Disclaimer: Anything Fullmetal Alchemist related isn't mine. The plot is partly mine, but it's based off of various books and movies, namely Paprika (movie) and Homeward Bounders (if that's the title of the book… it's been a while).

Oh, and I make fun of Kansas a lot. I'm allowed to. I'm a Kansan… well I was for most of my life. Most of my family is from Kansas too.

To Edward Elric, anything could happen. He knew that and he had accepted it long ago, or maybe it hadn't been that long at all, but either way he knew it with his entire being. The unbelievable had occurred when his Father had left, when his friend's parents were killed, his mother died… He met Izumi Curtis and her husband, Roy Mustang, Nina Tucker, and so many others that he couldn't name them all. He'd created a homunculus and then got rid of it and others. His brother had lost his body, become a Philosopher's Stone. His brother gave up his life for him and he in return tried one final time, offering his entire being, to keep his brother alive.

All of that had just been just a small amount of what could really happen to Edward Elric.

Edward's POV

I knew it the moment I woke up. I was on the other side of the gate once again but this time I was in my own body. Somehow I still had my arm and leg. It was as if the Truth hadn't taken a single thing. I laid on my back staring at the sky for a long time. I was in the middle of some field, who knew how far away from anything. I could have checked, but I just didn't feel like it. In fact, I felt pretty numb.

"I guess it didn't work…"

A large something moved closer to me. I shifted my gaze to look at it instead of the sky.

"A cow." I laughed, the idea striking me as funny. I was laying in some field a whole world away with a curious cow. "AH!" I yelled, it's cold tongue suddenly sticking out and licking me on my hip. I hadn't realized that I didn't have any clothes on.

The numb feeling vanished as I stood up, slightly worried about the condition I'd just realized I'd been in.

I muttered to myself as I walked quickly away from the cow as it began to move closer, readying its tongue for another lick. "What would Al think?"

Not far off was a farmhouse. Figuring I could get help there I headed towards it.

"I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be too pleased if I show up on their doorstep naked… I'm not even pleased about it."

I clapped my hands. A cheep material made from grass would have to do. As my hands hit the ground there wasn't even a spark of alchemical energy.

"Oh shit." I hit my face, trying to snap myself completely out of the fog that was clouding my head. I couldn't believe I hadn't remembered that alchemy didn't exist here. I'd just been here not that long ago and it wasn't an experience that should have been easy to forget.

I shivered as a cold wind blew by. My newly retrieved arm and leg were even colder than the rest of me. I started walking towards the farmhouse again, not really caring if I was naked or not. There wasn't much I could do about it right now anyways it seemed. The farmers would just have to deal with it because I wasn't about to stand out here and freeze to death.

It was unlucky that the farmer's wife was the one to answer the door. I had tried to cover myself as much as possible, but she still screamed bloody murder in my face.

Her husband came out with a shotgun in hand, firing past her at me.

I screamed at him as I dodged out of the doorway. "I'm sorry for showing up like this! I really am! Please, I just need some help!"

The farmer came out of the doorway, still aiming at me. He wasn't firing this time at least.

My pride, being shot as it was anyways, I begged, "Could you at least give me a pair of pants or something? If not, could you let me have some bread maybe? Or… how about the nearest town… where is it?" I was hungry, cold, and I had no idea where the nearest town was. I thought even just one of these would make it easier on me. Although, the way he was glaring at me down the length of a shotgun I was also thinking that him not shooting me could be enough too.

"Dear!" the wife said, glaring at her husband. "Stop scaring the poor little thing!"

I didn't protest. Now was definitely not the time whether I was angry at her for calling me "little" or not.

"But-" the farmer started, his wife cutting him off.

"Put your gun down." Her statement turned into a threat as she raised a soup ladle.

He lowered his gun and I let out my breath. I hadn't realized that I'd been holding it.

The wife rushed over to me. "You poor little dear, let's get you in some clothes and something warm to eat. You can tell me all that happened afterwards, alright?" She rushed me inside, not waiting for me to reply.

The farmer rubbed the back of his head and sighed, following us in.

"Dear, I'm going to give him some of your old clothes."

"Fine, fine," he grumbled at her. I knew his position. It was the same one I always ended up in whenever Winry was around.

I was feeling much better by the time I'd finished dressing. Mrs. Starling, the farmer's wife, was actually quite kind. She'd just given me an entire outfit, underwear and all. She laughed as I'd made a face at the underwear.

"Don't worry, I bought these for my husband, but it turned out they were going to be too small. He never had them on."

My new clothes, a pair of jeans with tears in the knees and an old, rumpled plaid shirt boosted my pride by quite a bit. I'd walked out of the bedroom to show Mrs. Starling with a huge smile on my face.

"Thanks a ton."

"You can't like those old things." She smiled back.

"They're clothes. I like them."

She led me downstairs. Mr. Starling was sitting at the kitchen table cleaning his shotgun.

"For goodness sakes dear, do you have to do that now?"

"I'm going to do it now Nan."

"You old brute."

I got the feeling this was a common conversation between the two as Mr. Starling humph'ed at her. It wasn't a real fight or anything, just something like teasing. I stood awkwardly in the hallway, in the doorway of the kitchen.

Without looking up Mr. Starling said, "Sit down, boy. You're making Nan nervous."

"Thank you," I muttered as I sat down across from him.

Nobody talked until Mr. Starling asked me my age.

"I'm sixteen… sir." I couldn't remember the last time I'd called anyone sir.

He looked up at me suddenly. "Don't be so tense boy! Just be yourself."

I wasn't sure how to respond as Mrs. Starling spoke up. "You're older than I thought, but you're still a boy. How about you tell us where you're from? We'll get you home if you wait for the end of the month when we go into town."

"I live really far away."

"Don't worry about that, a vacation wouldn't hurt us."

"No, I mean really far away. It's impossible for me to go home."

Mr. Starling spoke up again, putting his gun down this time. "You got here, didn't you? You can get back."

I lowered my head. I knew it'd sound crazy if I told them the truth. "No. I can't go back. I'm sure of it."

"Then you have somewhere you're headed to?"

I shook my head. "To tell the truth I'm not even sure where I am exactly."

Mrs. Starling gasped. I was looking at the table but I could tell she and her husband exchanged looks.

"You can just point me towards the nearest town. I'll walk."

I was surprised when Mr. Starling laughed. "What do you take us for? We aren't going to just let you walk for that many miles, it'd take days! You just said yourself that you don't even have anywhere to go. Look, we ain't got any kids, so there's plenty of room in this house. You're welcome to stay for as long as you like."

My head snapped up and I gapped at him. He couldn't mean that. Mrs. Starling sat a plate in front of me. She was smiling at me.

"If you'd like to stay that is," she said. "We'd love to have you as part of the family." She sat down with her own plate and her husband's. "Go ahead and eat."

I started eating, thinking about their offer. My Dad was somewhere in this world, wasn't he? What had the name of that town been? Landon? No. It was London. If I could just get to London…

Mr. Starling asked suddenly, his mouth full of food. "So, boy, you know our names and where we live, how about your name and where you're from?"

"Ah! I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Edward Elric the… um… well, you call just call me Ed." I'd been about to call myself the Fullmetal Alchemist…

"Well, Ed? Where are you from?" Mr. Starling urged, his mouth still full. Mrs. Starling hit him on the knee this time for it.

I smirked, "I don't know where I am, remember? If you want to know where I'm from, you have to tell me where this is."

Mr. Starling actually laughed. He was turning out to be a pretty laid back type of guy. "I see you're loosening up a bit. That's good. Well, boy, you're in Kansas. Near Wichita."

It didn't mean much to me, but I'm sure it would if I saw a map. "Well," avoided saying Amestris, but figuring they wouldn't know whether Resembool was a real town or not since it was so small I said, "I'm from Resembool. It's near London."

They both gasped.

Mrs. Starling, a wide-eyed look on her face asked hurriedly, "As in England?"

I nodded, figuring that was probably it. "Yeah. You know, London, it's a big city. It…" I tried to think of more information about it so I could verify, "it just got bombed recently."

Mrs. Starling's worried expression bothered me. "You must be so worried about your family! And what do they think happened to you I wonder?"

Mr. Starling was glaring at me again. "You don't sound English."

"I was only in England for a short time. I've been travelling around for a few years now. I'm certain that my family thinks I'm dead."

The rest of the meal went in silence, but not until after Mr. Starling made it clear I was to tell him more tomorrow.

Mrs. Starling let me sleep on the couch that night saying that she hadn't cleaned the spare bedroom in over a year and it wasn't a place fit for anyone to sleep in.

Morning was quite interesting. I sat up rubbing my eyes.

"Morning, Al." I said, expecting to hear the clanking of Al's armor and a happy response. When it didn't come I looked for him. "Al?"

The memories of the fight and where I was came back to me. I tried not to think about what had happened to Al.

I smoothed out the clothes I was wearing. I hadn't changed to sleep. The smell of something cooking drifted in from the kitchen. I'd go see after I washed up for the day.

I wasn't too surprised to find both of the Starlings in the kitchen. Mrs. Starling was making breakfast while Mr. Starling was cleaning his gun again.

"Oh, just in time!" Mrs. Starling said, smiling at me.

Mr. Starling laughed. "Just in time? He got up pretty late. Not to mention the muttering." It didn't surprise me. Al said I talked in my sleep all the time, and they're room was right across the hallway from the living room. It was a relatively small house.

"Dear! You can tell he's been through a lot!"

"Yeah, yeah."

I sat down at the table, not waiting to be asked this time. "What was I saying?"

"You were cursing up a storm! Something about envying someone or something like that. I'm surprised you knew some of those words."

"Oh. Sorry."

Mr. Starling raised his eyebrow at me. "Look here, I can tell you aren't usually this… docile. Especially after last night! Whatever it is bringing you down, move on already. You're going to help me outside today too."

I nodded. Seemed like equivalent exchange to me.

"Why'd you leave your family?" Mr. Starling asked.

"I didn't mean to. I… was taken away. I suppose I deserved it though." I cringed as my right arm throbbed, overworked from such a small amount of working in the field. I was sure that it would have felt much worse had Wrath not been keeping it in shape. My leg was still doing alright.

"Now how could you deserve being kidnapped?"

I didn't look at Mr. Starling as I continued the field work. "I got my little brother killed."

"Did you kill him?"

"No."

"Did you help someone kill him?"

"Of course not!" I yelled, my anger rising suddenly.

"Then it wasn't your fault boy."

"My name is 'Ed' not 'boy.'"

Mr. Starling laughed at me and continued working. I looked at him for a moment.

"Not my fault? Ha." I began working again. Whether it was my fault or not Al would still kill me if I didn't keep moving forward. I was certain he hadn't tried to bring me back just to have me sit around.

The sun was starting to go down. It was about the time I'd arrived the previous day.

"It's time to go in for the day."

I nodded, about to follow Mr. Starling when I had to do a double take. The field I'd been looking at all day was bursting apart into dust. I realized that the strange phenomenon was in a circle, all around me.

"Boy?"

Mr. Starling sounded distant. The world was disappearing fast. They sky was already gone, the farmhouse where Mrs. Starling was gone. Mr. Starling didn't seem to notice.

I turned to him, yelling for him to watch out as the world fell away from him. He burst with it. My last glimpse of him was his look of surprise.

I shut my eyes tight as the ground beneath my feet shattered into dust and fell away.

Standing still for what seemed like hours, I opened my eyes. For a moment I thought I'd find myself facing the gate, but instead I found myself on a sidewalk. Just as the ground had fallen away from me moments before, the ground here was forming from the dust. It came together quickly, sounds and people coming into existence before me as the world widened.

I stood with my mouth gaping open. Cars, if that's what they were, were gliding by me, not touching the ground. More people than I'd ever seen in my life were milling around, dressed in some of the skimpiest and strangest clothes I'd ever seen. Most of them were holding small rectangular things, talking into them or running their fingers across them.

A few teenagers around my age walked by, swaggering in a strange manner, their underwear showing. They snickered at me.

"Look at that, an old style hillbilly bumkin!"

Another one of the boys yelled over his shoulder at me. "What century are you from, loser? The twentieth?" Their laughter struck hard. I was from the twentieth century, which meant that if that was an insult, I wasn't in the twentieth century.

I leaned against the building and took a deep breath. I was feeling dizzy from the mass amount of movement. I looked up, trying to look away from in all.

"Holy…" I felt a serious case of vertigo, wishing I hadn't looked up. The buildings were absolutely huge, and there was more than one of them.

A man in a suit walked up to me. "You ok there kid? You don't look like you're from around here."

I tried to answer, but I couldn't find the words. My glance shifted back towards the sky, towards the building tops. The man looked too.

"You have never seen a skyscraper before? Jeez kid, where are you from? Kansas?"

I nodded. At the moment I really didn't care. The man blanched.

"Oh. Sorry about that. I didn't mean any disrespect… Well, welcome to New York?"

I didn't answer as I closed my eyes and sat down. This was way too much for me.

The man walked away.

It took awhile for me to get over the motion sickness.

"This is going way over my head… what the hell happened to get me here?"

I walked around for a bit before I realized that the sun had gone down. It was still so bright I hadn't noticed.

"Wonder what year it is?"

I walked down an alley, taking a shortcut to the street across. That was a bad idea, and I found that out quickly.

Someone grabbed me from behind, picking me clear off of my feet by my waist.

"Let me go damn it!" I tried getting in a few good punches but the man didn't drop me.

The man laughed. "You know some self defense. How cute."

I was flipped upside down. The man was holding me by my ankles now. He shook me.

He cursed when nothing fell from my pockets. He let me dangle there for a moment before hoisting me back under his arm, holding me at the waist again.

It had never occurred to me until now that my automail had probably made it a lot harder for… giant guys… like this to fling me around. Automail was heavy after all. Not to mention the extra force I could lay into people with while using it.

With his other arm he picked up a bag. I couldn't tell what was in it.

He walked out of the alley with me and we weaved through the crowds. He didn't seem to care whether he was smashing me into benches and people as we went along at his breakneck speed.

I cursed as I had to deflect myself away from a street light.

"What the hell are you doing? Put me down!"

"Shut up shrimp."

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING SMALL?" I yelled, flailing around. I kicked him a few times, but it didn't do more than make him ram me into another street light.

The sound of sirens were getting closer. The man cursed and broke into a run.

I looked dazedly at his bag. "What'd you do, rob a bank?"

He laughed. "You got it small fry."

"I'M NOT SMALL!"

"You're a perfect hostage."

I sighed. Why did this always happen to me? It was obvious I had some of the worst luck in the whole world. The moment I was touching the ground I was going to beat this guy to a pulp.