Chapter ten

Al was very surprised to hear his brother say that, since he was pretty sure he didn't like her. But he felt relieved too.

"I didn't see that one coming." Francesca stared mouth-opened at the closed door to the room in which Brother was in. "But…haven't I imposed too much already?" she asked Alphonse.

"Don't be silly" Al chuckled. "And we thank you for everything you've told us. Please excuse Brother. It's nothing personal. He usually behaves like that when there's something he can't understand at first"

"I guess it's okay then." she smiled and Al went right behind his brother. "Alphonse," she stopped him. "Goodnight, and tell Edward I say thank you."

He nodded. "I will. Goodnight Francesca."

Being in his old room brought back good memories this time. Even when they didn't spend much time in here since most of their time went away either training or helping Teacher at their meat store whenever she needed. The only time when they didn't spend training or sleeping was during their free days. Both of them used to play cards in here. Brother learned a lot of tricks all by himself and always cheated when they were playing.

Brother had removed his sweater and his shoes and was on top of the bed just staring at the ceiling. Al sat in the other bed next to him, lied down there and stared at the ceiling just like his brother. Everything that he had just learned came again to his head.

It was all so weird, yet so fantastic. He would have never imagined that there were more people that looked exactly like him out there. Five different Alphonse's out there. With the corner of his eye he looked at his brother. Five different Edward's. Would he be scared if he found any of them? He wondered if Francesca was scared after finding them. Also the ability to change the way of things without giving anything in return, the existence of witches and warlocks, and the fight between the wanderers against the ones who opposed them. After remembering that, he began hoping for Francesca to get out of there safe and sound.

Now that he thought about it, there were a lot of things he never asked her. Like how did she even find her own counterparts and how did she manage to keep a secret from her family. But he decided he would not ask anything else. She had told them a lot already, and didn't she say that the main rule was to not tell anyone about their nature? She looked young, probably as old as his brother or Winry. Right now he could only hope that she knew what she was doing and that telling them her secret wouldn't get her into serious trouble.

When he looked at his brother again, he had his eyes closed. "Brother, are you up?" he asked.

"Yeah."

They weren't looking at each other. The two of them were looking at their respective piece of ceiling. "What do you think of all this?"

He let out a sigh. "It is all so weird to believe after it's been kept a secret for so long, even if we have the proofs in front of our eyes. I kept insisting and insisting that it was alchemy because she seemed so nervous that it looked like she would break down and eventually confess everything, but she didn't, because I was wrong. I still believe she shouldn't have come here, though. Even when it was my fault that you brought her here in the first place."

Al remained quiet for some seconds analyzing his brother's words. "I thought you wanted to ask her all of this because you thought there was a way of getting our bodies back."

"Because I thought it was different type of alchemy. And let's face it Al, you thought it as well. You of all people know that there is still a lot that we don't know yet"

"I'm not saying it's not true…" he replied. "But…what do you think right now that you know it's something completely different?"

"Hm…I think we should stay away from it. You heard her. They're in some kind of moral fight, and I wouldn't want to get involved in that just by being an ally. No offense to her though. It was brave of her to come here all by herself and risk showing us her secret just to find more about it so she and her team won't be defenseless against those weirdoes."

Al remained quiet.

"I hope Teacher comes early tomorrow so we can ask her about the house's owner. I bet she must know something about it." Al looked at his brother, and he was on his side, now facing the wall and giving his back to him. "Goodnight, Al."

"Goodnight Brother."

Everything his brother said made sense to Al, especially because of their own problems. She had never asked them for help, yet it was he who had told her to exchange the information because deep inside he's desperate to find his body back. Night by night he had become used to the loneliness it brought with it but at the same time it felt like he couldn't take one more minute of it.

He looked at his brother again. He was asleep already. Right after he got his body, Brother had tried to share the suffering Al went through and stopped eating and sleeping. That had been extremely reckless of him considering he was in the middle of his automail surgery recovery so Alphonse had to beg him to stop doing so. Still, he couldn't say he didn't feel a little jealous of him. He decided to get up from the bed, hoping it wouldn't make a lot of noise. For a reason he felt like getting out of the room.

He grabbed the doorknob carefully so it wouldn't wake up his brother, even though Al could tell he was fast asleep since he was snoring. Al wanted to chuckle but contained himself. After turning it around he heard a voice from outside, a female voice.

Outside the room he saw a person who was giving their back to him and talking to Francesca.

"You just don't know how to follow rules, do you?" said the mysterious person. He quickly got to the other side of the room to see who it was, and he froze when the light of the moon revealed the face of the standing person and the one sitting on the couch. "We're leaving."

There were two Francescas.

A/N: Next chapter will be the last chapter. Since this looks too cliffhanger-ish I'll try to update it sooner (and because it'll be the last chapter) ^^ This was my first and longest story ever written and also my first FMA fanfiction, so to everyone that ever viewed, reviewed, read, favorited, and followed, Thank you :)