Title: Time Exchange

Summary: In modern day Amestris, alchemy is nothing but legend. After the death of their father, siblings Edward and Harley find a silver pocket watch and old books with descriptions of actual alchemy hidden in his study. After accidentally bringing Ed, Al, Team Mustang, and (unfortunately) the Homunculi from 1915 to their time, they have a lot to do . . . specifically, bringing back the alchemy that the Fuhrer tried so hard to make disappear.

Warnings: Other than the typical language and violence that is FMA, there will be a few OCs, modern technology, and time travel. Takes place in 2013 Amestris, and the Promised Day hasn't happened yet for the canon characters.

~Time Exchange~

Prologue

The study was dimly lit by the fireplace behind her, casting dark shadows across the dusty items strewn above the study as Harley went through the bookcase on the opposite wall. Her fingers traced over the spine of each book as she recognized the titles, remembering each and every book she had read sprawled on the floor while her father worked on his novels and other things at his desk.

A pang of nostalgia ran through her, and Harley almost felt like crying again. She was still in her own house, but it would never actually be home again without her father, especially now that she and her brother were being forced to move out because they couldn't afford the expenses.

A head of gold hair poked into the room from the door. "Harls," came the exasperated sigh of her name. "It's one in the morning. What are you doing?"

Harley turned to face her brother. At eighteen, Edward should have been preparing to go to the medical university that he had been talking about since he was her age. Even if he was offered the full scholarship that he had applied for just a few days before his father's death, he now wouldn't be able to handle going to school full time as well working to make sure Harley had what she needed for school and cared for properly. He would have to hold off on his dream of becoming a doctor for a while.

Anger welled up inside her chest. Why had her father died so suddenly and left them on their own? Edward could have gone to college in Central and Harley could have continued to go to school in Resembool, and both Elric siblings would be happy.

A flash of guilt hit her next. It was selfish to blame her dad, even though she was the only reason Edward was unable to go to college until she could be on her own. At fifteen, Harley was certain that she wouldn't possibly be able to take care of herself after being taken care of her entire life.

She turned back to the bookshelf, her back to her brother. "Reminiscing," she responded hollowly.

Edward sighed again, opening the study door further and crossing the room in a few strides to stand next to her. "You need to get some sleep, Harley," he said. "I know this has been hard on you - on both of us - but we can't let ourselves get caught up in grief. We have to take care of ourselves, you know."

Harley didn't look up at her brother, even though his hand was on her head and ruffling her hair, which she normally would scowl at and then exaggeratedly push away. "I know," she responded instead, her voice just as flat and devoid of emotion as before. "I'll go to bed soon, Eddie. I promise."

Edward hesitated in his response, and Harley could tell that he was thinking of the best way to get her to sleep sooner rather than later. He was still getting used to the role of guardian to go with older brother as well. "Ten minutes, Harls," he warned, ruffling her hair again before approaching the door. "I mean it!" he called, shutting it quietly behind him.

"Okay," Harley said quietly, knowing that her brother would no longer hear her. She glanced over at the cardboard boxes on the other side of the room, and decided she might as well start packing what she could. She knew for a fact that she and Edward would never get rid of their father's books, no matter the circumstances.

She flipped through each book before carefully placing them into the boxes. There were hardly any pictures unless she went flipping through one of the many science books her father owned, and she casually flipped through those the longest, remembering when she would sit on her father's knee at his desk and he would explain things to her, even though she was too young to actually understand most of what he was saying.

The next book she pulled from the shelf was plain leather, with no title. There was a weird symbol on the front, though, and Harley had never seen it outside of fairy tale books. With a frown, she flipped through the first few pages, seeing a word only associated with myths and legends: alchemy.

A piece of paper floated to the floor as Harley flipped through the book, and she stooped to pick it up. There were a few numbers on it, and Harley frowned, looking back at the book. There was a note in the margin that the paper had come from, talking about a safe behind a bookcase.

Looking quizzically at the bookcase, Harley decided it was worth a shot, if only to satisfy her own curiosity. She carefully set the rest of the books on the floor beside the boxes, and gripped the sides of the bookcase, carefully pushing it aside. It scraped against the floor, quite loudly, at that, and Harley knew she only had a few moments before Edward would be coming to check on her.

It was there. The door to the safe that had been mentioned in the book was right there on the wall, and Harley still had the combination on the piece of paper in her hand. She reached for the lock, intent on seeing what was in it, especially since the combination had been found in a book about alchemy, of all things.

The door opened behind her, and Edward barged in. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded. "Harley, it's late! You should be -" He suddenly cut off, staring at the safe as well.

Harley turned to face him, the fire on the other side reflecting in gold eyes that mirrored Edward's. "Did you know about this?" she asked curiously.

Edward frowned, shaking his head. "No, I didn't." He came to stand at her side. "We won't worry about it now, though," he said, his voice gentle now as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Sleep first, safe later."

It was four in the morning when Harley sneaked out of her bed and trudged quietly back to her father's study. The fire in the fireplace had been extinguished, and the room was cool because of the winter temperatures. Resembool hardly got below forty degrees during the winter, but the lack of warmth was enough to make Harley shudder and pull her sweater around her shoulders tighter.

Her steps were nearly silent as she slid across the room in her socks, flipping on the overhead light on her father's desk and then approaching the safe. She took a glance at the numbers on the piece of paper in her hand, reaching for the lock and entering the combination.

With a soft click, the door swung open, revealing even more books behind it's steel door. On top of the books sat a silver pocket watch, and when Harley reached for it, the metal was cool to the touch. The symbol on the front was the one on the Amestrian flag, and when she tried to open it, it wouldn't budge. Her fingers traced over the design and the knobs on the outside before she slipped it into her pocket for later examination.

Harley went to her father's desk, retrieving the flashlight which laid among chalk, paper, and pens. She went back to the safe, turning on the flashlight and examining the titles on the dusty leather books. Each one had something to do with alchemy, but her eye caught on one in particular.

The Forbidden Exchange: Human Transmutation.

For the next several hours, Harley poured over every book, memorizing as much as she could about alchemy. After attempting to read the book on human transmutation, which gave details to bring someone back from the dead, Harley knew that she would have to learn everything else first.

Later that morning at around nine, Edward poked his head into the room with a frown. His hair was mussed and sticking in different angles, and there were dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep combined with the stress of everything he had to do today and for the next several days.

"How long have you been up?" he asked suspiciously, taking note of the determined expression on his sister's tired face.

"A while," Harley replied vaguely.

Edward wasn't going to fall for that; with his intelligence, he rarely fell for anything. "How long is a while?" he asked suspiciously, quirking a brow.

"An hour or so," Harley lied smoothly.

"I call bullshit, Harls," he said, leaning against the doorway. He glanced over at the safe, which was open. "Curiosity got to you, eh?" He crossed the room and crouched beside her, where she was reading the alchemy books. Gold eyes scanned over the titles of the books, genuine intrigue written across Edward's features.

"Alchemy," he murmured, picking up one of the books and flipping through the first few pages. "As an actual science. That's new."

"Apparently not," Harley responded. "That book you're holding talks about it as if it were real, and has details of experiments with alchemy that actually work, like turning lead to gold for a short while, and so on."

"Interesting," Edward responded. "You do know that this isn't real, right?"

"You sure about that?" Harley picked up a piece of chalk from the floor beside her, where she had placed it after reading that it was essential for performing alchemy. She copied a quick transmutation circle on the floor, and focused like the book said, and clapped her hands before placing them on the circle.

Sparks of blue crackled through the air, and Edward jumped back, eyes wide in awe and slight fear. When the sparks cleared, Harley was left sitting in front of a dent on the floor, a wooden figurine of a dog sitting in her palm.

"See?" She grinned at Edward, who was still staring in shock. "Maybe it's not a total fantasy."

"This can't be real," Edward said. "I'm dreaming. I'm going to wake up and this will all have been my imagination."

Harley frowned, and then chucked the figurine at his head. "Ow!" Edward yelped just as Harley said, "Did'ya wake up yet?"

"You don't have to be so rude about it, you know," Edward grumbled, rubbing at the sore spot on his head now. "But, alchemy . . . wow. It's supposed to be just a myth."

"Well, obviously it isn't. Maybe all the loons that claim to have witnessed it aren't so loony after all," Harley murmured, grabbing the human transmutation book and holding it out to Edward, who took it and surveyed it in silence. "According to that, it may be possible for us to bring Dad back."

Edward looked up as if he'd been slapped. "No."

Harley blinked, thinking she hadn't heard him correctly. "No?"

"No," Edward repeated firmly. "Dad is dead. The dead should remain dead, Harls. There has to be some sort of ramification for trying to bring him back, and you know that. Everyone that has ever heard of alchemy knows that there was an equivalent exchange law, so whatever you do to bring Dad back, something will be taken."

"Yeah? That's a risk I'm willing to take."

"But I'm not," Edward snapped heatedly. "In legends and myths those that perform human transmutation have essential things taken from them, and you know it! People lose limbs, organs, and even their lives, and it never even worked successfully! I'm not okay with that happening to you."

"But Ed -"

"No!" Edward yelled. The room went silent, and Harley stared at her brother in shock. She was the one with the short temper, the one that always yelled; not Edward. He was supposed to be the calm, level-minded one, and she could count on one hand the number of times he had yelled before. "You are not performing human transmutation to bring Dad back! He's dead and he should remain that way! You're not supposed to risk going to join him on the off chance that human transmutation works."

"But I can do this!" Harley protested. "See?" She grabbed the book still clenched tightly in Edward's hand, flipping to a page she had bookmarked earlier. "Dad improved the array, and he even wrote in the margin that he might have possibly found the solution! I need to try this, Ed!"

Her brother wouldn't even look at her. "Is it really worth it, Harls?" he asked quietly, staring down at his hands, his expression shadowed by his hair. "If you die because you fail, I'll be on my own. I'm supposed to take care of you, Harls, and you're supposed to let me, not the other way around."

Harley stared, shocked. Yelling was not something Edward did often, but admitting what he was thinking and feeling was even rarer. "Ed . . ."

Edward stood from where he was crouching and stormed out of the room, the door slamming behind him.

Edward dutifully made sure that all of their meals were prepared, but he never once said anything to Harley as they sat down to eat, no matter how many times she tried to initiate conversation. He'd talk to her when he was ready.

After dinner, long after the the sun had disappeared behind the hills and darkness had fallen over Resembool, Harley decided that it was time to act.

The circle was huge, and Harley checked every symbol twice just to make sure that she wouldn't screw up. She made a few quiet trips to the kitchen to gather some of the necessary ingredients, and gathered the rest of what she would need from her father's study.

Soon enough, everything was in place, and Harley was ready to begin. She folded the papers that she had been practicing arrays on and stuffed them into her pocket, kneeled in front of the circle, and clapped her hands.

Edward woke with a jolt upon hearing the loud crackle of electricity coming from down the hall.

Despite the fact that he had been exhausted before bed, Edward was immediately awake at the familiar sound that was no doubt coming from his father's study. He leaped to his feet and ran down the hall, barging into the study, which was alight with sparks of blue.

"Harley!" he screeched, reaching for his sister.

There was an explosion, and Edward knew no more.

Harley was knocked to the floor in the explosion. She was sure that she had heard her brother, but she curled up on her side in an attempt to lessen the pain that wracked her entire body.

The smoke began to clear, and Harley slowly sat up, staring at the new occupants in the study.

"What the hell?!" she screeched, scrambling backwards until her back hit the wall, eyes wide as the people in front of her stirred.

The young man with dark hair and even darker hair sat up first, his hand against his temple. His eyes darted around the room before focusing on Harley. The young teen gaped, eyes focused mainly on the symbol on his gloves.

"You - you can do flame alchemy?" she asked quietly.

The man stood, his shoulders stiff and back straight. He was wearing a military uniform, an older version of the one that Amestris currently had. His companions were climbing to their feet moments after he was, groaning and grumbling.

"Colonel, what the hell?" the shortest one snapped. Harley stared at the younger version of her brother, convinced that she had hit her head while performing the transmutation and this was her newest hellish nightmare.

"I could ask the same, Fullmetal," the colonel responded, his eyes never leaving Harley. The other occupants of the room - was that a suit of armor?! - had turned to face her as well. "Is there, perhaps, a sibling that you never mentioned before?"

The short boy that was identified as Fullmetal gaped. "No . . ." He narrowed his eyes at Harley. "Who are you?"

"Um." Harley wished she could sink through the cracks that were now all over the wooden floor. She scanned the room, looking for her brother. She was sure she had heard his voice while she was doing the transmutation. "Edward?" she called, getting to her feet and starting for the door. It was open, but she specifically remembered closing it earlier.

Fingers wrapped around her wrist and pulled her back before she had a chance to go through the open door. "Who are you calling for?" the dark haired colonel demanded, spinning her around to face him.

"My - my brother, Edward," she squeaked out. "I thought he was in here . . ."

He stared at her, dark eyes narrowed in thought. "What's your name, kid?"

"Harley. Harley Elric."

There were a few gasps from the other people gathered at the center of the room. "I wasn't aware you had other family," the blonde woman with brown eyes murmured, directing her statement at the short boy and the suit of armor.

"We don't," Fullmetal responded, his eyes narrowed at Harley as well.

"She looks an awful lot like you," the man with the cigarette hanging out of his mouth observed. "And she's got the same last name."

A thought crossed Harley's mind. "Um, what year is it?" she asked quietly.

"Why?" Fullmetal asked suspiciously.

"1915," the suit of armor said. Harley jolted, not expecting the voice at all, much less expecting it to sound so childlike and soft.

"Um. It's 2013," Harley responded carefully. "I think . . . I think I accidentally discovered time travel."

Well, that's it! I'd love it if you'd review, give me your thoughts and opinions, or suggest ways to make it better to keep your interest. Thanks for taking the time to read. :)

~Blaze