Garen Ruy Maxwell: Let this be a lesson to you then, kids. Random sex can lead to random pregnancies.
Camudekyu: Well, she doesn't want him to leave. (is trying really hard not to let the story become soap-opera-ish)
Shaded Rouge: Wow. I've done something original, then. O.o
All other reviewers: thank you for reading and commenting. Enjoy this chapter
Finding the Catch: Dissolving Disbelief
"Alphonse?" his voice sounded weird calling his own name, but the younger boy looked up from what he was doing. Reading Ed's alchemy books, he noted. He had always thought it strange that Ed was so fascinated by the archaic science. Now his brother was devouring the books at the same rate Ed had absorbed his physics texts from the University. "Do you want to get lunch?" He didn't know what made him ask. It was almost as if part of him though that he was Ed, and when Ed became engrossed in something, he needed to be reminded to eat. Sometimes he even had to be forcibly dragged out of the house. But this wasn't Ed.
Al laid a bookmark on the page and closed the book, standing up. "Sure," he said cautiously. He reached for his red cloak he had draped over the back of the chair, but the older Alphonse was holding out another garment for him.
"Wear this," he said shortly. "It won't stand out so much." He watched as the younger boy pulled his arms through the sleeves. "It's Ed's," he added. They left the apartment and Al followed Al down the street. "There's a little café that Ed and I always go to," he said, more because he was uncomfortable with the silence than anything else.
"It's funny," he said after a moment, "That I'm wearing Ed's coat. That red coat is his too; I started wearing it after he disappeared because I missed him so much. At first people thought I was him."
"Well they wont think you're him now," Alphonse told him. "You're too tall." He glanced behind them, once, as if making a crack about Ed's height might cause him to jump out of an alleyway and attack them. Oh if only.
He continued the list in his head. You're too polite. Your voice is different, it sounds just like mine. Your hair is shorter than Ed's, and darker. You're much younger. Your eyes- here he looked at his companion critically. They don't look like mine, or his. Your eyes are your own. You're not as thin. You look healthier, and happier. Your steps are even; you don't walk with a limp. Your body is whole.
A little bell jingled when they pushed open the door of the café. Bernard, the owner, looked at them curiously but only asked them what they would like to drink.
"Hot chocolate," they said in unison, then glared at each other suspiciously. "with whipped cream," they both added.
Alphonse Heiderich narrowed his eyes as they sat down at a small table near the back. "You can't read my mind, can you?" he accused.
"No!" Al protested innocently. "I like hot chocolate, I always have."
"Ed hates it."
"I know."
They stirred the steaming liquid silently, each pausing to take a too-hot sip now and then.
"This doesn't mean we're the same person," Al H said abruptly.
"I know."
One of the café waiters, not Bernard himself, brought their sandwiches, and they began to eat, each staring at the other when he thought he wasn't being watched.
"I believe you," Al said finally. "It sounds crazy, but I do. Maybe it's only because I want to believe that Ed is alive somewhere."
"He is alive," Alphonse Elric insisted. "He's probably at home right now. That man said they never found a body, right? That's because my transmutation worked. I brought him back."
"But how did you get here?"
The younger boy shrugged. "Equivalent Exchange," he said simply.
"Ed says that all the time."
Al nodded seriously. "I'm sure he does. It's the first principle of alchemy. And its part of your science, too, isn't it?"
"Ed says a lot of strange things," he continued, to himself more than to the other Al. "He was even worse when we first met. Sometimes I thought he was joking when he would act like he didn't know certain things," he said, staring at the surface of the table and pushing his napkin around, "like about history or politics or something, because I figured, how could someone who's obviously so smart not know these things? And you!" he said, staring at Al. "He was always talking about how he was trying to get back to you, and I thought it never made sense, because he never went anywhere looking for you. He went places looking for information about rockets and physics and aircraft and such, and he said it was to get back to you, but that only made it sound like you lived on another planet! And that only made me think he was mad." He put his mug down on the table with a clink. "I can't believe he never told me."
Al looked puzzled. "How could he have told you? You wouldn't have believed him."
"I believe you," he protested.
Al just shook his head, taking another sip of chocolate. "I just don't understand how alchemy can't work here. I don't really know what to do about… any of this. I'm an alchemist, and there's no alchemy," he said helplessly. "It's like I'm back where I started, only-" he set his cup down on the table and sat back, the realization washing over him. This is the exact desperate situation Edward must have been in. "Without alchemy, there is no way to get home!"
Alphonse leaned forward. "Don't say that," he told his double, his gaze intense. "Ed was always looking for a way to get back to you. It was what drove his every action, he said so himself. He never gave up."
Al's mind was racing. According to what he had been told, Ed had spent years working on the design for this rocket. Did Ed believe that he could fly through the gate? Up in space? Al shook his head. That seemed impossible to him. But then, this whole world seemed impossible.
"Why are you so young?" Alphonse asked him suddenly, and he blinked, focusing again on his older self. "I thought Ed said his brother was only a year younger than him, so you and I should be the same age, but we're not, are we?"
"Oh, my body is younger than my real age," Al said distantly. "I was born in '01. I'm a lot older than I look; my body is only sixteen."
Did he not realize how odd that explanation sounded? Alphonse frowned. "Why is your body only sixteen? What happened to you?"
The look on his face was so similar to his brother's when he was asked certain questions that Alphonse could not help but stare. That expression, he thought, is exactly like Ed's expression when I asked him what happened to his limbs… and Ed's missing limbs were connected in some way to his brother's life… hadn't Ed said something like that once? He lost his arm trying to save his brother?
"I can't explain it to you," the younger boy said stiffly. "You wouldn't understand."