***A Lack of Planning***
Central, Amestris, May 1918
Berlin, Germany, May 1924
After sleeping in and showering swiftly, Alphonse and his brother grabbed a late breakfast, or early lunch depending on who you ask, at a café down the block that the nice lady at the front desk told Alphonse about. His optimistic steps wove a path for him and a quiet Brother through the bustle of Berlin to the auction preview.
Alphonse could tell Brother was irritated today. His soundless agitation was radiating off him in waves. Brother probably didn't have a hangover, as he swore he'd only had the one drink with the enigmatic Kai last night, unlike the month they had stayed at his flat above Gracia Johann's flower shop.
Although Alphonse hardly expected Brother to be in high spirits after their strained discussion last night, he had hoped that Brother would feel less irritable knowing that Alphonse didn't care about his brother's sexuality.
No, Alphonse suspected this bad mood had more to do with whatever his brother had dreamed last night. Usually, if Brother had a nightmare, he would wake up screaming or in a panic, which was about 2-3 nights a week. When his brother dreamed a dreamless sleep the other nights, he would be groggy the next day until he had a few cups of coffee in him. Then there were the rare nights, maybe once every six to eight weeks. Those mornings where it was obvious that Brother had a decent dream, maybe even a happy one, he never shared those exceptional ones with Alphonse.
It was to these benign dreams that Brother had the strangest reactions. He would wake up smiling or confused, but then become energetic or irritable, respectively. Maybe these dreams were like the ones Alphonse himself was having about Amestris, home, and Winry.
Alphonse missed his world, but was glad to be with his brother. They had been through so much together: studying alchemy as children first from their father's books and then with Teacher, trying to bring their mother back, losing his body as well as Brother's arm and leg, Brother joining the military, searching for the stone, Brother's death, bringing him back, being separated with Alphonse missing years of memories, the German invasion, coming to live in Germany, and Alphonse regaining his memories.
As long as they were together, they could do anything. As long as they were together, Alphonse was home, or at least that was the sentiment. It had been hard adjusting to Germany, though. With the body doubles of the people he knew and loved, yet not knowing them, and getting used to the social norms of this world, it had been difficult. It had sometimes been painful to the point of aching.
It was just like Brother said. 'Germany is like home except names and places are a little different, but with some familiar faces.' He was glad that the gate had given him back his memories of the years searching for the stone, but it made living here harder.
Alphonse missed Resembool's rolling hills, snow in Central, Elicia's laugh, and Winry's apple pie. Actually, he missed the blond woman's warm embrace. In the years of being on his own, he had lived with Teacher and visited Winry often. His oldest friend would take every opportunity to hug him, and Alphonse missed those embraces.
Brother, on the other hand, didn't like to be touched, especially since his automail surgery, and Alphonse understood that. He tried to give his brother space, but sometimes he just wanted a hug from someone he loved to make him feel at home.
Whenever he thought of home, Alphonse always thought of Winry. She colored his memories. Her hair, the color of yellow lilies from the field behind their old house, her eyes, as bright as a clear afternoon sky above Resembool, and her smile, her real smile could light up the world. She was always there, caring for them, being there for them. And Alphonse missed her.
Brother yanked on his shirt sleeve pulling him out of his musings of home and the beautiful girl out of his reach as they navigated the busy hotel lobby. Oops; he had absently neglected the whole walk there. Time to pay attention.
"Did you hear what I said, Al? We might get lucky. I just overheard that archduke guy from England say something about research notes being an auction lot as well!" Brother sounded much more hopeful than he had all morning.
"That's great, Brother. Imagine if both the bomb and all the notes were here! Wow! That would save us so much time in trying to track them all down. Let's go check it out." Alphonse smiled as he thought of the possibilities.
The brothers sped to the viewing by way of the elevators. They were dressed in their best clothes… ok, their cleanest, least wrinkled outfits. Alphonse had insisted on it, hoping to look like the henchmen of some bigwig buyer who was too busy to come himself. They had no chance of being mistaken as buyers themselves, he had reasoned, not with the expensive silks, lace, and other fine fabrics the real bidder's they'd identified were wearing.
Hoping to not draw attention, they arrived around 12:30 PM on the landing outside of the display room. As they headed to the door, a man in a lavish suit and polished shoes noticed them. Once he took in their appearance, he immediately walked towards them.
"No, no, no," he was saying looking both annoyed and anxious. "You are supposed to come to the back door and meet me there at 3 PM to transport the items," he admonished gruffly looking over the brothers' shoulders for anyone coming.
"Ah," Alphonse stalled, "well, we were supposed to check the items before transportation. You know how it is," he lied, "if we get it wrong, then it will be our heads." He hoped that the man would not see through the thin story, but this man had already mistaken them for someone else.
"Fine, but be quick about it. You need to be out of the way before Lt. Hess begins the preview in a half hour. Use the main door here, but exit through the back. If there is a problem, figure it out. Jacopo said he would meet you at the vault after we close the showing. Then you can bring the items back tomorrow for the auction. Understand?" He asked with little room to disagree.
"Understood," the brothers indicated together.
"We won't let Lt. Hess see us, believe me," Brother smiled so wide Alphonse imagined yellow canary feathers on his cat grin. They were going to have to work on Brother's poker face. Hopefully the well-dressed man wouldn't notice.
"Good, now get going. I do not want anyone else to see you in there either, got it?"
"Yes, thank you," Alphonse replied as they scurried to investigate the auction items. Making eye contact, they entered the room sharing a baffled look. At least they looked good enough to be movers. However, if Lt. Hess really was here, they needed to be especially careful; Hess couldn't find Brother here. As for himself, he figured Lt. Hess would take him as a relative of Alfons' or not notice him at all. Brother was the one Lt. Hess would recognize immediately, and that could not happen.
They approached a red velvet covered table draped with matching curtains. A large vase with flowers sat between two sets of items embedded in the fabric. To the left, tattered notebooks were artfully displayed with one opened to a page near the center of the book with sketches of the bulbous item to the right.
Alphonse could see Brother's jaw nearly hit the floor. On this table lay the uranium bomb and all the related notes! The brothers took a collective breath before turning to each other again with stunned glee. Here were the items they had been looking for over the last six months! And here the brothers were… alone in a room with the bomb and the notes used to create it literally on a bed of velvet! Alphonse couldn't believe their luck!
"Should we take it now, Brother, or should we wait until the end of the viewing when they just hand them to us?"
"Well," his brother considered, "if we take them now, we had better do it quickly. People will be here any minute. If we wait, there's a chance that whoever's really supposed to pick them up for that Jacopo guy will show up, and then we'll have to do more tracking. Gaw," he huffed, "I didn't really think this was going to be it, ya know?" He indicated the tableful with a sweeping hand. "Everything out here in the open. I didn't bring anything to carry it in. What do we carry it in, Al?" he demanded with a hint of hysterics in his voice.
"How am I supposed to know, Brother? This was your plan, remember?" squeaked Al. "What should we do?"
"Uh…" Brother stalled looking around frantically then paused, "well, that vase looks pretty big…"
They both turned their sights to the ceramic container in the center of the table with flowers artfully displayed. It was bigger than the bomb, but just barely. They both looked at each other again, and immediately sprang into action.
Brother grabbed the vase and pulled the flowers out, dumping the water behind the table. Then he laid the flowers along the velvet covered table. He gently wrapped the bomb in the loose fabric it was already cradled in before placing it snuggly into the vase.
At the same time, Alphonse began to pull his shirt from his trousers. He then reached for the notebooks, tucking them into his pants at the front and back. He motioned for his brother to quickly do the same. They fixed their appearance before grabbing their new vase with their hidden bomb, and then, moving as smoothly as possible to not dislodge the notes from their pants, they calmly, if stiffly, walked out the back exit.
Swiftly they descended stairs and wound through winding corridors to the back of the hotel, exiting into an ally. They crossed town quickly, returning to their room. Hurriedly, they packed their suitcase and duffle bag, hiding the notes within, and left for the train station. If no one was after them now, they soon would be. Within the hour, they were on a train back to Munich.
Alphonse considered where they could hide out. He also thought they would have to give Mr. Lang a call to let him know the lead he'd given them had paid off.
"When should we call Mr. Lang?" Alphonse asked settling into their train compartment.
"When we get to Munich. I don't want to stop for any reason or show our faces anywhere along our route," he said while pulling down the blind on the compartment's door before sitting. "We should get in right after nightfall, so we should be a little less recognizable. Hopefully, we can make our way to a hotel we have never stayed at, where no one knows us, and call Fritz then." Brother said anxiously. "I know I am being paranoid, but now that I'm thinking it through, it may not have been entirely smart to have taken these out from under all those rich, obviously morally corrupt, people's noses."
"Well, it's too late to worry about it now, Brother," Alphonse chided, feeling his own sense of unease bite his words. "Besides," he said, trying to calm his nerves, "what are they going to do about it? They didn't see the items or us, did they? They didn't even know what they were there to bid on. It was lucky that we got in before anyone saw them," Alphonse reasoned, eyeing the vase on the seat next to his brother and then up to the overhead compartment where their suitcase and duffle containing the notebooks sat innocently.
"Yeah. Hey, that makes me feel better," Brother smiled appreciatively, "but it was still too easy. We should be careful," he said slightly more at ease but with an edge of wariness.
"Right," Alphonse agreed. Brother was right; that felt too easy. They needed to stay on their guard, after all, only Kai knew their faces and names.
Alphonse and Edward had not noticed the three dark shadows that followed them by rooftop. Kai and his companions leapt above the brothers, building to building, hotel to hotel to train station, to avoid the revealing bands of hidden sunlight. Kai wondered what the figures below were doing. He didn't know, but the fact that the brothers were running meant they were up to something.