OK, I made a couple of small edits. Nothing major. FMA doesn't belong to me.
Russell Tringham was hunched over a notebook, scribbling notes and equations from a book that had just arrived from Central. It was past midnight, but he had no intention of going to bed anytime soon. There was too much to be done, too much to be learned from this new text. He wanted to at least finish looking through the current chapter before he succumbed to his drooping eyelids and give his aching fingers a rest.
Belsio's farm had become even more productive with the help of Fletcher and himself. With their hard work, the farm was providing enough fresh fruit for the whole town of Xenotime. Even though it was only a small reparation for what he had done, Russell felt a sense of fulfillment doing this work. He could see in Fletcher's eyes that his younger brother was just as happy.
At the thought of his younger brother, Russell couldn't help but smile. While Russell's talents lay in research and theory, his younger brother was far more talented in the actual practice of alchemy. Fletcher was one of the most promising young alchemists of his time. Some were even comparing him to Edward Elric, especially those who wished for the younger Tringham brother to become a State Alchemist.
As his thoughts turned to the short (Ed would kill him for even thinking that) alchemist, Russell's thoughts grew more clouded. The day six months ago, when his brother and he had been the last two people to see Edward Elric still haunted him. The unanswered questions were foremost in his mind. Al's appearance and loss of memory concerning his brother and him, what exactly happened down that staircase, and where Ed had gone were all questions that weighed heavily on Russell's mind as he worked, or rather, tried to work. Russell noticed he had stopped writing an equation that was halfway done. He yawned and stretched in his chair before shaking his head, as if to shake the thoughts out of his head. However, the thoughts remained.
The thoughts of Ed were the hardest to get rid of. He could still see him walking down the staircase in the church. He could smell the stale air that emanated from below the altar. But, most of all, he could hear himself screaming after Ed, hoping he would hear. 'Come back to us, now… Come back to us alive!' Even now, six months later, he couldn't say exactly why he had yelled after Ed. It was true that he had felt obligated to help him, especially after finding the page in their father's journal. That discovery had led to a frenzy in Russell. He had to get that page, that information, to Ed. When he had seen Ed again, he quickly fell into teasing him about his height, almost as if they had been childhood friends and he had been doing it for years. They weren't, but that was the connection he felt with Ed; a peer, a comrade, maybe a friend even.
But, he had lost that friend. He couldn't even talk to Al about what happened, and it haunted him. Memories of Ed had been filling his dreams lately; especially the scene of Ed descending the staircase. He was beginning to wonder if he was obsessed with the young man he had impersonated. It was possible. He had done his share of research to make sure that things went smoothly when he introduced himself as Edward Elric. He had been wondering what would happen if he actually met the real thing for weeks before he saw the real Ed for himself. That had to be the reason Ed's disappearance haunted him. He had spent so long trying to be Ed he had become obsessed with him.
'If that was so, why did I yell out to him? With him gone, I could have gone back to being Edward Elric,' Russell thought to himself, 'No, I couldn't have done that. I looked up to him too much. Well, not looked up to, but I really respected him.' Russell suddenly caught himself. He was referring to Ed in the past tense, as if he were gone. He had never done that and for some reason his heart was caught in his throat. For the past six months, he believed that it was a disappearance. That someday, Ed would just come back with that cocky grin and he'd probably still be just as short as ever and just as much fun to tease. But, there was a very good possibility that the "someday" would never come. For some reason, that thought scared Russell. 'Why? Why am I feeling this? I only met him a few times and the first time we were fighting each other. Why can I barely hold my tears back at the thought that he's dead? It's as if I lo-' Russell's thoughts stopped in a dead track. The pencil he had been holding absent-mindedly clattered to the floor. His eyes widened as the realization of what he felt flooded over him. His only response broke the dead quiet of the study.
"Oh shit."