Don't forget that there are lovely illustrations by Ferio Wind posted on my profile for each chapter. The illustrations for chapter one are really amazing. :D
Ed had the presence of mind to, when they hit solid ground, roll frantically to the side. Al made a startled yelping noise into his ear when he took him with him, rolling Ed-over-Al-over-Ed to the side, and a second later, there was a ton of rocks where they had just been laying.
"Bastard," Ed breathed out hard, sprawled on the grass beneath a raised cloud of angry dust motes and dandelion seeds. "There's always a catch, isn't there?" Al just panted.
"It seems like it would have been easier to leave the rocks there."
"Yeah, probably too easy. You know how the Gate likes to overcomplicate things."
Beside him, Al rolled over and coughed softly into the dirt. Ed hoisted himself onto his flesh arm and squinted through the rolling clouds of dust. He could hear the rushing sound of a stream from somewhere far off, but he could see very little. It was dark, probably just late evening by the looks of it – there were cicadas chirping all around, and the flickering little lights of fireflies hovered not so far off through the haziness of their entry point. Edward wondered vaguely how long they had spent in the Gate or how the passage of time worked between here and there because it had been around noon when the earthquake had started. Ed knew because he could remember desperately wanting lunch, as a lurching little tug at his stomach reminded him.
"Where do you think we are?" he intoned mildly.
Al looked down and clenched both his hands in the long grass beneath him. It was well and truly green, Ed noted, even in the dimness of the night. Not the gray-green that grass in the other world had been, but bright and cheerful and natural and green. It reminded him of his childhood, and he leaned down and inhaled it before he could stop himself. Al knew exactly why though, as only Al could, and he clenched his fistfuls enough to break off several pieces, brought it up to his nose and inhaled deeply along with him. It smelled – fresh. Dewy. Full of life and moisture. Oh, how Ed had missed that.
"I think we're...home," Al responded simply, finally, and that was good enough for Ed.
Ed stood unsteadily, vertigo combined with hunger sending his stomach into a series of uncomfortable systematic spasms and shaky little spurts of stomach acid up the back of his throat. The trip through the gate never had been easy, had it? The last time he had gone through like this, minus a rocket ship, he had been incapacitated enough that stomach problems were the least of his worries. But now...
The clarity of the new world, previously so refreshing, was suddenly too much in the wake of utterly dull senses for the last six years and a complete void of them for the last several hours. The world outside their little cloud of dust would have burned at his eyes with its vibrancy were it not for the dusky lighting. The air nipped his lungs with its freshness, and his nose stung when the familiar dirtiness of the soil dissipated and the wonderful, potent, sweet smells of nature that had once been habitual and commonplace took its place.
Al rose too, promptly tripping over a raised tree root beside him. He mumbled a curse under his breath, rubbed at his head, and Ed felt a sudden inexplicable burst of love in the back of his chest. How had he ever leapt worlds without Al there? How had he ever hoped to reach his home without Al's help, once upon a time? Al experiencing things with him was so second nature; Al's curses were his curses, Al's tears were his tears. He and Al had been through everything together and now they were really home, really alive, really flesh and blood, and really together forever so long as their luck held out.
Things were almost going too well.
Abruptly, he thrust his hand into the open air and found Al's in the darkness. He half expected Al to throw him off – lately he had been fiercely attempting to maintain some semblance of independence in his brother's presence, and that put hand-holding and most forms of physical contact out of bounds. But he just felt a gentle squeeze through his glove, saw the faint outline of Al's smile through the darkness, and Al started forward on quaking legs with Ed close behind him. Ed was inexplicably, incredibly glad for it. Contact was something he needed for reasons he couldn't really understand himself, just then.
Ed let him lead as they picked their way through brambles and tree roots. The rushing sound of the stream grew farther away as the forest slowly thinned and fewer and fewer tree roots jutted out under them. Ed kept tight hold of his little brother's hand and swallowed back the bile at the back of his throat. The back of Al's head bobbed rhythmically above him as they walked.
When they reached the edge of the forest a few minutes later, Ed realized that he'd known all along where the gate had dropped him. He had walked that particular path several times before. He had picked his way through that forest on shorter legs, his familiar red coat, forgotten and moth-eaten at a hotel in San Francisco, had skimmed that moss, he had been on his brother's back as he had stepped over those tree roots – younger and less obtrusive. He had smelled that grass and heard that stream. Most of the time he had been whining about the inevitable meeting awaiting him a few paces away or about the injustice of missing a train at the last station and having to walk all the way to HQ a town away just to be in to report to the Colonel on time.
The lights of East City twinkled in the distance, and Ed held very tightly onto Al's hand. Al towered above him, moved his mouth wordlessly, and squeezed back, weak as a kitten.
"I can't believe we were in San Francisco this morning," Ed said finally.
"San Francisco doesn't exist here, Brother, you'd better get over talking about it like that," Al whispered back dreamily.
The city looked...bigger. His heart hammered in his chest at the thought that things had changed while he was away, at the thought that things wouldn't be just the way he had left them. Al wouldn't be nearly as concerned in that department, because he had been gone only three years to Edward's six. Already, their conversations in the other world had been peppered with changing things that had intimidated Ed. The recovery of Liore was a particular sore spot that Al recounted often. The last time Ed had seen it, it had been an empty slab of sandy earth afloat in a desert sea. To think that there were buildings there now, to think that people were rebuilding their lives there, seemed an insult to the memory of the thousands of soldiers that had died there.
"You know what this means Ed – we're not far from Risembool, we could catch a train – "
Ed patted his pockets and they jingled with American coin. "That's a no-go Al, unless you know the Amestris-America exchange rate and care to share – "
"...Oh. Right."
"Yeah."
They sat silence for a moment, and fireflies swarmed around their calves.
"We could walk." A classic solution, one that had served them well on many-a-missed-train days. But – but –
"I'm fucking exhausted," he said and he fell loose of Al's weak grip when Al reached up to rub at his eyes in agreement. His stomach rumbled at him and squeezed acid, not liking the idea of no food at all, but what were they going to do about it? Granny would feed them. Once they got back to Risembool, Granny would stuff them with all kinds of foods and –
Ed's stomach lurched. Was Granny even alive?
"We're not going anywhere in the dark anyway. It's been years since we walked that road and we're not about to do it blind," Al said, ever the sensible one, as he planted his butt in a tall and soft looking patch of grass not too far away. Ed joined him, before long. It was warm enough that they didn't really need blankets, but Ed huddled in close to his brother anyway, feeling needy for attention and dependent in a way that he hadn't since he'd crawled into bed with his brother three years before, when they were fresh through the gate and Edward was trying to decide whether Alfons Heiderich, his lifeline of two years, was really dead or not.
Al was asleep almost instantly, but Edward lingered in his wakefulness long enough to watch the lights of East City dim as the twinkling of window lights dwindled with the day.
He had hardly even realized he'd gone under until he woke to Al's same gentle breaths that had lulled him to sleep hours earlier. He looked up and saw the sun high in the sky. He was losing more time than he knew what to do with lately, honestly. Already half a day had gone by with them dozing in the sun like lazy house cats. Ed sat up and was about to shake his little brother when a startled little gasp sounded from a little ways away. It was as light as the distant gurgling of the stream was now, but Ed was mentally attuned to sounds of distress and had been ever since he had been twelve with a sense of justice bigger than himself.
He looked around and saw that they had settled in a meadow, big and lush and painted with wildflowers. Unintentionally enough, they had hidden in a mess of weeds and grass tall enough to shield them from prying eyes, but sitting up had alerted their presence to a little girl, no older than eight, with curly black pigtails and wide blue eyes. She had a bouquet of little red wildflowers and vivid yellow dandelions clenched in one hand, and her other was balled at her mouth. Her eyes were wide and distrustful, so Ed put on his best winning smile.
"Hey kid," he said, and his voice was husky from sleep. The little girl took a single step back. He didn't exactly blame her – he probably looked something awful. He reached up with his right hand to rub at his face and dragged it back through his bangs, dislodging his hat. His long braid was a mess and his scalp was tangled with grass and leaves and petals. However, he didn't think that his appearance necessarily merited the pure horror on the face of the little girl before him. He looked bad, but he wasn't missing any limbs or bleeding or – wait, was he?
He skimmed his face again and checked his white gloves for blood. Nothing. His automail peeked through the gap between his sleeve and his glove for an instant as Ed lowered his hand, though, and the little girl gasped again, louder this time, and dropped the tiny bouquet. The flowers scattered, and a gentle breeze lifted one of the light red ones over the grass and toward the patch where Ed and Al slept. Ed looked at it, stark and bloodlike against the fabric of his dull brown pants, and then pinched the little stem between two automail fingers. He offered it out to the little girl and smiled again, letting it crinkle at the skin under his eyes and lift into his irises. It was a whole-hearted, open smile. A peace offering.
The little girl just shook her head vehemently though, and took another slow step backward.
"You're the man from the posters!" She squeaked. Ed raised a bemused eyebrow in her direction, and Al chose that moment to raise his head beside him. His hair was skewed comically to one side, and one side of his face was red and lined in criss-crossing imprints of grass. One gray eye focused on the little girl even as the grass-lined one stayed shut in a way that was quite possibly as un-intimidating as was humanly possible. Ed ruffled Al's hair with his human hand before returning his attention to the little girl. He had thought that his little brother's appearance would calm her somewhat – he couldn't say what he looked like, but he knew that his little brother didn't look like any sort of murderer, rapist, or otherwise. He thrust the offered flower toward her more urgently, but her look of terror didn't disappear. Indeed, it had almost – intensified with his baby brother's appearance.
Her eyes flashed back and forth between them for a moment longer, disbelieving, before she turned completely and sprinted toward the not-so-faraway suburbs of East City, bare feet blurred and pigtails flying out behind her. Al watched her stealthy retreat with mild interest before drawling, "What was that all about? Did you do something to her?"
Ed trained his eyes on her a moment longer, letting them narrow with the green intensity of the plants around them in the light of day. "No. No, I didn't do anything to her."
Al just smirked, "Well you are pretty scary. I can understand her being scared of you – but me?" Ed punched him lightly in the arm and Al flopped gently back against the dewy earth.
"I can't believe we're really here. I woke up and thought it was a dream –" Al seemed willing enough to write off the entire incident, but something about the encounter nagged at Ed, something she had said...
"Al, what do you think she meant – from the posters?"
"What?"
"She said I was the man from the posters."
"Huh. How should I know? Maybe Mustang's the leader already and he's using you as a poster boy." Al stretched and yawned hugely, like a cat, and when he was bringing his hands back to his sides, he elbowed Ed in the ribs. "Look, I'm sure it's no big deal."
Ed puckered his lips, puffed out his cheeks, and let out a sharp breath.
"You're probably right."
Still, it niggled at the back of his mind even as he and Al regained their feet after much complaint over the pins and needles and much ribbing for Edward's back-in-the-day talk (five years ago I could sleep anywhere without a single ache, Al…). They wandered back into the woods that they had emerged from yesterday evening and had a much easier time of it now that both of them were fully conscious, somewhat adjusted to the new environment, and able to see by the mild sunlight filtering in through the canopy of trees.
Once they reached the stream, Ed dunked his head just to clear it, and emerged willing enough to write off the entire incident as Al had. Ed had been famous in his day, hadn't he? Certainly he had been on enough posters that time he rebuilt the dam right before it flooded. They had thrown a parade for him – Ed grinned as his face dripped with water. Those were the days. And to think that he might be able to relive it soon, to think that he was away from the helplessness of the other world, that he could –
He brought his hands together, as if to clap and dry his hair, but hesitated. Alfons Heiderich's face flashed unbidden into his mind, and he felt his lips twist with the image. He couldn't do alchemy anymore. He could, technically, probably, given how easily the talent had returned to him the first time he had returned here through the Gate. But this time, he had made a mistake – he had allowed the souls of the other world to affect him, he had made the other world his own when he saw no hope of return, and now he couldn't consciously perform the arts that had once come so easily. Not now that he knew he was using human souls.
Al came up behind him suddenly and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. Ed twitched all over at the feel of it, and released some of the tension he hadn't even been aware he'd been carrying. Al said something then that he didn't comprehend at all.
Ed glanced back at him, fuzzily asked him to repeat himself, and blinked a few times to clear his head of the idea that somewhere, Alfons Heiderich might have been used to fix the leg on a chair, mend the wheel of a car, put a leg back on a toy. His Teacher's words had never had more truth than they did now.
"I said, we should probably be able to follow this stream back to Risembool. Remember that back way we took when Mustang was chasing us?" Ed nodded absently. "I think this is a tributary that feeds into that river."
Al stood for another moment, his hand waiting expectantly on Ed's shoulder in another uncharacteristic gesture, until Ed realized that his hands were still poised at his chest, and hastily lowered them. Al didn't inquire and Ed was glad for it. It wasn't something he could really voice right now; there were too many emotions for him to handle here, really.
"Yeah," Ed said finally, voice heavy and sullen. "Yeah I think you're right. Let's go."
The walk was quiet and inconsequential, if not a little bit long. Al tried to start up little trifling conversations every once in a while along the way, but everything about the other world seemed irrelevant now, and that was really all that they had to look back on, and it was really all that they had been looking forward to together. They had planned a dinner with a family in San Jose tonight, and they were supposed to visit the ocean tomorrow. Al once started talking about how much he was looking forward to visiting the beach, but caught himself mid-sentence and just looked sheepishly at the ground.
They should have been used to it by now, the utter uprooting of their lives that they had undergone far too many times in their short lifetimes – like how on the night that their mother died, they had been planning to attend a fair with her the next day – if she had been feeling better. Or how on the night they attempted her resurrection, Winry had waited with a game of checkers open in front of her for hours at least. Winry would play Al, Ed would play winner, they had said, and then their whole life had gone to hell. It was such a strange, disconcerting thing, and Ed wasn't sure he would ever get used to it.
He was sorry to stand up that nice family in Los Angeles, though.
When their walk changed from a tame path to a rocky descent into a river bed, their pace increased, both unconsciously speeding toward a warm home and welcoming arms and – fuck, food. Ed could really have gone for anything, at that point. He might have transmuted something if it hadn't seemed so utterly taboo at the time.
They passed by a rocky little grotto, like a concert shell, caved in and marred with scorch marks and the tell-tale signs of alchemy in every pointed stone. It was so achingly familiar, so strange to see that nothing there had changed much, so reassuring to know that at least Risembool would be welcoming in its consistency. It never did change, not really.
"Al – " Ed whispered the first words that had been spoken in quite some time, trailing his fingers along The Strong Arm Alchemist's long lasting handiwork, over a scorch mark that he could recall had made his – fuck, ridiculous – leather pants heat uncomfortably against his legs.
Al just smiled a little bit fondly in remembrance, and continued on ahead. His eyes scanned the river critically, as if seeing himself jumping out of it –
"Heh, to think that the last time we were walking this, we were wanted men, eh?"
Al smirked. "Dead or alive." They both laughed a bit uncomfortably. It rang too true with something that was nagging at him – fear and 'the man from the wanted poster' and...
"Brother, look! It's Winry's house." Ed glanced up. It was indeed Winry's house, far away in the distance, covered in its beaming yellow paint and beckoning warmly in the waning twilight. Edward couldn't bring himself to be bothered by the little girl just then, because something inside his chest had just exploded, and he took off running past his unsuspecting and still-pensive little brother.
"Last one there has to marry Winry!"
Is Winry married? Is Winry here? Is Winry – alive?
"Ew, gross Ed! No fair! You got a head start!"
Ed heard him pounding away after him, old sneakers digging into once-heated gravel with every long stride he took. He knew he was already beaten; Al's legs were just too damn freakishly long. That, and his automail was just so damn heavy lately, he really was getting old.
True to form, Al came along side him halfway up the grassy hill leading to Winry's, a wide grin splitting his face. He bypassed Ed quickly enough, and then turned around, hands behind his head in a crude mimicry of relaxation, eyes twinkling in mirth. He didn't say it though, just watched Ed struggle and pant along behind him determinedly, left leg dragging minutely. Al's expression went soft when Ed stumbled over something and cursed his goddamned leg, and they were side by side by the time they'd crested the hill.
Their grins vanished together when they got a good look at the house. It didn't look the same from close up, Ed observed through his panting. The paint was fading terribly and the yard looked unkempt. There was an old junker of a car resting like a dead thing in front of the "Rockbell Automail" sign, which was also faded and striping with age. Ed exchanged a look of dismay with his brother as they approached the staircase that had creaked with age for as long as Ed could remember. It didn't disappoint, and let out a massive groan as they came up the last step.
If they had been racing to get home before, then they slowed exponentially, no longer wanting to see what waited beyond the faded cheerful white of the door – maybe it wasn't even the home they remembered anymore, maybe there was no one even living there any longer.
No one in Risembool ever locked their doors. Ed made a note to put that on the list of things that hadn't changed in the slightest.
He slowly pushed the door open and it went back easily enough, no squeaking hinges. Ed breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the inside looked – just exactly as he remembered it. There was the door to the kitchen, there was the same old sofa, there was that massive ticking clock, there the stairs to the upper levels, there the open door to a sterile white operating room. Fuck, there was the finger paint stain that he had left there at the age of five, a smudged little white handprint still peeking clear as day from beneath an old area rug that he knew as well. And there was a blood spatter that he couldn't remember making but had made all the same.
Ed smiled at his little brother, but Al's eyes trained over his shoulder at something in the distance.
"Brother, look." He gestured the bulletin board that Granny and Winry had always kept filled with "pictures of the family." It was overflowing with newspaper articles and colorful pushpins, and if Ed dared to test his farsightedness, he could see his own name peppered across the board. That wasn't unusual but...but there at the bottom, among some newer looking, less yellowed newsprint was Al's name too, in big letters that said the article probably wasn't about anything good.
Al reached the board and ran his fingers over the wrinkles and creases of the articles even as Ed stayed planted in the doorway.
"What is it?"
"I'm – not sure."
"About us?"
Some things had clearly been highlighted or scribbled through in red, and Ed could see Al's eyes flickering to those first.
"My obituary again?" Ed suggested warily when Al didn't respond for the longest time. Al just shook his head and gestured him over with a vague wave of his hand, eyes never leaving the board.
Ed approached with the same wary conviction that Al had, and immediately saw a headline that made his heart plummet.
Elric Menaces Strike Again – Warrant Issued for Younger Brother in Wake of Central City Crisis.
Ed's eyes flitted over the article in disbelief before he found his own name brutalized just above Al's.
Recent Research into Liore Crisis Proves Fullmetal Alchemist at Fault, Local Police put on High Alert After Brothers' Disappearances.
"Al – we're – "
Al just shook his head and shakily lifted his finger to a single headline in the middle of the rest, bigger and bolder than all the others.
10 Million Sen Reward Issued for Heads of Edward, Alphonse Elric, Parliament Warns Against Terrible Danger in the Event of Apprehension.
"Wanted men," Ed sputtered.
"Dead or alive."
"Al we're – the men on the posters."
"That's not all you're on," a voice rang from the door, old and weathered and wonderfully familiar. "You're on flyers and radio programs and milk cartons and cereal boxes for God's sakes, and you didn't even think to close the door?" And there was Pinako, short and wrinkled and blessedly alive, standing silhouetted in the doorway.
"Granny!" Al trilled, and rushed at her.
"Hello boys," she said softly, and Ed's heart quivered in his chest.
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