"Edward Elric so help me get down from there this instant!"

"No way! You're going to hit me with the wrench and I don't need another concussion, especially for something that wasn't my fault!" Glaring down at the raging Winry, I decided staying up here on top of the medicine cabinet was the wisest choice I have ever made.

"I don't care, now get down here and take it like a man."

I never took my eyes of the flailing hand holding the wrench as I replied with a vehement "hell no."

"I'll go get the Colonel..." She let the threat hang but I couldn't see the Colonel being able to reach me up here despite his longer reach and not to mention I didn't really care about punching him if it would keep me away from Winry's wrench, especially as this was his fault.

"I'll fight him! If he can even get his ancient butt up here that is."

Pausing to think for a second Winry amended her threat "I'll go get Al..."

Oh, that evil witch! She knew Al was the best solution here mainly because a) he could reach me up here no problem, now that I had repaired him using a sheet with an array drawn on it (it was deemed too much of a risk for Al to be limping around missing most of his chest plate and the damage wasn't severe enough to require clap alchemy) and b) I would never hit my baby brother outside of a spar, armour or no...which left me stuck with no other choice but to surrender. Shoulders slumping in defeat I grumbled, "fine, I'm coming down."

Winry didn't even wait for my feet to be on the floor before she brought the wrench down against the back of my head, so wailing dramatically I released my grip on the side of the cabinet and clutched at my head, sprawling out on the floor whining about my poor abused skull.

That particular scene was what Al and Colonel bastard walked in on.

Al didn't even wait for an explanation just jumped straight into lecture mode, "brother no. What did I tell you about climbing on the furniture?"

And because I'm a smartass and love pain I sat up and replied "I'm not on the furniture, I'm on the floor...after I fell off the furniture." As predicted the sass resulted in another whack to the back of the head from Winry. "Ow!"

"I can't believe I'm related to you."

Feeling a grin tugging at my lips I waved my hand dismissively and said "you may have gotten the brains of the family but I got the best genes in the looks department."

"Brother, please stop. Also, we both know you're smarter than me, you just apparently have no common sense."

And because the Colonel is a bastard he commented "I think you also need to be at least 5'5 before you can claim the 'good-looking' genes."

Rocketing to my feet I shouted in triumph and exclaimed "HA! I'm 5'6 and a half as of yesterday!"

"What?! No way."

I couldn't have fought the smug grin off my face if my life had depended on it, as I watched Mustang step closer to me and measure me with his eyes, obviously comparing my height to his own.

A quiet and somewhat disbelieving "what the hell?" confirmed my statement as he gawked at the fact I was now barely an inch shorter than him.

Ha so there! In your face stinking Colonel Bastard. I will be the tall one in this relationship soon...wait what? What relationship? What did I just think? Gah, my brain is clearly suffering from accelerated growth side effects.

Frowning and looking more than a little perturbed the Colonel spoke up "well regardless of your miraculous growth we have other priorities, like catching Scar."

"Oh yeah, do we have any leads on where he may have gone?"

"Not at the moment no. It would appear he's gone to ground." Mustang grumbled.

It occurred to me that this is the first time Scar had gone after an alchemist and not had it result in their death, he would likely lay low for some time which meant right now I was probably the safest I had ever been from this Scar guy since he showed up in Central. So now would be a good time to try and follow up on any leads Mustang might have.

"So Colonel bastard got any other leads on biological alchemists? Preferably not crazy ones this time."

I only just caught Winry's near silent mutter of "all alchemists are crazy," with my enhanced hearing.

Mustang on the other hand just sighed and rubbed his hand over his face and grumbled "no Tucker has been the only real promising alchemist that specialised in the medical field since Dr Marcoh..."

"Who's Dr Marcoh?"

"You don't know?" At my continued blank look, he elaborated "huh I thought you would have heard of him at least. Anyway, Marcoh was a very talented alchemist working for the military during the Ishval conflict, they had him working on some secret project of some kind, I think they asked Kimberly to test it in the end though I heard rumours they had been thinking of asking me. Anyway, he hasn't been heard from since then and is from what I understand not well liked by the military high command anymore because of his...uh...because he left. Without permission. With almost all of his research."

"Oh, I guess it's not going to be easy to find him then." Heaving a despondent sigh I turned to Winry and said "okay well why don't we get this show on the road and then I can get to finding this guy and you can head home."

"Sure thing Ed, just try not to cry like a baby too much this time."

Gasping I shot my mechanic and childhood friend a betrayed look and squeaked "I do not cry, like a baby or otherwise!"

xxx

"Brother, why are we going to the library? I thought we were supposed to be trying to find this Dr Marcoh guy. Shouldn't we be asking around HQ or looking in the personnel records room?"

"Well those are good places to look, but I just wanted to check and see if this guy is mentioned in any of the books here. Or hopefully wrote one of them, you know how alchemists often code their work I'm hoping if this guy worked for the military at least some of his work had to have been published in the first library if nowhere else..."

"Oh! And if we can find his research we can crack the code and maybe find out what he was making for the military. Brother that's a really clever idea!"

"Jeez Al no need to sound so surprised, I can come up with a good plan on occasion."

"Of course brother, I just forget because so often you resort to punching things if it doesn't go the way you want it to."

"AL!" Reaching up and whacking the back of my hand against the hard metal of Al's shoulder, I scowled and stomped into the library ahead of my brother. A quick flash of my watch at the door and the guards waved me in, honestly, I probably needn't have bothered, I've spent so much of my free time here it's likely the guards know Al and me on sight.

"See brother resorting to violence once again."

"Oh shut up and help me look already would ya?"

Grumbling and ignoring the quiet snickers of my brother, I started into the bookshelves skimming the authors searching for anything written by one Dr Marco.

Almost four hours later and I was getting ready to call it quits when I spotted 'written by Tim Marcoh' scrawled along the spine of a rather fat looking book that was sticking out a fair bit from the rest of the books. Grinning I reached forwards and tugged the book free, barely noticing the picture of a cake on the front before half of the shelf's books started to tip and fall. Gasping and diving out of the way, I laid sprawled on the ground gawking in shock as Al rounded the bookcase and just stared in shock before reaching out and picking up the top book. The cover of which had some kind of covered dish on it and also proclaimed it to have been written by one Tim Marcoh.

"Huh. Well I guess we found his notes then brother."

"Uh yeah and they nearly killed me damn-it!"

xxx

Three days. It took me three days to decode the research, even with Al's help the pace had been ridiculously slow. This Marco guy had not been messing around when he coded his work. There had been several trips to the personal rooms to snoop for information on Marco to try and help us decode his research, with mixed results.

Even worse than how long it had taken to decode the research was what we had found out. He had been making Philosopher stones for the government. Philosopher stones which are made from people. So now even if we should find a stone (there was no way we would be making one!) we couldn't use it, how could we justify using a stone made from people to fix our mistakes.

Grimacing and thumping my head against the desk I wondered just what we could do now, this had been our only hope and now we had nothing, absolutely nothing left to go on baring the tiny hope stemming from Al's ability to shift still which implied there was still some kind of connection to his body.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck!" Slamming my fist repeatedly into the wall as I cursed, I ignored Al as he tried to get me to calm down and instead focused on how shitty my luck was that the one thing we had pinned all out hopes on for fixing Al was now no longer an option, unless we wanted to sacrifice our morals completely in the process.

"People Al! The stone is made of people! How are we supposed to fix you now?"

"It's...It's okay brother, we can find another way. We will find another way! And we'll do it without using a philosophers stone."

There was a brief pause as I stared at my baby brother, marvelling at his endless optimism something I could only hope to keep up with due to my sheer stubborn mule-headedness. "Yeah. Okay yeah, we will! I'll fix you real soon Al don't you worry."

"Us brother. We will fix us."

"Right." Offering Al a slightly self-deprecating smile I nodded and tried to look hopeful.

xxx Roy pov xxx

Grimacing and rubbing at the bridge of my nose in a vain attempt to reduce the gradually increasing ache present behind my eyes, I refocused my attention on the report in front of me.

"The First Branch Library was burned down?"

"Yep."

Sighing I glanced up at Hughes where he was leaning on the front of my desk and asked "and this is of interest to me because...?"

"Ed and Al have been spending a lot of time in there and evidence suggests the library was set on fire purposefully..."

"You think it could have been another attempt on Ed's life?"

"Weeeeeeeeell its a possibility and work in investigations is slow at the moment, so it certainly wouldn't be a bother to do some more digging and get back to you with what we find out."

"Thank you Hughes, just be careful."

"Sure thing Roy!" Waving and practically skipping out of the office now he had a new pet project, I couldn't quite contain my sigh of relief at Hughes timely exit.

No pictures today.

Still, it was troubling for Ed to have been targeted like this, again. A tiny stab of guilt reminded me that it was my fault the two boys where involved so heavily with the military in the first place and that should anything happen to them, it would be entirely on my shoulders that the blame would rest.

A loud bang had my head shooting up, nerves just a tad raw and I was relieved when Edward's loud voice could be made out from the other side of the door, revealing the noise to just be the brothers checking in, making a nuisance of themselves and distracting my team. Smiling slightly I decided I could use a good distraction right now.

Standing from my desk I sauntered over to the door and tugged it open, pausing in surprise and trying to take in exactly what was going on because Ed was leaning against the office door panting and looking distinctly dishevelled. It was...distracting in a way I hadn't anticipated.

"What exactly are you doing Edward?"

Glancing up at the sound of my voice I had the pleasure of seeing Ed's eyes widen in surprise and then watch as his whole body slumped to the ground as he mumbled something.

Raising an eyebrow I traded a quick look with Riza to see if she caught that, a silent head shake was my answer. Humming I said "could you repeat that I don't think anyone had a chance of hearing that."

Ed whined, high pitched and embarrassed sounding as he repeated himself "...mpf was attacked..." a cold lance of fear shot through me till Ed continued "...by fans."

His disgust was clearly displayed in the tone he described his new admirers...rabid admirers? The state of his clothes suggested it was a bit more than simple fans, his signature red coat was missing, his black under-jacket was ripped and no longer closed, the neckline of his vest looked to have been stretched beyond repair and the leather pants he favoured were also badly damaged in fact from the looks of it the right pant leg from the knee down had been torn clean off!

"What brother means to say is that apparently he is now considered attractive by the vast majority of the female population and was chased here after someone recognised him and then proclaimed that 'puberty finally hit the kid hero alchemist' and 'he got hot damn fast.' They cornered us just before we made it into command and some of the MPs had to help me prise brother free of them and then he started running after one of the female officers said something about his looks. It was honestly hilarious!" Amusement could be clearly heard in the younger Elric brothers echoing voice.

"AL!"

I admit part of me wanted to laugh, especially at the way Ed had slouched against the door looking both horrified, embarrassed and just a tiny bit smug, however, the larger part of me was preoccupied with the hot burning sensation in my gut. The emotion it represented was one I was not overly familiar with but despite the newness of this emotion, I was fairly certain it was in fact jealousy I was feeling, which was...odd.

"Perhaps Fullmetal you could use a change of clothes?"

Peering down at himself and apparently only just realising how ruffled his appearance was he grimaced and agreed quietly "uh yeah, but I dont...ugh."

Spotting the hints of distress I pinpointed the cause as most likely to be a lack of spare clothes to change into, easy enough to fix. "I have some spare clothes you can use if you need to."

"Um Cheif I don't think your clothes with fit Boss..."

Havoc trailed off as Ed finally stood up and everyone realised just what had caught the woman's attention. Ed was tall and ripped. Don't get me wrong it wasn't like he was suddenly built like a house or anything, he was still lean however he was now pushing 6 ft and it looked really good on him everything seemed to have filled out a bit and his shoulders looked broader but not ridiculously so. Overall it was a shocking change. Annoyingly Havoc was probably right that my clothes wouldn't fit Ed, they would likely be too short on him. Oh the horror, Edward was taller than me! This was awful, although he really did look good...Ah what am I thinking?! Edward is my underage subordinate! I should not be thinking these things!

Clearing my throat I turned to Falman and asked "Falman would you happen to have any spare clothes Fullmetal could borrow?"

Still looking somewhat stunned the Warrant Officer nodded and murmured "yes sir, I have workout clothes and a spare uniform in my gym locker."

Nodding I gestured to Edward and said "you can go with Falman and grab a change of clothes and get dressed in the locker room or Falman could get them and bring them here and you can change in my office."

Ed hesitated and then said "I'll change here if that's okay?"

Tilting my head I replied with a simple "that's fine" and then signalled for Falman to go and get the clothes, while I tried very hard not to think about how Ed had looked when I had last seen him four days ago, shirtless on the hospital bed as Winry attached his new arm, and imagine his new stature in the same position because it might just be four inches but damn if they didn't make a difference.

AN: I don't even know what I was doing with this chapter, it's largely filler and it just took so very very long to write. The writer's block hit me so hard with this chapter and it took forever to get done, but I finally got down to business yesterday and built myself a blanket fort and bashed out the last 1000 words.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and don't hate me too much for taking so long to get this posted. I have no idea when the next chapter will be out probably in March or April if I'm being honest with myself, but hey keep your eyes peeled you never know, thanks for reading drop me a review on your way out if you feel like it.

-SL xxxx