Author's Note: Sorry for not updating in... a long time (too lazy to count how many days). An enormous case of writer's block fell on my head. And I got sidetracked by Hetalia, then -Man, then Baccano!, then Durarara!... (btw, they're all very good, so check them all out)

Disclaimer: Seriously, do I have to do this every single chapter? No, I don't own Secrets, nor do I own FMA. If I owned either, I'd be a pretty rich high-schooler.

They had walked in silence the rest of the way. Eventually, the path led them to a clearing. The imposing trees of the forest fringed the grassy meadow, which was illuminated with sunlight. It was one of those clearings where you'd expect fairies and butterflies to flit around, with little gnomes living in mushroom houses and a babbling brook bubbling away. It was the kind of clearing where the princess meets the nice, old dwarfs in the straw-thatched cottage.

Alas, that was not the case.

Instead, a surprisingly normal house stood in the middle of the field. This was way weirder than it sounded.

It wasn't a little cottage with a thatched roof, as the environment demanded. It wasn't even one of the small houses in town. It was if some giant hand had randomly grabbed a house off the ground from an American suburb, and had deposited said house here.

It was an extremely bizarre sight.

The house itself, as stated previously, was quite normal looking. It had a grey, shingled roof and was painted a bright cheery yellow, with white trim. There was a small garden with some random flowers- roses, tulips, daisies. A nice cozy little porch in the front, with a rocking chair, of all things, rocking gently back in forth in the small breeze, as if an invisible nanny was sitting on it.

Piano music, haunting and sad, drifted from a slightly ajar white door, jerking tears to their eyes.

Sophie walked up to the house. Josh followed suit. The music continued to spill out from the open door in a beautiful cascade of emotion. It was heart-wrenching, speaking of loss and regret. Josh was reminded of all the sad moments in his life- the time his dog had died, or when his grandma had passed away. All those times they had move to a new location, leaving friends behind.

Then the music changed into something lighter, happier, with hope intermingled into the strands of melody. Josh thought of his family and friends. True, he had left them when they had moved, but he always stayed in contact and made new friends. He reminisced of family gatherings, of his parents, his Aunt Agnes, of all the good times he spent with his sister.

With a final crescendo the song ended, only to be followed by a huge crash.

Sophie was the first to speak in the odd, ensuing silence.

"What just happened?"

She cleared her throat, walking onto the porch, trying to see past the open door into the dim house.

"Uh, hello? Mr. Elric?"

There was a muffled reply.

Sophie awkwardly continued speaking.

"Erm, well, Mr. Halling sent us here?" Somehow, she had turned that statement into a question.

Another muffled reply.

The two twins looked at each other. Then, they looked at the semi-ajar door. They looked at each other again. As one, they entered the house.

Books.

Their first impression of the house was one of overwhelming books.

They were everywhere.

Books on the table. Books on the floor. Books balanced precariously on top of each other. Books stacked on chairs. Opened books, closed books. Big books, little books, fat books, thin books. Paperbacks and hardcovers alike were scattered throughout the mess of a room. Languages varied from English to (probably) German to even Asian-looking languages such as Chinese and Japanese. There were books on a wide variety of topics that ranged from physics to chemistry to biology to home self-repairs and gardening and cooking. Sophie even swore she saw a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone buried somewhere in the mess, never to see daylight again. They waded through the sea of books that flooded the house.

The whole time, Josh was still carrying that annoying container of stew.

Eventually, they wandered into the room with a piano. It was a beautiful baby-grand, fit for any maestro. Black as (midnight? Nah, not very black. Sin? That's debatable. Treacle? Dunno, never seen treacle. Asphalt? Well, that's more blueish. Something black….). Well. Black as darkness without light, with ivory keys that were a soft creamy white from gentle caress of time. Someone, probably Mr. Elric, obviously loved it very much and kept it well maintained. It was polished to the point where it gleamed.

The books had invaded this room too (although they stayed a clear distance away from the piano).

And they were obviously a cause of distress.

A huge pile of collapsed books spilled across the floor. Muffled cries, much louder now, were heard originating from the pile.

Realization hit the twins at the same time. Josh carefully put the stew down (with considerable relief) on a table, while Sophie quickly rushed over to the pile of disaster. Josh rushed to join her. They each grabbed a book.

"My God!" Sophie cried out. "He's buried alive!"

Five minutes later…

A very bemused Edward Elric dusted himself off. He bowed to the twins.

"Danke for helping me out. I thought for a moment that I was going to die." His mouth twitched, as if laughing at some private joke. "I really do need to clean these books up, but never seem to have the time. Name's Edward Elric, but I'm guessing that you already know that."

Sophie and Josh stared at the previously buried man (could they call him that? He didn't look that old, only in his early twenties) with interest. He was slightly under the average height. Like Josh had informed Sophie, he had brilliant gold eyes. His hair had become slightly messy due to the fall of books, and some of his hair had escaped its previous confinement withing the ponytail. He was wearing black jeans and a red T-shirt, with a black logo depicting a snake on a cross topped off with a winged crown on one of the sleeves.

Edward continued speaking. "I have a feeling that you guys came here for something. Why don't you wait in the living room while I get some refreshments?" The siblings nodded.

They followed the guy through a couple more rooms (again, do we need to mention the amount of books? It was overwhelming.). Finally, they arrived at a room that, amazingly, was somewhat free enough of books to look neat. Their host gestured at the sofa. "Make yourselves at home. I'll just get the drinks. I've got Coke, Sprite..."

"A Coke is fine for both of us," Sophie answered smoothly. Edward nodded and left the room.

Meanwhile, Josh was inspecting the room. On the wall, was an interesting piece of metal work that happened to mirror the logo on Edward's shirt. A serpent entwined around a cross, under a crown adorned with wings. On the coffee table were some old photos, of Ed and another boy (maybe his brother? They looked enough like each other), arms slung around each other, faces beaming towards the camera. The edges were all yellowed, and they were black-and white. Josh thought it was extremely odd that there were such old photos, but maybe that's how they were supposed to look, like maybe a special effect or something.

Elric came in, precariously gripping three cans of Coke at once. He set them down on the coffee table, and looked up, noticing Josh studying the photos. He nodded at the boy in the photo.

"That's my younger bruder, Alfonse."

Younger? Josh could've sworn it was the other way around. That kid was way taller in the photo, for God's sake!

"He studied in Munich with me for a while."

"Ah... that's great. How's he now? What's he studying?"

Elric froze a bit, then stiffly said, "He died, a couple of years ago, from an accident."

Josh's face looked a bit stricken. Sophie felt the same. "I'm sorry."

Elric shook his head. "Don't be. It was a pretty long time ago." He ducked his head a bit, and the twins had to strain their ears to hear him, "Besides, my memories of him are still with me. As long as I don't forget him, he'll always be with me. The dead will stay dead, and it's the job of the living not only to mourn them, but to celebrate the life they lived."

An awkward silence filled the room. There wasn't much to say, small-talk wise, after that.

The German was the first to break the tense atmosphere. "I do believe you came here for a reason?"

Sophie quickly nodded. "We were wondering if could find some info on physics. We're here as assistants to Dr. and Dr. Fleming, but we actually don't know much about the topic. Halling told us to come to Mr. Elric's place for info."

Elric nodded. "First of all, he's right. I studied majored in physics, along with chemistry, back at the university. Second, you could say my house is the unofficial library of this village. Thirdly, call me Ed. Elric makes me feel like old, and Edward makes it sound like you want to kill me."

The twins weren't so sure about the joke. They laughed a bit uncertainly."Well, okay then, Ed."

"I don't have much to do during the summer, so if you'd like to come everyday, I could give you a crash course in this science."

Josh wanted to cheer. This was going to be easy! Then, Ed held us his hand.

"Wait. Before you say anything, you first have to do something for me. In return for these lessons, how about you help clean my house for me? You don't have to do it in one day, gradually over the summer is fine with me too. A favor for a favor, ja? That is Equivalent Exchange." His eyes glinted.

Equivalent Exchange? Josh eyed the room wearily. He had seen the house, seen what those books could do. This mess would be even harder to clean then his own room!

Sophie gulped a bit. Cleaning this house seemed a bit... dangerous. But they needed to know about physics to keep their cover. She bravely nodded. "We'll do it."

Ed nodded in return and stood up. He held out his hand. "Wunderbar.Then it is a deal. I'll see you tomorrow, and we can start then." He and Sophie shook hands. That done, he relaxed a grinned. "Danke. I really needed to organize this place up, but this should help loads. Bitte give my appreciation to Herr Halling."

Thus said, the twins headed back to the village.

"You're right," commented Sophie.

"Huh?" Josh replied absently. He had been thinking about their meeting with Ed.

"I said, you're right. There's something slightly abnormal about him. He's definitely not a 'normal' human, that's for sure."

"Like you're one to judge" her brother teased. Then, he said, "But I'm glad you see what I meant. Still, I trust him. I don't know why, I just do. I was surprised to hear about his brother though. It must've been horrible, since they looked like they were really close."

The two of them fell silent, contemplating a life without the other. It was almost unthinkabe.

"We were really lucky to have a scientist in this village who studied physics."

Sophie nodded. "Regular science, huh? It seems like ages we studied anything 'normal'. It's all been Magic and sword-play and fighting these past two weeks. I've almost forgotten what normal learning feels like. It seems so surreal, like it's a joke, you know?"

Her brother shrugged. "Surrealism isn't a joke, either. Who's to say which 'reality' is the dominant one? Still, I'm kinda looking forward to tomorrow. Imagine Flamel's face when he comes back and realizes that we've learned loads while they were gone. That'd be a real surprise to them."

Sophie nodded. They continued on back to their lodgings for the night.

Edward Elric, child-prodigy, ex-military personal, who once was known throughout Amestris as the 'Hero of the People', stood on his porch, looking at the path the twins took back to the village. Something about them had brought back memories he had not thought about in a long time, memories he had kept suppressed.

He sighed. "I miss you, Al." He said to the empty air. "It's been difficult, these 70 years you've been gone. I wonder how you are, sometimes, and if you're with mom and dad right now."

"I don't know why, but those two kinda remind me of us when we were younger. Those were sure our glory days, weren't they? The 'Fullmetal Alchemist" and his huge younger brother, tromping through the country on many adventures. They've got the same feel, the same expressions on their face. I feel like if you were here, you'd already be helping them as much as possible. But since you're not, I guess I'll have to do it for you."

The blond looked past the path, into the far distance, as if he could sense the turbulent times that were coming ahead. As the sun sank beneath the trees, he turned around and went back into the house.

Author's Notes: I love how I can criticize my work, and see all the flaws, but could do nothing to fix those. I have a feeling that if anyone bothers to read this, I'm gonna get flamed for killing Al off... btw, I'll explain his death in future chapters.

Sorry for not updating in four months. Laziness just got the better of me.

But I'll update faster if you review. You review, and I update faster. That is Equivalent Exchange, ja?