So, I got this idea and had to try it out. This is canon-compliant and if anybody's wondering: This is not related to my fics 'Struggling to Breathe' or 'False Prophecies', it's just that once I decided that Dexter and April were good names for Ed and Winry's children, then I wasn't going to just change it.

Updating schedules are a bit all over the place because I write when I have the inspiration for the particular stories that I am writing on.

And so I hope you'll enjoy this fic! :D

Also, as a bit of a warning, this first chapter is heavier on the swearing than the rest of them because of the circumstances being of the kind that triggers that sort of language.

Chapter one

Dex put down his book and closed his eyes, leaning back against the tree trunk. He may be a couple of metres up in the air, but he was still sitting securely, what with the thick branch he was sitting on and the two surrounding his sides, currently working as armrests and bookshelves.

He liked this spot. It was peaceful and right now he was having a week in Resembool with Dad, Uncle Al and Jaime, while Mom, April and Andrea were with Aunt May, Naomi and Olivia, spending some time together. Basically: the boys were taking over Uncle Al and Aunt May's house, while the girls were staying in Central so that Mom and April could go watch some concert with that annoying pretty-boy. Because April adored and drooled over him because she had reached that stupid phase now that she was thirteen and she and her friends had gone all giggly and weird and just generally annoying. And Dex loved his little sister, of course he did, but now she was trying to drag their ten-year-old little sister into that dark pit of Vinnie-Jay idolatry.

So now he and April had barely spoken to each other for the past month because of the fight that came with Mom having bought tickets for her and April, but thankfully while having said that Andrea was too young. Dex had agreed, Dad had agreed, even Andrea had agreed because she was more into boogie-woogie, than a nineteen-year-old pretty-boy with a stupid fringe covering his right eye and cheek, while he sat on a stool and played bad guitar and sang bad love songs. But April thought every damn song was a piece of art, which obviously wasn't true when her favourite song was "I La-La-Love You".

So Mom and Dad and Aunt May and Uncle Al had decided that getting Dex out of the house so that they left a week before the concert. They could thereby keep April and him from accidentally killing each other. Because Dex was turning more and more murderous for every time April played her stupid songs on her stupid turntable on full volume, which completely messed up his own rehearsal.

So what the girls' week was all about was basically Mom and Aunt May figuring out just what it would take to get the resonance right, as they were currently building his own private rehearsal room in the garden. Mom was handy and didn't mind working with wood, even if she preferred automail of course, and Aunt May was actually really good at instinctively reading the resonances of a room. And so she and Mom would build it while April was "practicing" for singing along to the songs at the concert, because 'Vinnie-Jay is really amazing with how he always loves to hear his fans sing along to his songs because it touches his heart in the same way that his songs touch ours!' Andrea would be spending her time with her cousins, them too ten because they made up two thirds of the triplets that Aunt May and Uncle Al had had about two months before Andrea had been born. The three of them got along well and were super happy about spending so long together because they lived four days by train apart usually.

And Dex was loving the fact that he was finally getting some alone time, and that the only one who was actually opposed to his hobby of playing the piano was April. His cousins and Andrea were kind of bored by it, but that was only to be expected when Andrea was following in Mom's shoes, and Naomi and Olivia were getting really into martial arts. Jamie was the only one of the three who was fascinated by alkahestry, and he was getting pretty good at it.

But with how braindead April's love for Vinnie-Jay was, Dex was completely dumbfounded by the fact that SHE was the highly enthusistic master alchemist of the six of them.

He groaned and scratched the back of his head in frustration. Uncle Al would be out here in the garden to fetch him once they had got the old piano back in order, because he and Dad had taken pity on him due to Jamie's verbal and near tone-deaf snippets of Dex's favourite works of classical music.

...The same ones he'd be performing in front of three hundred people in just under two months. He'd got the news from his piano teacher about a week after April had got the tickets for Vinnie-Jay, which was why their fight had only escalated instead of having been solved.

"I don't care about your stupid piano, you're only playing dead music anyways! If you're gonna play it, then you have to accept that some people don't like geezer-music!"

Private garden rehearsal room had become very high-priority after that.

And in the meantime, Dex had ended up practising his piano in the garden, which only worked as long as it wasn't raining. As it was mid-September, that would certainly become a problem in no time.

...Hence bringing in Aunt May while rescuing Dex from the horrors of Vinnie-Jay by staying at Granny Pinako's old house. Uncle Al and Aunt May had decided to move there when Granny had died four years ago. Dex could see why it was so ideal. It was a large house suitable for a family of five, it was one of the closest places to access the desert for visits to Xing, and it was Uncle Al's hometown.

And neither Dad nor Mom nor Uncle Al had been able to even have thought of having let go of that house once its previous owner had died.

Dex sighed contentedly. He loved this tree, and it was perfect for relaxing away from his annoying cousin. He had no idea how Jamie had gone from lovable genius to skilled alkahestrist pest.

Still better than Vinnie-Jay, though... And Jamie leaves me alone to rehearse at least...

He suddenly heard a weird thump, and next second he was enveloped in the blue lightning of an alchemic or alkahestric reaction, and his stomach dropped.

Then he just plain dropped, because the branch under him broke and landed with a thump on the ground, winding him as he landed on his side. But there were no injuries to speak of, luckily.

He sat up sharply. Jamie had taken it too far. Seeing as how he wasn't there, he had probably run back into the house already, knowing that he'd be in trouble.

And Dex was damn well going to give it to him.

And so he got to his feet and ran up the front steps, hearing Ollie's barks from inside the house as he was undoubtedly reacting to Dex's fury.

"DAMMIT, JAMIE! YOU COULDA KILLED ME!" he yelled, slamming open the front door.

Next second, Ollie was chomping down on his arm just below his right elbow like he didn't know him at all, and he yelled out as he was dragged to the ground. He could already feel the blood that was streaming from the bite wounds as Ollie furiously tried to tear his limb to shreds by the feel of it.

"Den, back off!" came Dad's stern voice as he heard footsteps running towards him. He had a habit of calling Ollie 'Den' when he was stressed because of the way that they were both the same breed.

Dex was lying with his eyes closed from silent tears of pain because he was damn well not going to cry loudly in front of his Dad when Dad had been able to have gone through automail surgery and Dex had a simple dog bite. He was still yelling from the pain and fear, though.

"What's up with Ollie?!" he demanded as the halfway rabid dog that was trying to break his arm, was dragged back by his collar with a continuous stream of barks.

"ENVY?!" came Dad's furious voice, and Dex looked up at his father as he was pulled up by the front of his yellow T-shirt.

Only to look up into the eyes of his much younger Dad as he was slammed against the wall, a hand pressing against his throat.

"I COULD ASK YOU THE SAME!" was all Dex's shocked and pain-riddled mind could come up with. His head was pounding from being slammed into the hard surface, and his arm felt like hell and fear began thundering through him. "NOW TELL ME WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO MY FAMILY!"

Fake-Dad froze suddenly as he grabbed his wrist, lifting it, sending pain shooting through his limb from the bite. Dex yelled out again, his chest feeling tight. "You... You're not healing..."

"OF COURSE I'M NOT! I'M NOT SOME DAMN HOMUNCULUS! NOW TELL JUST WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON AND WHERE JAMIE IS 'COS I'M GONNA KILL HIM!" Dex shouted furiously despite his terror. He was just being like his Dad, and Dad was obviously in trouble. All of them were.

"Brother, what's going on?!" came Uncle Al's voice as somebody came walking out of the kitchen. That somebody was an equally younger version of his uncle, followed by a young version of Mom and Granny. Dex froze, his mind feeling numb with fear and the light-headedness of not getting enough air. "ENVY?!" Uncle Al exclaimed loudly in shock.

Dex began frantically clawing at the hand clasped around his throat, noticing black spots at the corners of his eyes as his chest began to hurt more and more. "Dad, I can't breathe!" he gasped.

The grip slackened slightly, allowing him a few restricted gulps of much-needed air as Dad looked at him in shock. "What the hell do you mean, 'Dad'?! Who are you?! Why do you look like me?!"

"Dexter Rockbell Elric! Now please just tell me what's going on here!" he wheezed in between his gasping for air, still panicking and with his eyes filled with tears of pain and misery.

He slumped to the floor as the hand around his throat released its grip. He immediately pressed his injured arm against his T-shirt to stem the flow of blood as he began sobbing, no longer able to hold it back.

Ed could only stare at the boy in front of him. He looked very much like himself, although he was wearing a plait and his hair was a shade just a tad darker than his own. And he was smaller and not as muscular as Ed had been himself at the time.

And he was calling himself Ed and Winry's son.

And yet, no matter how impossible it seemed, the tears weren't fake and the panic and hurt in his eyes were very real.

Den moved to attack the kid again, and Ed grabbed his collar, holding him back, not liking the unusual amount of malevolence that the dog was displaying. There was obviously something wrong about the sobbing boy.

"Den! Out!" came Granny's sharp voice as Ed just stared transfixed at the boy telling him he that was his son. The same kid who was looking like he was having a lot of trouble breathing at the moment. It was likely due to sobbing and the way Ed had put an unhealthy amount of pressure on his throat and the fact that he was in considerable pain from the bite.

"P-please! Th-there was a-an alchemic li-lightning a-and then the b-branch b-broke!" the boy wheezed in between his gulps of air.

"I'll go have a look, Brother," Al said, walking past them.

Ed was a bit uncomfortable at the idea that this kid could just as well be bait to get them to go outside. "Take Den," he told him. If there were others, then Den was definitely going to notice and do so quickly. He would be able to alert Al should something else be amiss or they were under attack, and so Al nodded and dragged the snapping dog out of the house with him.

"I'll help you," Winry suddenly said, sitting down next to Ed with a first aid kit, instantly preparing to treat the stranger's bleeding arm. The wound was bleeding quite a bit and Ed was certain that this couldn't be Envy. He would never sob over a dog bite. He would have healed up by now. And the tears were too real. This kid really believed that he was Ed's son.

"How old are you?" Ed asked, looking at him, suddenly feeling a bit guilty about the angry red marks on the boy's throat.

"F-fourteen... I-I turn fifteen in about t-two weeks."

"Oh, and what date was it where you came from?"

"September seventeenth, 1934. When are we?" the boy whispered through clenched teeth as Winry examined his arm.

Ed heard her gasp slightly before he spoke himself, his stomach clenching at the implication of those words. "September seventeenth, 1915. So what you're saying is that I'm having a son in four years?" Ed asked incredulously. That seemed highly impossible, and it gave him some very uncomfortable mental pictures of Winry. As if they could be married and have a child together in just four years.

...Right?

Winry was blushing too.

"So, what's your birthday?" Winry asked, obviously going into doctor-mode and trying to distract her patient.

"October third... And, yes, I know..." he said at their surprised gasps.

And then the kid smirked weakly and shakily through his own pained gasps and hisses as he looked at Ed. "It sounds like a joke, but remember that it's also exactly eight months after your birthday, and I don't think that that's coincidental when I was born a bit prematurely."

Ed felt like his face was boiling. That was just so wrong. Very, very wrong. And Winry too was blushing profusely and Ed decided to steer matters away from that completely. "Who's that "Jamie" you were going to kill? You're not actually going to kill someone, right?"

The boy just looked at him, tears still going down his cheeks, but his breathing was getting a bit steadier at least. "You seriously think I'd kill my ten-year-old cousin? I thought he broke the branch I was sitting on and I got angry because he's annoying as hell at times and it could have seriously hurt me."

Ed stared at him. "He's Al's kid?"

The boy hissed as the antiseptic was applied to his wound and Winry nodded to Ed to keep him talking. "Mhm... O-one of them."

"Grandma, please go fetch some local anaesthetics, these run pretty deep," Winry said.

The boy gulped at that, eyes going wide. "That's not necessary! I can take it! A-and I got my tetanus vaccine last year as a part of the v-vaccine programme at school!"

Granny suddenly began chuckling. "You know, Ed, I'm beginning to believe that he is your son."

Ed glared at her, only to look back at the boy who was staring at Granny with shining and disbelieving eyes.

"Don't tell me when I die, kid, I'd rather let it surprise me. Still, seems like I've got a few good years left, though, because you definitely know me in person. That's nice to think about," Granny said. "I'll go fetch some water and towels and a lollipop for the pipsqueak."

"I'M GENETICALLY DISPOSED! I'M EXPECTED TO HAVE MY GROWTH SPURT WITHIN A YEAR!" the boy shouted. "AND WHAT DO YOU THINK MAY CHANG'S TRIPLETS LOOK LIKE?! THEY'RE THE REAL PIPSQUEAKS! UNCLE AL'S BEEN LOOKING INTO GROWTH HORMONES!"

Ed stared at him with wide eyes. They all did.

Then they began laughing because that was when Al came back to the door, looking both pale and bright red at the same time. "I have triplets?"

The boy sighed and groaned with pain at the same time. "Yes. You were super embarrassed because you found out she was pregnant about two weeks after you proposed, so you spent more than half a year terrified that people thought you had proposed to her because you got her knocked up."

Ed couldn't help but laugh at the expression on his brother's face. "So little, sweet, innocent Al got the woman of his dreams pregnant before he proposed?"

Al began spluttering, his face growing redder by the second. "Well, you two got a child a lot sooner, though! And if he's only from four years into the future, then that suggests that you did that too!" he said in desperation.

Ed blushed.

It didn't help that their new guest began snickering, pained hisses in between the laughs. "Nope. They get married in two years."

Ed's eyes widened. "S-say what?"

The kid smiled. He was obviously getting cheeky now that he had enough air and didn't think that he was about to be strangled by his supposed father. "Mom loves that story. You managed to propose to her without a ring or a "will you marry me?" and not even kiss her when she said yes without actually saying it. It's the vaguest proposal story in the country most likely."

Ed blushed even more. "Granny! I think he needs that lollipop!"

The boy giggled and reached out with his uninjured left hand. "Hiya, Dad, you can call me Dex."

Ed felt deeply uncomfortable at the thought of being a parent. And like this. And now. And here. And only being one and a half years older than him. "Uh, could you call me Ed?"

"Guess that's less creepy." He reached out his hand further. "I'm still Dex, though," he said through clenched teeth.

Ed took the hand, noticing the strong grip that didn't actually seem to have anything to do with the pain. "You shake a lot of hands, do you, Dex?"

At that the kid sighed, hissed with pain and then a bit of horror struck him. "Oh, crap..."

"Hey, what's wrong?" Ed, Al and Winry all asked at the same time.

"I've got a piano concert in two months!"

Ed's eyes widened. "So my son's a pianist?"

"Yeah, and your oldest daughter is an idiot and an alchemist prodigy at the same time. Your youngest one is getting into automail engineering."

Ed didn't dare look at Winry. The thought of them being married and have done THAT more than three times...

"Oh... I... Why is she an idiot?" Ed asked curiously. He could tell that the two siblings had obviously been fighting.

Dex looked down at that. "It's not important. What is is that I need to get back home. Dad and Uncle Al are gonna be panicking before long." He looked up at Al. "Did you find anything outside?"

Al used the opportunity to shake off whatever embarrassment there had been for now at that. "Yes, and I know why the branch broke. It seems that the branch from the tree you were sitting on has been switched with the one from our time. Apparently that tree has grown a lot in the past nineteen years. Basically, the branch broke because it was just too wide for the tree, plus your added weight."

Ed felt some hint of relief at that. "Which means that the Ed and Al of his timeline will get some clue from the size of the branch."

Al nodded. "So they'll be looking for a way to get him back to their timeline. Which means that he'll have to stay here in case they find a way to get him back."

Dex suddenly looked over at Ed, tears still in his eyes and his teeth gritted against the pain. "...You should ask Mustang. He's probably got a lot of documents available and he's stationed back in East City by now, isn't he?"

"I'll go call him right away," Al said, just as Granny arrived with the extra medical supplies and shoved a lollipop into Dex's mouth.

Ed looked at Dex with some horrible realisation hitting him. Nineteen years into the future could very well mean that Mustang had reached his goals. All of them. "Dex, how's he doing in your timeline? Did he complete his plans?"

At that Dex actually smirked, shoving his lollipop into his left cheek to be able to talk. "Kinda... He's the first democratically elected ruler of the country, so back home we're now a republic and he's President Mustang. So Ishbal's restored, the country's a democracy and Amestris is prosperous. However, he kinda messed up ten years ago after his inauguration ceremony, because he and his closest subordinates got drunk and so he hasn't exactly got the heart to put himself and his wife on trial to basically get themselves killed, and thereby leave nine-year-old Leopold on his own. So removing the anti-fraternisation laws became pretty high priority all of a sudden."

Ed paused and then he began laughing. He was relieved. Mustang's goals were admirable, yes, but it still didn't mean that Ed was particularly comfortable about the thought of Mustang and Hawkeye being executed. If they now had a son then that was definitely a much more pleasing turn of events. But then a thought struck him. "Dex, if Mustang comes here, then I want you to promise me that you won't tell him what happened. If he knows, then he's gonna make sure that it doesn't happen again."

"So you think he won't ask?" Dex said with a raised eyebrow and a slightly pained smirk. "That's pretty optimistic of you."

Then he paled as his eyes widened in frightened realisation.

Ed reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"I... If Leopold isn't born, then I'm dead."

Reviews are always appreciated and help me update faster! (But flames are highly discouraging, so please none of those)