automail shop. She stopped before going in and faced them again, waving.

"See you guys next month! And don't forget to phone as soon as you're back at Central!"

Ed raised his metal hand, unable to move much else.

"Bye!" shouted Armstrong and Al behind him. "We will!"

Winry turned and went back inside. He stared enraptured after her silhouetted form for a moment before she disappeared from sight. His mouth still hung open. He couldn't seem to will it to close.

"Ed, come on!" Al called from down the street.

He shook himself and ran to join them, cheeks still burning. They walked in silence with Major Armstrong leading the way. After a few minutes, Al spoke.

"That was quite the goodbye Winry gave you there."

"Shut up!"

Ed punched him on the shoulder, forgetting that his brother was on his left-hand side and that the fist he was striking with wasn't his automail one.

There was a loud clang followed by a yowl of pain as Ed doubled over, clutching his injured fingers. Al laughed, which only angered the boy further.

Up ahead, Armstrong smiled. "Ah, young love," he sighed quietly to himself.

There followed a succession of alarming thuds and crashes and grunts. He carried on walking into the night, with the jostling brothers tagging haphazardly along behind him.

This was ridiculously fun to write. A tad different to my usual angst and drama, but I figured that my first fanfic had might as well be a warm and fuzzy one.

Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you thought. With any luck, I'll be able to start uploading regularly.

Also, ship. X

Until the next one

Morgan