Edward was certainly different, or was it that, he'd been acting differently, and now he was himself? Alfons supposed that was probably true. It was clear what had caused it. Edward couldn't pretend to be so untouchable and tough after that night. It was clear that he had plenty of weaknesses, but as Alfons had tried to explain to Edward, it was your weaknesses that made you stronger.

Of course, it was very difficult to translate anything meaningful into English, so Edward never got that message.

Not that things between them had changed that drastically, like, Edward didn't get shy or refuse to talk to him. He just stopped being so brash and looked at him in that funny, wistful way a little more often.

And then Alfons remembered something that Edward had said when they'd first met.

"Alphonse Elric?" he asked, next time he caught Edward in the act. "You are wondering Alphonse Elric?"

Edward was evidently surprised, but he didn't seem to show evident surprise like everyone else. His eyebrows shot up, and that was it. After a moment of stammering, he finally dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

"Ja. I was thinking about him. You look the same."

Alfons thought that he understood what was being said, but wondered anyway. He looked like Alphonse Elric? Was that why Edward looked at him like that?

"Who is Alphonse Elric? Family?"

Edward stared at the table, looking downcast.

"Brother."

"Small Bruder."

"Little Bruder." Edward paused for a moment. "But taller," he added, and smiled slightly.

"Higher?"

"Ja."

Alfons always found it oddly amusing that when Edward was sure of a word, he'd just use it randomly, not even attempting to say the rest of the sentence in German.

"You… you miss? Er ist gone?"

Edward nodded sadly. A thought struck Alfons which made him feel a little bit awful.

"Er ist gestorben?"

"Gestorben?"

Alfons made a rather crude hand gesture of running his hand across his throat. "Gestorben."

"Dead?"

"Yes."

Edward shook his head, but he still looked incredibly sad. "Nicht Gestorben. But gone."

Alfons vaguely wondered how to say 'Will you get him back' in English while Edward kept staring at him, but it a marginally better way. Like this time, he was actually looking at Alfons and thinking of Alfons, not his brother.

"Was ist diese?" he asked, totally randomly, pulling at the front of his own shirt. Alfons looked down.

"Diese?" He asked, pulling at his braces.

"Ja."

"Er…" How did you translate that? Assuming Edward wanted a translation. He might just actually not know what they were. "Hosenträger."

Edward stared at him a little more, and then stood up; lifted up that goddamn muscle vest he always wore and pointed at the leather running around his waist. "Belt," he told Alfons. "Get one."

~*~Charismatisch~*~

After he'd demanded that Edward dressed in proper clothes (turning down leather trousers) so that in the end, Edward ended up wearing a white shirt, trousers and a vest, which he kept complaining about because 'what was the point of a jumper with no sleeves!'

After Edward looked respectable, he dragged him out the house and took him on something of a sightseeing tour, but it felt more like he was guiding around a clueless exchange student.

"Was das?" He asked, pointing at a car.

"Ein Auto."

"A car."

"Das auto est parkend auf der…" Edward stopped and indicated the road. Alfons rolled his eyes a little. He felt like some kind of service.

"Straße."

"Das auto est parkend auf der Straße vor der bibliothek."

Alfons clapped rather sarcastically, though Edward did look pleased with himself. Edward pointed at the library. "Bibliothek. Wer gehen in." He commanded, striding towards it purposefully.

Alfons shrugged and followed. Edward did love his books. He doubted they'd be able to pass any book shop, so he mentally modified his route so that they passed as few as possible. It was getting annoying.

"You are talking good," Alfons commented, wandering idly behind Edward as he strode purposefully around the shop. They found themselves in the geography section and Edward pulled down an atlas, a book on the geography of Germany and a German to English dictionary. It was only afterward that Alfons realised that Edward seemed to be making things hard for himself on purpose when translating, since there had been English to German dictionaries there too.

About two paces from the counter, Edward turned expectantly to Alfons. "You have a library card, right?" He asked, though Alfons was more than slightly lost.

"A card, to get books? You have one? Buch, ja?"

"Ja," agreed Alfons. They were indeed books.

"Nehmen buch haus?"

"…Ja." Why was Edward asking if he could take the books home? This was a library! Of course he was allowed- Oh…

Alfons pulled out his wallet and removed his library card, showing it to Edward. "Dies?"

"Ja," snapped Edward, who was, for some reason unknown to Alfons, pissed off. He yanked the card from the elder with his free hand and placed the books on the counter.

Alfons left the shop with Edward, replaying the conversation and feeling slightly offended that Edward hadn't just expected him to have a library card. He was a student, and a self-proclaimed book worm. Though, then again, was that really the kind of thing he should be worrying about now?

The two young men wandered aimlessly, Alfons taking lead and pointing out things occasionally to translate for Edward, and telling him where he was. Edward seemed only half listening though. After a while, he piped up.

"Was dies?" he asked, pointing at a shop window. The shop looked closed for the day, and Alfons' eyes flicked up to the shop name.

"Buch bestellen," he said. Surely Edward could have worked that out?

"Nein," Edward continued to point at the shop window. "Dies."

On the outside of the shop window was a six pointed star drawn crudely in white tape. Alfons raised his eyebrows.

"Jude." Alfons said blankly, and continued walking. Edward lowered his pointing hand but continued to stare at the shop long enough so that he had to run to catch up with Alfons, who was already at the end of the street.

"Abwarten!" Edward shouted, before he lost him, careful not to drop the heavy library books in his arms. "Alfons."

"Den mund halten!" Alfons hissed sharply. Edward was effectively silenced; slightly shocked at the harsh behaviour of the polite man he shared a flat with.

Alfons walked swiftly back, and since Edward had considerably shorter legs, he had to almost run to keep up. Neither spoke, though Edward was bursting with questions, and finally, once they'd made it up the stairs and shut the flat door, Edward dared to speak. It wasn't like he was scared of Alfons - he wasn't a scary person. It was the whole reaction, and he wondered if it was something tabooed. Was this something to do with the war his father had mentioned?

"Alfons. Was war das?" He asked, slightly breathless from jogging home and carrying the heavy books. He dumped them on the table and kicked off his shoes by the door. "Jude. Was ist das?"

Alfons didn't speak. He coughed slightly, but refused to open his mouth, as if doing so would bring out his insides. After he won the metaphorical battle with his diaphragm, he stood straight and took Edward's atlas from the stack on the table. "Come," he said, nodding to the table and sitting himself, opening the heavy book to a map of Europe. He pointed at a green place squished betweed a pink place called 'Polen' and a yellow place called 'Frankreich'.

"Deutschland." Alfons stated. "Germany."

Edward nodded, wondering what this had to do with the star. He then pointed at a little island away from the mainland containing Germany.

"England." He told Edward, who was now getting the geographic relation between England and Germany, but still not seeing where the star came into this, nor the way Alfons had reacted.

Alfons turned the page to a map of Germany, not that he needed the map to illustrate his point, but it just helped.

"Führer von Deurschland ist Adolf Hitler," Alfons told him. Edward nodded. Okay, so they were being ruled by Hitler. He couldn't be as bad as Bradley though, so he just kept nodding. Alfons reached for a sheet of note paper and pen. On the paper he drew a cartoon smiley face – without the smile – with a severe haircut and a toothbrush moustache. On the line above, he wrote Adolf Hitler.

Edward smirked. He knew this guy! When you drew it like that, yeah, he was on posters all over the place.

Alfons ran a hand through his hair, making at stand on end. "Ja…" he muttered to himself, wondering how he was going to go about this. It was difficult enough to explain in the first place, without having a language barrier. He considered using Edward's dictionary, but couldn't be bothered to have to look up every other word.

"Okay, Adolf Hitler nein mögen Jude," he said, drawing the star Edward had seen on the window. He quickly annotated it in German and English.

"Jew…" Edward muttered, tracing the star with his finger. "Why?"

He says they're thieves, thought Alfons, wondering how he was going to get all this across to Edward without making it horribly garbled and giving him the wrong idea. He says they're vermin, with no home to go to, and that they're poisonous, and stupid, but… that's not really so. He says he'll fix Germany, and make it a stronger country… How…? It hadn't happened yet. All that had happened was that he'd made it clear he wanted rid of every minority group and that he wished to create some kind on Aryan country. A single culture country, like Japan or something.

He sighed and wrote 'Germany' and drew some hasty marks, and then crossed them out.

"Deutschland hat nein geld noch arbeit." He said, hoping that Edward would understand.

"No money…?" Edward said, slightly uncertain if he was getting this right. "No jobs?"

"Ja."

"Why?"

Alfons point blank refused to try to explain the Wall Street Crash to Edward right now, but promised he'd come back to it later. Edward agreed.

Alfons pointed at his crudely drawn Hitler again.

"Speaks to make Germany money and jobs," he said to Edward, thankful for those few words Edward had just supplied him with. "And to takeaway Jews."

Edward laughed a little at Alfons badly recalled use of the phrase 'take away.'

"Why?" He asked again. Why, to give Germany more money and jobs, would this Hitler guy decide to get rid of a certain race?

Alfons shrugged. Another thing he couldn't be bothered to go into right now. He personally hadn't voted, he hadn't been of age at the time, but he couldn't help thinking that the general population had been tricked. Surely this hadn't been what the original plan had been?

"Also Hitler speaks to just have an…" how did he translate this…? "arisch people."

"Arisch?"

Though it made him feel awful somewhere in his stomach – though he didn't know why, it was simply how he was – Alfons indicated himself, more specifically his white-blonde hair and cyan eyes. "Arisch."

Edward made no indication that he understood, but Alfons got the feeling it was simply because things were getting serious.

"Hitler wants a country full of the same race, right? So what's he going to do with everyone else?"

Alfons shrugged, his eyes full of sadness. Edward was making him feel guilty, for some reason, and also, making him really doubt if Hitler and his army were really out to do any good, swarming the street like bugs, seemingly not dangerous, but actually, you wouldn't want to get too close.

Edward was mulling over what he'd managed to get of what Alfons had said to him. This place was really screwed up, if that was the case. So, Germany had no jobs (something to do with another war, he recalled) and because of something hard to explain, had no money, and so this guy came along and just told them he was going to fix it all. Ha. Edward was a bit annoyed that this country had fallen for that, because this Hitler guy sounded like a total madman, though he supposed in their situation… Hitler was powerful, and they were desperate, but… wasn't that power kind of being abused?

And then a daunting thought struck him.

If Hitler was creating a country of one perfect race, where did he come in?

I think I got Hosenträger right. Because you see, in England, braces are the things on your teeth, and the things you hold your trousers up with and suspenders and the things women hold their stockings up with! I have come to realise, after much confusion, that braces are suspenders in America. But since Google is American, it gets confused when I type in braces, but I am wondering in which way does German translate? To braces (UK) or to suspenders (UK)! If anyone happens to know, would they please tell me!

Oh, and to touch upon the subject of me aging Alfons, I wanted him to be of age, legally. Since 18 or below is the legal age pretty much everywhere except America (and 21 was too old) I went for 18.

And I know this might sound weird, but I prefer TB. I know more about it, and I just think it suits him better. Also, in Alfons' circumstances, it'd very likely, given the timeline. When I started being totally obsessed with A Heiderich though, I did a thorough search of pretty much every fatal lung disease that involves coughing up blood, so yeah, I know about the others. (And I know you can kind of half cure TB now, but you couldn't then!)

I really enjoyed writing this chapter. I think the World War from Germany's point of view is – of course really sad – but really interesting as well. I had to do a history assessment about Hitler's reign from the POV of a German and then whether, given the circumstances, I'd vote or not, and I really wanted to do this, but I left it to late and didn't have the time.

See you next time!

~BS