Yes, yes, I know, I took forever to update this fic. It took me that long to get any inspiration for it, heh. When my muse goes on vacation, I seriously can't do anything until he returns, hehe. I guess that only my fellow writers would understand that, but it's true. Has anyone come up with a muse trap yet? It'd be nice to be able to catch them anytime you needed them, heh.

Disclaimer: Hmmm...I haven't written one of these in ages it seems. I'm not even sure I can come up with anything creative, heh. I once said that I don't own a rubber duck and then realized that that was not what the disclaimer was for, but I said that already. Oh well, I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist anyway...and no, I don't own a rubber duck either, just in case you were wondering.

The girl slowly opened up her eyes and stared straight ahead as she tried to adjust her focus. She felt bewildered at the fuzzy shapes swimming before her. Where was she? Try as she might, she couldn't recall the necessary information to fill her in on the current situation. Had something unusual happened to get her here, or was she merely waking up from a normal night of sleep? She blinked, and her vision finally began to clear. The blurry form before her slowly began to take the shape of an individual of some sort, though she couldn't yet clearly make out any identifying features.

"Are you okay, Maryd?"

The girl jumped involuntarily and found that she was bound to the surface she was lying on. That certainly couldn't be the result of a normal night's sleep. Her heart rate began to accelerate as she mentally lived through all the possible worst case scenarios she might go through in the next few minutes. She tried pulling against her restraints, to no avail. She might as well just calm down and find out why she was here, if anything.

"Maryd?" said the voice again.

The girl sighed and then blinked a couple times to clear her vision, which helped a bit, as the forms were slowly beginning to develop features. "Is...Is Maryd my name?"

A gentle hand was placed on the girl's forehead in response, and then was taken back off a few seconds later. "Yes, your name is Maryd. You must have had quite an experience to not remember. It will all come back soon, I'm sure."

"Um," said the girl, once again struggling against her bonds, "May I ask why I am bound?"

"Procedure," said the voice, "Sometimes patients get violent in their sleep, so we do that to protect the nurses."

"I'm not sleeping anymore," said the girl, "Can you release me now?"

"In a moment," said the voice, "As soon as I verify that you're alright. Can you see clearly?"

"Almost," said the girl.

"Almost?" said the voice, "Almost as in how much?"

"Well," she said, "I can tell that you're a guy."

The voice chuckled. "Well, that's a start. How many fingers am I holding up?"

The girl saw the figure move his hand in front of her, but her vision had not yet completely rectified itself, and she couldn't tell one finger from the next. She squinted to try and see them better, but it didn't help, so she just sighed and closed her eyes to rest them.

"I see," said the voice. "You had a really hard fall."

"What happened?" asked the girl.

"You'll remember in due time. I'm not a very good person to ask anyway. I only tend the sick and injured, I don't ask questions."

She understood that motivation well enough that she didn't bother to question it. There was no point in interrogating someone that didn't know much about the situation, so she figured that she might as well let it drop and just focus on getting back to normal so that she could understand who she was and why she was here.

"Hold this," said the voice, who put something small and hard in her right hand and carefully closed her fingers over it. Instinctively, the girl knew it to be a crystal, though she didn't know how she knew that. She was just aware that crystals were heavily used in this sort of healing practice.

"I want you to hold this too," said the voice on her other side, thrusting another crystal into her other hand and closing her fingers over it as before. She didn't object, merely allowing him to do whatever it was that doctors/nurses did. She wasn't sure which one he was, and at that point in time, it didn't seem to matter.

"Okay now, hold still for a few minutes," he said, and then he placed a third crystal onto her forehead and carefully balanced it there before retreating his hand. The girl could hear the man then move away from her and start to chant some sort of tune. The atmosphere around her seemed to start to buzz with electricity, plunging into her body and enlivening everything it touched. She allowed her eyes to roll back into her head and smiled as the feeling pervaded her body. This energy was precisely what she needed at the moment.

After a little while, the feeling died down, but it still left enough of the tingling sensation in her bones so that she was able to feel reasonably comfortable. The man came around and removed the crystals first, and then glided back over to her and stood by her side. "Now, Maryd, open your eyes."

The girl obeyed and opened her eyes. Everything was still blurry, and she was about to start feeling discouraged that she would never see properly again when her vision suddenly came into focus. "I can see!" she shouted triumphantly.

"Good," said the man, moving into her field of vision, "Your body and soul were simply not well connected. I think we got that problem solved now." He then loosened her bonds without another word, apparently now assured that she was in no danger, or him for that matter.

She stared at the man before her. She couldn't deny that he was somewhat attractive with his brownish hair that was billowing in the wind and his slightly bulging muscles, but something seemed a little bit off about him, though she couldn't quite place what it was. Her trail of vision continued to probe down his frame, trying to recollect where she was, and hoping that seeing him in full detail would help. He was shirtless, which seemed a bit odd for a doctor or nurse in her opinion, and all he was wearing was a long green pair of pants, or was that a skirt?

Suddenly she snapped up to a sitting position, fully alert now. That was no pair of pants, that was a tail! Her nurse was a merman!

"So how are we going to help Ed and Al?" asked Winry, brushing a strand of hair out of her face as she did so.

"I haven't quite figured that out just yet," Roy admitted with a sheepish grin, "I hate to admit that I don't have all the answers sometimes, but I do know that something needs to be done. There's something quite 'fishy' about Edward, and I don't mean that figuratively."

"So then what do you mean?" asked Winry.

Roy cleared his throat and then put his hand in his lap and cast his gaze in a trance-like way so that it just missed contact with Winry's eyes. He paused for a few minutes without saying anything in response to her question, but he obviously wouldn't be able to dodge the question forever. Finally, he cleared his throat and looked at the girl again. "Winry...have you ever heard of merpeople?"

"Merpeople?" said Winry in surprise, "You mean, like those fish people in the fairy tales?"

"Exactly," said Roy, "Remember when I told you that Edward's DNA resembled that of a fish?"

"Yeah, but," said Winry, who then caught the thought that Roy had been trying to convey and allowed her jaw to sag in shock. "Wait, surely you don't believe in--"

"I didn't," said Roy, "Until this whole situation blew up. Something is seriously going on behind the scenes in the military. If merpeople existed, they would be the first to know about it, and they would also do a good job of covering it up so that no one else did. If they got their hands on a specimen, they would closely monitor it and learn its behavioral patterns for quite some time, possibly even years, and the specimen itself might not even be aware of it. They would begin to make plans, do experiments, conduct genetic engineering to make new controlled mutations on test subjects, and then they would proceed to test the specimen directly, who would finally realize what had been going on all along. Now tell me, what do you think would happen if the specimen got away before the military was able to take it into the lab and dissect it?"

"I suppose it would cause chaos," said Winry, "From what I've heard, the military gets really mad when things don't go their way. What's this got to do with Ed and Al though?"

"I'm getting to that," said Roy, putting up a hand to stop any further questions from coming. "I said that Edward's DNA resembled that of a fish. So does Alphonse's on a lesser scale. They've been involved with the military for years now, so the military has been able to keep its eye on them. And then suddenly, up they go and disappear, and now chaos ensues in the military, just as you described. What if I am correct, and merpeople really do exist? What if I'm further correct in assuming that Edward and Alphonse are two prime examples of merpeople?"

"You actually think that Ed and Al are mermen?" Winry said, though it sounded more like shouting. "I've never heard of anything so ridiculous--"

Roy stopped her with a held up hand once again. "I know how ridiculous it sounds, Winry. I have been tormenting myself to sleep every night trying to come up with a better explanation, and I am still empty-handed. Can you come up with anything better to explain what's going on, considering all the evidence?"

"Well...no..." Winry admitted hesitantly, "But that still doesn't mean--"

"I know it doesn't," said Roy, "But if they are indeed merpeople as I've been suspecting, then that puts the boys in serious danger, and they will need human help in order to get out of the military's clutches and get to safety. They can hardly call on their own kind, can they? They don't know anybody else from their native land."

"That's true," said Winry, putting both her hands on her head and starting to mess up her hair, "But it's just so...so crazy! How do you expect me to accept all of this when it sounds so bizarre?"

"You have plenty of time to think it over," said Roy, leaning forward in his seat and then standing up, "The last place the boys were seen is still quite a way west."

Winry quickly took her hands away from her head. "Wait, they've been seen? Where? How are they?" But she got no answer, as Roy had already left the car, and Winry was alone again.

Edward swam up to the surface of the river and poked his head out of the water. He brought his hand up to his mouth and allowed himself to erupt into a coughing spasm that sent mud in all directions, followed closely by Al doing the same thing as soon as he had reached the surface. After he had calmed down, Ed placed a hand on Al's shoulder and said, "You okay, Al?"

"I'm fine, Brother," said Al, "But this water is getting too thick to breathe. I think we'll have to start traveling by land."

Ed sighed and looked down into the water surrounding him from the shoulders down. "There's no way I can travel by land, Al. I haven't transformed again since I saw you for the first time back in that town. I'm not sure if I'll ever have legs again, actually."

Al snapped his attention over to Edward. "But…I'm sure there's a way somehow. You were turned into a human when you were a baby or something so that everyone would think you were one. Who says that you can't turn into one again?"

"I was a baby, Al, that makes a difference," said Ed, staring directly into Al's eyes. "Children adapt a lot easier than adults do. I'm not sure I could take the strain of another…spell…" His voice trailed off at the use of that last word. He had finally admitted that Sylvia might be right in stating that magic existed and had been used on him, but it went against everything he had ever believed, and he wanted to resist the notion so badly. He shook his head to clear his mind of such thoughts for the time being, and then turned back to Al. "Anyway, you saw how I reacted when I transformed that last time. That hurt like heck."

"I'm sure it did," said Al, "But I don't know any other way. We can't keep swimming in these waters when we can't breathe in them, and we can't take you on land unless you transform."

"I know," said Ed, who sighed and took his hand off of Al's shoulder, "Let's just go downstream a little further. Maybe we'll find something up there."

"I hope you're right, Brother." Al then followed Ed's lead and flopped back into the muddy water. There must have been a way to get out of this situation. There just had to be.

"You're a merman!" yelled Maryd at the vision before her. The merman merely chuckled in response, making the girl clench her fists and begin to grind her teeth. She did not like being taken lightly.

"So are you," said the merman, "Well, you're a mermaid, but you're technically the same creature that I am."

Maryd looked down at her body. Sure enough, from her waist down, her body was covered in green scales just like the boy before her. How had that happened? She had thought somehow that she was human, until she had seen that.

She looked back up at the boy. "What did you do to me?" Tears were beginning to brim into her eyes, though she knew by now that they wouldn't slide down her face, as the water around her would just wash them away. "Why did you turn me into a mermaid?"

"I didn't," said the boy, throwing his hands up to portray innocence, "You've always been one. You've simply been around humans too long and forgot."

"I've been around…humans?" said the girl, a faint part of her consciousness finally starting to unlock within her. Feelings that she knew to be associated with forgotten memories began to leak into her mind, though the memories they were associated were still stuck behind that wall of forgetfulness.

"Yes," said the merman, "So much so that you've forgotten what we even call ourselves. We are sea people, not merpeople. That word is completely human in origin."

"I…I see…" said the girl, placing a hand on her head to balance it as though it were about to fall over.

"Do you?" said the boy.

Maryd glanced up at him for a split second and then back down at her tail as though it would help her to retrace the missing memories to look there. "I'm seeing something," she said, "A couple boys…they look human, sort of…and a sense of obliviousness." She stopped for a moment as she tried to register these thoughts that were just now coming into her consciousness. The boy stood by patiently as she did so, only speaking when she needed encouragement to keep trying.

Suddenly she gasped. "I sense impending doom. I don't know what, but it's bad, and these boys are Atlanteans!"

The boy patted her lightly on her back. "You're doing well. Give it some rest now. You'll remember more later."

Impatiently, she pushed the boy's hand away from her. "I don't have time to rest! Those boys are in trouble. I have to get to them NOW!"

"But how would you do that?" asked the boy, indignantly. "Granted, a fellow Atlantean needs our help, but from what I gathered, these boys are on land. How do you expect to get there, and with amnesia to boot?"

"I'll find a way!" shouted the girl, who then kicked her tail and swam up into the water surrounding the table she had been lying on. The boy reached up to try and grab her, but she kicked his hand away and bolted for the nearest window. She couldn't blame him for trying to catch her again, after all, it was his job, but she needed to get away from him for now.

"Ed…Al…those were their names," she muttered to herself as she swam away from the building she had just escaped from, "Wherever they are, I'll find them, somehow, and I'll see to it that they get the help they need. There has to be a way." With that thought, she aimed herself for the center of town and swam forcefully in that direction without even knowing whether that was the right way to go or not. Something had to be tried, even if she didn't know what she was doing. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and then opened them again to let the ocean water rush back into them and sweep them of the tears that had been forming there.

Hope you liked the chapter. My muse is still kind of iffy on whether he wants to stick around or not, so feel free to make suggestions, as that might convince the muse that he should stick around and have a party. ((snickers)) Yes, yes, most muses are supposedly female, according to the old legends, but try telling that to mine, hehe. I suppose that I could put him in a dress. Wonder what he'd think of that? ((evil thoughts)) Anyway, I'm not going to force you to review, but I'd certainly appreciate it, and suggestions would certainly help my muse to stick around, hehe. See you soon!