Guy Ruy Maxwell: when I was fifteen I cant imagine either myself or any of my friends knowing how to act at something like that. In fact, im not sure id be comfortable at a big shindig like that even now
Eleveny-Nine: ah, good, you're plagued by dirty thoughts. So you can sympathize with me, er, I mean, with Roy, that is. Cough. Not me. But yeah, Roy and Ed is my favorite pairing to read (ok cept maybe Ed and Al H, but that's sort of my new fascination. Me and Roy/Ed go way back) but as much as I enjoy it I just cant see it actually happening DURING the series. After, maybe. Some unfulfilled sexual tensions? Yep, probably.
Abstractication: too bad I don't get cable, sigh. And don't apologize for complimenting me, tell me you like my story as much as you want!
Silent:Tears:Fall: yep, that's where all the stories came from. Unrealistic, yeah, maybe it is, but like you said, its so much fun!
KristalChan: Thanks!
Finding the Catch: To Outside Eyes
Alphonse stared at himself in the mirror. Mr. Silleman, the man who had visited him the day before, had found it for him when he insisted he was sixteen years old, and Alphonse's hands shook as he held it, causing his reflection to quiver. It was his face, and it was, as the man said, proof enough that he was not sixteen, but besides that, something was horribly wrong.
After his release from the hospital, he followed Mr. Silleman to what he was told had been his and Ed's lab near the Munich airfields. He stood, stunned, unmoving when one of the machines that had been rolling along the ground in the distance lifted into the air. "This is what we were building?" he asked, gesturing towards the contraption that was climbing higher and higher into the sky.
The man shook his head. "You're beyond that. You two told me you were going to blast off all the way to the moon. Pair of regular sky kids, you are." He motioned for Al to follow. "I had hoped seeing the lab would jog your memory, but I guess the building was too destroyed to look familiar to you anyway." He opened his car door. "I'm going to take you home, Alphonse, but if you need anything, you can always call me."
Al climbed inside, and stared at the ruined building growing smaller and smaller as they drove away. "Edward was in there?" he asked, after several minutes had passed. His voice sounded loud in his ears, and the man driving looked pained.
"They haven't found a body," he said with difficulty. "He may- turn up, you know." The rest of the drive passed in silence, and soon Alphonse found himself staring at what he was told was his front door, and fishing in his pocket for the key.
Pushing the door open, he stepped inside, searching for anything that might help him remember. It was a small room, scattered with the clutter of papers and books, Edward might make a mess like this, if he was intensely researching something, he thought to himself, bending down to gather some of the papers off the floor.
"Well?" the man asked from the doorway.
Alphonse shook his head miserably. "I don't remember any of this," he admitted.
"But you remember Edward?" he pressed.
"Oh yes," Alphonse assured him. "I remember him perfectly."
The man raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure?"
Al nodded emphatically. "Blond hair, gold eyes… short, although I wouldn't say it to his face. Of course I remember Edward. I've known him my entire life." He looked around. "So we live here, huh?"
The stranger looked at him, concern clear on his face, but simply answered, "That's right." After watching Alphonse look dazedly around the room for several minutes more, he added, "If we find anything, anything at all about Edward, I'll contact you right away."
"Thank you," Al said, not really hearing when the man said good bye and let himself out.
Amnesia. That had to explain everything.
Al let himself collapse onto the couch, scattering the papers he had just picked up over the floor again. He reached down and retrieved one, staring at the scrawling notes and equations. Edward's writing, he realized, feeling oddly comforted. Finally, here was something familiar. But, he wondered, peering closer at the paper, what exactly was this? It didn't look like any kind of alchemy he knew…
Thinking hard, he could recall quite clearly telling Winry he was going to be gone for a few days for some military business, and he remembered the soaring, elated feeling he felt on the train as he grew closer and closer to that temple in Ishbal. He had walked the final part of the journey through the desert and then… the transmutation. What had happened?
It must have worked, although try as he might, he could remember nothing. But if he and Edward were living here, together, in this apartment, then he must have brought him back.
Many years must have passed. He didn't know exactly how many; Mr. Silleman hadn't been able to tell him how old he was, only that he was most definitely not sixteen and was most likely in his mid twenties, like Edward. He and his brother had moved, for some reason, to this foreign city called Munich that was so far away he was certain he had never heard of it. It was a city where machines flew around in the air, and they were trying to send a rocket into space?
Al shook his head. It all seemed so impossible. Besides that, why would anyone want to build a machine that would go up into space? Perhaps, he decided, after much thought, someone like Winry might come up with a crazy idea like that. But no one had mentioned Winry to him. She must not be with them, or she would have come when she heard he was in the hospital.
He hoped Edward would come back soon, from wherever he disappeared to, and explain everything to him.
He stood up, finding the bathroom in the small apartment easily enough, and stared at himself in the mirror again. There was just one thing that didn't make sense to him. He could have succeeded in the transmutation and brought his brother back. They could have moved to this far off city to build rockets, and Al could have changed his name to Heiderich; maybe they were trying to hide their identities or something. (But why, then, didn't Edward change his name too?) He could have lost his memory in an explosion, like Mr. Silleman said. (Although it didn't sit right with him that the last thing he remembered was starting the transmutation in Ishbal.)
Perhaps all these things could be explained, he thought, his fingers becoming white as he gripped the edge of the sink even tighter, but what could cause his eyes to change from grey to blue?