I'm sorry that it took me so long to update this story. A lot has been going on in my life lately, but the drama is finally starting to slow down a bit and allow me to think and breathe once again. Phew! Anyway, hope that you enjoy this chapter, and don't kill me too hard, heh.

Disclaimer: I own Ed. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...though you probably don't believe me.

Al staggered a couple steps as he tried to remember how to stand up, and his jaw dropped involuntarily. What had he just seen?

"Al?" Al shook his head when the voice pierced through his thoughts to bring himself back to the present time, though he continued to stare at his brother, who was speaking. "Al…shut the door, will you?"

The boy solemnly nodded and clicked his mouth shut. The door was closed in complete silence, and then Al turned back around to face his brother, hoping he'd have the strength to do so.

"Al…come here," Ed said again. Al nodded without a word and slowly stepped towards his brother, eyes widening as he got a better look at what had become of his brother's legs. The two boys just stood there for several awkward moments exchanging glances, neither daring to break the silence.

Finally, Sylvia stepped back into the scene. "Alright, you two, that's enough of this silent treatment. You're both merman, but neither one of you knew about it. Deal with it!" Both boys broke eye contact with each other and looked up at the girl, who was standing with her hands on her hips, wearing a smug look on her face. She then knelt down next to Ed and placed her hand on his tail. "You feel a little dry. Let's get you into water."

Sylvia then stood up and shifted her position so that she was able to grab underneath Ed's arms. She motioned to Al with her head to go and grab Ed's tail, which Al shakily proceeded to do. Perhaps it was a little mean for her to make Al touch Ed's tail when the two boys hadn't quite accepted each other's presence yet, but Al understood the reasoning behind the gesture. He was just going to have to accept the predicament that he found himself in now.

He grabbed a hold of the mass of scales, which he found felt eerily fish-like, and he followed Sylvia's lead into her bathroom. She had explained that there was no safe way to get him back to their room in this condition, so it was best to just let him rest in her bathtub until nightfall.

Soon, Ed was comfortably resting in a bathtub of warm water with Al and Sylvia standing over him, alternating between facial expressions of worry and intrigue. No one was saying a word, and the silence was getting awkward. There had to be some way to break the ice.

Just then, Sylvia plopped down on the floor so as to be at Ed's level, and said, "Hey, Ed…your two weeks weren't up yet…what made you transform all of a sudden?"

Ed chuckled and placed the back of his hand across his forehead. "I saw Al."

"What?"

"Just what I said." Ed licked his lips. "When I saw Al standing there, I sort of…lost control."

A moment of silence ensured, as it appeared that Sylvia was thinking on that one, when she said, "Oh! Seeing your brother produced an emotional response, resulting in a premature transformation."

Ed looked at Al, and then at Sylvia, then back at Al. "I guess," he shrugged, and then laughed slightly. Hey, the only person in that room who had a clue about mer-biology was Sylvia, not the two boys that SHOULD have understood it. They had never really thought that all that mythological stuff was all that important, until now.

Sylvia smiled and then stood up, stretched her arms over her head, and yawned. "I'm gonna go take a nap. You two catch up, got it?" She flashed them another smile, which seemed to just turn her last statement into more of a threat than an invitation, and then she calmly stepped out of the room and went to bed.

Several hours later, Al went to her bedside and began shaking her awake. It was now nighttime, which would be the best time to get Edward out of her room. A beam of light from the moon outside her window shone in the room and illuminated Al's face, revealing his look of concern. Sylvia sat up and stared at the boy. "What's the matter, Al?"

"It's Brother…a-and…I don't know what's the matter…but I'm worried."

Without another word, Sylvia jumped out of bed and made her way to the bathroom. She quickly flicked on the light, and then turned to look at Edward. The boy's eyes were closed, and he breathing had become rather heavy and erratic. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead and rolling down his face to drop into the water.

"Edward, what's the matter?" Sylvia stooped down next to the boy and placed her hand underneath his chin. He opened his eyes just wide enough to reveal how pale their natural golden color had become, and then closed them again and continued with his heavy breathing. About then, Sylvia's gaze dropped to Edward's tail. What was normally a mass of grayish-green was now a mass of pure gray. That couldn't be a good sign.

"Edward, you're sick!"

Edward's eyes opened just a bit once more and looked at her, and then closed them once again. "No colors," he said.

"I know," Sylvia said, "You've got no color in your tail. That's what worries me."

"Colors…gone…" came the labored response from Ed, to which Sylvia responded by wrapping her arms around the boy and gently rocking him back and for like a mother. She had barely even noticed Al standing in the room beside her, looking worriedly between the two of them.

"Yes, you're pale, Ed…what can we do to make you feel better?"

"Your color…"

Without warning, a loud smack was heard on the window in the room just outside the bathroom. Al volunteered to check it out. He left, and in a moment was back with his report. "Some bird ran into the window. It was a big black one, like a crow or a raven or something."

Sylvia involuntarily shivered at that. She hated to admit it, but she was a little bit superstitious, especially now with Ed babbling nonsense about colors right then. No, she'd decided, she wasn't going to let a bad omen come between her and her friend. Edward would get back safely to his people, no matter what it cost her.

She looked up at the other boy. "Al…grab a few of those towels and get them wet, and then go and grab the blankets off my bed."

"Okay…" Al said, confused, but obediently following instructions all the same. He brought her the towels and began dampening them, just as she'd asked. "May I ask what we're doing?"

"We're going to wrap your brother up in these to keep him wet and then wrap the blankets around him to avoid suspicion." She caught Al open his mouth to protest that their room wasn't far enough away for Ed to get dehydrated in transit, and she gave him a look that told him to just hear her out. "He's really sick, Al. He needs to get back home, to the ocean, where he originally came from. We don't have anymore time to waste dallying around with him living in a bathtub. He needs the sea."

Al started quivering, most likely from a combination of worry and overwhelming sadness, and he nodded his head and proceeded to go and gather the blankets off the bed.

Very soon, the three of them were making their way through the dark city streets, Al and Sylvia carrying a tightly wrapped Edward, who oddly was too tired to complain about his predicament. "Don't worry, Ed," said Sylvia, "We're nearly there. I'm sure that the river water will give you back some of your strength, and if you boys follow it to its end, you'll be within a few miles of the Creatan border." The girl paused to get her breath and regain her balance as she listened to the erratic patterns of their footsteps in their attempt to carry a heavy load. "If you can find a way to cross land for a few miles, you'll meet up with another river just on the other side of the border, which should take you all the way to the ocean. Just…watch out for waterfalls." Sylvia tried to smirk in an attempt to lighten the mood, but Ed only persisted in talking about colors, so she returned to her concerned stance and concentrated on getting him there as soon as possible.

Before long, Al and Sylvia had arrived at the riverbank and had gently placed Ed in the water, trying to get him to recuperate somewhat. Sylvia was splashing a little water on his face when Ed finally muttered, "…Soldiers…"

Sylvia's eyes widened and she stood up and looked around, but couldn't see or hear anything amiss. Catching the worried look on Al's face, she said, "He's hallucinating." Kneeling down next to Edward once again, she proceeded to try and console him. "There are any soldiers, Ed, okay? Your mind's just playing tricks."

Edward seemed unfazed by her words, and in another labored breath, he said, "…Run…"

This time, Al cam over and started splashing water on his face to try and pull Ed out of whatever kind of fit he was in. "Brother," he said, hoping that a brotherly voice would have the desired effect, "There's nothing to run from. There are no soldiers. We were very careful about that."

"Colors…your colors…gone…"

Both Sylvia and Al sighed, as they still hadn't a clue as to what Ed was trying to say whenever he mentioned colors. It seemed that he was most likely suffering from some sort of delusion. Al raised his hand to splash some more water on his brother's face when Ed's necklace suddenly activated. Ed's hand came up and grabbed Al's wrist in a tight grip.

"Sylvia…run…" Ed said between still labored breaths, even if he did seem to have a little more control all of a sudden. "Al, come on!" Without giving anyone a chance to respond, Ed flipped his tail and dove into the river, dragging Al with him.

Al, not knowing what was going on with his brother, struggled frantically as the air began to escape from his lungs. He wasn't worried about drowning or anything, since he knew his gills would take over in a minute, but he didn't like how strangely his brother was acting. The struggle continued beneath the water for several minutes with Al adding yelling at his brother to the mix one his gills took over.

Finally, Al broke free of Ed's grip and swam to the surface. He poked his head out and immediately heard a shout of, "You let them escape!" Quickly glancing around, since Al knew that his brother would pull him back under any minute, he caught sight of Sylvia…and were those soldiers? It couldn't be!

He didn't get time to figure it out, because he soon felt a tug at his heel which pulled him back under the water. Ed reached out his arms as if to hug his brother and pulled AL toward him, holing the boy tightly to his chest. Al wasn't sure how to react, as everything was happening too fast, so he just waited.

A disturbing vibration soon pulsed through the water. Al was sure that that couldn't have been good, as it sounded somewhat like an explosion. His first impulse would have been to swim to the surface to check on Sylvia, but Ed's embrace was still tightly locked around him, making movement impossible.

Finally, Ed spoke. "She-She's gone, Al."

"Who?"

"Sylvia. I couldn't save her."

"What? No!" With a sudden burst of energy, Al finally managed to break Ed's grip and swim to the surface. Thankfully, the soldiers weren't there anymore, but where was Sylvia? Surely they wouldn't have dared to do anything to her! Al quickened his pace and began swimming frantically for shore, surprised that Ed wasn't pulling him back under this time.

Finally, Al reached shallow water, and shakily stood up on wobbly legs that were even more weighed down by his wet clothes. He scanned the shoreline. "Sylvia?" Then he noticed a bundle of clothes lying just a few yards away from where he was standing. "Sylvia!" He burst out running toward the place where the bundle lay.

The boy gasped when he saw Sylvia's form lying lifeless in the sand. The bullet wound on the side of her head was enough to tell anyone what had just happened. Al's legs gave way, and he fell down next to the still body while holding his head and crying, "No! No! No!"

A moment later, Al felt a hand on his shoulder. Startled, he turned around to see Ed sitting there beside him, a sad look in his eyes. Al had such a surge of emotions right then that he wasn't sure which ones actually belonged there in a time like that. He turned to his brother and said, with a note of bitterness in his voice, "You knew, didn't you? You knew they were going to kill her!"

Ed nodded sadly without saying anything. More angry tears rushed to Al's eyes and threatened to burn them until he was blind. "Then why didn't you save her? Why did you let this happen?"

"I tried to warn her."

"How?" said Al haughtily, "What did you do?"

Ed sighed in acceptance of Al's attitude toward him at the present and just continued to explain. "I was barely able to talk, but I tried to tell her about the soldiers and I tried to get her to run for her life." Al's mouth dropped open at that, but Ed kept on. "I also tried repeatedly to warn her about her colors, but she didn't seem to understand."

Al raised his eyebrow at his brother. "What did that mean, anyway?"

"Oh…um…" Ed had to pause and think as though suddenly realizing that someone might not have understood what he had been trying to say all that time, "Well…when I first changed into this form, I noticed that some of my senses heightened. I can now see a faint field of color around everything living. Her field suddenly disappeared today, and I didn't think that that was a good sign, so I was trying to warn her."

Al looked down at the ground, suddenly feeling guilty for the way he had been thinking and feeling about his brother the past few hours. His brother HAD had reasons for the things he'd done; he hadn't been delirious. He had been doing everything in his power to save Sylvia's life.

"Brother?" Al asked after a moment of silence.

"Hmm?"

"Why did you pull me under…and leave Sylvia to fend for herself?"

"Because, there was nothing more we could do than to try and get her to run, and I didn't want to lose you too."

Al nodded, not really able to make himself respond verbally, as tears began rolling down his face. Ed placed a hand on Al's shoulder once again. "It's weird…once again, I lose someone important to me, and I just can't seem to cry." Al threw his face into his brother's chest and proceeded to sob enough for the two of them. He had barely even known Sylvia, yet his tears were so intense. He had apparently managed to connect with her, even after knowing her for only a short time.

After some time had passed and Al had calmed down again, both boys once again stared at the lifeless form before them. They knew that they couldn't report her location or carry her body to a suitable burying ground without risking their own lives, and it was obvious that Sylvia wouldn't have wanted that. The loss of their lives would make her sacrifice meaningless. However, they still wished to show her some sort of respect, even if they couldn't bury her properly.

"We could bury her right here for now, Al," said Ed, solemnly, "The authorities will find her within a few day and take her to a proper resting place. Until then, maybe we can make her…comfortable."

Al agreed, and the two quickly dug a hold and placed her body in it. Al took off the coat he'd been wearing, Ed's red jacket, and placed it so that it covered her face. They didn't want to have to throw dirt in her face. Soon they filled the hole back up and had mixed a little bit of water in with the soil to that it was pliable. Ed took his right index finger and wrote in the mud over the temporary grave: "Goodbye, Sylvia. We'll Miss You."

Al gasped and jerked his head up at what he'd just seen. "Brother…you got your arm back?"

Ed turned up the right corner of his mouth in a half smile. "Yeah." He turned back to the grave, bowed his head, and whispered, "Goodbye" once more. Al followed suit, and then both boys jumped back into the river. Sylvia had given up everything just to get them home, and they weren't about to quit now. They'd continue on for her sake.

Heh...I didn't even see this coming, to be honest. It was unexpected for me, and even I don't have any words to say, heh. ((Melissa without words to say? Quite shocking.)) Anyway, if you'd like, please leave me some reviews, and I'll try to update soon. Suggestions are welcome too.