AUTHOR'S NOTE: I really recommend reading this story at kitteninthedark dot livejournal dot com slash 132848 dot html

DISCLAIMER: Hiromu Arakawa.
WORDCOUNT: If I did it right, 50x100. Select text to see prompts - if you're reading this at LJ.
SUMMARY: What if...? Three kids on a different path. This is anime based, so they should be around 10-11 years old. Prequel to Weight of the World. Warning: Character Death.
A.N.: Prompts stolen from x_men100. I'll do the other fifty some other day.
A.N.2: Sorry about the format. I'm experimenting.
DEDICATION: For Sharon, on her birthday. :)
FEEDBACK: Always welcome.

Winner at fma_fic_contest. Prompt 10: AU.

LIKE A RIVER THROUGH ME
by Leni

Water didn't care about grief.

Winry's eyes followed the clear tickle, too thin to even be called a stream, as it ran down a smooth path engraved in the rock, curved into the grass and disappeared into an overgrown set of bushes some yards ahead.

Water didn't care about death.

If there were enough water, she would take off the oppressing dress she was wearing and jump in. It was too cold for a swim, with the summer day already approaching its end; but Winry only wanted the break.

The chance to escape her life and pretend.

Water didn't care.

.

She could have gone to the river instead. It was closer to town, and she wouldn't have snagged her skirts in countless thorns and branches along the way. She'd even intended to go to her favorite spot, that place where she'd watch the boys as they fished and then laughed when the fish dragged them face-first into the water…

But she'd marched past the riverbank, and past the schoolhouse, and past her old house and the Elrics'.

And if her dress ended up too torn and unfit to wear at any other occasion, then she was glad of her choice.

.

No river then, but this hidden clearing.

The place where she'd often laid down and closed her eyes as she made a mental recount of everything she'd learned at the shop, while Edward and Alphonse practiced their alchemy some steps away. Winry had figured out a more secure way to replace a bent metal finger so it wouldn't bend again; the boys had mastered shaping rock into swords.

Maybe it was no wonder that her steps had lead her here.

In their whole world (the village, the river, the forest) this was now the closest thing to home they had.

.

Winry had been the one to discover this corner of the woods. Curiosity had prompted her to investigate a buzzing sound and after forging ahead, retracing her steps, and then doing it again, she'd found a giant nest of ladybugs crawling over a dead trunk.

She'd looked on, amazed by the black and red stirring lazily against each other, and thought of nothing but that the boys would love to see it.

She should have kept the secret, Winry reflected now, as she heard the bushes behind her being parted.

"Winry?" That was Alphonse.

Edward sounded irritated, "There you are!"

.

"I hate black." The little girl didn't look back at the brothers, but rather stared ahead. "I'll always hate black," and she tugged at the lacy hem of her long sleeve.

"Winry…." Alphonse stopped, scrambling for words of comfort.

Edward did not. "Everybody's looking for you."

Winry shrugged, still not facing them.

"You shouldn't have run, Winry," Edward insisted. "Mrs. Malcolm is so worried. She and the doctor have been all over Resembool looking for you."

"I was here."

"We were worried, too," Alphonse said, in a tone quieter than his brother's.

Winry turned toward him. "I won't go back."

.

It was a useless thought, she knew that. By dusk she'd be back in her new room, putting away her clothes into unfamiliar closets and unknown drawers. She would spend the night there, and the next, and the next after that, until one day maybe Dr. Karl Malcolm and his wife would let her visit an automail master so that she could continue her studies.

It was a useless thought, but for now she clung to it. She'd follow that line of water until it met a real stream, and then a river, and then the ocean.

She'd fade away.

.

"Don't be stupid!" Edward snapped as he stalked toward her, invading her invisible bubble and shattering it when he plopped down at her right. "You can't live in the forest on your own, you idiot."

"Brother, you shouldn't…." But Alphonse stepped forward too, easing into a seating position at Winry's other side, flanking her between them. "Doctor Karl is a very kind man," he said.

"I know," Winry replied, avoiding the younger boy's gaze.

"And you like his wife. Remember when she stood in for Miss Laura last year?"

Edward wrinkled his nose. "She was boring."

"Brother!"

But Winry giggled.

.

Her hands flew to her mouth in the next second, horrified by her action. The boys' expressions said that they understood, that they also found it difficult to balance the good things that happened with the sadness of the last weeks.

She wasn't surprised when each took one of her wrists and pulled them back onto her lap.

Winry had thought she had understood before, that she shared in their pain because of her own past. But her parents had died so long ago; life with her grandmother had healed her.

That meant she'd heal again, right?

It had to.

.

"I'd never been happier to see Miss Laura than when she got over the flu," Edward said, drawing her from her darker thoughts.

Winry thought back to last autumn. The change of season always left a wake of sniffling, coughing people. "Yeah, because you managed to catch the last of it." Nobody sniffled and coughed louder than Edward when it got him out of school.

"Dumb luck," Edward grinned.

"Brother passed it to us, too," Alphonse remembered.

And if Granny hadn't threatened to ban her from the automail shop, she'd have trudged to class and hauled the brothers with her.

.

"With perfect timing," Edward said, "by the time we went back to school, there was no sign of Mrs. Malcolm." His little brother nodded. "Who thought a doctor's wife would make a good teacher, anyway?"

Winry frowned. "She did teach before she got married, Ed."

"Good thing she snatched a husband before we started school, then," the older boy chuckled.

"Edward!"

He turned to her, all innocence. "Yeah?"

"That wasn't a nice thing to say. Right, Al?" Alphonse started picking on a hole in his gray pants. "Boys!" Winry huffed. "You said she was okay."

"We said you liked her."

.

"That's right. She didn't believe you boys could do alchemy," Winry remembered, a little calmer now. With her mind more pleasantly focused, only her fingers betrayed her, fiddling with the edges of her mourning dress. "She wanted you to write four full pages -"

"'I must not tell lies in the classroom'," Edward chanted, rolling his eyes. "She was so angry when I asked whether that meant I could tell lies outside school."

Al shook his head. "So she added, 'or anywhere else.' to our punishment."

"In the end you never did it," Winry reminded them. "Your mom… She…."

Sudden silence.

.

None of the three kids would look at each other. The wound was still too fresh, and they were thrown back a few weeks, to another sad meeting after another funeral. Back then, Winry's dress had been bought in a rush (Trisha Elric's passing shocked everybody) and fitted by the local seamstress overnight.

The next day, Winry had stuffed the depressing memento into the deepest parts of her closet, and hoped never to have to see it again.

Not a month later, Mrs. Malcolm pulled it out and ironed it in the next room while Winry cried herself to sleep.

.

"Mom was great that time," Alphonse said, and for everyone's sake he tried to smile.

Edward fisted his hands. "She was always great," he muttered.

Both boys could remember that morning, the eager walk to school with their mother a few steps behind them. It was one of the few times both had been looking forward to their classes, since Mother had said that they could show - not show off! - their talents to their teacher's substitute.

"She looked so proud of you," Winry told them, letting go of her dress so she could place a hand on each boy's arm.

.

"She even wore her green dress, the pretty one that reached her ankles." This time Alphonse's smile looked a little more genuine. He plucked one strand of grass, turning it in the sunlight until it matched the exact shade of his memories. "It was her favorite."

Under her touch, Winry could feel Edward relax even as he shook his head. "Her favorite was the blue one. She always wore it for our birthday parties."

Because the eventual cake prints blended with the pattern, Winry knew, while the green one was the prettiest their mother had. "She loved her yellow sundress."

.

Both boys turned toward her. "How'd you know that?" Edward asked, eyebrows furrowed at the uncomfortable thought that anyone outside their little family knew their mother better than they had.

Winry was quick to catch onto his mood. "She said so," she answered, and too late she realized that the vague answer would prompt more questions.

"She did?" Alphonse didn't disappoint. He'd always hung around their mother, eager for stories about their father despite Edward's scowls. After the funeral, he'd started asking Grandma about Trisha's youth, or about the Elric family from when he and Edward had been babies. "When?"

.

Used to fingering her tools when she searched her memories, Winry started toying with the tiny buttons of Ed's cuff. "It was that time I was so mad at you, I wouldn't play with you." At their blank looks, she narrowed it down. Everybody in town knew that the Elric boys had a knack for turning the quiet, well-behaved Rockbell girl into a yelling tornado that chased them across roads and fields. "That big beetle in Rosie's knapsack?"

"I told her I was sorry!" Edward sulked.

Not because he'd felt guilty.

"Only because Winry made you," Alphonse echoed her thoughts.

.

Edward leaned forward so he could glare at his brother without Winry blocking the effect. "Cole had just thrown you into the lake."

Winry tugged on his sleeve. "And that was a good reason to scare his little sister with the meanest bug in Resembool?"

Edward shrugged. Defending his actions would only lead to another three days of Winry ignoring him.

Winry sighed. Edward was usually patient and kind with the smaller kids; but his protectiveness of Alphonse knew no bounds. An eye for an eye had been his reasoning, and it'd taken three days until he'd understood his mistake.

.

"Anyway," Winry returned their conversation to their earlier tack, "so I was mad because of Rosie. When you came over, I stayed with your mom and Granny." Auntie Trisha had said that she was growing into a gracious young lady, and Winry remembered blushing at the praise. Always with her head in boyish games or automail, 'gracious' had been the last adjective anyone would have bestowed on her. "We had tea, and your mom brought a batch of her best cookies."

"Chocolate!" Alphonse cried out, making a pleased sound.

Edward sighed, and she patted his wrist without a second thought.

.

"Yes, chocolate." Both women had been pleased at her presence. Probably because she hadn't gulped down her tea, grabbed two extra cookies and run outside to join the boys. "Then they talked."

"About what?"

XXX

"It's rare for you to be this quiet," Grandma commented, a knowing twinkle in her eye. "What went wrong?"

"Nothing, Granny." Childhood's unwritten rule was to keep the grown-ups in the dark.

These grown-ups, though, knew their children too well. "What did they do this time?" Aunt Trisha asked, her clear eyes so unlike her sons' and yet they reflected the same openness.

XXX

Winry smiled. "Us."

XXX

Tea served, Grandma Pinako turned to her friend. "Ed is making fast progress with the basic circles," she started, "Soon he'll want to see his father's more advanced books."

Winry's ears perked up. It was so rare to hear about Mr. Elric. For years she'd believed that the man was dead until, after her parents' death and in some attempt at comfort that could only make sense to Edward, Ed had told her that a dead father was better than an absent one. She had yelled at him then, but now she remembered his words and couldn't help but agree.

.

Aunt Trisha was shaking her head. "He's too busy making sure that Al catches up with him."

"He is a good older brother," Granny said as she stirred the sugar in her cup. "But it's clear that Ed is eager for more. He's even been pestering around the house to let him transmute my furniture."

The younger woman laughed. "He's already gone through ours. I actually love the three-legged chair they managed last week. Al was so proud."

"But it's crooked," Winry piped in.

"It's still beautiful, and one day it'll remind them that they weren't always perfect," she smiled.

.

Winry noticed that Granny wasn't so amused. She returned a brief smile to her friends' mother and, snatching one cookie, sat back in her best impression of seen-but-not-heard. Her grandmother's brow had crinkled as the conversation unfolded, and Winry didn't want it directed at her. "Children should learn rules, Trisha, especially those with great skills."

Aunt Trisha's face was still placid, but her voice hardened just a bit. "You are training a ten-year-old, and she's turning out well. My boys will be fine."

"Or they'll end up like -"

Winry's cookie made a loud crunching sound.

Granny never finished that sentence.

XXX

"She must have meant our father," Edward interrupted, biting out the word with disgust.

"Or some rogue alchemist, like in the war stories," Alphonse tried.

"I don't know," Winry said, even though she agreed with Edward. As similar as the boys were, she knew that in some key issues their views were opposite. Alphonse would always be optimistic about their father's return and keep the memories of their mother with love and fondness rather than sorrow. Edward refused to consider that choice. "But they dropped the subject," she continued the tale, "and after more tea, they started talking about clothes."

.

"Are you sure she said yellow?" Alphonse asked, rolling the grass blade between his fingers. "She looked so pretty in that green dress."

"Your mom mentioned that she loved the golden trim, that it reminded her of…" 'my men's eyes'. At the time, Winry had thought it an odd phrasing to refer to her sons, but now she wondered if Aunt Trisha hadn't included someone else in those memories. "It reminded her of you," she said instead, "of your eyes."

Edward glanced at her, having noticed the pause, but only set his mouth into a grim gesture and didn't comment.

Alphonse leaned back until he was lying on the grass, using his left arm as a pillow but careful not to dislodge Winry's grasp from his other wrist. "I wonder if they're talking about us now," his voice carried such wistfulness that even Edward looked up at the sky, hope and skepticism warring in his features.

He didn't believe in the afterlife; he and Granny had argued about that. In a heated moment, he'd called her grandmother a fool, and even though he'd apologized immediately, Winry knew that he wanted to say the same to his brother.

But he wouldn't.

.

"Perhaps," Winry answered, and wondered if her parents would join them.

"I hope Aunt Pinako doesn't tell mom about how we still manage to burn our meals when we're supposed to just reheat them," Alphonse continued. "Our stove is tricky, even when Brother tries his best."

There was a sound at her right. If it was a scoff or a sob, she'd never find out as its owner scrambled to his feet. He'd have headed off too; but, desperate to keep him where he belonged, Winry reached out, took a hold of his trousers pocket and pulled him back down.

.

Edward rounded on her, golden eyes bristling. But Winry was ready. This wasn't the first time she and Ed butted heads over something that wouldn't make sense to anyone else, and it wouldn't be the last. But it was the most important to date, and as they squared off, the nature of their relationship wavered, shifted and resettled into a place it'd never been before.

Winry wondered if this was what growing up felt like.

Edward wondered when he could stop walking on eggshells around her. "Pinako won't tell her anything, Al," he mumbled, "She wouldn't worry mom for nothing."

.

"Or she'd brag about how her talented granddaughter could repair that stove in a trice, whereas the alchemists keep eating charred meat." When neither boy answered with their usual boasting, Winry turned to check on them. Both Edward and Alphonse had their eyes glued to a passing white cloud. "I could!" she insisted.

Alphonse was the first to blink. "Sure, Win."

Winry removed her hands from their consoling position and flexed them, suddenly missing the weight of her faithful wrench. "You are awful," she complained, and crossed her arms over her chest. "Awful!"

The final straw came with Edward's snigger.

.

Winry shot up, glaring daggers at the two boys who still lingered on the grass. She knew that Ed was watching her, ready to return the favor and yank her down if she tried to leave. But she intended no such thing. "Just because I don't carry around some white chalk everywhere, doesn't mean I can't repair things too. And I don't scare little girls when I'm doing it."

Now sure that she wouldn't flee, Edward copied his brother's idea and stretched out at her feet. "You're still bringing that up?"

"We were trying to help," Alphonse joined his brother.

.

"Well." Granny had always said that she was too rash. Granny had been right. "I will help you now." Never mind that her apprenticeship at the automail shop hadn't yet passed the point where she watched her grandmother, handed tools and maybe was allowed to replace a rusty screw. Never mind that the brothers knew it as well, from the many times Winry had complained about such injustice.

Alphonse sat up, eyes a little too wide with worry. "You don't need to, Winry."

"Yeah. Please don't," Edward said, eyes closed against the sun.

Alphonse saw Winry's expression and cringed. "Brother…."

.

The warning came too late.

"I'll show you," she told them, voice even and hands joined at waist level, just like she'd seen her grandmother do when she was annoyed. The pose didn't become her, though, and it was obvious that neither brother was the least impressed. So Winry returned to more successful ways. Placing one hand on her hip, she leaned in and slapped them both across the head. Or that's what she'd meant to do, but at his brother's indignant yelp, Alphonse scrabbled back on feet and elbows.

She didn't follow, aware that a explosion was seconds away.

.

"You didn't need to do that!" Edward pushed himself into a sitting position, scowling at her all the while. "You'll just go and burn yourself and somehow we will get blamed."

He wasn't wrong. If the three of them got in trouble, everybody except Granny and Aunt Trisha would point an accusing finger to the brothers - particularly to Ed - without prior questioning. But now Winry focused on the important part of his sentence, "I won't get burned, okay?" and rapped the top of his head. "I think I can handle a damn stove!"

The swearing, though, was all Ed's fault.

.

"You're so violent sometimes," Edward groaned, rubbing his forehead as if it hurt.

Winry knew better. He used to tease her about how her weak, girly smacks wouldn't faze a fly. He'd been right; Winry Rockbell would never beat a boy in a physical match. After much deliberation, she'd chosen an Allen key as the solution. Days later, when Edward tired of the six-sided bruises and transmuted it into a chain for his bike, she'd taken her new wrench and threatened to upgrade to a hammer if he pulled another alchemy trick on her tools.

So far, it had worked.

.

Winry smiled. "Only when you deserve it," she answered.

"I was trying to be nice," he thundered, dropping his hands to stop the injured act. "See if I make the same mistake twice."

That was the worst part. That somewhere in his unique brand of logic, telling her that she was a lousy mechanic translated to looking out for her welfare. Sometimes Winry believed that, had she not known Edward since they were in diapers, she wouldn't have anything to do with him. He was so very stubborn….

"Not more than yourself, missy," Granny's perceptive comment came to her memory.

.

Alphonse looked between them, apprehensive at first but his shoulders relaxed as he studied their countenances. "It's difficult to tell when you're fighting for real," he complained, shaking his head at their antics.

"We are so!" both Edward and Winry protested in unison.

Alphonse laughed.

There was no danger when they chased or threatened each other. But it was when they closed the other out, when Edward practiced circles meant to turn whole toolkits into chain links, or Winry eyed his bike as if she was counting in how many pieces she could take it apart…. Those were dangerous waters.

.

"We should head back," Alphonse said, having caught the slow progress of the sun as his brother and their best friend squabbled. "I bet that by now everybody's looking for Winry."

"They know she's safe with us," Edward challenged, "They can wait until she's ready to go back." Neither Alphonse nor Winry mentioned that an hour ago he hadn't been so cavalier about her needs.

"But, Brother, they don't know we found her."

Edward's eyebrows furrowed. "Why else wouldn't we have joined the search already?"

Alphonse thought it over, and nodded.

Winry smiled. Trust another Elric to understand Edward's logic.

.

"Al's right," she said, straightening her dress and wincing at her dishevelment. The black cloth was torn and mud-encrusted, unfit to be worn in public. At least she'd gotten her wish; this dress belonged to the trash now. "I'm a mess."

Edward removed a leaf that'd been trapped between her sock and shoe. "Who cares?"

It was such an Ed-question, one he'd asked a thousand times in the past whenever he caught her fussing about her appearance. The usual answer came to her lips without second thought, "Grandma will; she'll…." She blinked. Dropped back onto the grass. "No, she won't."

.

She'd always remember that Edward and Alphonse had been with her when she'd opened her front door. It had been supposed to be another day, another meal with the four of them around the table. Dinner had been ready for half an hour when her grandmother had sent her to the boys' house with strict orders to drag them away from their father's study if necessary.

One word was all it had taken: stew.

The boys couldn't close their books soon enough, and they'd sprinted down the shortcut to the Rockbell house.

She still wished they'd taken the long way.

.

Winry only remembered snatches of that horrible evening. One minute she'd been teasing Ed for having arrived last at her porch (he'd been at the lead, but he'd turned around to brag and tripped over a fallen branch for his trouble). Between snickers and goading Alphonse to join her, she'd twisted the doorknob open, and then….

And then what?

Freezing at the doorstep, that she remembered well. A man rushing past her. The doctor. Him shaking his head, his thumb still looking for a pulse.

Forcing cold food down her throat.

She couldn't stand stew now. None of them could.

.

Alphonse remembered being the first to step inside. He hadn't wanted to. He'd wanted to return through that door and run home, where hope still hid in dusty books.

But Aunt Pinako was lying in the middle of the room (so much like Mother). The same thought seemed to cross his brother's mind, because Ed's wide eyes stared at the scene, as if he'd somehow entered one of his more recent nightmares.

"Granny?" Winry's voice had never been so thin.

Then Edward's fist connected with the wall, but the rest of his body wouldn't move.

And so Alphonse stepped inside.

.

'Not again!' was all Edward remembered thinking in those first moments. Then he'd seen his little brother approach Winry's grandmother and his brain had snapped into action. Something needed to be done. Anything. He just needed a moment to decide what.

The afternoon he and Alphonse had found mom, Aunt Pinako had rushed over, settled Mother into bed and sent for the doctor…. The doctor!

He hadn't even wondered why his knuckles burned until Mrs. Malcolm insisted on dressing the abrasion. Edward had marveled that anyone would bother about a scratch, snatched his hand away and raced back to Winry's.

.

That had happened three days ago. Heart failure, had been Dr. Karl's diagnostic, leaving three orphans to wonder if the biggest hearts would always be the first to fail.

XXX

Alphonse's relief at the doctor's presence was short-lived. Beyond a pitying glance in Winry's direction, the man seemed more at a loss at having children in the room than the children themselves were at having a stranger invade their space and tell them that their lives had changed. Again.

"There's nothing I can do," Dr. Karl said, avoiding their gazes.

Edward was right. Grown-ups were useless when you most needed them.

.

"This isn't right," Edward muttered through clenched teeth, having arrived at the house just to see the doctor lay Pinako's wrist back on the floor and shake his head. Alphonse was crying, sitting on the carpet a few steps away from the terrible tableau. Still standing at the doorstep, knuckles white as she gripped the doorframe, Winry still hadn't shed a tear.

Had they been like her, after mom's death? Small broken figures unwilling to accept the truth.

(Edward flashed to the pile of books in the study, the feverish notes he made on the margins.)

Maybe they still were.

.

"Brother?"

Edward looked up from his plate. After the examination, the doctor had barked at them to leave the room. None of them would have ever obeyed such a command; but their nerves were too flayed and compliance seemed the easiest way. They'd followed the nightly rituals, gathering at the table and inclining their heads for a prayer that never came.

He didn't think he'd ever take another bite of stew. "Yes, Al?"

The younger boy pointed at the empty seat across the table. "Winry hasn't come back."

"Damn it." They never should have let her out of their sight.

.

They looked for Winry in her room first, but she wasn't there. The automail shop was empty, too.

"Maybe she's with Mrs. Malcolm," Alphonse suggested.

Edward scoffed; the woman had appeared at the house with a set of bandages in one hand and a jar of salve cream in the other. Upon hearing about the death, though, she'd forgotten about his hand and directed her attention to Winry. As if Winry cared for some intruder fluttering around her now. "Nah. The old hag is with the doctor," he said, certain that their friend hadn't joined the couple. "Let's look outside."

.

They found her at the limit of the Rockbell property, sitting on the grass with a big dark shape lying across her legs. At least she hadn't left on her own.

Edward settled at her right, petting Den's snout. He had no words; he didn't believe in anything that would comfort her, and what comforted him needed to stay a secret.

Alphonse draped the jacket he'd swiped from her room on their way out over her shoulders, then sat down and smothered a giggle when Den's wagging tail brushed against the back of his knee.

They stayed there for hours.

XXX

Winry would always remember that Edward and Alphonse had been with her on that sluggish walk back to the house. She had known that her life would be reordered by the time she crossed the threshold, and she had a good idea of how things would be presented.

The doctor and his wife had offered to take the boys in after Aunt Trisha's death; but Granny had stepped in, promised to keep a close eye on the brothers. People had frowned (three rambunctious kids under an old woman's care?); but none would brave Granny's temper.

There were no obstacles now.

.

In the end, the Elric boys had been allowed to stay home. The mere suggestion to move out had led to threats of transmuting whichever house they were placed in into a rubble of stone and wood. When even Alphonse's tranquil eyes narrowed in determination, the offer had been retracted and only Winry's things had been packed and carried away.

"I shouldn't complain," Winry said now, eyes fixed on the ground. "They are nice, and they are letting me keep Den."

"You should've left her with us," Ed sniffed. "Their yard's a joke."

"I don't think that's the point, Brother."

.

"You can cry," Alphonse's caring voice soothed her nerves.

She opened her eyes to find her friends kneeling before her, concerned twin sets of golden eyes trained on her. "If I cry, it'll make Granny sad."

Edward pursed his lips, but didn't contradict her.

Alphonse put his hand on hers, and only then did she notice that she'd fisted her hand so tightly that her short nails were digging into her palm. "Sometimes it helps," he said.

She expected the older brother to snort at such a notion. When he didn't, Winry turned toward him but he was looking away.

.

"Does it, Ed?"

Edward ignored his brother's nod and shrugged. "Not really." He pointed to the miniature river before them. "Tears are salt and water."

And water didn't care.

"I see." Winry pulled herself to her feet, now careless of her appearance, and began her way back to town. She could hear the brothers arguing behind her; Alphonse berating his brother for the lack of support, Edward maintaining his position. Then they realized she was leaving, and rushed to her side.

Winry took their hands and together they stepped through the bushes.

Water may not care.

But they always would.

The End
14/09/08