Chapter 25: Far From Home

Al's POV

"We're all gonna die! Ed's dead! Yuki's unconscious!" Clair screamed as loud as her vocal chords could reach.

I squeezed my palms against my head frantically, "No, brother can't die!" A heavy breath burst from Ed's body. I sighed with relief, "They're both just unconscious?"

"Oh, really? Well, I was freaking over nothing... Okay, now what?"

What would Brother want me to do? "We need to protect them until they wake up. Brother will wake up!" or so I prayed. I had to protect him at all cost, like he would had done for me.

Suddenly Clair started laughing, "Oh my god, Ed sucks his thumb. Are you kidding me? He's fifteen years old!"

My armor grew pale, "Brother never told anyone about that, only I knew. He only does that when he's having a good dream, which isn't very often."

"That must be one heck of a dream!" she exclaimed.

Yuki's POV

(Minutes before Ed's arrival)

Clair spun around in her chair, "So let me get this straight, my story is your life - which I think is very odd and stupid. A story that's fiction isn't someone's life! Also, if my calculations are correct, Ed comes to your house today, because it's has been exactly two weeks since your "arrival" you could call it."

"Don't look at me! You're the mathematics genius," I argue.

"Okay, okay, but I must ask, at one point you wanted to read my story, but now you don't. Why is that?" she tilted her head.

"Technically it's my story."

"Well, I don't like getting technical. Just answer the question, please," she smirked.

"I explained this once before, but I'll do it again...," I sighed, being well aware Clair wouldn't understand. "The fact remains, nobody needs to know their future. It's very tempting, but no. Knowing you, in my story you wouldn't harm or kill anyone besides the bad guys, because you're just like that. After thinking of that, I'm contempt enough not to read it, which would alter everything."

"What if I told you it wouldn't matter? Destiny is fate, nobody can change that, even if you know it or not. The climb to the top won't be the same, but the celebration when you get there will be."

Rubbing my eyes in irritation with my sweaty fingers, "I'll talk it over with Ed and see what he thinks of all this. I can't believe my brain hasn't exploded."

She laughed, tensing, "Me either. Are you sure you don't wanna read it?" She waved the novel in front of me.

"Stop it, no," I grabbed the book. That was when my brain flickered with an idea. Ripping the story directly down the middle, I threw the last half at her.

Clair's mouth dropped. She was so emotional she couldn't even speak until a few minutes later, "Do you know how long it took to print off all 600 some pages!?"

"You can print off a second one in minutes, no seconds, at school," I tried calming her.

"But...but...but...," she hyperventilated her breathing, swinging her arms in the air, almost knocking everything, including my laptop, off my small desk near the closet, then crossed them into her chest. "Whatever, but why didja do that?"

"I need to give this to Ed so he'll believe me, but now it won't tell the future. Since we both agreed that my mom wouldn't allow Ed inside the house, I'll have to tell him to hide somewhere nearby until I can see him again," I explained.

"Ed's never gonna to agree to that. Do honestly know how stubborn that guy is?" she jerked her head, grinning, while spinning in my chair.

"He'll listen...maybe."

"This might sound weird, but I've been writing about him long enough to know he wants to know what you know. He wants to explore, he wants to go places, not sit there like a doll," she elaborated by spinning in the chair faster.

"Well, I can't do anything! My mom won't let me!" I yelled, getting frustrated with it all. "I'll be lucky if she lets him in the house, let alone anything I want!"

"Settle down, why don't you tell him to come back when everyone is asleep? That would make more sense, right?" she shrugged.

"Hm? I guess, but what if he forgets to come back? Knowing him, if he finds anything with food we'll never see him again," I explained, while picking up my phone to figure out what time it was, ten o'clock in the morning.

She laughed so hard she had water running from her eyes, "Wow Yuki, don't worry, he'll come back. Since when do we have a street vender in the middle of nowhere?"

Suddenly a sister's body slammed into my door, thundering a concentrated sound. "What, Cate?" I called.

"Someone's here to see you, so open your door already!" An another pound came from the door.

I looked over at Clair, "At ten o'clock in the morning?" She just shrugged as an answer. I slid off my purple sheets and polka-dotted blanket toward the door. When I unlatched the door, my sister pushed it open, flopping on my bed with her pink iPad in her hands. I frowned with a glare, wanting to yell at her to get out of my room, but then I thought about Ed waiting for me at the door and what Mom was yelling at him.

"Who are you? Yuki's never had a boyfriend, so what are you doin' here?" a wail came racing down the hall from the back door inside the laundry room from my mother.

I rushed out my door with my blonde hair swaying back and forth, swerving through the entrances to my mom. When I reached her, my mind spun with thought, one being to get Mom to calm herself, "Mom, it's okay."

"You know you're not allowed to have boys at the house," she didn't allow her hazel eyes leave sight of Ed as she yelled at me.

"I know, I'm sorry," I apologized, bowing my head to the white tiles that covered on small laundry room beside the kitchen. "Hi, Eddy," I waved at him, in code telling him I could handle this, but I didn't think he got the memo. He was probably angry at me for calling him Eddy again, but for some reason he didn't do anything in outrage against it.

"No! I don't ever want to see that boy around here again, you understand me? I want everything, phone, iPad, and computer," she raged.

"But- Fine,"I gave her exactly what she wanted with guilt streaming from my face. I hated when my precious items were taken, but I couldn't control it, if she wanted them I couldn't do anything to stop her. When I walked back to my room to grab them, Clair looked over at me.

"You couldn't stop her, could you? Your mom is a pushover and very mean to you. I would've ran away by now if I was you, no offense," she half-smiled with a sigh. She spun around in my chair, handing me my Dell laptop from the table covered by Pokemon, mirrors, and tons of makeup that I put on everyday for school that Clair always refused, shoving it away when I tried to put it on her.

"So what are gonna do?"

"Wait here, I guess."

"You're not gonna see the great Fullmetal Alchemist?" I teased.

"I will later when my nerves settle, if they ever will, so I won't die from a heart attack or stroke," she said with a smooth tone, like she didn't want to see him. How could that be?

"Suit yourself," I shrugged in soft voice and walked out the door with my iPhone, laptop, iPad, and half a book in my hands, while Clair pulled her iPod out of the set of blue short she was wearing, starting to text people like her boredom self. I wanted to say something, but decided to let her be and left the door open behind me, surprised that my sister didn't stop me in my tracks.

After I handed my things to Mom, I asked her, "Can I talk to him alone? If you say 'no' there's nothing else you can take from me."

"I can take everything away from you. Your DSI and your books," she growled with her arms on her hips, but I just rolled my eyes. She gave a hefty sigh, disgrace flooding from her nostrils.

"Fine, take whatever you want! Just let me talk to him, please?" I begged with my eyes looking up at her endearingly, hoping, praying, she would agree.

I waited patiently for my mom's reply. After her longer sigh than normal, she said, "Fine. Only fifteen minutes, and I'll be watching you."

"Thank you," I smiled, walking outside as Mom watched me leave. I sat down on the edge of the porch, so Mom couldn't see me, Ed following behind me. "I knew I wasn't crazy! Where have you been? It's been two weeks since I last saw you?" I cried with a small grin.

"Two weeks? It's only been a week...," Ed trailed slowly, like he regretted what he said. "Yuki, where are we?"

I shook my head, "I...don't...know..." I looked up at him, his golden eyes shimmer down with the morning light beating on the horizon. "I don't care," I said softly, standing up and leaning into his forearms deep into his chest. Afraid of breaking something and since he was sitting, I didn't glomp him how I normally would. "I'm just glad to see you again," I finished my sentence, grasping tighter into his arms, not caring if his tough automail bruised me. I felt Ed lie his chin on me calmly, lightly putting his arms around me. "So now what?" I asked silently, leaning off of him.

He took a confused gaze, "I don't even know where we're at, let alone what we're suppose to do. Your mom said we only have fifteen minutes-"

"I don't care what my mom says. I won't leave until I'm finished talking to you," I demanded, sitting up. "Here," I showed him the ripped up book, sitting it in his lap. This story is my life. If you read it you'll see what I mean." His eyes popped out at me as he picked up the novel without a cover, turning to a random page to see his name and my name at the top, with Al's and Clair's as well. "What do you think?"

"What am I supposed to think? This is nonsense. This is a story of fiction, isn't it? That's how it looks from the outside." His eyes showed confusion and weariness.

"Well, that's how it's supposed to be, but once you read it you'll learn how crazy it sounds," I explained, but I didn't think he was catching my drift with this story. "Okay, change in subject, how did you get on my side of the Gate of all places?"

"Your side of the Gate!" he exclaimed.

"Well, my mom and sister were talking to you, were they not?"

"Yeah, but how could I be on your side of the Gate? I didn't see anything."

"Okay, nevermind that, because I didn't see it either. What were you doing before you got here?" I questioned stubbornly.

"I was trying to heal you using something called alkahestry that Clair told me about. I didn't understand it, so it must've backfired somehow and sent me here," he explained.

"Oh. That explains a few things."

"How is that?"

"The author of this," I pointed at the thing in his hands, and so he wasn't more confused I didn't tell him it was Clair who wrote it, "said that this is some dream and I'll wake up once something bad happens...whatever that's suppose to mean."

"Something bad happens? Like what?" he asked, while I just shrugged.

"She never told me..."

Suddenly I heard the door squeak open, "Your fifteen minutes are up!"

"Sorry, I gotta go," I told him. "Promise me that you'll read my note at the beginning of the book, okay."

"Yeah, sure, I guess. Where am I supposed to go?" he asked, moving to a standing position.

"Go see a movie or something. Live a little. I would go with you, but I can't because of my idiotic mother," I rolled my eyes, glancing at her frustrating eyes.

"A movie?" he tilted his head.

"Like I said, live a little," I commanded with enthusiasm. Suddenly Clair walked outside, sliding passed my mom, to poke Ed's jacket without a moments pause.

"Are you real or a part of my imagination, again?" Clair asked with a can of Monster in her hands, sipping lightly if any at all.

"Clair? What are you doing here?" Ed asked looking baffled.

"Sorry, I wasn't going to come outside, but I just had to," she squealed in a high pitched voice, still poking his arm and stomach, flinching at how his automail and skin felt as she quivered with fangirling excitement. Wow, was all I thought, she was like me when I first met him, only ten times worse.

"How did you become solid again?"

Clair straightened her back, a little confused of what he meant, but once she finally realized his meaning, she smirked with a chuckle. "Oh, I'm sorry, on a scale one through ten, one being lowest and ten being highest, how confused are you?"

"Ten," he blurted without hesitation. "I don't understand what brought me here, how you're solid again, and how a story of fiction is factual."

"Yuki, your time is up!" Mom yelled at me again. Sighing to myself, I waved good-bye.

"You can't abandon me," he started, making a ruckus.

"I'm sorry, Ed, but I gotta go," I sighed again, before I headed in the heated house with Clair not shoving one step toward me. "C'mon, Clair," I urged some, but nothing happened. I decided to step out of the doorway to join her, "If Clair's not going inside, then I'm not either."

Mom glared at me, "You're not old enough to hanging out with a boy."

"I'm not a little kid anymore!" I said proudly, rage making an appearance.

Ed's POV

Staring at the pages, I started to look at them one by one while Yuki and her mom fought with each other. I forgot what they were arguing about, but I was intrigued by this profound workmanship of this novel. How? How could a novel have moment by moment anecdotes of a persons life? Was Clair human all along, lying every bit of information she had for her own gain? If that was true, how was it possible?

"...Sorry, Ed, but..." a trailed off sigh came from Yuki as she walked inside with her mom glancing over her shoulder at me and Clair acted more depressed than Yuki did. I strutted off the steps with the book at my side to the vast landscape filling with cows, a barn filled with hay in the distance. I turned after the first few pages to a yellow flap of notebook paper stuck to the page. Ripping off the note, it read:

'Meet me at midnight by my window. Clair should be asleep by then, and so will my parents and sis. After you read this book, I need to ask you an important question, so you better not ditch me. Besides you don't know anything about this new world, but if you wanna go exploring there's...well nothing that you can't see in Risembool for miles. I'll give you food when we meet. Oh, and Ed, don't touch the fence if you don't want shocked.'

After reading that my stomach grumbled, reminding me that I hadn't eaten in hours. I couldn't wait until midnight for food when it wasn't even noon, yet. I needed something quickly, but the only thing around here was cattle, hay, and tons of tom cats with ruffled calico furs. Suddenly I heard a disturbing bark coming from a mutt trapped in a cage no more than a feet away, snarling a smile at me and trying to escape. The dog reminded me of Alexander from all those years ago, but with longer fur with a creamy white tint underneath the orange-like blotches. When I sat the book by the fence, I petted on the dog with my automail, drool spilling everywhere. The mutts fur was very matted and needed a trim. That made me think badly of Yuki, she couldn't even take care of her own dog?

Before I realized it, the dog had grabbed the book through the fence using his muzzle, tearing it into shreds, or leaving a bite on each page with slobber infesting them.

Al's POV

We moved Yuki and Ed to a safe haven a few miles away from our other cave that was destoryed, only this one was closer to the shore. Clair watched over their motionless bodies floating against her knees silently, slowly drooping her smile into a frown. Each time I looked back her yellow shirt brightened the room, but deep inside all she felt was desolate from the bottom of her heart. She wouldn't speak as well, which left me more worried. I had never seen this side of her...

I whispered to her, echoing through the darkness, "They'll be okay."

"I know, it could be worse, but I can't help but think what if they never wake up?" came her soft cry as she lied her chin against her knees.

I didn't know how to respond to her; she was telling the truth, because I wondered the same thing for the passed few hours. "C'mon," I said not harmfully, reaching out my hand. Her drained abnormal eyes glistened before they buried into her chest as her arms stifled around her flowered jeans.

"Sorry, Al, but I can't leave them!" her voice shouting out from inside herself.

"What happened while you were gone?" I had to ask.

"Nothing," she blurted, enraged that I asked. I knew there was more she wasn't telling me, but I thought she was burden enough, so I didn't ask any further. Yet, I wanted her to stop stressing because I was stressed as well, but not as horrendous as she was. "Sorry, Al, I had a rough couple of days," she apologized, raising her chin up, "hey, wait, have you seen a little child with black hair around the island?"

I shook my head, "No, but Yuki asked my same question."

"Oh, really?" she perked her head farther from her knees in the darkness.

"Who is he?"

"Well," she scratched her head fidgety, "a nice kid?"

I stayed quiet for a second, contempt with her answer, but something puzzled me, "How do you and Yuki know him?"

"We know everybody else, don't we?" she popped her eyes rhetorically.

"Oh, I guess, but why don't we go find him?" I asked. In my mind, I figured it would help for her to get out some.

She lowered her eyebrows, almost confused of what I said, but when I was about to repeat myself, she said, "Sure. I'd like that." She walked outside with me, moving closer and closer to the shore. I looked bewildered when she started kicking the sand, but failing to trigger movement. "Life isn't fair," she started as she glared down at her feet, "since when did I deserve this? This isn't Equivalent Exchange for anything I've done!"

I stopped in my tracks, turning to her. I couldn't respond. I wanted to say something to make her happy, but everything she said was true. Unexpectedly, I heard a rustling from inside the bushes. A kid with tangled black hair that dead ends came down the side of his back came into view. From the side, his hair came over his right eye. When I turned to get a better glimpse of him, he high-tailed back into the forest. "No, come back, Squishy!" Clair yelled.

"Squishy? Is that his name?" I croaked, laughing on the inside and trying not to show it. That couldn't be a real name.

She glared, "Don't make fun of my Squishy. I named him that because Wrath seemed so dull and he said he didn't have name, so I shall name him Squishy!"

Her glee amazed me, she was so depressed no more than a few minutes ago. Clair started flying into the woods as I followed behind her. Once we were hidden in the smog, Clair searched aimlessly for him until we found him jump out at us, making Clair scream half to death, "Ah! Oh, hi Squishy, you're not allowed to do that."

"Play!" he gleed.

"No, not now, Squishy. Meet Alphonse Elric, he's one of my companion peoples that I was talking about earlier," she introduced me as I bowed to him. He seemed like an alright kid, but I wondered why his arms were different from each other, and why he was wearing a brown leather gown, also where were his parents.

"Like Edwin and Yuki?"

"No, no, no, Squishy, it's Edward, not Edwin," she explained, chuckling. He just smiled with her, then in seconds a bright light shined underneath him, like an alchemy glow. When the light disappeared a statue with a fox and its cubs stood from above the leaves.

"Ha!" he laughed, "I do good?"

"Yep, you did good," Clair bent down, smiling the biggest smile I had ever seen from her. "Did you actually picture that in your mind before you transmuted it this time?"

The boy shook his ragged hair. "Clair, I don't understand. How could he do that?" I asked.

Clair sighed, "I'll tell you when the others wake up so I don't have to repeat myself."

"Oh, okay," was the only thing I could say to that. I was glad that she didn't feel remorse anymore, but when were they going to wake up?

"C'mon, Squishy, let's play, but you gotta remember I can't pick up anything, okay," she commanded. The child nodded in agreement, which made me wonder more of what she was doing when she was gone. Was she hanging out with this kid instead of us? "C'mon Al, you can play, too!"

"Okay!"

Ed's POV

Well, this was boring. I had nothing to do, the book Yuki wanted me to read was trashed by her mutt that I swear had nothing to do with, and she was right; this place was like Risembool only with a different atmosphere. Like here, they had some kind of black tar for their roads instead of dirt or bricks. Yuki's house was smaller than how I originally thought. She made it seem like a mansion, yet called it a trailer, but compared to hers Winry's was the mansion. She also always talked about electronics, games, and the Internet, (I think I'm saying it right.) but all I could see was huge, black wires and poles covering the area. Every fifty feet there was another one standing high above the trees.

I played with the hay in my mouth I scrounged up earlier thinking of what to say about this place, while I sat by a willow tree about a mile from Yuki's house. The sun started to set beneath my crossed knees in a daze. My stomach growled so mindlessly and loudly that the cows wouldn't come near me, and my eyes kept closing but I knew not to go asleep, for Yuki would get mad. Of course, if I was late she could get over it, right?

I twirled a piece of hay on my tongue for so long it gave me blisters. By this time, it was unsurely between ten or eleven. At one point wasn't I supposed to train Yuki? What happened to a nice, not so much walk in a park training exercises, to this? It had been what? Two and a half weeks and I hadn't trained any part of her mind nor body, maybe I wasn't cut out for being a teacher.

After my piece of hay broke, I wasn't about to get another one, so I dangled my pocket watch in front of my face and spun it around, doing every trick I had learned over the years. Being my tired and hungry overtaken self, when I threw it in the air to catch it, my watch slipped from beneath my gloves and landed on its button. I churned my head when it opened, remembering that Winry opened it a month ago, so it wasn't sealed by alchemy anymore.

My hair had been against the tree bark for so long that most of my loose strains were stuck on the tree, ripping off my scalp when I sat up to grab my watch. It read one o'clock. Smirking to myself, I yawned, scratching the side of my right hand as I stood motionless, then walked back to Yuki house. Now...if I could remember which way her house was located. The path between the two walnut trees was where I came, if I remembered correctly.

Finally, I reached her house at a quarter to two. I never thought in a million years that a mile could take that much energy out of me, of course without food I didn't have any energy to begin with from the lack of nutrients. Staggering, I knocked on her door, but found nobody's answer. "Psst, Ed!" came a growl from beside me that Yuki whispered.

Filtering through my mind, I figured out it was coming from her window. I stumbled off the steps from her back door, because strangely she didn't have a porch for her front one, and looked up at her through the semi-circled window. "Hey, got any food in there by any chance?"

"Yep! What took you so long?"

"Long story short, I didn't have a watch that I could use."

Yuki face-palmed.

"If you climb inside we'll give you a delicious pop tart and some my Monster!" Clair yelled. I didn't know what either of them things were, but they sounded good enough for my appetite.

"You have Monster? I thought you hated those things?" Yuki looked disturbed by that fact.

"Hey, I couldn't miss this and only in the summertime do I stay up late!" she smiled. While she was arguing with Yuki, I clapped my hands together only to find my alchemy didn't work.

"See? Told you it doesn't work," Yuki rolled her eyes with her arms crossed. "Give me your hand."

"Nah, I got this," I sighed as I jumped on the window self, good thing I was small enough to fit. Gah, I can't believe I just thought that! Why must hunger and tiredness be such a burden on my mind!

"Here," Clair handed me a rectangle that was square with an aroma of cherry, only when I bit into it tasted like pure sugar. "So what did you think?"

"Of what?" I glared slightly. "This thing of sugar with a slimy center. It's okay, not the brightest in favor, though." Honestly, I could care less about how it tasted, as long as it wasn't poisonous.

"No, silly, the story, TSA."

"Oh that," I scratched the back of my head, already hearing Yuki's voice yelling at me, "the dog chewed it up."

To my surprise, Clair started ranted while Yuki stayed quiet on her purple sheets. Sitting beside her, I watched as she rampaged onward. "How? When?!" she stammered, spinning around in her chair.

"Clair, it's okay. Like I said before you can make another copy," Yuki said calmly.

"Okay, fine, might as well have the other half as well," she puffed when she threw another novel of the same thickness at me.

"Other half? There's more to the story?"

"Believe or not, there is, my friend," she said. "Yuki didn't have the courage to read her destiny, so she was going to see if you would read it. If you read it she would, too!"

I stared for a good half at the cover, thinking of what this means. The knowledge of the future was baffling but overwhelming, but if I did read it what would it mean in actuality? I could be clairvoyant and know what everyone's actions were against me...

In the mix of my emotion, I turned to Clair, "Does Al get his body back?"

Clair answered, "Well, duh, of course! What's a good story without a happy ending?"

The novel slammed out of arm onto the bed with my head hitting a pillow behind me at the same time, "Welp, that's good enough for me. As long as that works out I don't mind my future. We'll do our best, right, Yuki?"

She nodded before I closed my eyes, about to fall asleep, when somehow through the exhaustion I tuned into Clair's and Yuki's conversation afterwards. "Great, now Ed took my pillow and blanket, now what am I suppose to do?"

"You have two choices, push Ed off the bed or deal with it and sleep beside him. You've done that before, haven't you?"

"This is different, and you know it!"

"How?"

"Fine whatever, give me one of your blankets and pillows." I heard a rustling when Yuki screamed in ear, "Scoot over." I did as she asked, "Thanks."

After we were settled, or somewhat settled, Yuki took up the whole bed from laying on her stomach, she asked Clair, "What do I gotta do to leave this place?"

"...Die..."

Hiya folks, how's it been? Sorry it took me so unbearably to update. My excuse, me and Yuki went to go see Vic at Colossal-con last weekend! ^.^' If you wanna find out more on how the con went, review and I'll tell you all about it! PS. I'm just saying extremely tired and don't wanna explain it at the moment.

Random Question: What's your best FMA fanfic? Why? (Again, not because it's awesome. Give a practical reasoning.)

Song of the Chapter: (Like the chapter title says...) Far From Home ~ Vic

See ya next time! ^.^ Thanks everyone! Review? I guess...you know, I think I'm the only author I know that doesn't really force that every single chapter...? I think it's weird. Awe well, good night all! Hope you enjoyed!

Clair: Squishy!

Wrath: :)