A year; It's been a year since I made the decision to get the surgery for automail. I told Granny Pinako that I can't go through with my plan with a couple of stumps. I know that Al is still alive. I don't know how I know, it's sort of like a sixth sense or maybe I'm just in a weird sense of denial but I can still sense that he is alive. I gave my arm up to get my brother back. I just need to figure out what exactly happened and track Al down. Once I find him and see what condition he's in, I'll be able to see where to go next. Pinako told me that the surgery and rehabilitation would take about three years and when I told her that I'd do it in one; her reply was that I'd be spitting blood. I was determined though, still am, and the rehabilitation was done in that one year.

Walking outside to the front of the Rockbell's, I decided it was time to make sure I was up to par and that everything was in working condition. Taking a deep breath, I clapped my hands together before transmuting a training dummy from the earth in front of me. Successfully completing my first transmutation since that night we failed to bring mom back. I shook myself out of my thoughts and focused myself entirely on the dummy. Taking a deep breath, I immersed myself entirely into the training of my body. As teacher always said, "in order to train the mind, one must train the body".

This was where Winry found me sometime later. I had decided to step it up a notch and transmuted my automail arm into a blade. Around that time was when a wrench to the head made me lose centration and, nursing my aching head, I turned to see Winry standing and silently fuming on the balcony. Well, maybe not silently.

"Hey you, don't mess up my automail! You know how hard I worked on that!"

"If it's half as hard as you throw a wrench I'd be surprised!" Was my quick reply, "For real, you could try acting more like a girl and less like a gearhead."

"You think I'm a gearhead that's fine but you had better get used to it." Putting a hand to her chest she continued, "Cause as long as you're wearing my automail, you're stuck with this gearhead whether you like it or not." With those last words, Winry turned and headed back inside.

Sighing, I transmuted my arm back to normal and turned to head back inside after Winry. However, as I reached the door, I stopped and looked back over my shoulder at the rest of Risembool. I needed to return to my home soon and look through it more thoroughly for any clues to what actually happened that night a year ago. I'm still stuck on what that bastard truth gave me in exchange for the arm that I had given up. Equivalent Exchange, the law that the universe follows; if one wishes to obtain something, something of equal value must be given. That's the law all alchemists follow and believe in and I am no different.

Turning back around, I opened the door. It was roughly midday, so I had a few hours before we would be having supper and now would be pretty much the perfect time to visit the Elric family home unless I wanted to wait till after dark. Taking a deep breath, I called out.

"Hey Winry, Lady Pinako, I'm gonna go visit the house, be back by dinner!"

"Bring Den with you! He could use the walk." I smiled at the reply, shut the door behind me and walked down the few steps to reach the ground again. Looking down at Den, lying on the ground by the Rockbell sign, I smiled slightly.

"Hey Den, you ready to go?"

With a short bark, Den got up and then we were off.

It took some time but soon enough Den and I were standing in front of my family home. Stepping up to the front door, I turned the knob and swung it open. Turning back to Den, I called him to come on but he didn't move. Den was patiently waiting just between were the fences once stood. Lying on the ground and wagging his tail. Calling him over once more, Den just looked at me and barked once.

"Fine," Giving up on getting Den to follow, I turned back to the entry and stepped inside. "You wait here then."

The second I walked into the house, I felt a presence. Tensing, I glanced around the room but saw nothing or no-one out of the ordinary within the area. Wearily, I continued through the house, passing the kitchen, halls, and making my way to 'that bastard's' study. I couldn't explain it but something was drawing me towards it, that room where the transmutation was done no more than a year before. It was as if someone was telling me that they were waiting there and I had to admit that the closer I got, the stronger the presence became. I continued to the door, but hesitated as my hand reached the doorknob. I was debating whether or not I should shove the door open when I thought I heard something.

"B…..r w.y .an….u….ee…..m….m…i…g..t…. ."

It could've been mistaken for the whispers of the wind, or that of a breeze, as there was no real meaning or words to the sound, but I wasn't fooled. Those were broken whispers; the only question was, from what? Steeling myself for what I might find, I shoved the door open and stepped into the room.

What greeted me was not exactly what I expected. The transmutation circle was still present in the center of the room, containing the stain of dried blood from that failed attempt from a year ago as well as the trail of blood that I myself had made. To go along with those stains, the musty, metallic scent of blood was still somewhat present, although definitely dulled down a lot from the gut wrenching scent it once was. However, the room wasn't the same as it was when I returned with Pinako before the surgery. One of the suits of armor that rested in the corner of the room had fallen over and now was sprawled out on the floor. A few of the books and papers were also scattered across the floor. It didn't make sense. The last time I was here the only things out of place were the transmutation circle itself and the blood staining the floor but now… Now it looked like someone needed a place to take out there anger and this was the only room they could find. That was insane though, as far as I knew nobody had been here since my brief revisit that month ago.

"What the…"

The temperature was dropping. I could literally feel how the temperature was dropping degree by degree. Whatever was happening, it wasn't a normal occurrence that was for sure. I scanned the room again, this time playing extremely close attention to every detail. I needed to find the cause for this. What exactly the presence I was feeling was and where it was coming from. Books, desk, papers, the armor, I couldn't find anything.

"Bro…r"

Tensing, and hugging myself to keep warm, I turned towards the voice. At first I couldn't see anything, but as I focused on the corner closest to the fallen suit of armor, I saw a shimmer. It was sort of like the ripple of water in a lake except there was no lake, or any form of water there. It was as if the air itself had begun to ripple and slowly but surely a figure was emerging.

"Br..oth…r?"

Was that..? I was speechless, the voice it couldn't be. What? The figure emerging was translucent, almost transparent but I would know that form anywhere.

"Al?" I only whispered it but by the reaction the figure gave, he definitely heard it.

"Brother!" All at once my brother came into view and rushed at me. I only had time to think that he was still oddly translucent when he reached me. Well, the better term for it would be that he went right through me. My eyes widened in surprise and I turned around to see if it was just my imagination. However, what greeted me definitely wasn't an empty space.

Al was sitting on the floor with his knees to his chest and tears running down his face. The things that hit me hard though were how he was TRANSLUCENT, and that he looked exactly the same as he did before…. It was like he hadn't aged a day.

"Al….?"

"Brother, I'm scared. What happened to me? Why can't I touch you, or anything else? Why don't I get hungry, or tired? Why couldn't you SEE me?"

I was speechless. I didn't know what to do. My baby brother was back. Alphonse was actually back. His voice had a kind of whispering sense to it, it was something exclusively different; almost inhuman. That was when his words reached me. 'Couldn't; as in past tense; as in before now.

"Alphonse, how long have you been here?"

Al looked up from where he was crouched on the floor, tear tracks running down his face but disappearing before they hit the ground.

"I…I don't know. I remember seeing you coming before in a wheelchair with Granny, but you couldn't hear or see me. I've been stuck in this room, waiting for you to come back."

That was a year ago. Al's been stuck in the bastard's study for roughly a year with nothing to do but wait and only our failed attempt to bring mom back as a thing to look at. This was all my fault, if I hadn't decided to bring mom back, if I hadn't convinced Al that we could and would succeed, none of this would've happened. Al wouldn't be crying or upset over not physically being, he could still be living a somewhat happy live with Winry, Pinako, and I as company. I pretty much ruined my baby brother's life with one childish thought and the ignorance that came with it. We just wanted to see mom smile again, that was all we wanted. Instead we created a monster and in doing so I lost my arm, leg, and Al became some sort of spirit or ghost with no physical body. A Spirit or Ghost, those were the only two words I could use to describe the Al that I was seeing. He didn't age in all this time, he was translucent almost transparent, he can't touch or goes right through things, doesn't have any physical needs, and people can't SEE him. It's the only thing that makes sense except for the fact that it doesn't make sense. Ghosts aren't real. They can't be real, science has proven that fact, but I couldn't think of what else could possibly explain this. It doesn't make any sense!

The one thing that I know for sure right now is that I caused this mess. Now I need to be the one to fix it. I need to make this right, but I need to figure out what's happening first and to do that I need information. I need to research.

"Al, help me go through these books. We need to see if 'he' had anything on ghosts or spirits, or something that will help us figure out what exactly is going on. Can you help me?"

Al sniffed a little but nodded and stood up. As me made his way over to the bookshelf and the books left on it, I realized that he was almost floating. His feet were hovering above the ground as he walked. Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I turned to the books scattered across the floor and began my research.

"There's nothing here!"

We had been looking through the titles of these books for anything that stood out for a while now but we still weren't finding anything. Everything here was on Alchemy and I don't know why I thought otherwise in the first place because we had read all these books already when we were looking for ways to bring mom back. Maybe I thought that I'd get lucky, find something of use and solve this mess, but nothing was ever that easy.

"Brother, maybe we should look for it somewhere else. We might be able to find something in a larger library…."

"That's it! Central, the central library; they have everything about anything that we may possible need to know."

"That's great Ed, but didn't teacher say that only state alchemists have access to that library? How will we get in?"

"They have privileges and access to otherwise restricted research materials, right? Maybe if we find someone there they might be able to give us a hand. If not then we'll just have to figure out what to do next. Whatever we do choose to do though, I think central is our best bet."

"So what do…."

Al was interrupted by a bark from outside and Ed shot to his feet.

"Crap, Den! I totally forgot; Granny's making dinner and I said I'd be back for it. Den's been waiting outside all this time. Come on Al, let's go."

"But brother, I can't leave. I've already tried but it never works!"

"I'm not leaving without you Al, not again; so let's go!"

Standing outside the door I turned to face Al and waited. Cautiously, Al stepped towards me but hesitated just before the doorway.

"What are you waiting for! I said I'm not leaving without you and I mean it. Try one more time, you can do it."

Al just nodded silently before stepping forward.

AN -

Hey, Readers! Sc0rPi052 here; I'm sorry that it took so long for this chapter to be updated but it kinda slipped my mind. Between my work over the summer, year end provincials, school starting up again, and my reading of other fanfics; I got incredibly distracted. For that I am sorry; we'll try to keep updating weekly, or at least every two weeks but I'm not gonna go making any promises just in case something like this happens again.

I also just want to be sure that people know that the only things in this story belonging exclusively to us are the plot-line (baseline ideas) and any OC's we may choose to throw into it. Fullmetal Alchemist itself and all the characters, original plot for it, and a few of the quotes or saying in this story all belong to Hiromu Arakawa.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and we will try to update sooner rather than later.

Please Review!