Wow...you guys really liked Sylvia a lot, didn't you? Every one of you that reviewed mourned her loss. I guess I never expected such a strong reaction to an OC. Well...thank you, that's encouraging. Sorry, I can't tell you what's going to happen later in the fic, it'll spoil things for you. ((A lot of you asked about that, hehe.))

"Brother, can I do the disclaimer?"

"Why do you want to do the disclaimer, Al?"

"Because I've never done one before."

"Well, there's nothing special about it, but if you want to, go ahead."

"Okay! Melissa doesn't own me, but she owns Brother and he doesn't know it."

"What kind of disclaimer is that? Are you in league with her?"

((chuckles))

"Brother," said Al sadly as he turned to face the other, "Why did Sylvia have die? For that matter, why is the military after us?"

Edward shrugged as if to stall having to answer for a moment or two while he turned his body so that he was facing downstream. He then let go of his resistance to the river's pull and let the current carry him along. Al picked up his pace and soon joined him. "I don't know, Al…Why Sylvia had to…you know," he choked on the words a little bit as they came out, apparently reluctant to mention any word that had to deal with death. "I know why they military wants us though."

"Why?" Al prodded in his innocent way. His brother rolled his eyes and began to explain.

"We are both intelligent creatures, yet we're not human…or at least, not fully." Ed gave Al a quick glance to drive his point home and then continued with his explanation. "According to the way the authorities think, that means that we have no rights and they can do what they want with us. Remember how they treated the chimeras?"

Al nodded slowly, somewhat hesitant to answer. "…Yeah…but they mistreated them because they thought that chimeras could be valuable in war."

The older brother once again glanced at the younger, and in a voice that sounded like he was explaining two plus two to a first grader, said, "Well, we've certainly proven our value in war, haven't we?"

Al stopped swimming for a moment as everything suddenly clicked in his head. When Edward noticed that his brother was no longer beside him, he stopped too and turned around to face him. Al hovered in place for several moments, refusing to utter a word as his thoughts raced over him. Would the government treat them the same way as they had the chimeras if they ever got a hold of them? Thinking about it, it made sense as to why the military wanted them so badly. He could function on both land and water, and his brother was developing new abilities that no one had ever heard of. Only one thing was certain now; they had to get out of Amestris, and fast.

"Well, fancy meeting you here, Miss Rockbell," cam the casual introduction of the man in the blue suit. Winry looked up from her thoughts, briefly surprised to have been recognized and addressed, but calmed down when she realized who it was.

"Oh…hi, Colonel Mustang."

The man formed a tic in the corner of his lip that was threatening to turn into a smile, and he glanced briefly around the car they both found themselves in. "There don't seem to be any open seats. Would you mind if I sat down here?"

That was entirely untrue, and Winry knew it. She had picked a rather lonely car deliberately so that she could wallow in her thoughts. Colonel Mustang couldn't have found her by chance. He must have known she was on this train and sought her out.

"No, I don't mind," she said with a sweeping gesture of her right hand, "Sit."

Colonel Mustang sat opposite Winry gratefully and leaned forward in a sort of slouching posture while turning his head up to look at Winry. After steepling his fingers and tapping them together a few times, he apparently regained whatever composure he had had and spoke. "I suppose that we're both here for the same reason."

"You're looking for Ed and Al too, aren't you?" Her voice almost carried a note of accusation in it, thought Colonel Mustang didn't seem to mind too much. He merely sighed and nodded.

"Like I said earlier, Miss Rockbell,"

"Winry."

"What?"

"Call me Winry."

Colonel Mustang finally allowed himself to smile again as he paused to think on that one. He at last spoke up again and said, "If you'll call me Roy."

It took a moment longer for Winry to decide if she was willing to make that sort of leap by calling to Colonel by his first name, but then, if she wanted him to call her by her first name, then it was only fair to return the favor, right? "Okay," she finally said, "I'll call you Roy from now on."

Roy smiled at that and changed his position so that instead of slouching he was now sitting erect and had crossed his legs in a figure four position. He definitely appeared more self confident than he had looked a moment before. "Well, now that we're on a first name basis," he began, and then paused, apparently having entirely lost his composure from the moment.

Winry decided to help him. "You were going to say something about Ed and Al, I'm guessing?"

Roy nodded and cleared his throat. "Yes, thank you. Remember when I said that Edward and Alphonse didn't appear to be quite human?" Winry nodded, so Roy continued. "Well, I had my men study it further. Their DNA, especially Edward's, sort of resembles what you'd get if you crossed a human being with a fish."

Again, Winry was silent as she tried to process this new information. "So…what are you saying?

Roy leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "The last few clues you've received from either of the brother have been that they were going west, right?" Winry slowly nodded. She had never actually TOLD Roy that the boys were going west, but he could have easily gotten the tip from someone else. "This is just a hypothesis of mine," Roy continued, "But I suspect that those boys are trying to leave the country. Actually, I suspect that they're trying to leave ANY country."

"What do you mean?" asked Winry.

Roy sighed and relaxed his arms so that they fell down at his sides and looked at the girl with a gentle, fatherly gaze. "I think those boys are trying to get to the sea, and they're going to need our help."

Ed and Al had been swimming for several hours non-stop, not even bothering to rest or eat. They both knew how important it was to get out of the country's grip as soon as possible, and they moved on with a panicked vigor, not even daring to surface unless Al had to breathe. He seemed to need to breathe air rather than water every so often, which could have simply resulted from his gills being smaller and less efficient than his brother's.

Finally, Al could go on no further. He crossed his arms across his stomach as it made a rumbling noise and said, "Brother…I'm sorry, but I can't go on without eating something." Ed looked at Al with a slight note of annoyance, but didn't dare grumble about the situation. Ever since he had gotten his body back, he'd had difficulty with keeping his spirit firmly attached to his body, and so had had to develop adaptive measures to make the ordeal bearable. Making sure that his blood sugar level never dropped too low was one helpful measure, and Ed was well aware by now that when Al ran out of energy, he ran OUT. Annoying or not, they'd have to stop until this problem was solved.

"Hmmm…" said Ed, swimming in circles around Al, amazed at the dexterity he was developing under the water in this new form. "I don't know what's around here that's edible, Al."

"What about your new senses?" Al asked, "Aren't they telling you anything?"

Actually, Ed hadn't even thought to pay attention to his senses, but he supposed it was worth a shot. He had noticed as he was swimming that his hair seemed to be picking up every vibration and wave in the water. Perhaps that was why his hair moved around like it did; it was acting as a sort of antenna.

Edward cautiously took a deep breath, being careful to avoid using his lungs underwater and only using his gills for breathing, and he undid the tie fastening his hair. As it unraveled itself over the next few seconds, he could only pray that Al wouldn't freak out too much, if God would even listen to him, that is.

He closed his eyes and paid strict attention to the signals his hair was sending him. The fact that it had a life of its own was still creepy, but Sylvia was right. It was part of him, so he just had to accept it. A few moments of silence passed with Edward in his meditation, when he suddenly broke it and swam down to the bottom of the river.

"What are you doing, Brother?"

"You'll see in a minute." Ed turned over rock after rock, trying to let the sensations in his hair guide him. True, it was nice to have a guiding force like that, but it got rather annoying when it would constantly get in his face. Finally, he found what he had been looking for, and he swam back up to Al, holding his cargo carefully. "How do you feel about a crawdad dinner, Al?"

At this, Al laughed. Not many people would turn down something like that when they were really hungry. "Sounds good," said Al, "But how are you going to cook them…or am I expected to eat them raw?"

"Watch and learn!" Ed then proceeded to throw his bundle of crawdads out of his arms. Before they got the chance to sink, Ed's hand and necklace began to glow with an eerie yellow glow, and an opaque yellow light sphere surrounded the group of crawdads, keeping them trapped. At this, Ed closed his eyes and increased his energy so that the water in the immediate surrounding area began vibrating with a high frequency.

Al looked around with a combination of wonder and fear. Ed smirked at the boy, and went back to what he was doing. He knew he wouldn't be able to further raise the temperature in the water unless he could focus it on the sphere, because he couldn't take the risk of harming Al or himself. Ed fixed his gaze on the glowing ball before him and mentally began commanding the energy to focus on that point, which it quickly agreed to do.

Within moments the job was done. The opaque yellow glow disappeared and the crawdads began sinking to the river floor, lifeless and well cooked. "Dinner is served!" shouted Ed, obviously excited over this new feat of his, "Dig in, Al, before I eat them all!"

The boys laughed as they both scrambled to retrieve the wayward crawdads. Soon they were sitting calmly at the bottom of the river, munching away.

"Brother?" Al said as he grabbed for yet another crawdad, 'How did you do that?" Edward shrugged, not quite knowing himself. "Well…it was amazing anyway. These new powers of yours…they're…impressive!" What kind of people ARE our people, if they can do things like that?"

Ed shrugged once again and tossed the remains of his last crawdad aside. "The only way to find out is to get there. Are you done eating?"

Al wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket, even though it probably wasn't necessary under water, and said, "Yep, and it was a great meal too."

Ed smiled. "Thanks." He turned back downstream and swam a few yards before turning back to Al and motioning with his hand. "Come on, slow poke! Atlantis isn't going to wait for us forever."

Al quickly swam up beside Ed wearing a confused look on his face. "Atlantis? What made you say that?"

"I have no idea," said Ed.

"You don't actually believe it exists, do you?"

Ed looked down at his tail and ran his hand over the scaled which were still a little grayer than they should have been, though he wasn't as sick as he had been out of water. "Well, Al…I'm not sure what I believe anymore."

He didn't wait for a response from Al this time, and just flicked his tail to propel him forward. All his life, he had thought he'd know where the dividing line was between fantasy and reality. Now he was beginning to wonder if that line existed at all.

Okay, the action should start picking up soon. Feel free to leave me some reviews, maybe even some suggestions for what you'd like to see in the story, if you have them. Hope to see you soon!