My pretty little page breaks won't show up ):

Of Men and Birds

~Chapter One~

Germany, 1925

Today was a nice day in Germany, my brother and I had lost every single lead on the uranium bomb that was here on Earth but it didn't seem to stop the sun from shining and warming our backs. We were travelling in the back of a truck full of hay; Edward was lying on his back napping in the warm sun, much like a cat, while Noah was staring off into the distance. She had been exceptionally quiet as of recent. I wondered why, and had even asked once, but she never gave me an answer so I stopped trying to pry.

"Hey Al." Edward's mouth moved but his eyes never opened, I guess he wasn't asleep. I turned my head in his direction.

"Yes?"

"What time is it?" It wasn't an odd question but it felt odd. For some reason my brother, who probably wasn't wholly awake, asking for the time seemed strange.

"Why?" I should've just told him the time but I needed to know why I felt weird about him asking such a simple question. It bothered me a bit, I guess.

"Because I want to get back before it gets too late." Simple enough answer but it still wasn't good enough.

"Uh, why?" This feeling was like a nonexistent itch in my chest or a ghost pinching the back of my neck. Why was it so important that we get back to Munich at a reasonable hour?

"Does it matter?" He laughed a bit. "C'mon Al, tell me the time so I can go back to sleep." I sighed with resignation, if he didn't want me to know, I wouldn't know. It finally dawned on me; he had something planned for tonight. He had been forcing himself to sleep the majority of the day, whether he was tired or not. He had been reading a lot as well. The books looked familiar. They were beaten up, old journals our father had left us that had been tucked away in a secret compartment under the crate that held Ed's spare arms and legs. Ed hadn't discovered it until he had decided to pack up his old limbs that Hohenheim had made him and put them away in case of an emergency. The bottom of the old crate fell out and almost a dozen journals tumbled out in a flood. A part of me wanted to read those journals but Edward had told me no, not until he had finished reading them. He said it was in case there was something too personal or heart breaking in there. I guessed he meant about Mom. I didn't really want to think about it. I didn't want to spark that curiosity; I wanted to respect my brother's wishes.

"It's almost five o'clock." He nodded.

"Al, you should get some rest. We've been on the road all day." He was definitely up to something and he was planning to do it tonight and he was definitely taking me along. He wouldn't have wanted me to be well rested before bed time if he wasn't taking me. I smiled.

It was around nine o'clock when we arrived back home. We had been walking for the past five miles but after Edward's all day long nap and my few good hours of rest, the only one that was worn out was Noah. Edward new this and seemed relieved. We had finally arrived though the street seemed abandoned and quiet. Gracia had probably closed up her flower shop sometime around six and the majority of the inhabitants of the city were in their homes either in bed or about to be. The only place still wide awake was the beer hall not too far down the road. It wasn't too terribly late, after all.

Edward unlocked the door and we headed up stairs. "I'll get supper started." Noah said. She was so kind, Edward wasn't too crazy about her though, ever since she betrayed him last year but he still treated her with kindness. I could tell the way she looked at him versus the way she looked at me that, at some point, there had been an attraction there. She looked at me with joy but sometimes sorrow, Edward told me why but I had already figured it out at the funeral shortly after I had arrived here, Alfons's funeral. He was me on this side of the Gate. He died before Edward went back to Amestris to stop Eckhart. The way she looked at Edward though closely resembled the way Winry always looked at Ed and everyone knew she was smitten by him.

"I call first shower!" Ed had cried before racing upstairs. I sighed and just resigned myself to watching Noah cook.

"You two are planning something." She said after the sound of the water running in the upstairs bathroom could be heard. She was intuitive and clairvoyant, how could we expect her not to find out whatever it was Ed was planning.

"I-I don't know what you mean." I stammered.

"Alphonse, you know what I'm talking about. You should be better at lying by now." She was teasing me, she knew we were up to something, but she didn't know what. By her asking me, thinking I knew what Edward was planning she had, thankfully, not used her gift on either of us to find out. I suppose if I had a gift like that and had betrayed one of my only friends with it, I wouldn't use it again, unless it was necessary.

"Fortunately, I haven't picked up every one of my brother's bad habits yet." I joked back; I didn't want her to think that we were actually up to something, even if I had no idea what it was.

"I want to go too." She stared down at the pot of stew she was stirring with a sort of abandonment and longing. She knew that if Edward didn't share his plans with her by now, that he and I were going alone. It wouldn't have been the first time we up and dumped her by herself for our own short adventure. Any time anything even remotely dangerous came around she had to stay back and Brother and I would leave in secret, usually by night while she was asleep. We always came back though, at least this time she would be home and not left alone in some unknown city in a hotel with hardly any money.

That struck a chord in me. I hadn't really thought about it much since we lost all of our leads on the bomb but back home, back in Amestris when Edward and I were chasing after the Philosopher's Stone, even if the trail went cold we kept on searching. This felt like Edward was giving up on finding the bomb, the second the trail went cold we came home. Giving up wasn't in Edward's vocabulary, so what was he planning? Eventually the sound of running water disappeared and we all sat down to eat dinner, Noah staring at Edward with suspicion the entire meal. After dinner we all prepared for bed.

It was about three in the morning when I decided to check to see if Noah was asleep. I crept out of bed as silently as having metal limbs would allow me. I had dressed before lying down to "sleep" so that I would be already prepared and ready to go. Hopefully Al had caught my drift earlier and done the same. I grabbed a pen and paper from my night stand and scribbled a few words good bye on it to leave for Noah. I hoped she wouldn't worry too badly. I slipped out of my room and down the hall to Noah's door. It creaked open a tad; I had to pray that it didn't wake her. Peering in, her back was to the door but I could see her chocolate brown tresses sprawled across the pillow and covers. Good, she was asleep. I slipped back down the hallway to Al's room and slowly opened the door. He was asleep as well. I let out a sigh, this would be annoying.

When he woke up, he didn't do it too quietly. I suppose waking up with a hand covering your mouth would surprise anyone but it had to be done. "Al," I whispered. "Time to go." He nodded in understanding. I removed my hand from his mouth and we snuck downstairs and out the door. Outside I felt eyes on me. It felt like someone was staring straight through me. I turned to look back at the house and saw nothing. I looked around me; no one. The town was dead silent.

"Ready?" I nodded in response and we headed down the road. "So, this must be big if we had to take Noah all the way back to Munich. What's going on?" I felt a little guilty for not telling him. I felt guilty for not letting him read Hohenheim's journals. I felt guilty for not allowing him the same knowledge I had. When the bottom of the crate broke and those journals fell out I knew they were for me. It took me almost a half year to read through all eleven of them and in them there was knowledge I never thought I'd know. There were things in there that even the Gate didn't show me. I didn't know how Hohenheim knew these things but he did and I wasn't going to ask questions because, even as much as I told Al that this was our home now, it never was and never could've been. We didn't belong here and, I think, I was trying to convince myself that this was home almost as much as I was trying to convince Al. But in those journals was a way back. In those journals was a way to cheat the Gate and go back home, go back to Amestris.

"We're going home, Al. We're going home." He looked shocked but then smiled. The rest of our walk was full of questions and answers. I had told him about what was in the journals and promised he could read them once we got back.

"So we've got just the clothes on our backs and a suitcase packed with Hohenheim's journals." I nodded. We had all we needed with us. We had each other.

Amestris, 1919

The month was April but it was cold. Snow covered the ground and the wind was bitterly cold. I had seen pictures of grass as green as emeralds with flowers in an array of colors growing in random patches on the ground with butterflies all around them. My mother had showed me those pictures when I was a child. She told me about how the weather was wonderful during the spring in the country south of our own but here in Drachma it was always cold, always frigid and always snowing. I wish that, just once, I could travel to Amestris and feel the warm grass and smell the beautiful flowers but that would probably never happen.

I shook my head in defeat. It really never would. Drachma and Amestris were always in and out of war and the shaky non-violence pact our two countries had agreed upon was being greatly threatened. Word is that once Amestris puts a new Fuhrer in place that he would be coming here to try and work things out. But that was gossip and it was hardly ever true.

"Zaria!" The yelling voice from behind me brought me back to reality. "Zaria! Zaria! Come see! Come see!" I turned around and let out a puff of hot air. In the distance I could see the neighbor's daughter running towards me as fast as her legs could carry her, her brown curls peeking out of the hood over her head and bouncing around. That's when I noticed it; the wind and snow had stopped completely. It hadn't died down and slowly came to an end, it had stopped completely and utterly in a single instant.

"What is it Sveta?" I called back, nearly shouting due to how far away she still was.

"Follow me!" She waved her arm and motioned for me to follow. I ran after her for almost ten minutes before we finally stopped. Everyone in the small little village was standing in one huge group all staring at a space on the horizon. I directed my gaze as well.

On the horizon there were lights, bright and blue. The shot all around, cracking and popping like thunder. The light shook the ground beneath us, some fell and others didn't. All we could do was stare at the skyline. The lights shot straight through to the sky suddenly with a loud boom and lit the blue sky up with a bright violet hue. I looked away for a moment to look around the crowd for a moment. You couldn't necessarily see it on their faces, but you could feel it in their eyes. Not a single person that was observing the display, that couldn't have been any further than a few miles, was terrified. The only reason no one had yet to run away and gather their things to leave was because we were all, literally, scared stiff. When I had noticed a few people beginning to back away is when I looked back to the horizon. The lights were dying down and the second they stopped is the same second people ran home. All I could do was stand there and wonder. I looked back and forth between the town and the horizon. If we weren't under attack by tomorrow morning, I promised myself I would go find the source of the alchemic light.

There you go, chapter two. Specially thanks to Arkxy-chan and Firefly264. In case anyone is wondering, the two names I used are German (according to Google.) Also, I will advise that there might be a few things a little off but I'm doing my best to keep everything as accurate with the 2003 anime and the movie CoS as possible. I will also say, some things will be pulled from the manga but not too much. For the most part I'm gonna stick with the first anime though.

Don't forget that I don't own anything that isn't obviously original and that you should review because I will probably lose hope that anyone will actually read and like this fic if you don't let me know somehow and I'm really enjoying writing this so please leave me feedback. Like how this story looks so much better in Microsoft Word _

Oh! And did you know that Amestris is six years behind Earth?

Because I didn't.