Chapter Ten…FINALLY!

Where they cross over.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.

Over a two week period, Kerstin had grown very lonely. Since not all of her classes were in full-swing yet, she usually found herself alone in her dorm with a stack of books beside her. Even if she had the easiest time imagining the characters, she had grown closer to Sara than ever having expected and was almost empty without someone to care for. She did not want be by herself any longer.

She lounged on her bed, knees pulled to her chest, a book held too close to her face. A table lamp sat on the nightstand, illuminating her dorm room dimly. Kerstin had trouble keeping herself focused; when she read, the words swam off of the page and swirled around in her mind, unable to be processed. She did not like sitting still, she liked caring for others. The extra time on her hands was so much that she did not know what to do with it.

Kerstin shifted to glance over her shoulder at the telephone on her nightstand. While she read, most of her time was spent wishing she would hear the phone ring. She blinked, tapping her finger along the spine of her book impatiently. She was being excluded from everyone else's lives, which was slightly infuriating to her. Her beryl eyes sharpened at the telephone angrily, as if that was going to cause it to ring.

Sara was somewhere with Edward and Alphonse. Her father, of all people, was sending out search teams daily to find them. She was being forced to sit and wait for things to brighten up, or for someone to turn back and say she was needed – but she knew that was not going to happen. Kerstin thought the worst part of all of that was that her father was not searching for her sister because he loved her, or even felt that he owed her something, it was that he had some hidden agenda that she was needed to fulfill.

Kerstin decided that it was best for her to stay out of the situation, but she needed to be updated. Maybe she should try and reach her sister before they left. She highly doubted that was going to happen, considering they were defying the impossible – probably right at that exact moment.

Saraphine was terrified; lightheaded and queasy, every muscle in her body was trembling. At first she thought that she was simply floating in space, an empty nothingness, but then she was able to open her eyes. She saw colorful lights whizzing past her, shooting like fireworks, reflected on each side. Overwhelming sense dizziness caused a sinking feeling in her gut, which she found that she had once she glanced down and saw that her body was intact. She wondered if this is what she had brought on herself.

Edward had promised that he would try his hardest not to put much pressure on her while she worked. He promised. Yet, when she had set up all of the ingredients around the round table in the center of the laboratory, he kept telling her to hurry – like it was his neck on the line. She vaguely remembered scowling at him and snapping about how ungrateful he was acting. Sara thought, while she had her immature moments, that she had honestly given it her best to try to send him and Alphonse home. Maybe his growls at prompted her to…screw something up.

She bit down nervously on her numb lip, closing her eyes again. Sara really had no sense of feeling; before she realized that she was feeling pain, she felt blood trickling down her chin. She licked her lip, hardly tasting the iron in the blood at all. Fear coursed through her body when she realized that feeling may never return to her. Sara flexed her fingers weakly, sparks tingling in the tips.

Something had been done wrong. She knew that she had to have miscalculated something before the transmutation – as Ed had called it. Sara's gut sank again, as if it was trying to confirm her suspicions. She did not dare open her eyes; she did not want to know what was happening to her. Edward had not told her exactly what was going to happen once they flung themselves through the Gate; he warned her that she would feel sick to her stomach and she would most likely be spit out in a separate place from them. She could handle being alone, Alphonse had told her to stay where she was and they would find her. What Sara feared was that she ended up hurting them more than helping them.

Dulled voices reached her ear, swirling around to fuse into a single noise. At first, Sara did not think that the voices were even there since she could not tell where they were coming from, but she was not going to open her eyes to confirm anything. When she confirmed and convinced herself that people were actually talking, she still doubted they were saying words at all. It sounded, to her, like moaning, like agony.

Sara was stirred. It was like she was in the midst of a dream, mere inches from being pulled through to consciousness. All she had to do was open her eyes and make it all go away, make it all disappear. It was not going to work like that and she knew it; she was not in a nightmare, she was travelling between dimensions – which were even worse.

Sara defied her previous decision and opened her eyes, watching a huge black door speed towards her. She was spit through it, feeling nothing as she hit what felt like a floor, released into an entirely white void. This was the awakening to her nightmare. Glancing around the space to reassure herself, Sara found that she was subconsciously expecting Edward and Alphonse to be sitting beside her, but instead was sitting alone in fear. She began trembling again.

"I didn't expect anyone to come through so soon," said a voice. Sara could not tell if it was male or female. "A pair of brothers passed by here not too long ago, you know."

Hope flared within her. Sara's blue eyes flashed. "WHAT?" she called into the nothingness, her voice wavering nervously. Slowly, she climbed to her feet; her legs were shaking, threatening to collapse from under her. She spun on her heels, ignoring her swelling lightheadedness.

Two huge doorways stood on either side of her, formed by intricate carvings in a language she did not understand. Before the Gate on her left sat a human-like figure, entirely white just like the void in which it sat. The only way Sara knew it was there was because there was a hazy black line outlining it, much like she saw in animations at the theatre. She gasped.

The figure grinned. "An alchemist from the right side?" it asked tauntingly. "I have never heard of such a thing before. Not a single one. I certainly did not expect one to break through."

"Edward said–" Sara shouted quickly, eager to argue. She could not hold herself back; she could not manage to hold her tongue.

"I know that Edward told you that they have crossed over before. Did he tell you that they stole the information on how to do it in the first place from him?" The figure rose as it spoke. Sara stood, frozen to the core. "You are the first to figure it out on your own. I suppose that is worth a 'congratulations', don't you?"

She gulped down whatever had risen in the back of her throat. "What did I do wrong?" Sara screamed, on the verge of sobbing. Tears were swelling along the rims of her eyes.

"That depends on what you are trying to do." The grin faded from the eyeless, white figure's face. Sara's brow furrowed. "Do you even know what you were trying to do?"

"Did the brothers pass through?" asked Sara quietly, finding she was unable to project her normally loud voice. "Because that is what I was trying to do, send them home."

"Having done absolutely nothing, they were sent home. Yes, I allowed them to pass through," explained the figure. "What do you want?"

Sara wondered what this thing was and how its talk had grown so arrogant. She decided against asking, the fear overriding her curiosity considering she wanted to be on some familiar form of earth as soon as possible. "I want to go with them," she declared.

"That isn't terribly much of you to ask," the figure judged. "There is so much I could tell you, so much knowledge. You are a scientist on a quest for such a thing, hence everything you have researched. Why not grab for something higher? Why not ask for that knowledge? You can, you easily can."

Did Edward warn her of this? Sara could not remember. It certainly sounded like something that he would tell her. Wasn't he worried about having something taken from her? She could not remember exactly what he had said but she knew that he had at some point. Was she being tested? Sara did not think so, but even so, she wanted whatever information that the figure had to offer. It was living between parallel dimensions; it must have something of interest to her. She desperately wanted to ask for it, but knew it was some sort of trap.

"I want to go with them," repeated Sara sternly, her blue eyes gleaming fiercely.

"Are you certain?" asked the white figure, the smirk spreading across its face.

"Yes!" she confirmed confidently.

"If you insist…"

The Gate behind the white figure slowly opened, causing a very dramatic feel to spread throughout the void. Sara watched, her eyes growing as wide as saucers, as stringy black hands shot out from the doorway, outstretched in excitement and reaching for her. She scrambled to run in the opposite direction, but suddenly crashed against the ground. The white figure could be heard laughing behind her. Sara's heart was pounding within her chest. She clawed desperately at the ground, reaching for something to grab onto that was not there.

Truth cackled, watching the brunette attempting to cling to the Gate in order to free herself of the hands. "This is what you wanted!" it called after her, smiling.

The second time that Sara hit the ground, she felt it. Shock jolted through her body, causing such intense pain that she thought the surface of her back was on fire. She felt damp stones pressed against her skin, soaking through her clothes. Sara did not think that she could open her eyes, let alone move.

Was this Amestris? She pried her eyes open and stared straight up above her. A ceiling of arched dirt and rocks was at least a mile above her head. This had to be it, it had to be Amestris.

Sara did not move much at first, she stuck to a simple twist of her head. To her sides were buildings, most of them gothic style, towering above her head. Most of them appeared empty, desolate. This could not be Amestris. This was not another world, this was a dead city. Panic rushed through Sara, especially when she realized that the Elrics were nowhere to be seen. With her eyes locked a pile of crumbled stones, she began to think back, going over every detail in her head.

Edward had snooped around the laboratory – just as Al said he would. He gave her the 'go' signal and they both stalked inside the building. Alphonse and Isaac followed at their heels, even when the two began setting up the transmutation. Flashes of bright light illuminated the room when she attempted to open the Gate, which Edward had said was a good thing. From there…it was a blank.

"Sara," she heard a familiar voice call. She felt a tear of relief slide down her cheek when she thought that the voice belonged to Edward. Her heart sank when she saw Isaac.

…Wait! "What the hell is he doing here?" she thought angrily, scowling at him. He was not supposed to come. He was not supposed to cross over. A surge of wrath swept through her. An even worse feeling overwhelmed her when Alphonse approached her with a solemn look on his face.

"We can't find Brother," he muttered, slowly sinking to his knees beside her.

I apologize for taking so long on this chapter. To be honest, I actually put it down for a week due to lack of interest. You can thank Aiame and the FMA art book for convincing me to pick it up again!

I am fairly proud of the way this chapter turned out. I would like to answer several questions now that I know several of my readers will be thinking: yes, Sara is suffering from slight memory loss and the entire story is going to be revealed next chapter. Also, Kerstin is going to play a part in the story; those snipits of her are building towards something, I promise!

Plushies to anyone who reviews and/or tell me where the trio ended up!