A/N: So, here's part 2! It's a little farther-fetched than part 1, but I wanted to explore this topic.

I'm really sorry that this took so long. I didn't expect to need so much time.

Enjoy!

"There may have been something else," Ed said, grinning. "Because, of course, Truth, or the Gatekeeper as we must now call him, is not the only thing I saw that day. Anyone care for a guess?"

Al looked at his brother in amazement. "Did you find out about the Gate, too?"

"You bet I did! At least, I've got some theories. Because think about it. If the Gatekeeper was me, and the Gate obviously belonged to me, since I could sacrifice it, then there has to be some kind of connection. One of the key parts of this is the fact that when I sacrificed my Gate, the Gatekeeper dissolved with it. What can we assume from this? The Gatekeeper and the Gate are related quite a bit more than we originally thought.

"Now, although the Gatekeeper is another version of us, we can't control him, yes? However, seeing as the Gatekeeper is the one who opens and closes the Gate, we can assume that the Gatekeeper can control the Gate. Meaning the relationship between the Gate and the Gatekeeper is different than the relationship between the Gatekeeper and us. Follow me?"

They nodded.

"Good. Here comes the key part. When I dissolved my Gate, the Gatekeeper said that by doing so I would no longer be able to use alchemy. Now, what can we get from this?" He looked around expectantly.

"That alchemy…comes from the Gate?" Winry offered hesitantly.

"Exactly! Alchemy comes from the Gate. So. The Gatekeeper does not exist simply to collect equivalent exchange or to ruin your life when you perform human transmutation. If alchemy comes from the Gate, and the Gatekeeper controls the Gate, or rather, is the Gate, seeing as my Gatekeeper dissolved with my Gate, then alchemy must flow out of the Gate, through the Gatekeeper, back through the Gate to me.

"What." Winry said.

Ed rolled his eyes again. "Now what do you not understand?"

"How can alchemy come out of the Gate, go through the Gatekeeper, then somehow reach you by going back into the Gate?"

"Well how else is it going to get to me? We've established that alchemy comes from the Gate, yes? Now, just a few minutes ago, we established that Al and I had to go through the Gate to get back to the real world. But when Al and I did human transmutation, we saw a side of the Gate that was most certainly not the real world. What can we assume from this? There's not simply one thing on the other side of the Gate. Not that this is surprising, really, it is quite an impressive Gate which seems to lead to nowhere, so really it shouldn't be too unbelievable to say that it doesn't necessarily act like a real Gate.

"So. The Gatekeeper pulls alchemy out of the Gate. Or does he? Does he pull it out of the Gate, or does he simply let it flow? Well think about it. What is more powerful: alchemy or me? It's a simple question. Obviously alchemy is more powerful. I can't just will the earth to move to my will, now can I? So it is more probable that the Gatekeeper lets alchemy flow out of the Gate and then leads it back through the Gate so it can reach me.

"The other interesting thing about this is that this means that every time we use alchemy, we are opening a portal to- wherever it is that the Gate is. I still have no idea what that place is.

"Now, a few minutes ago, I mentioned that the Gate appears to be a Gate to nowhere. Clearly, it goes somewhere, but that brings up the question: what is it a Gate in?"

Al broke in. "Brother, now your sentences just don't make sense."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Well, what I mean is, that when we talk about gates, there's always some kind of wall. It's the gate into the city, and the gate to the pasture, and the gate here, gate there. But there's always a wall somewhere. Just having a gate standing by itself is completely useless. Gates are meant to let you in and out of an enclosed area, right? So, what is the alchemy Gate a gate in?"

His question was met with blank stares.

"Well, I don't really know either. However, I did come up with something that could be a problem. I destroyed my Gate to save Al. I sacrificed it, and it dissolved. Now, the question is, if the Gate has to exist in some continuous wall that separates one place from somewhere else, then what's left where my Gate used to be?

"Did it just become more of the wall? Did it just kind of fade? Or maybe, it got destroyed. What if now, where there used to be a Gate, there's just a big gaping hole? There's nothing keeping what's inside in and nothing keeping what's outside out."

"But Brother," Al said slowly, "if the destruction of your Gate somehow left a hole leading to the place where Alchemy came from, then you would still be able to do alchemy, right?"

"I've considered that. But the thing is, if all we needed to use alchemy was the open hole, then why have the Gatekeepers? My theory is that the Gatekeepers were there to control the alchemy. To focus it as it came through the Gate so it would do what we wanted. That's why we need transmutation circles: they're instructions for the Gatekeeper. But once you do human transmutation, you don't need the instructions, because when you go through the Gate, you're basically programming the Gatekeeper with the instructions. That way you don't need to give him instructions anymore."

"But Ed," Winry interjected, "if you had a big gaping hole leading to boundless alchemic power just kind of leaking into your life, wouldn't there be some sign? Like Al said, you'd still be able to use alchemy. Or, if like you said you needed the Gatekeeper to focus it, wouldn't you still be doing alchemy, but kind of random, uncontrolled alchemy?"

"I am so glad you asked that question, Winry." Ed said, removing his gloves, "because that kind of has been happening. Now watch closely."

Placing his gloves on the table next to him, Ed took a deep breath. He placed his hands together, just as when he had clapped them together for his transmutations, and began to rub them together. He started out slowly, and then started to speed up.

Nothing happened for several long seconds. Al, Winry and Granny stared in silence while Ed focused all of his concentration on his hands. Then, ever so slightly, the space between his palms began to glow. A golden light seeped through, as well as strange, erratic noises that seemed to be a mixture of the sounds of everyday life and the buzzing hum of electricity. A few wisps of the golden light slipped out from between Ed's fingertips, briefly hanging in the air.

Then, with a flash and a bang, Ed was thrown backwards by some unknown force, his motion only stopped by the couch behind him.

"This is what I like to call pre-meditated seating arrangements." Ed said, laughing a little and rubbing his head. He stared at their shocked expressions and shrugged. "Obviously I haven't quite got the hang of it yet, but it'll come, with time. Even that was quite a bit better than the first time it happened, and that one was purely by accident.

"Anyway, that's not all that's been happening. Sometimes, I'll just be standing around, minding my own business, when suddenly I'll seem to be standing somewhere completely different. I'm always me, but sometimes I'm a different version of me. There was this one time where I was in the library researching when suddenly I was back training with Izumi, but I was a little older, and for some reason there was no alchemy, and she had other students. We would wave these sticks around and stuff started to float.

"Then this other time, I was riding the train, and suddenly I was dancing with Rose in this huge ballroom, and for some reason Rose seemed a little off or something. And there was this other girl there just kind of talking about random stuff. It probably would have made sense if I had known the context, but at the time it was all super surreal.

"But it's not always a different place. When I visited Hughes' grave while I was in Central, it was as if the time changed. I looked up and Mustang was standing there crying. He said something like 'It's starting to rain' and then I was just back to where- or when- I was supposed to be."

They all stared. Al was the first to break out of his shock.

"What will you do?"

Ed's smile faltered. "Honestly? I'm not really sure I should do anything. I mean, every time I've messed with the Gate, something bad has happened. They say curiosity killed the cat, and I'm not sure I want to act completely rashly. I'll let the visions come, maybe blow stuff up every once in a while. If I get better at it naturally, I'll just let it happen. But I don't plan to push it."

Al nodded. "In that case, I'll do the same. The idea of bypassing equivalent exchange sounds pretty good, but it would be completely foolish to try. I'm not one for being called a person who can't learn from his mistakes."

Ed grinned at his little brother. "Great idea. Now, why don't you help me unpack. I wrote down some notes, and even if we never use this information, I still want to get it down on paper. Maybe someone else will experiment with it."

He and Al walked innocently through the house, chatting calmly as they climbed the stairs to their bedrooms. Winry and Granny watched them go.

"So," Granny began, placing her hands on her hips as she watched the two boys disappear. "How long would you give them?"

"To go back on their promise of not experimenting with their new-found theories? Three days, tops."

"You give them too much credit. I'd say a day and a half."

Winry sighed. "Well, when they mess everything up, we'll be here. What they'd ever do without us is beyond me." She grinned down at her grandmother. "And when Ed does something stupid, he can count on me hitting him over the head."

Granny rolled her eyes. "And here I was thinking you just wanted to be helpful."

~End Part 2~

So there it is! That's completely the end. I'm glad I got those theories out of my head. I just had to tell someone. I hope you enjoyed it and if you have any questions about things I didn't clarify (sometimes I'm not very clear, I know), feel free to ask.