Heh, this one's a long chapter. Took me ages to type up. Um, can't take time to say much, cause I'm almost out of time. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Yep, it's a disclaimer alright.

Al leaned further back into his train seat and turned to stare out then window. Everything was passing by in a sort of blue, or maybe that was just the reflection of his thoughts. He knew, logically, that the things closer to the train would appear to pass by faster than the ones father away, but right now, everything seemed blurry. Where was his brother, and why had he suddenly run away from them like that? That just wasn't like Ed to do so without any sort of warning. Al sighed and allowed his chin to rest on his fist. Would they ever see each other again?

The sound of someone clearing their throat brought Al's attention back to the present. He looked up from the window and saw a grey-bearded man with rugged looking clothes standing in the aisle, next to his seat. As an automatic reaction, Al tensed up for a brief second at the sight of the man. His logic told him that there was really nothing to be afraid of, but he couldn't shake the images of all the similarly dressed men he had previously met that were all drunk.

The man smiled gently at Al, and then motioned towards the seat opposite from him. "Is this seat taken?" Hmmm…The man didn't sound drunk, though one had to wonder why he was just now finding himself a seat. Al shook his head and invited the man to sit down in the seat facing him. The man gratefully sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him. "I hope I'm not making you nervous by sitting here."

"Um…no…?" Al lied. Of course he was nervous; he always was when he had to meet someone that he didn't click with immediately, but he wasn't about to tell this man that. One thing that Al was good at was pretending not to be nervous around people when he really was. Heck, even he himself wasn't aware that he did that.

Al put his hands in his lap and began to fidget with his fingers. Before long, he was once again looking out the window at the passing scenery, which allowed him to not have to look at the man, and he was swinging his legs somewhat randomly. The man cocked an eyebrow at this behavior and said, "You look nervous to me."

"I'm…not nervous," Al said, bringing his face away from the window and dropping his gaze to the floor in the aisle in the middle of the car. It was rare when someone could ever see through Al's attempts to look more outspoken or stronger than he actually was. Maybe this man was one of those rare people of legend that actually had a brain. His brother had told him about smart people once, but said that he had yet to find one. Apparently, when Ed had first met Colonel Mustang, he thought that he had finally found one of these people, but soon came to the realization that he had been gravely mistaken.

The man chuckled a bit, and then finally spoke. "I suppose having an old man like me suddenly come and sit down next to you would make just about anyone nervous." The man paused for a moment, and Al finally raised his head and looked into the man's eyes. He was seeming less and less threatening to him as he talked…so maybe this guy wasn't so bad. Maybe.

The man spoke again. "You just looked like you'd be an interesting young man to talk to…but I can leave if you'd prefer." The old man put his hand next to his lap and leaned forward, obviously about to stand. Al opened his mouth to say something, and then changed his mind and snapped it back shut. He reached out and touched the old man's hand. At this, the man looked up at him, and Al timidly smiled.

"Please stay. I wasn't trying to drive you off. I always get nervous around new people."

The man chuckled and sat back in his seat. "But you said that you weren't nervous." Al twitched and swung his legs again before he caught the twinkle in the man's eye. Heh, this man had known all along that Al was nervous. He'd seen right through his smokescreen. Yep, this man had at least half a brain, Al would have to give him that.

Al cleared his throat to break the monotony of the silence and decided to start a conversation. "So…where are you headed?" The man leaned back into his seat and sighed, shaking his head. Al raised an eyebrow at this, but was patient enough to wait for the man's response, whatever it was.

The man turned and looked out the window, and Al followed suit, having nothing better to do. After a moment of silence, the man finally said, "May I ask where you're going first?"

This startled Al out of his trance, and he looked away from the window to the man, then back to the window, and back to the man. "Well, um," he began as he started twiddling his thumbs in nervousness once again, "I'm not going anywhere, really," That heightened the nervousness level, so he proceeded to biting his nails. "I'm looking for someone actually." Even more nervous, he started to pick at his nails and peel them off like he had never heard of nail clippers.

The man smiled a bit, and then said, "I understand. That's actually what I'm doing as well." He paused, and then added, "And quit being so nervous; you're ruining your nails." Al suddenly being self-conscious about his hands and promptly thrust them in his lap where they would quit causing trouble. The man couldn't help himself and chuckled again while shaking his head. Al was pretty cute, no matter how you looked at him.

The man got his bearings about himself once again, and turned to look at Al. He cleared his throat and said, "Would it be too nosy of me to ask who you're looking for?" Al looked at the man for a brief second and then quickly broke eye contact. He started to allow his legs to kick the air again, and even brought his hand up to his mouth, about to bite his nails, but he caught himself and put his hand back in his lap. Yep, he was nervous again, but it was understandable as to why. He wasn't sure how much he should tell to some random stranger, though he really did want to get it off his chest. Maybe a few vague details wouldn't hurt anything. He once again turned and looked into the man's eyes. "Um, well…" he hesitated, "I'm looking for my brother, actually. He started getting sick and acting strange a couple weeks ago, and then he just up and disappeared without warning."

The man brought his hand up to his chin and began stroking it in a thinking gesture. "Is that so? I'd thought as much." Getting an inquisitive look from Al, the man chuckled, dropped his hand into his lap, and leaned back into his seat. A slight smile crossed his face, and he looked directly into Al's eyes. "Are you and your brother related? I mean…blood related?"

Al gave the man a strange look. He had never been asked that question before, since anyone could tell by looking at the two boys side by side that they were both from the same family. All the same, what did them being related have to do with Ed's running away? Al returned to look at the old man and cautiously nodded while saying, "Um…yes…?"

The man chuckled again as Al's confusion and nervousness began to show through again. He then turned and glanced around the car, leaving Al to wonder what the man was looking for. The man finally turned back to face Al and his smile vanished. "It's pretty obvious to me why your brother vanished so suddenly and without warning." He put his hands outside of his lap and pushed himself up from his seat. "Come," he made a gesture with his hand, begging Al to follow, "We'll talk between cars to keep people from listening in. You really need to hear this."

Al stared at the man in silence and didn't move a muscle. This was getting weirder and weirder, and he was seriously starting to get creeped out. How could a complete stranger know something about the Elric brothers that they themselves didn't know? The old man walked over to the door and grabbed the latch, and then turned around and once again motioned for Al to follow him. Something in the man's eyes convinced Al that he was indeed serious and that he should at least give the man a fair hearing. With that, he finally pushed himself up and made his way out the door after the man.

Once outside, he quickly searched for something to grab onto. Yes, that railing would do the trick. Al grabbed a hold of the railing and leaned against it as if afraid that the train would buck him off at any given moment. The wind whipped his hair into his face, making it difficult to see. He shook his head and looked around for the old man, finding him standing just several feet away.

"Are you okay?" shouted the man above the noise of the wind.

"I'm fine," Al shouted back, shivering a bit from the effects of the wind. They needed to get this done and over with so that he could go back inside where it was comfortable. "What did you want to tell me?"

The man got a faraway look in his eyes as he gazed out at the rolling scenery in the distance, almost as if he didn't want to say, or perhaps just didn't know how. The man bent at his waist and leaned onto the railing, refusing to look at Al. He looked a bit troubled.

"Son," the man said, finally turning to face the boy, "You have the ocean in your eyes."

Colonel Mustang pounded frantically on the door. "Winry…Miss Rockbell…please open up! It's me, Colonel Mustang!" He continued pounding on the door until he finally heard a latch turn and the door swung open, revealing a girl with messy blond hair and dark circles under her eyes. Roy grimaced. He had obviously woken the poor girl up since he had come incredibly early, but that wouldn't be helped. This was urgent.

"I am so sorry for disturbing your rest, Miss Rockbell, but I have some information that I thought might be of interest to you, and it would be best if I were to tell you as soon as soon as possible." Winry nodded her understanding and motioned for Roy to come in, all the while trying to stifle a yawn that was making an attempt to contort her fact into an unbecoming expression. Roy nodded in acknowledgement and graciously followed the girl inside.

After quickly preparing some coffee for both Roy and herself, Winry joined the Colonel in the living room. Roy reached into the leather tote bad he had brought with him and pulled out a manila folder. He bounced it on his knee a couple times as though trying to collect his thoughts, and then looked at Winry. "Miss Rockbell…That hairbrush that you gave me…did Alphonse ever use it?"

Winry hadn't quite expected to be asked a question like that, but it wasn't out of the ordinary. She sat back in her seat and placed her hand across her forehead while closing her eyes, just trying to visualize whether Al had ever used that hairbrush himself. After a few moments, she opened her eyes and nodded. "Come to think of it, yes, Al used that brush awhile ago when he misplaced his own…but that was awhile ago…"

"Does Fullmetal ever clean out his brush?"

Winry laughed, "Not often."

Roy smirked. "I suspected as much. We'd found a few brown hairs in the brush and wondered if they were his." He reached into his manila folder and pulled out three sheets of paper that all had some sort of illustrations on them, and he placed them one by one down on the coffee table, facing Winry. "Now, Miss Rockbell, this is a depiction of a typical strand of human DNA." He then pointed to the next picture, which looked only a tiny bit different. "This is Alphonse's." Then he pointed to the third, which bore no resemblance to the first whatsoever. "This is Edward's."

Winry's mouth dropped open and she slowly raised her head up to look into the Colonel's face. "What are you saying?" She found herself struggling to put one word in front of the other, and her hands began forming into fists. "Are you trying to say that-that they're not human?"

Roy placed a gentle hand n Winry's shoulder in an attempt to calm the girl down and said, "I'm just an alchemist, not a geneticist…but there does seem to be something odd about their DNA, especially Edward's."

Winry felt tears begin to prick at her eyes, but she blinked them away. It was silly to cry when she didn't even know what she was crying about. "Tell me about it."

"Well," said Roy, crossing his legs and lacing his fingers over his knee, "Judging by the appearance of Edward's DNA, we decided to perform some experiments on his hair in relation to its reaction to water."

"Water?"

"Yes, water. The first thing we did was take samples of hair from several people with normal DNA and submerse the samples in a solution of salt water. As can be expected, the water made the hair weak and easy to break, and the salt dried out the hair."

Winry nodded. Yes, that was to be expected with normal human hair. She'd used enough fancy hair care products to figure that out. "So what about the boys' hair?"

"Ah, well now, that was interesting." Roy rubbed his face as he meditated on how to phrase his thoughts. "Alphonse's hair, when put to the same test…didn't become weaker, but stronger. The salt didn't even dry out his hair…it looked more like…his hair absorbed it."

"Absorbed the salt?"

"Yes, absorbed it…like it needed it."

Winry put her hand on her forehead again and closed her eyes. Wasn't that a bit odd that Al's hair would behave differently than a normal person's? She didn't like thinking that there might be something odd about those boys…but then, the evidence was stacking up against thinking any other way. She finally dared to open her eyes and look at the Colonel again. She cleared her throat. "I'm almost afraid to ask…but what happened with Ed's hair?"

Roy responded by clearing his throat and looking around uneasily. He gave Winry a weak smile, and then began to speak. "His hair…did everything Alphonse's did…and then it somehow…cam to life. It started moving around on its own."

"Come in," said Edward in response to the knock on his door. If it were Sylvia, all she'd have to do was use the extra key he had gotten for her. He had figured that it would be better to play it safe and make it possible for her to enter his room without his help in case he were to transform at an odd time. The door opened and Sylvia stepped in to see Edward concentrating intensely on his hands. A ball of light was slowly beginning to take shape in between them.

"What are you doing?"

Edward blinked and the ball of light disappeared. He turned to look at Sylvia, slightly startled out of his trance. "Oh…I was just practicing."

"Practicing what?"

"To see if I could transform at will."

Sylvia gave an amused smile. "So, you finally believe in magic?"

Edward glared at her. "No, of course not!"

"Then what do you call that?"

Edward sighed and rubbed his temples. "I don't believe in magic, but it's obvious that I'm not human. I don't understand these new powers, but there's got to be a logical explanation for them. Until then, I should get accustomed to them so that I don't find myself at a disadvantage."

Sylvia nodded and stepped into the room. Ed had already claimed one of the beds, as could be expected, since this was his room. The other bed was as yet unoccupied, so Sylvia went and sat on the edge of that bed and stared at Edward. Contrary to the touch exterior he put on, she could tell that inwardly he was scared and hadn't a clue as to what was happening to him. The poor guy had obviously never been through anything like this before, especially being raised as a human being in a completely landlocked country. He had never been prepared for this.

Edward suddenly reached both hands up to the sides of his head and tried to rub at them. "Ouch! Stupid pain keeps coming back!"

Sylvia raised an eyebrow. "Pain? There?"

"Yeah, it burns."

"Lemme look." She got up from her perch and walked over to Edward. In spite of his objections, she placed her hand on the side of his head and brushed the hair that was behind his ears aside. When she saw the swollen redness, she frowned. "It looks like your gills are inflamed, Edward."

Ed practically choked. "Gills? I don't have gills! Gills are for fish!"

Sylvia gave the boy a much needed glare and said, "Of course you have gills, dummy, how do you think you're able to breathe underwater?"

Edward's eyes opened wide. He had apparently never thought of that before. Sure, he had always had 'ridges' behind his ears, which was why his mother always let him grow his hair long…to cover them up. They had just opened up for the first time on his birthday, but it had never crossed his mind that he had used them to breathe with. What was even stranger though was the fact that he still had these ridges…gills…while he was in human form. Did that mean that he had never been truly human?

Edward turned to look at Sylvia. "What should I do to calm down my…gills?"

"They need water." She walked towards the bathroom and made a motion with her hand, beckoning him to follow. "I'll help you."

The boy hung his head and sighed. It was kind of embarrassing to always have to rely on her help, but she was the kind of person who would not take 'no' for an answer. The best thing to do would be to just follow her and see if she could make his gills feel any better.

"I'm a fisherman, and I've spent quite a bit of time fishing off the shores of Creata." The old man paused and turned to see if Al was listening and then he went on with his story. "You may not believe me, but any fisherman or sailor worth his title knows it's true. There are people that live in the sea. People that have the capacity to spend their entire lives living underwater."

Al choked a bit, but tried to hide the reaction. He didn't want to hurt the old man's feeling because he seemed really nice, but he was starting to come off as a bit of a lunatic. I mean, sea people, really? Al forced a smile, thanked the old man, and was about to head back inside when the man grabbed Al's arm and wouldn't let him go. Al's pulse rate quickened at the sudden touch.

"I know you don't believe me," said the old man, "This is a lot of information to take in at once," The man paused and loosened his grip on Al's arm. Al didn't take the opportunity to run, since the old man didn't seem threatening to him, just kind of weird. The man turned to look at him again and said, "You seem better adapted to the land than the other sea people I've met…are you a half breed?" Al kept his mouth shut and didn't answer. How does one answer a question like that, anyway? The old man noticed Al's reaction and sighed. "Come now, don't tell me that you don't even have any gills behind your ears."

Al's mouth dropped open and his hand involuntarily reached up to touch the side of his head. Surely, those were just ridges…just a birth defect, right? He couldn't possibly be a creature from the sea, as intriguing as that thought was. The old man smiled gently at the perplexed boy and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I can see in your eyes that you want to believe what I'm telling you, but you're afraid to." Yes, that was true. "You brother is no doubt going west to get to the ocean, but he was likely stopped some miles from here. They're stopping random trains at that point." That could possibly be true. He was sure it was possible to verify, at least. "And I'm guessing that your name is…Alphonse Elric?"

Al stumbled back a few steps and felt his back smack into the door that led back to his car. His pulse rate once again began to go up. This was just getting too creepy. How did he know so much?

"I'm sorry," said the man, walking towards the frightened boy, "I didn't mean to scare you. I've just been trying to find the two of you for quite some time because I had suspected that you were both sea people. Now that I've finally met you, I've confirmed my suspicion."

"What-" Al choked on his own words, and his tongue refused to cooperate, "What do you want with us?"

The man once again placed his hand on Al's shoulder, and Al closed his eyes and turned away so that he wouldn't have to look at the man. The man frowned and put his finger under Al's chin to force Al to look into his face. "I just want to help you. After all the time I've spent getting to know the people of the sea, I've developed a deep fondness for them."

Al continued staring into the man's face, not like he had much say in the matter what with his chin being propped up, and tears began forming in his eyes. "Help us with what?"

The man let go of Al's chin since Al finally looked like he wasn't going to run off any second, and he sighed. He leaned once again on the railing and let the wind blow his hair around. "The military is looking for you…both of you. The higher-ups have known about this all along, even without your knowledge. Your brother's disappearance caused quite a stir because of that, and now the military is even going so far as to stop trains to find their runaway lab rat."

Al gasped. This all still sounded unbelievable, but he felt something deep down inside of him, a feeling that only surfaced when he was in denial of the truth. Teas welled up in his eyes again from the overpowering emotions, but he managed to blink them away. "How…How do you know all this?"

"I've been tapping into military broadcasts."

Right, that would make sense if this man was really trying to help them, but he couldn't shake the nervousness in spite of what his intuition told him. No matter what, he was still going to be afraid, but that needn't stop him from being brave. He planted his feet firmly on the floor and looked the man squarely in the eye. "What should I do?"

The man finally smiled again at seeing the determination in Al's eyes. He patted Al on the back and said, "You need to find your brother before this train is stopped."

"How do I do that? Is he on the train?"

"No, I think he's still in the town where all the trains are being stopped, because the military hasn't caught him yet."

"Then how can I-"

"You're going to have to beat this train to that town, or else they might catch you when they stop the train."

Al turned and once again gazed out over the blurred scenery. How was he supposed to beat a fast-moving train to the specified town where Ed was hiding? Even if he could pull that off, how would he find Ed in that town in a timely manner?

The man seemed to know what Al was thinking, and he reached into his pocked and pulled out what looked like a clamshell. "This was given to me a lot time ago by the sea people as a way to detect their presence. It will help you find your brother." Al took the shell from the man and looked at it, and then back at the man. He could feel a sort of living energy emanating from the shell, which he guessed was due to his biology, if this man was indeed telling the truth. Al knew that he was telling the truth, but it was easier to feign denial for a little while. He noticed a small eye hook in the top of the shell that made it look like it was capable of being hung from a chain. Reaching into his pocket, he found an old leather tie that he had picked up from somewhere, and threaded it through the eye hook. Now he could hand it around his neck and not worry about losing it.

"And in regards to how you're supposed to beat the train," said the man, who turned to point in a slightly northwesterly direction, "We're going to be crossing over a river over there very soon. The river takes a direct route to the town in question while the train has to go around mountains, lakes, and other things. If you dove into the river while the train was crossing over, you could easily beat the train there."

Al placed his hand on his chin and thought. He had never tried any sort of long distance swimming before, and he honestly wasn't sure how long he would last at it. Since he had to keep coming up for air, he wasn't so sure that he could continue swimming when he got tired and expect not to drown.

The man noticed Al's concerned look, and he asked, "Don't you know how to swim?" Al confirmed that he did, so the man asked again, "Are your gills open…or are they sealed shut?"

Al cringed. It still creeped him out to think of those ridges he had as gills, though that was probably what they were, even though they weren't in the least bit functional. "They're sealed shut. I can't use them."

The man sighed and once again pulled something out of his pocket. "The only way that you'll be able to make it in time to save the both of you is to have them open, so I guess we'll have to open them." The man pushed a button on the thing he was holding, and suddenly a small knife blade popped out. Al's eyes widened in horror. No way, he wasn't seriously going to…

"I'm sorry, Alphonse, but this is a life and death matter. If I don't open your gills, you'll both soon be captured, tortured, and eventually killed. Please just cooperate and let me do this, we don't have much time." Al gulped and opened and closed his hands a few times in anticipation of the pain that that would cause. A tear finally managed to escape and roll down his cheek. Was he afraid right then? Heck, yeah, but he wasn't about to let that fear put his brother in danger. Al finally gave the old man his consent, and the old man offered a light smile. "Good." He moved closer and brought the knife up to the side of Al's head. "This will only take a minute."

After a few minutes were past, Al sat on the floor of the place he and the man were still positioned between cars. His head was throbbing from the pain of the operation he had just gone through and he was having overwhelming spells of dizziness and nausea. He felt like his head was going to explode. A cold, wet feeling trickled down the side of his head, and he realized that he must've been bleeding heavily right then. The water ought to take care of the blood, but he hoped that he'd be able to retain consciousness from all the blood loss.

"It's almost time," said the old man, pointing off in the distance to the now visible river. "Let me help you get on top of the car. It'll be a better place to jump from than down here."

Al once again shivered and felt a sense of dread creep through him. He didn't mind high places, but he didn't particularly like jumping from high places. The thought of having to do it from a fast-moving train was too unnerving. The old man reached out his hand and beckoned for Al to take it, which he did. The two of them carefully made their way up to the top of the care where the wind was even more severe. Any minute now, that river would be upon them, and he would have to jump for it.

Just before they reached the bridge, the man turned to look at Al. "Son…if you perchance see my daughter on the way to your destination, would you tell her that I love her and will return home once I know that you two are safe?"

Al nodded. "I'll tell her if I see her. What's her name?"

"Sylvia."

Al braced himself as the train began to roll over the bridge. In just a moment, he was going to have to jump all that way down into the water below. He sure hoped that there was enough water there to break his fall. Al took one last deep breath, just in case he needed it, and began to direct his center of gravity so that it would be ready to jump when he needed to. The man tapped Al's back. "It was nice meeting you, son, I hope we get to meet again someday." He paused. "Now, get ready." Al tensed and waited for the go ahead. "Go!" Al leapt with all his might over the side of the bridge. There was no turning back now. He could only hope that everything went as planned.

Hope you liked that, please leave me some reviews, and I'll try to update soon. Take care!