Disclaimer - I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of it's characters.
A/N - So this chapter kind of fast forwards a few years, so I don't have to write 300 chapters about boring research.
. . .
London, England
1926
Older Brother - 21, Younger Brother - 20
As the years passed, the Elric brothers continued to research at Patricia Matthews' house nearly every day. They ended up forming a close bond with the woman, and her would-be niece-in-law, Wendy. There were still key components missing from their formulas, but they were close. Closer than anyone had ever been before.
"Mommy! I wanna play outside!"
"Amanda Margret Stanley!" Lisa scolded the two-year-old. "If I have to tell you to sit back on the couch one more time . . ."
The black-haired, blue-eyed toddler pouted but did as her mother said.
"Roy, where's the baby?" Lisa asked her husband. Their house was so crowded it was hard to find anyone.
"Alphonse took him up stairs as motivation to wake Edward," Roy replied.
"Figures . . ." Lisa muttered. "Only that boy could be late for a party in his own home!"
. . .
Al stood outside his bedroom door. He was holding the Stanley's newest addition; a baby named Lewis. Like his older sister, Lewis had inherited his father's blue eyes, but his hair was blonde, like his mother.
Al knocked once on the door.
"Come in!" Edward called from the other side.
Alphonse raised his eyebrows, sincerely surprised he received an answer. He entered the room. "You're awake?"
"Cut me some slack, Al," the older brother said. "I'm twenty-one now. I can handle little things like waking up on my own."
Al gave him a look that read; seriously?
"Fine! The noise downstairs woke me!" Ed admitted.
Al chuckled and sat down on his bed. "Happy birthday, Brother."
"What's with the rug-rat?" Ed asked as he pulled his pajama shirt over his head.
"I thought if I dropped Lewis on you in your sleep it would wake you up," Al said. "And you can't hit a baby, so . . ."
Ed rolled his eyes as he started to button a clean shirt up his torso. "Just tell Lisa I'll be down a little while."
Al nodded. "Oh! And I forgot to tell you; Gracia and Hughes came all the way from Munich to see you today!"
Ed smiled. "Great, now I get to hear a lecture about how I need to hurry up and find a wife from Officer Spaz and be scolded for not writing more often from Mrs. Officer Spaz."
. . .
Ed finished getting dressed and walked downstairs. He met Al at the bottom.
Al gasped when he saw him. "Brother, you braided your hair! You haven't done that since Amestris."
Ed looked at him sideways for a second, then reached his left arm back and felt his head. He laughed. "Ha, I guess I did . . . Old habits die hard, I guess. I didn't even mean to . . ."
He reached back to undo the braid, but Al grabbed his arm. "Nah, leave it, Brother. It's kind of nostalgic."
Ed nodded. "Yeah, why not? It's been five years since I've been home for more than half and hour . . ."
Al face scrunched up. "Do you realize how much paper work you're going to have to do in Central once we get back?"
Before Ed had time to reply, someone across the room yelled, "There's my birthday boy!"
Ed turned bright red and tried to hide. But it was too late, Gracia and Hughes had already seen them.
The couple made their way over to the boys. When they got close enough, Ed and Al saw Gracia's stomach. It was swollen like a balloon.
"Oh God not again!" the brothers chorused to each other, beginning to panic.
"Happy birthday, Ed!" Hughes exclaimed.
"Thanks," Ed said. "And congrats on the baby."
Hughes smiled wide and Edward immediately regretted saying anything.
"OH I JUST KNOW WE'RE GOING TO HAVE THE WORLD'S CUTEST BABY!" Hughes began to ramble.
Different universe; same Hughes.
Ed and Al "accidentally" got lost in the crowd of people that had gathered and hid in the living room.
"Eddie!" Amanda cried from the couch when she saw them.
Al held a finger to his lips, signaling her to be quiet. He and Ed walked over and sat on either side of her.
"Hey, Mandy," Ed said.
"Mommy and Daddy say it's your birthday," she told him.
Ed nodded. "Yup! I'm twenty-one today. Cool, huh?"
Amanda smiled. "You're a big kid."
Ed laughed. "Yeah, I guess so."
Amanda turned to Alphonse. "How old are you, Al?"
"Well," Al said. "Technically I should be 19 right now, but because I spent a few years in a suit of armor my body stopped aging for a little while and physically I'm only around 15. So I'm not exactly sure how to answer that because in reality I don't have an exact age anymore."
Amanda blinked once, still waiting for an answer she could comprehend.
Al sighed. "Let's just say I'm 17, okay?"
Amanda nodded. "'Kay!"
The toddler turned back to Edward. "Eddie, what's a 'flood'?"
"When there's a lot of water in one place," Ed told her, by now used to her random questions. "Why do you ask?"
"Ms. Patricia was telling Daddy that he's lucky for living on a hill 'cause places in London were flooding but we're up high so we're safe."
"I heard about that," Al said. "Wendy's place is filled with water."
"Did I hear my name?" Wendy asked. They hadn't noticed her standing in the room. She sat down next to the younger Elric.
"We were talking about the floods in London," Edward explained.
"Oh, yeah . . . I've been staying with Patricia," Wendy told him.
"Why don't you stay here, Wendy?" Amanda asked. "Then we could play!"
"Because Patricia lives closer to my work," Wendy explained. "But I promise I'll visit more often, okay?"
Amanda nodded.
"Edward!" Lisa called from across the room. "We're going to serve cake, come on!"
"A little early for cake, isn't it?" Ed asked with a yawn.
Al and Wendy laughed.
"Brother, it's one in the afternoon."
"You sure slept in, huh, Ed?" Wendy asked.
Ed shrugged, pulled Mandy up onto his shoulders and stood up.
When they got into the dining room, pretty much everyone had already sat down at the table.
Lots of people had come to celebrate the elder Elric's birthday. Patricia, Wendy, Gracia and Hughes, Old Lady Williamson (who happened to look a lot like Pinako Rockbell), Fletcher Bentley and Russell Phillips (who happened to resemble two brothers the Elrics had once met, years ago), Roy, Lisa, Amanda, and Lewis (obviously), and some of their friends from town; the Andrews family and their daughter, Nina. And of course, Ed, Al, and Noah were there as well.
"When are you guys gonna get these kids out of the house?" Hughes exclaimed to Roy and Lisa when he saw Ed. "Come on, five in one house?"
Everyone laughed.
Lisa wrapped her arm about Ed's waist-something he instinctively flinched at. "Please, we'd never dream of kicking Edward out. He's just like family."
"And too good of a farm hand," Roy agreed jokingly.
Ed smirked and let Amanda slip down off his shoulders. He sat at the head of the table so he could see all of his friends.
"I'll never forget the first day I met Ed," Gracia said. "He had just moved in above my store. One day he ran through the door and asked me what the currency used in Germany was!"
Ed blushed, embarrassed as everyone laughed.
"I met him when I had to pull him off another guy outside a beer hall. Neither of them had been drinking, the guys just called Ed 'short' and Ed started beating the crap out of him!" Hughes exclaimed.
Even Ed had to laugh at that story.
"I had never met him once until the day he made a boy run home crying for making fun of Nina's dress," Mr. Andrews said. "I had never even seen him before that."
Everyone else went around, sharing the stories of how they had met Edward Elric. Every new one was just as insane as the last.
Ed looked down at the table.
"What's wrong?" Al asked.
"When we go home, we'll never see any of them ever again," Ed replied, his voice lowered so only Al could hear. "Amanda and Lewis won't even remember us, and the others will eventually forget as well."
Al looked down, too. "Maybe . . . Maybe we should just stay here, Brother. We could live here for the rest of our lives . . . Just give up on trying to find a way home. I mean . . . I don't want to say goodbye."
Ed shook his head. "We don't belong here, Al. We should have never come to this world. It's not natural, we weren't born here. There was another Edward and another Alphonse and they are the ones that this world is compatible with. Not us."
Al sighed and looked at Nina. She was laughing at the stories, along with everyone else. "She was given a better life, a better family in this world."
Ed nodded. "Look at her . . . thirteen, Al. That's how old the Nina we knew back home would be, too. We really are getting old, huh? To think we knew her when she was four."
Al nodded. "She's gonna grow up, get married . . . It'd be cool to stick around for that, don't you think?"
"But what about home, Al? We can't live in two worlds, and there's one that we belong in; where people are waiting for us."
"Well, I think there is one thing that we can all agree on," Hughes spoke up. "No matter how odd the circumstances, all of our lives changed for the better when those Elric brothers walked into our lives."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"They take care of us," Mrs. Andrews said. "I can't think of a single time when I needed help and they weren't there."
"They're my big brothers!" Amanda screeched happily. "They'll always be here for me!"
"And those stories you guys tell are the best!" Nina added. "I could listen to them forever . . ."
Lisa placed a big cake with twenty-one candles down on the table in front of Ed.
"Wait!" Nina cried. She grabbed another candle from the box in the middle of the table and stuck it in the middle of the frosting. "One to age on!"
. . .
After everyone had eaten their fill of cake, Amanda started asking to play outside again. It had recently snowed, and the toddler was very excited.
Nina offered to go out with her, and Lisa finally caved.
"You guys should come, too!" Nina told Ed, Al, Wendy, and Noah as she pulled on her gloves. "Fletcher and Russell as well."
"Alright," Ed agreed. "I'll just go find my coat, okay?"
When Ed went outside a few minutes later, all the others were already there; building snow men, throwing snow balls, and-
"Angels, Ed!" Nina cried happily. She and Al were lying on the ground, moving their arms up and down. "We made snow angels!"
Ed chuckled. "Well, this is definitely déjà vu, eh, Al?"
His younger brother laughed. "Just like the day you turned 12, and Elysia was born!"
"Oh yeah, Nina said. "Like in your stories!"
"Eddie, I like the snow!" Amanda exclaimed.
Ed walked over to her. "Watcha doin', Mandy?"
"I wanna make a snow man like Russell and Fletcher did but it won't stick." She grabbed a clump of snow with her chubby toddler hands and smashed it together. It broke apart and fell back to the ground.
"Here, let me help," Ed offered.
. . .
A few hours later, Lisa called them back into the house. When the eight of them-Ed, Al, Noah, Nina, Fletcher, Russell, Wendy, and Amanda-had changed out of their wet clothes, Gracia helped shuffle them into the sitting room. All the other guests were there as well, along with a new person, who was standing behind a camera.
"Pictures?" Al asked. "Why are we taking pictures?"
Lisa lowered her voice so only they could hear her. "When you boys get back to your own world, we want you to remember us; your family-in this world anyway. And we want to be able to show Amanda and Lewis their older brothers if they ever forget you. You boys are part of our family now, even if you do go back to your own dimension."
Ed smiled. "Thank you, Lisa."
She shrugged. "We figured it was the only gift we could give you that you could still use in your own world. Now come on, big smiles."
Ed looked at his friends, all smushed together in front of a camera and smiled to himself. Lisa was doing this because she actually believed their stories, and new that they would find a way home. She had faith in them, and that felt so nice.
. . .
Central, Amestris
1920
(Earth Year: 1926)
Granddaughter - 20
"Happy birthday, Elysia!" everyone shouted.
The nine-year-old beamed as she blew out her candles. Winry couldn't help from being reminded of the day she first met the Hughes family, when Elysia turned four.
"It was so nice of you to come all the way from Resembool just to see Elysia," Gracia Hughes said.
"Not just Elysia," Winry reassured her. "You and Sheska, too."
They were silent for a moment.
"So they still haven't found anything on Al" Gracia asked, sadly.
Winry shook her head. Gracia didn't know what really happened that day. She thought Al was just missing. Winry didn't know the whole story either. She didn't know where the Elrics were or even if they were still alive. All she knew was that they were never coming back. Yet for three years she had written them letters, at least once on month, telling them everything that had happened recently. She promised herself that all though they'd never get to read them, that somehow by her writing them, they would know that everyone was alright.
"Excuse me a second," Winry said. She walked away from the party, down the hall and into the Hughes's bathroom.
She locked the door and walked over to the mirror. She pulled a box of matches and a birthday candle out of her back pocket. She lit it.
"Happy 21st, Ed," she whispered, her eyes shut tight. You and Al have been gone a while . . . Al would be 19 now if his body hadn't gotten all screwed up. I guess he'd look around 15 if he had stayed here . . . Twenty-one, Ed. We sure are getting old, the three of us, huh? I'll be twenty-one two in a few months, yet I can still remember when we were toddlers . . ."
She took a deep breath and used her free hand to wipe the tears from her eyes. "Since you're not here, I'll make a wish for you, alright? I wish that you and Al would just get your asses home."
She blew out the candle, shoved the matches in her pocket, and left the bathroom to rejoin the party.
. . .
London, England
1926
"Hey, Ed," Roy called. He pulled his fingers in and out of his palm; signaling him to walk over.
Roy, Hughes, Mr. Andrews, and Old Lady Williamson all sat around a small table. They each had a glass of wine in their hands.
"What's up?" Ed asked.
Roy held out a glass to him. "On every birthday you have spent in my house, I have offered you wine, and every year you say no. Today you are 21, and I am thoroughly convinced you've never even tasted wine at all."
Ed crinkled his nose. "When I was 16, my Dad let me try a sip of his at a restaurant we had stopped at on our way to Germany. It tasted like crap."
"Come on, Ed!" Hughes begged. "Not all wine tastes the same! You'd never drink back in Munich, either. It's your birthday, live a little!"
Ed shook his head. "I'm just not a fan of alcoholic beverages."
Old Lady Williamson laughed. "You're such a little girl, Elric!"
"How about I make a deal with you?" Roy suggested. "If I can get Al to have some wine, then you have to try it too."
"Fine!" Ed agreed, completely convinced his brother would refuse the offer.
"Hey, Al!" Hughes called. "Get over here!"
The younger Elric abandoned the rest of the part guests in their game of musical chairs-at Amanda's suggestion-and walked over to them.
"Here," Roy said, handing him a glass. He poured some wine into it. "Drink that."
Al looked at it funny. "Why?"
"Because, it's a party!" Old Lady Williamson said. "Go on, you're old enough!"
Al looked at Mr. Andrews-the normally more practical one of their group. He nodded.
Al took a deep breath and sipped the strange liquid. After a pause he said, "Hmm . . . Not half bad."
The four drinking buddies laughed.
"Now let your brother," Mr. Andrews told Al.
He handed the glass to his older brother. "Here, Ed."
Edward made sure to give Roy his best glare before putting the glass to his lips.
"Well?" Roy asked.
Ed shrugged. "Better than what I had before, I guess."
Hughes threw his hands in the air. "The boy won't drink milk, now he won't drink wine! What the hell are we gonna give you, Ed?"
"Water's fine," Ed told him.
Wendy, hearing the spectacle, walked over to the table. "Who doesn't like milk or wine?"
Ed proudly raised his hand.
She clicked her tongue and snatched the glass out of his hands. She downed the rest of it in one gulp.
"What the hell, Wendy?" Ed exclaimed. "You've got to drive yourself home!"
"Please, one glass of wine is not going to make me drunk."
"I hope Winry didn't end up like this," Al whispered to his brother as Wendy poured herself more. He sounded scared.
. . .
Resembool, Amestris
1920
(Earth Year: 1926)
Ring!
Pinako Rockbell took one last drag from her pipe before turning around to reenter her house in order to answer the phone. Normally that would be Winry's job, but Winry was visiting some friends in Central at the moment.
"Hello, Rockbell Automail," she answered.
"Hello Ms. Rockbell," the unfamiliar voice replied from the other end of the call. "My name is Riza Hawkeye, I was wondering if Winry was around."
"Well, Lieutenant, I would have assumed you knew," Pinako said, recognizing the woman's name. "But Winry is in Central at the moment, staying with the Hughes Family."
"Really?" Hawkeye asked. "I would have thought the Colonel would have mentioned . . . Never mind that. Well . . . How has she been. I mean with the Elric brother thing, of course."
Pinako's eyebrows raised up her forehead. It was odd to receive a call from the military, never mind a personal call. Winry had nothing to do with Lieutenant Hawkeye, so why was she checking up? "May I ask the purpose of this question?"
"Oh, yes! Of course," Hawkeye replied. She sounded a little flustered. "Well, it's just that today would have been Edward Elric's twenty-first birthday, and I couldn't help but thinking that Winry would probably be in an especially sensitive state, given the circumstances. I just thought of it because I saw Edward's name pop up in some files-the anniversary of the day he passed his alchemy exam is coming up-and I just wasn't doing anything so I-uh . . . Well . . ."
Pinako got the message. First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye was just as bothered with the Elric's disappearance as Winry. The old woman couldn't help but wonder how much the Colonel actually told her, and how much she herself actually knew. "I see . . . As for Winry, who knows? She comes down from her room more often, but just this morning she told me about a dream she had. It was Ed's birthday, and the three of them were playing out in the snow like when they were kids. There were other people there, too, that she didn't know, and Ed was helping a little girl with black hair build a snow man and Al was making snow angels with another girl who looked around 13 or 14 with long brown braids."
"Well," Hawkeye said. "That's a little . . . Peculiar."
"You think?"
. . .
London, England
1926
"You okay, Wendy?" Hughes asked a few hour later.
Wendy nodded, holding her hand to her forehead. It was nearing ten o'clock. All the other guests had already gone home, and Amanda and Lewis were tucked into their beds. Hughes and Gracia were spending the night with the Stanleys before going back to Munich, and Patricia had taken a cab home about an hour before. "Just a little headache."
"Probably from all that wine!" Ed exclaimed.
Wendy shook her head. "No, I've been getting them a lot recently. Stress from the flood, I guess. If you don't mind, Ed, I think I'm gonna get going."
"Yeah, go ahead, get some sleep for once," Ed suggested.
Wendy laughed and hugged her friend. "Happy birthday, Fullmetal Boy."
Ed rolled his eyes. After three years, he had adjusted to Wendy's nickname for him, but that didn't make it any less annoying. She called him that because he had only been 12 when he became a state alchemist, but now, he was no longer a boy.
"Careful on the roads," Gracia warned her. "It's very icy."
"I will," Wendy promised.
Soon we'll be together, Wendy. Soon . . . I promise.
Ed froze. He hadn't heard that voice in nearly three years. Not since the day he first met Wendy.
No one else seemed to have heard it, which just confirmed Ed's suspicions.
Edward Matthews.