Yuugiamythest: Wordy is fine, just expect a wordy response, cause I like words :P I like Winry as a character, but sometimes people who are fundamentally good can do less-than-good things. I guess in my head I feel like when Winry slept with Ed the night he came home (and she totally initiated it, and it never would have progressed without her actively participating, because Ed had not a clue what he was doing) she realized that she did it because she'd been in love with Ed all along, and so it didn't seem wrong to her until afterwards. She's trying to come to terms with the fact she's been denying for the past two years: she's dating the wrong brother. And its hard for her because Al is such a wonderful person, and, like you said, loves her so much. She's being really blunt, and less than kind, when she says Al is "a clueless boy who wouldn't even think to ask who the father is," because she's angry, and she's scared, which is no excuse really but it is a reason, and it's also the truth. As for more Al and AlH interaction, here ya go, enjoy that!

KristalChan: Well, like Ed said, she is "about to burst," so she's having the baby whether she wants it or not. And Ed wants it, so as long as he's around when it's born, everything will be okay. As long as he's around #whistles innocently#

Camudekyu: perfection? O.o #dies#

Finding the Catch: Final Suspicion

He recognized the sound he heard on the other side of the door, even though he had never heard it coming from anyone but himself before. It was the sound of himself crying. Edward's little brother was crying in the bedroom with the door locked. "Al?" he called softly through the door.

"Go away," came the choked response.

"What's the matter?" he tried, immediately feeling ridiculous. What wasn't the matter?

"I hate your world."

Alphonse sighed. "Please let me in," he said through the door. "It's my room too."

After a bit of shuffling, the younger boy opened the door. He had the red coat drawn around his shoulders, and his eyes were red from tears. "Sorry. I didn't mean to lock you out," he said, looking down. "But I don't want to talk," he added, always polite.

"Hey," he said softly, putting what he hoped was a comforting arm around his double, the way Edward had done for him so many times. "You don't have to talk about it," he told him. "But you don't have to cry alone, either."

Al wiped his eyes. The assurance that he did not have to talk only encouraged him to say more than he intended. "I feel like I've spent my entire life missing my brother," he said quietly, leaning into the older boy. "I haven't seen him since I was ten, and when I think of him, I think of him as being a kid, being eleven. I don't even know what he looks like anymore. I feel like I'm losing him."

Alphonse considered this for a minute. "He looks like you," he told him finally. "He's shorter, of course," he added, and the younger boy nodded. His brother's lack of height had been almost legendary. "His hair is lighter, and his eyes… I'm sure his eyes look exactly the way you remember them. Yellow, like gold. Never seen anyone with eyes like your brother's." He sighed, debating whether or not to speak the next sentence at all. He didn't want Al to think he was making light of his situation, or that he was saying it wasn't so bad. Still… he could relate, and not only because Al was, well, Al was him in a way, wasn't he? "I lost my older brother in the Great War," he said softly. "Just like you, I haven't seen him since I was ten. He died, I think, when he was sixteen, and I hadn't seen him for four years, I didn't even know where he was. And I didn't even know he had died until the war was over. Sometimes I wonder, if he were alive today, if I would even recognize him." He took a deep breath. "I like to think that I would, because he's my brother, but I don't know for certain."

But didn't he look like Edward? Al wanted to ask, but didn't, not knowing what kind of pain his question might cause. Was it possible that the Alphonse of Munich didn't realize that Ed was his brother's double, just like he was his own? Perhaps, he thought, part of him knows, but he just doesn't want to admit it. "This world isn't fair," he said instead, his eyes sad. "I don't understand how anything works here. Your laws of science don't explain anything."

Alphonse frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I said I would give anything to see my brother again, and I did, I gave everything, my entire life- I'm here, in this world where I don't belong and I have nothing, no home, no family, nothing to call my own and everyone at home probably thinks I'm dead." His eyes flashed with something like anger, and he swiped the pile of Ed's old alchemy notes off the desk in a sudden fury. "I said I would give anything to see my brother again," he repeated darkly. "I gave everything and got nothing! All I have are the same things I had back home, his notes, his books, his clothes, but not him. What the hell kind of Equivalent Trade is that?"

Alphonse Heiderich thought to himself that it had in fact been an exact trade. The brothers had simply switched places. Edward was back in his own world and now it was his younger brother who was stranded here in Germany. "It's like a chemical equation," he said slowly, with difficulty. "You can't just move an element to the other side, there has to be an equal exchange or the equation becomes unbalanced and doesn't work."

The younger boy shook his head fiercely. "You can't apply your laws of chemistry to this," he insisted. "They'd fall apart in an instant. According to your theories," –laws, the older Alphonse corrected in his mind- "You and I are opposite elements. We're on the same side of the equation, so according to you we should cancel each other out, but we don't, we're still here, both of us, talking." He shuddered at the thought of being 'cancelled out,' and drew the red coat around himself tightly. "The fact that we both exist on the same side of the gate-" he shook his head "-what can explain that? Your laws say it's impossible."

"Who says we're opposite elements? Just because it seems that way-" he stopped, feeling foolish. "Look, this is ridiculous, we're talking about stuff we don't understand," he said.

Al tipped his head, fixing his grey eyes on his double's blue ones. "Don't you?" he asked. "Don't you understand what my brother was doing?"

"What was he doing?"

"Come on," Al pressed. "Think. Why did you want to go into space? You want to be famous. Why did Ed want to go into space?"

"He was a scientist- he had a theory about ethers…" he trailed off, his hand coming to cover his mouth. "He thought he could get home," he breathed. "He believed that nonsense about other dimensions…"

Al was nodding patiently. "Except now you know it isn't nonsense," he reminded him.

"He didn't tell me," Alphonse said slowly, "not to go up. We were going up together, we were always going to go together."

Al shook his head. "He was going to go himself. Otherwise you would have been dragged into our world too. He just didn't tell you, he probably knew there was no way you would agree not to go."

"He didn't tell me," his brother's lover agreed. "But if he had, I would have wanted to go with him. We really were going to go together."

"You don't mean that," the younger boy protested. "Think about what you're saying. This is your world, this is where you belong. Don't you have a life here? Don't you have a family that will miss you?"

"I-"

"If you leave, you'll never get that recognition you wanted. You've worked for how long on this rocket? Your entire adult life, right? It will all be for nothing. No one in my world will know anything about it, and you won't be able to tell them."

"Edward is there. It wouldn't be for nothing," Alphonse said firmly.

"But you don't belong there!" the younger boy insisted. "And you can never come back. You have a family here!" he cried, that awful look in his eyes, the one Ed always had when he talked about his mother. "You love them, and they love you. Right?"

Alphonse nodded slowly. He did love his family, or what was left of it. Did he really want to never see his mother and father again? Did he really want to never see his homeland again? He loved Edward, but-

"It's different, you see," Al was saying darkly. "A family isn't something you can replace."

"Your brother isn't someone I can replace either!" he protested.

"But you can't leave your family," he repeated. "This is your home!"

Alphonse shook his head. "We were going to go up together. We were never planning anything different. Your brother must have wanted me to come with him," he said firmly. "Maybe he was even going to tell me everything, eventually." He felt that same stab of hurt that Edward had been hiding things from him all this time.

Al's face softened. "My brother doesn't lie to people he loves," he said quietly. "The only reason he didn't tell you everything is because you would never have believed him."

"He never actually lied," Alphonse said, in Ed's defense. "He just… didn't tell the truth."

Al nodded. "Brother was always good at that," he agreed. "Look," he said slowly, "I like you, Alphonse-" he would never get over how weird it felt to address himself "-and I feel like you know Ed even better than I do, if you've spent so many years together. Maybe he did want you to come with him, I don't know." He took a deep breath. "If you want to come, I wont stop you. But understand this: you can never come back here. You can never come home."