Continued from part 1.
"You didn't have to be so rude, Niisan," Al reproached his brother on the long hike back home. "He was just being helpful."
"He was just being a total quack is what he was," Ed snorted. "What kind of man of science is he supposed to be? I'm surprised if he can tell an ovary from a hen's egg!"
"Nii-san," Al rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Will you settle down already? We have to think, not panic."
"I'm not panicking! I'm just telling it like it is!" Ed objected. "He's totally looped! How could you be three months pregnant? You haven't even got your body back for three months yet!"
"No, I haven't," Al said wearily. "Think about that for a moment, Niisan."
"Are you saying --" Ed sputtered, and then stopped walking suddenly, as his brain finally switched on. "Al, are you suggesting that somebody knocked up your body while you weren't in it?"
"Well, it certainly didn't happen when I was in it," Al said indignantly. "I think I would have noticed."
"So while it was in the Gate..." Ed blanched a little. "Your body in the... and the Gate... took your masculinity?"
"What was that for?" Ed asked, a little muffled around his split and swollen lip. "It was a simple question."
"Now who's being unscientific, Niisan?" Al scowled, and shook out his hand. "Honestly, you know better! You've seen me naked enough times since then! My masculinity is just fine! And besides, what would that have to do with me being pregnant? The real question is, how did the, the extra parts get in here, because I sure didn't have them when I was eight!"
"Oh." Ed grew momentarily serious, and frowned, still nursing his jaw slightly. "But Al, the Gate, it, it... takes stuff away, as a toll... for the information it gives out. It doesn't add stuff."
"Remember Wrath?" Al reminded him, and nodded at the dark expression that passed briefly over his brother's face. "He got your limbs, Nii-san. They weren't destroyed, were they? So... it's strange... but it's, well, it's happened before!"
"I suppose," Ed said grudgingly, "I can't think of any other explanation... argh, no, it's too weird! Where did the organs come from in the first place, is what I want to know! Does this mean that somewhere out there, there's a woman walking around without a ute..."
The words died in his throat. Slowly, Ed and Al met each other's eyes, both wearing identical expressions of sickly terror.
"Maybe we'd better call Sensei when we get back home," Al whispered in a very hushed voice; on instinct, at the sound of her name they both clutched at each other and looked around for the incoming attack.
"Yeah," Ed gulped. "The only thing that worries me, is well --"
He stopped, and Al looked at him sideways. "Is what?"
"Well..." Ed looked uneasy. "Sensei lost her... she did her transmutation right after her baby was born, right? She couldn't have been pregnant again so soon. So how did... I mean who did... I mean, where did the other half of the...?"
Another moment of silence trickled by.
"Maybe we'd better not call Sensei."
The two of them eyed the phone like a poisonous snake.
"You call her," Ed said.
"No, you call her," Al retorted.
"You call her, you're the one who's pregnant."
"That's not my fault," Al protested.
"Well, it's not my fault either," Ed huffed.
"I'm in a delicate condition. You call her."
"She's less likely to kill you than she is to kill me."
"No she's not, you call her."
"Yes, she is, she always liked you better."
"She did not."
"You call her."
"You call her!"
"Is this the Curtis house," Ed said, glowering across the room at Al. He wasn't sure, but he suspected that Al had deliberately put his face in the way of that hit so that the resulting nosebleed would prevent him from talking on the phone. "Yeah, hey, Mason. It's me. Me. Ed. It's Ed! Who did you think it was? Anyway, can you get Sensei? I need to... I mean, Al needs to tell her something. Yeah, okay, thanks."
Al glared at him for his choice of phrasing, over the handkerchief that was staunching the nosebleed, and Ed ignored a twinge of guilt. He was 95 sure Al had done that on purpose.
A voice in his ear ripped him back to the task at hand. "Sensei! I'm s -- I mean, um. Hi. What's up? ...That's good, that's good... Oh. Um, that's not so good. Sorry to hear that... Yeah, he's doing real good... About that... Al is -- no! We're not, I swear! We haven't even heard from the military in months! We -- no, really!"
Ed winced, pulled the receiver away from his ear a bit, and hissed at Al, who had been surreptitiously creeping towards the door of the room. "Sensei, can I talk for a moment, this is kind of important!"
He rolled his eyes; finally, she let him get a word in edgewise. "Um. Okay. It's about Al. He's kind of..." in the family way, okay that wouldn't work. "He's a little..." sick didn't seem to work quite right. "Something's happened..." involving the Gate, we really need your advice, that was likely to set her off. "Al might be..." pregnant with your child, okay, anything besides that -- "Pregnant with your child," he blurted out.
On the other side of the room, Al inhaled suddenly and choked on his own blood.
"I said, he probably might be pregna --"
At the noise that then came from the phone, both brothers involuntarily jerked and threw themselves flat on the floor. The receiver continued to dangle in mid-air, emitting a tinny toned-down version of the wrath of God which was barely, just barely, endurable by merely human ears.
Eventually, the storm died down, and a cringing Edward cautiously reached out to pick up the receiver again. "Um... Sensei?" he said tentatively, then cringed at the reply.
"Yes, Sensei."
"Sensei?"
"...No, Sensei."
"But --"
"Yes, Sensei!"
With a final wince, Ed pulled back to look at the phone, then carefully set it down in the cradle.
Al looked at him. "Well?"
"...she says she wants the full story later."
"Oh." Al braced himself. "Is she going to call back?"
"No." Ed looked like Armageddon had just been announced. "She's coming here."
"Oh."
They both looked at the phone.
"Think we could reach Xerxes before she gets here?"
tbc.