Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist is not mine. I'm just having fun with it.

And I should warn you - there is a heavier than usual concentration of bad language in this one. The situation called for it!

Chapter 8: Seeing is Believing

Edward opened the door.

Edward saw the two people standing on the doorstep.

Edward closed the door.

More precisely, he slammed it and pressed his back against it.
"I did not just see that. I did not just see that. I did not just see that!"
The doorknocker started up again, loud and insistent.

Ok. Think straight. There was someone at the door. But it couldn't be who he'd thought he'd seen. He must be overtired or imagining things or…

Hey, wait. There'd been another Hughes, another Gracia, another Bradley, hell, even another Armstrong. So logically, there had to be…

Which meant he'd just slammed the door on two complete strangers.

He could just see Al's look of disapproval.

He spun round and lifted the latch again.
"Fullmetal, what the hell are you –"
"Sorry! I thought you were –"
The door came to a juddering halt. The two men stared at each other, one with an eyebrow raised, the other with eyes bulging. Ed's jaw kept moving but no sound came out. Mustang's eyebrow rose higher.

Keeping the door still with his flesh hand, Ed slowly and deliberately pinched his left wrist. Pain shot up the arm. He looked down at the rapidly discolouring skin and let go.
"Ok. Not a dream."
"Fullmetal…"
"I haven't told anyone but Noah that name…"
"Fullmetal."
"And Afons…"
"Ed."
"No one could have…"
"Edward."
"But it's impossible…"
"BEAN!"

His head jerked up, a vein twitching at his temple. Mustang sighed.
"Fullmetal, this gap might be wide enough for you to fit through but us normal sized people won't."
Finally, after a monumental struggle, Ed managed to string some vaguely sensible words together.
"Fuck me…it really is you, isn't it?"
"The one and only. Now open this damn door properly and let us in before we start dissolving!"

Dumbly, he obeyed. Mustang and Hawkeye virtually jumped inside. For the second time that day, the hall was full of people soaked to their skins. Having closed the door and rested his head against it for a moment, Ed spun to face the newcomers. Mustang dropped a rucksack into his arms.
"Oof!"
"Thanks, Fullmetal. I've been carrying that all day."
Hawkeye looked at him.
"What?"
"Taking advantage of Edward's shock is a little petty."
Sighing, he took the bag back and positioned it neatly against the wall.
"It is, isn't it? And exactly what I needed after that journey." His glare was only half-serious. "You have no idea how much trouble we went to in getting here."

"Don't exaggerate." Hawkeye offered her hand to the still gaping Ed. "It's good to see you again."
He clasped the hand – left-to-left – and felt the cool skin, the calloused fingers, the dampness from the rain…
"This is real, isn't it?"
Not waiting for an answer, he let go and advanced on Mustang. Before the man could back away, auto-mail shot out and seized his wrist. As if afraid it would evaporate, the Fullmetal Alchemist ran a finger across the for once un-gloved knuckles. The Flame Alchemist was too astonished to speak.
"Real…" Ed repeated, releasing his grip and turning his back on them, walking slowly towards the staircase. "You're really here…"

The other two exchanged glances, both wondering if the shock of seeing them was going to prove too much. Then Ed whirled.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING HERE?! I TOLD YOU TO SEAL THE GATE, YOU ARROGANT BASTARD!! AND I MEANT FOR FUCKING GOOD!! DO YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING IDEA WHAT COULD HAPPEN IF THERE'S A WAY BETWEEN HERE AND HOME?! WEREN'T YOU PAYING ATTENTION WHEN THOSE MANIACS BLEW MOST OF CENTRAL TO BITS?!"

It took all Mustang's self-control not to hide behind Hawkeye. The blonde demon raging and screaming at him from a few meagre feet away was somehow far much more impressive now than it'd grown a few inches and its hair was no longer in something as orderly as a braid. He opened his mouth, trying, slightly desperately, to summon up a pithy comeback.

"Brother?"
Al appeared at the top of the stairs, in a nightshirt that didn't quite reach past his knees and yawning fit to break his jaw.
"What's going on? I heard –"
Not unexpectedly, he stopped short.

His brother's voice had an almost magical effect on Ed. Only-just-metaphorical fangs retracting; he turned and looked up, grinning widely."No, it's not a dream, Al. And if it is, I'm having it too. Can you get the towels out again? Looks like they'll need 'em."
With a dazed 'uh-huh', the taller Elric retreated.
"Lieutenant," Ed said, suddenly the model host, "Do you want to go into the kitchen? There's a stove in there that should help you dry off. I'll come and stoke it in a minute."
"It's Major now," Hawkeye answered quickly, having caught the predatory gleam with which the youth was eyeing Mustang, "And I think we should all go in. We can explain things when we're all comfortable." That way, I can stop you breaking the brigadier's neck before he can get a word in edgeways.

"So let me get this straight…"
The table accommodated them all, soldiers at the end nearest the stove, along with the food and drink the brothers had provided. Ed massaged his neck and continued.
"This…not-homunculus told you that when the Gate got opened here, it got…what, damaged?"
"The term he used was 'wounded'," Mustang corrected, "If I followed the analogy right, performing alchemy here, in a world where it shouldn't work, put it under an incredible amount of stress. Doing so again could make it disintegrate."
"But it's…it's…" Struggling for words, Ed looked imploringly at Al. "How can something like the Gate be wounded? It's…"
"Beyond. Beyond being affected by us," Al completed, "Something so vast we couldn't hurt it if we tried."
The storyteller shrugged.
"I'm just repeating what I was told. For what it's worth, these beings apparently can't speak anything but the truth."

"The Truth." The capitals were audible.
"Hm?"
"Nothing." Ed waved him on. "And what exactly's supposed to happen if it does disintegrate?"
"The forces contained within it, be they sentient or otherwise, will be unleashed across both worlds, tearing down everything in their paths. Matter will be reduced to its component atoms. Life will simply be extinguished. Eventually, all that will be left will be dust." He coughed. "That's it pretty much verbatim."

There was an appropriate silence. Then:
"Oh, good, nothing big."
Ed swigged down his tea. Hawkeye spoke up.
"One of Diligence's…colleagues was sent to this side of the Gate to bring you home."
"How, if using alchemy will cause all this apocalypse stuff?"
"They didn't say."
"I assume," Mustang said through a mouthful of bread, "they have some way of getting around that problem. They sent us across without too much trouble."

This had both of the boys leaning closer.
"How did they do it?"
"Did you see the Gate?"
"No." They looked so flabbergasted that he almost smiled. "We didn't see anything. They put us in some sort of trance and we woke up in a town called Colmar."

This was met with identical thoughtful expressions.
"I wonder…" Ed began, then stopped himself and changed the subject, "So how do we get home?"
This led on to an explanation concerning Kindness' predicament, Diligence's worries and the mystery man in bandages.
"We wondered at first," finished Mustang, "I did anyway, if it might be your father."

"No." The answer was quick and final. "Dad's dead."
The way Edward said it did not invite dispute.

As usual, Hawkeye was the one to put before them the next sensible question.
"Then who is it?"

After hours of talking over everything that had happened, discussions about the 'Gate-keepers', repetitious ramblings concerning Diligence's half-cryptic warnings and assertions that neither Elric had ever heard of the nearby complex, they finally gave in to their bodies' demands for rest. Hawkeye took the bedroom, Al a mattress on the landing and the other two, chairs in the kitchen.

It hit Mustang only as, in spite of the snores coming from across the room, his eye closed. Amidst all the prophetic, high-and-mighty, end-of-the-world issues, neither brother had asked for news from home.

The next morning, Hawkeye and Al rose within minutes of each other. This had something to do with his shifting whilst asleep and being in just the right spot for the bedroom door to clout him on the ear. Between them, they decided it would be best to let their respective charges sleep on and Al offered to show her around the town in aid of fresh groceries.

The sun shone down innocently, as if it had never been away. Evidence of its betrayal remained though, in the form of puddles and an after-rain smell pervading the streets.
"You both seem well, Alphonse."
He nodded vigorously.
"We are. This world has been incredibly kind to us in many ways. We've made some good friends and they've all looked after us."
"You've been travelling?"
"Of course – oh! You don't know, do you?"

He told her about Huskisson and the bomb, about the Thule Society and the chase. She listened attentively, noting how quick he was to play up Ed's part in things, how easily he understated his own. Edward Elric, how the hell could you ever have thought your brother hated you?
"I remember the report on Huskisson," she said out loud, "You're sure he didn't survive the trip?"
"As far as we know, only the bomb came over…oh, I see. You think he might be this other soul?"
"It's a possibility, isn't it?"
"Not a very nice one. He was completely insane."

Ed woke up to find that Mustang was still there and, for a few absurd seconds, wondered if he should be happy or annoyed. When he started thinking more sensibly, the mantra he'd adopted years ago sung out with renewed strength. Don't get your hopes up. It could all go wrong. Don't get your hopes up. It could all go wrong. Simultaneously, he got the urge to run around the room whooping and dancing.

There was so much he wanted to ask, to demand, to beg for from the man slumped opposite. That patch, for starters. He'd seen it during his brief trip to 'Shambala' but small talk hadn't been high on the agenda so he still didn't know the details. Then he wanted to know what had happened to everyone, the soldiers, the alchemists, the friends…

But he knew he wouldn't. He couldn't. Because he'd already decided that the only way he was going to find all those things out was by asking the people themselves. Yes, it could all go wrong. That was always the case. Yet it did not, it had never meant that he wouldn't do everything in his power to make sure it all went right.

Having deduced that his early-morning thoughts still hadn't broken their habit of being disjointed, he got up. His spine lodged a formal protest and the resultant yelp helped Mustang join him in consciousness.
"Good grief…" Blearily, said person examined him. "I never thought I'd be happy to wake up in the same room as you, Fullmetal."
"Feeling's mutual. You wanna get washed first?"
"Hn? Ah. Yes, thanks."
"Shame."
Ed bolted past. Still not quite awake, Mustang only worked out what had happened when the washroom door slammed.

Al and Hawkeye returned to hear a bellow of "You devious little creep!" and smiled at one another.
"Good to know they're getting along as well as ever," the major observed dryly.
"Lets go and make peace and breakfast." The boy frowned. "I expect the second one of those will be the easiest."

It was.

While Mustang tapped his foot impatiently outside the washroom, Ed went through his ablutions as quickly as hysterical laughter would allow and Hawkeye supervised the scrambled eggs, Al slipped into the bedroom to retrieve his notebook and the map. He didn't bother to control the goofy grin that he knew was plastered over his face. It was just like the old days: a mystery to solve with the colonel – no, the brigadier general – Hawkeye there to organise things, brother kicking up a fuss…and when they were done, they would be among friends again. He could almost smell Gracia's cooking, almost see Havoc and the others, almost hear Winry's shriek as she saw the state of Ed's arm!

Distractedly, he heard the back door open. Then something clattered loudly to the kitchen floor.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he reached the ground and skidded round the corner seconds ahead of Mustang.

A veritable tableau greeted them. Hawkeye was by the stove, pistol in hand, poised ready to fire. On the threshold, stock still, were an auburn haired, dark skinned girl and an equally dark man. His hair was greying brown, cut short at the sides, left long at the top. Eyes narrowed, he stared impassively down the barrel.

"Ah."
The man's gaze flicked to Al and his mouth curved up at the edges.
"Alphonse," he rumbled in fluent German, "It's good to see you again. Who is this woman and why is she pointing a gun at me?"

A/N: It was ridiculously fun to write that opening section. I hope I got the tone right... Anyway, there'll be a bit of a delay before the next part ("All The Familiar Faces") gets written because I'm moving up to my uni digs tomorrow. But don't panic! I won't be stopping here!