Ha, forgot to update this right off. Been hectic over here, but at least I remembered, right? Right... (ahem) There are a few typos in here that I had in there from when I typed it up months ago, and I haven't felt like correcting them yet, so hopefully you can forgive me. :P Hope you like the chapter, in any case!
Disclaimer: I ate a donut. What, did you expect me to say something obvious like that I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist?
"What the heck does that mean?" Edward's eye were ablaze with indignation. How dare this guy take him for that much of an idiot simply because he was a kid. Any intelligent person knew that Edward Elric was no ordinary kid. He had been through more in his young life than most people experienced in their entire lifetimes.
The strange guy sighed and ran his fingers through his bangs. What was this guy trying to pull, trying to make a stupid claim like that? Edward didn't have a single gray hair on his head, and he wasn't nearly so old as this weirdo in front of him.
"This isn't actually the time I belong in," said the stranger, "I belong in the future, but I-"
"You expect me to believe that the me from the future just hopped right out of a science fiction novel and came back to warn me of impending doom?" Edward snorted. "Riiiiiiiiiight, that makes total sense."
"It's the truth." The guy shrugged. "Sort of."
Edward rolled his eyes. How stupid and bizarre could things get? It was bad enough that this guy seemed to be capable of predicting the future somehow, but now it seemed he was bent on making Edward go crazy.
"Yeah, well, if you were really me, you'd have known I wouldn't believe you that easily."
"If at all," said the guy. "That's why I didn't want to bring it up in the first place. You didn't need to know just yet."
"Even though I'm supposedly about to die if I don't follow your advice? Wouldn't it be critical that I believe you in that case?"
The stranger shook his head. "There was no need. I remember what happens next, though I suppose my trying to avoid explaining it was pointless, since I remembered that too."
Edward crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes as he glared at the stranger. There was no way this guy could be him from the future. The thought was ridiculous. If time travel were possible in any time, wouldn't time travelers be popping up at random points in history?
"I know what you're thinking," said the stranger. Edward's eyes widened a bit in anticipation of what the guy would say, even though he hadn't said it yet. He had been right about the girl, and that situation still made him angry. Was this guy able to read minds or something? And supposing that this guy really was himself from the future, was he destined to become so jaded so as not to life a finger to help a girl in need when he knew what would happen?
"I'm not telepathic, silly, I just happen to remember what I was thinking when I was… you."
That made Edward squirm. While he was relieved to have the guy admit that he wasn't telepathic, it was still quite unnerving to have this guy continue to make his case that the two were the same person. Actually, scratch that last statement. It was even more unnerving than believe the guy had telepathic powers. He hated to admit it, but he almost wished the guy would just claim to be psychic.
"I have been popping up at random points in your-our-history." The guy waved between the two of them to illustrate his point. "I've tried hard to conceal my presence from you so you could grow up as normally as possible… under the circumstances." He bowed his head apologetically and Edward felt his muscles tense up. The guy hadn't even said much, and het his mannerisms somehow told Edward that he knew everything that Edward had gone through.
"Time travelers do their best to conceal their presence from those who move 'normally' through time. We don't want to disrupt the balance of time."
"We?" said Edward, "now it sounds like you belong to some cult group."
The other guy shrugged and smiled somewhat timidly. "We do have a sort of support group that meets up periodically, but they're not exactly religious."
"Time traveler support groups?" said Edward incredulously. "Okay, I swear, you're insane. You don't know what you're talking about and are spewing out nonsense." He plugged up both of his ears when he saw the other guy make an attempt to speak. "La la la, I'm not listening, la la la!"
The other guy shrugged and quit attempting to speak, much to Edward's relief, but then he turned and walked out of the room. Edward stood waiting for several minutes, but the guy didn't return. He hoped that was a good thing, though he had to admit that he was a bit unnerved by the whole ordeal.
That guy couldn't have been telling the truth, he reasoned. Not only was it unscientific to believe time travel was possible, but the crazy guy had now gone and abandoned him when supposedly his life was in danger. If that guy was really him from the future, wouldn't risking Edward's life be risking his own as well? So things obviously weren't as that guy had said.
But that guy had still made some accurate predictions and insights. Edward shook it off. Anyone could make a few right guesses and appear to be a prophet of some sort. This was probably just an evil practical joke.
Suddenly he laughed. As a practical joke, this was actually a pretty funny situation. Now he got the joke. He was way too gullible and almost fell for what that guy had said. That whole setup had been very clever. Who had been smart enough to pull it off? Maybe it was Al. His brother knew him better than anybody.
Edward caught himself smirking. Al was good, but not good enough. He'd get his revenge, and Al would regret the day he'd tried to pull that kind of joke on him. With an evil laugh, he walked out of the room.
"That was great, Al!" Edward stepped into their room and slapped his brother on the back. "I didn't even know you could pull off a joke that awesome. I don't give you enough credit."
"Why, what did I do?" said Al.
"You know, that time travel joke." He pointed back over his shoulder with his thumb. He turned and looked out the door, chuckled once, and then went and closed it. "You almost had me going there. That guy you sent was a pretty convincing older me."
Al looked confused as wrinkles were appearing between his eyebrows. "What time travel joke? I have no idea what you're talking about!"
"Aw, come on, Al," Edward slapped his brother on the back, who jumped and yelled at Edward to stop it, though that only made him laugh. "I figured out your joke. There's no need to keep pretending. Now we can both laugh at it together."
Then Al sighed. It wasn't a happy sigh like Edward would have expected in such a circumstance, nor was it sad as if reluctant to let go of such a good joke. It wasn't even a bored sigh, which he could have halfway understood. This was an irritated sigh, and Edward couldn't place why his little brother would be irritable right now.
"We can laugh together if you'll tell me what the heck is going on," said Al. Edward squirmed at the harsh tone of his brother's voice. He only talked like that when he was being sincere, and sincerely annoyed at that. He hated to admit it, but it was looking like Al really had had nothing to do with that guy's showing up just a few moments before. It still smacked of a practical joke, but Al clearly had had nothing to do with it. Perhaps Roy had. That sounded like something he would do for sure. He was known for doing crazy practical jokes.
Edward shrugged. "Sorry, Al, I thought you'd done it, but maybe it was Roy…" Al didn't even wait for him to complete his thought.
"Done what?"
Now Edward was doing the sighing. Poor Al was getting all flustered, and he wasn't doing a thing to help the situation. "Nothing, it's just…"
"Just what?"
Edward blew his bangs out of his eyes. He understood his little brother being annoyed at being uniformed about the situation, but he hated it when Al got so impatient for him to reveal information. He didn't always have the words right away like Al did, and he didn't want to sound like a fumbling idiot while he was searching for words.
"A guy came up to me claiming to be me from the future. Funny joke, huh?"
Al looked perplexed. "I don't understand."
Edward smacked his face. He should've known saying it that way would make no sense to Al and make him sound stupid. He would have to try this again and be more descriptive lest he make a fool of himself again. He pulled his hand away from his face and rolled his eyes at his prior stupidity, though he realized after he did it that he might be causing Al to think Ed was rolling his eyes at him. He mentally chastised himself for being stupid yet again. Then, vowing to make a smart move for once, he took a deep breath and said, "I was playing ping pong with a guy who claimed to be a time traveler. I know someone's playing a clever joke, since time travel is impossible."
"Oh, I see," said Al, who then put his hand on his chin like he was preparing to think. "He claimed to be you from the future?"
"Yes," said Edward, relieved that Al was finally getting it and he didn't have to say stupid things any longer.
"Did he have a long, gray ponytail?"
Edward's eyes opened wide in shock. "How did you know that?" Perhaps Al really did have something to do with this whole ordeal after all.
Al shrugged. "I've seen him before, when I was younger. I was playing alone outside and he came up and started talking to me like he knew me. Something about him always seemed familiar to me."
"And you never told me about this why?"
"Because," Al said, "The guy told me that telling you about him before you met him yourself would hurt you somehow."
"And you believed him." Edward could sense a literal distaste for the guy rising in his mouth. What was this jerk doing around a little kid? It seemed awfully suspicious for a guy to talk with a little kid and then tell him not to talk about it.
"Hey, I was just a little kid!" Al held his hands up protectively. "By the time I was old enough to think about it, I'd forgotten about it."
Edward rolled his eyes again. "How convenient for him." Al simply chuckled nervously, which only managed to fuel the fire that was already burning in Edward. "What does the jerk want with me? Or you? Why is he stalking us?"
Al licked his lips as though he were hesitant to speak his mind. "What if he really was you from the future?"
"That's ridiculous," snapped Edward.
"Maybe," said Al, but what if it really was true?"
"There's no way that can possibly be true." Edward stamped his foot. He loved his little brother so, but he wished Al wouldn't indulge in random speculation so often. It made his brain hurt trying to keep up. He could still try though, for his brother's sake.
"Even if a way to travel through time is invented in the future, there's no way it'd be discovered soon enough for me to be traveling through time."
"Unless someone from even further in the future gave you the means to do so."
Edward threw his hands up in exasperation. "Al, why are you doing this? That idiot hasn't given us any reason to believe him, so why are you guying into this nonsense?"
Al crossed his arms over his chest. "Has he given you any predictions?"
Edward blinked, but was able to retain his composure even though Al had struck at the one soft spot he had in the whole matter. "How do you know about that?" Maybe the story about the girl had spread faster than he'd thought it would, but if it had, how had Al not known what he was talking about right away? He doubted anyone else even knew the connection between the girl and that guy anyway.
"Because…" said Al, who let out his breath and breathed deeply before continuing, "He made some predictions the last time I saw him, and all of them have come true. Well, almost all of them."
"Ha!" Edward pointed his finger defiantly at Al. "Some omniscient time traveler he is if he can't even predict everything accurately."
Al chuckled, which caused Edward to clench his fist. It wasn't a good sign when Al chuckled like that. It usually indicated that there was something he had stupidly overlooked.
"Brother, the only things that haven't come to pass are the things that haven't happened yet, though they will soon."
Right. Of course the fortune teller's predictions wouldn't be so easily falsified. It made Edward hate him all the more. He hated anything he couldn't understand, and that guy was about as confusing as they came.
Al uncrossed his arms and let them rest at his sides. "Has he given you that vial of blue stuff yet?"
Edward unconsciously reached into his pocket and fingered the vial. Al noticed the movement and nodded knowingly. "So, yet another one of his prophecies has come to pass then."
"Oh, hogwash!" More like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just because someone tells you what they're planning to do doesn't make them a magical psychic dude." His shoulders slumped and he glared at Al though he honestly wasn't quite sure what was making him so darn angry. He half-smirked and then said, "I'm going to pat myself on the head, look!" He then proceeded to do just as he had said. "Wow! I'm a prophet! I foretold the future!"
Al couldn't help but laugh at his brother's antics. Ed raised the corner of his mouth in an expression of smugness. He loved hearing his little brother laugh like that. It made all the tension of the day melt away.
Eventually, Al calmed himself down and cleared his throat to speak. "Seriously though, Brother he has made a lot of predictions that have come to pass that he had nothing to do with, whether you accept it or not. I just want you to be careful."
"Be careful of what?" asked Edward.
"Just be careful," said Al. He placed a hand on Edward's shoulder and looked into his eyes as he said, "I don't know what's going to happen from here on out, but if that guy continues being right, things are probably about to get really weird. Just be careful."
Edward sighed and gently pulled his shoulder out of Al's grasp. "I'll be careful, Al." He shook his head bemusedly. Little brothers had a tendency to worry way too much, though he couldn't honestly say that older brothers were much better.
"I'll be fine," he reiterated, and then he turned to walk out of the room, explaining that he just needed a nap so he could sort through all this stuff. Al understood and gave him a smile and a goodnight hug.
Plopping down into his bed, Edward found his thoughts racing as the vial of blue liquid tingled against his thigh. The stuff was teasing him and probably wouldn't let him rest until he either drank it or destroyed it. Destroying the troublesome stuff sounded more appealing to him, but he couldn't shake the 'what it' feeling from his mind. What if the guy was right? What if he really did have someone seeking his life? What if this stuff really was the only antidote to whatever he was going to be poisoned with?
He shook his head and ran his palm over his face. This was ridiculous. He could be intrigued by this whole incident, but actually taking it seriously was another matter entirely, and it was unacceptable. He was supposed to be a good example for his little brother, and so he couldn't afford to get carried away by wild ideas like this.
Still, it was probably okay to carry the vial with him for a while. Al would yell at him if he caught him without it anyway, so that settled the matter.
He pushed himself up in bed, yawned, and stared at the clock. Five minutes to dinnertime. So much for getting a nap in, unless he wanted to skip a meal over it, which was unthinkable. He pushed himself to his feet with a groan, and groggily made his way out the door.
It probably left a bizarre impression on other people to see him entering the mess hall with his shoulders slumped and his eyes only half open, but he didn't care. If anybody asked, he would just blame Al. Al was the one who'd gotten him worrying in the first place. Well, actually, it was that strange guy he'd met over a game of ping pong, but he doubted anyone would believe his account of that. He'd just be accused of eating too many tacos the night before, which he had. It was so hard to resist ethnic food.
Edward grabbed his tray and groggily sat down in the midst of a bunch of random guys. Normally, he looked for Al and ate with him, but he just wanted to eat and vacate as quickly as possible today. His thoughts were making him exhausted, and Al wasn't helping that one bit. In fact, he was making it worse.
The food wasn't particularly special, and he didn't find the conversation of the other guys all that interesting either. It was actually so dull that he began nodding off to sleep. As soon as he caught himself doing so, he shook his head and slapped himself on the cheek hoping the sting would wake him up.
"Have a rough day, Ed?" said one of the guys sitting near him. Edward nodded and mumbled something about Al and strange time travelers from the future, but the guy hadn't understood a word of what he'd said and asked him to repeat it. Edward sighed, shook his head and mumbled, "Nothing," and finished his meal in silence.
As he was heading back to his room, he started feeling strange. His body didn't feel quite like it belonged to him, and he consequently found himself having a harder time controlling it, and so he stumbled and fell. He gasped and pushed himself to his knees, but he was so disoriented that he couldn't figure out which way was up. He closed his eyes in the hopes of reorienting himself, but the feeling persisted. What was going on? How had he gotten this tired?
Edward kept struggling to keep himself together, but it felt like he was fighting a losing battle. Before too much time had passed, he couldn't even hold himself up, and shortly after that, he couldn't hold himself awake.
When he finally opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was Al's worried eyes looking back at him. "Brother," Al said upon seeing Edward looking at him, and he leapt up from his seat and threw his arms around his older brother. "Brother…" Al said again, "What happened?"
Edward tried to respond, tried to move his lips, but no sound came forth. He couldn't be this weak from just a bit of mental fatigue, and so he fought with all his strength to speak, but only managed a groan. Now he was starting to worry. If he was too weak to even speak, how was he to know he'd get through this safely? Even if that strange guy was right about someone trying to poison him, how could he possibly take the antidote?
That was right, he had that antidote! He couldn't specifically recall someone trying to kill him, but the guy hadn't promised that he'd understand right away, only that the strange potion would allow him to live through it. He wasn't sure if he could really trust the strange guy, but he had been right about everything up until now, whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Edward looked down at his clothes. Someone had taken off his jacket. A quick scan of the room revealed that it was hanging off of a nearby chair. He summoned up his strength once again and groaned while looking at the chair. Al looked between the chair and Edward a few times before he suddenly got the idea and said, "Oh!" while he bounded up to run Edward's errand.
It wasn't long before Al had fished the vial out of Edward's pocket and held it up triumphantly. "You wanted this, right?"
Edward was still too weak to speak, but he managed a light, "Mmhmm…"
Al pulled the stopper and without another word, tipped the vial and allowed the liquid to drain into Edward's mouth. Edward really hoped Al knew what he was doing. It seemed like he did, so there was probably no need to worry, but he couldn't help himself. He hadn't been instructed on the best way to take the formula, but maybe Al had when he'd met the guy years ago.
The last of the liquid ran out, and Edward swallowed what remained in his mouth and closed his eyes. He didn't know what was to happen now, if anything would besides his getting sicker and dying, but he felt he at least had the strength to wait and find out now, so he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
It seemed a moment later that his eyes fluttered open. His body was starting to tingle. That was probably a good sign, since it meant that his nerves were still alive at the very least. His vision was a bit cloudy though, and that concerned him.
He sat up in bed and scanned the room to find Al sitting in a chair looking at him with a puzzled expression on his face. "What's the matter, Al?" Edward asked.
Al didn't answer, which was unnerving coming from always-having-a-lot-to-say-Al, so Edward followed Al's gaze to his own body and observed as his eyes widened at the sight. It appeared he was shimmering, or perhaps going out of phase. He didn't know how to describe it, but as he looked back up at Al and the two shared concerned looks, he knew that neither one of them had anticipated a reaction like this, and they didn't know what would happen as a result.
As if in answer to their unspoken questions, all the light in the room seemed to momentarily go out as it concentrated on a spot at the foot of Edward's bed. Before Edward could register that something weird was happening, the concentrated light exploded back in the room, returning to all its proper places with a force that knocked one backwards. Something about that explosion ripped open a hold in the spot where the light had condensed a moment before, and a person stepped out just as the hole sealed itself back up.
Edward blinked. No way, he couldn't possibly be him. How could he have possibly gotten in here? There was no possible way…
"Oh, thank goodness," said the guy, "I see you've already taken the antidote."
Edward crossed his arms over his chest. He was not going to let this guy off easily, for any reason. "If it worried you so much, why didn't you just follow me around and make me take it when the time was right?"
The guy shrugged. "I have no idea. I haven't given you the antidote yet."
Edward blinked at the guy. Now he was really confused, and the confusion only made him angrier. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?"
The guy ran his fingers through his bangs, and Edward observed as a couple blond locks tumbled out from underneath the gray. He could've sworn that the guy was completely gray when he'd seen him last, but perhaps he'd been wrong.
"I think I give you the antidote stuff when I'm older. Right now I don't even know where I got it from." The guy gave a sheepish grin and then allowed his hand to rest at his side.
Edward finally saw the resemblance in this guy. He was about halfway between Edward now and the older guy Edward had met earlier. His maturity level was even halfway between the two. This guy had to be himself from the future… but that was ridiculous! Was he really letting himself believe that?
He was. He cleared his throat and said in a wobbly voice, "So what's happening to me?"
The guy sighed and looked around the room, and Edward was afraid for a moment that the guy wouldn't answer. But then he turned back to Edward and said, "I don't know the specifics, but you're going out of phase with time and space."
"Which means?" Edward leaned forward to encourage the guy to be more open with his revealing of information.
"Which means you're about to start your journey through time."
His journey through time? He was about to become the time traveler these two were? What about his life here? And his family and friends? What about Al?
"Don't I get any control over this?" he demanded, but the guy only shrugged. He really hated himself sometimes, both in the present and future.
Al seemed to understand, however, and he came up and wrapped his brother in a big hug. "I was warned that you'd vanish one day, Brother." Al's eyes were sad, and were trying to frown despite Al's forced smile. "Just come back and visit me as often as you're able to… however old I am or you are."
"O-Okay." Was that the right response to a statement like that? Was there even a right statement at all? Not many people when through this sort of thing in their lifetimes, so it was a bit hard to say.
He turned and took one last look at Al and forced a smile onto his face for Al's sake. Al was muttering something, but Edward's hearing and vision were growing more and more cloudy by the moment and he couldn't make it out. So he did the next best thing and returned Al's hug with one of his own and said, "I'll miss you, Al."
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, he was outside, lying on the grass. Al and the room had simply vanished without a trace, and he was nowhere near the hospital. He was in the countryside.
Hope you liked the chapter. The third one will be up soon, so I hope to see you back here in the near future. Thanks for reading!