We're starting this again since we finally found a new plot, but we've switched around so that I'm doing the even chapters and she's doing the odds. Go figure, but whatever it takes to write a story, right?

Disclaimer: We don't own Fullmetal Alchemist.

"How are we supposed to cheat, Brother?" Al lifted a couple of the heavy books Ed had requested with a grunt and handed them to him. "This isn't like something where you can just stick a card into your hand that you secretly had up your sleeve."

"No," said Ed under the weight of the books, "But who says we have to play by the rules? Haven't we broken them already by traveling back and forth through time?"

Al nodded. He was about to mention the human transmutation as an example of breaking rules, but figured he'd rather not see his brother's somber face in reaction to that. Neither of them needed to be reminded of the consequences of rule breaking when you didn't do it right. So he picked up a couple more heavy books and followed his brother.

At the old shed, the two boys put down their heavy books and panted until their energy was restored. They may have had teenage minds, but there was just no way to skirt around the issue of being in four and five year old bodies.

Ed then sat down and flipped open the first book he could grab and started reading. Al sat down too, but he hadn't a clue what he was supposed to do. This was Ed's idea, not his. He wished his brother would at least tell him what was going on so he could at least pretend to be helpful.

Al waited for several minutes while his brother skimmed through one book, and then another, seemingly looking for something, yet not revealing what it was he needed to know. Al opened his mouth to question his brother on this, when suddenly Ed burst out with a loud, "That's it!"

Al raised an eyebrow. "What's it?"

Ed placed the book down so that both of them could see it. "This," said Edward as he pointed to a design in the book, "is a special array used to find things that are lost and replace them where they ought to be. I would have to modify it somewhat to allow it to carry human souls, but I think we could get you back home that way."

"But it wouldn't work for you," said Al. "The blood seal on your android body got destroyed, and now that body has been stolen."

Edward rolled his eyes. "Stolen by the greedy military, no doubt." Al nodded, and so Ed let out a sigh. "Don't worry, Al, I'm coming up with plans on what to do with myself, but we need to get you home. Do you have any idea what trouble your four-year-old self could cause with your adult body?"

"Oh, geez," said Al, and he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "What about your five-year-old self? He's the reason you can't go back to that android body."

"I know," said Ed, "Kids do really stupid things, even if that kid is… was you. Maybe especially then."

Al chuckled slightly, but then grew all somber once again. "Where do you think your five-year-old self went off to? There was no body for him to return to, so I'm worried that…"

Ed interrupted him. "Don't worry so much. Our past is assured because we've lived it. Somehow my younger self gets back into this body. If he had nowhere else to go, he probably just followed younger you."

Al laughed. That sounded so ridiculous, but perhaps his brother didn't mean it the way it sounded. He would ask. "You made it sound almost like you were saying that the two were both sharing my body."

"I did," said Edward as he looked up from the book and at his brother. "My memories from that long ago are faint. I was so young when all this happened to me the first time. But that's what I think I remember. You and I were in a big person's body, cramped together and very uncomfortable."

"That's weird…"

Edward raised an eyebrow. "You don't remember it?"

Al shook his head. "No, I don't." He leaned backward and steadied himself with his hands. "Then again, I don't remember any of this the first time around. Except for all your robot talk."

Edward snorted and then went back to looking at his book. "Well, if I'm right and we use this circle, it will call to both the younger you and the older you and will make the switch. But since my younger self is also in your body, it might pull him out as well and bring him back. I dealt with having both of us in the same body at once before, but this circle looks like it's too powerful and precise to allow for that. I'll have to come up with an idea of where I can go."

Al rubbed at his chin. There had to be something they could do for his older brother. Just when he finally got him back was the last time he wanted to lose him for good. Al shook his head and shrugged. "We could bind your soul to something."

Edward made a look of disgust, and Al felt like he was shrinking to get away from his brother's scrutiny. He knew how much it sucked to have one's soul bound to an inanimate object, and that it was probably worse than death, but in the case of Al's being bound, he'd still had a body to return to, once they found it. His brother hadn't any body to return to. Maybe it was just cruel of him to have bound his brother's soul like that when he knew it would be permanent. There was no body to look for.

His brother softened his gaze. "Sorry, Al. I wasn't being angry at you for doing it. You did what you had to do. But soul-binding doesn't feel good, so I don't want to go down that path again."

Al nodded, but he wasn't exactly sure he felt better about the situation. If anything, he felt worse. He had suggested the only thing he knew that could possibly solve their dilemma, and his brother had slapped it away without a trial. He couldn't blame his brother, but now he felt worthless.

"Maybe I could try possessing something instead of being bound to it. What do you think, Al?"

What did he think? He thought it was a crazy notion. If it was possible to just possess something for a long period of time instead of being bound to it, then he would have surely done that. There was no way someone could do a long term possession and get away with it.

Edward stood up. "I'm going to try it. My soul's not very firmly planted in this body anyway." He walked over to where a pipe was standing against the wall and said, "Al, come here. I need you to catch me if I fall."

Al rolled his eyes and went after his brother. This whole thing was just stupid, but he would go along with it just long enough for his brother to realize that himself. He positioned himself just behind his brother, and Edward grabbed a hold of the pipe and closed his eyes.

They waited for several minutes and nothing happened. Al was starting to get impatient and tap his foot. When would be a good time to tell his brother to quit this? If it lasted much longer, he would have to say something. There was no point in going on if it wasn't working, right?

Ed began to moan and he staggered backward until he completely lost control and fell into Al's arms. Al panicked and took a few deep breaths to get his anxiety under control. He looked at his older brother. Ed's eyes were wide open, but there was no life in them.

Panic completely seized Al and he began shaking his brother's body and calling out to him, "Brother! Wake up! Brother!" But nothing helped. Ed's body was simply limp and dead, and Al began to cry.

A few moments later, Al heard a commotion in the pipes. He couldn't quite make out what the noises were from. They almost sounded like voices, but none that he could make out. His brother's body temporarily forgotten, he watched the pipes as the sound moved through them and then went down to the spot his brother had held and settled there.

The noises continued to be audible from that solitary spot. They didn't move again, for some reason, and they were growing louder. Al was nervous. Should he get out of the shed? What about his brother's body? He was too little to be able to carry something as big as that, even if he was more coordinated than the average four-year-old.

Finally the voices reached a crescendo that was clear and crisp so that there could be no mistaking what was being heard. The voice said, "Al, get my body over here so I can get out. Come on already!"

Al looked between the pipe and the body he was holding in his hands, hardly daring to believe what he had just heard. Possession without a seal was impossible, wasn't it? Surely his brother would've known that, since he remembered his Gate experience best. He would have known if he didn't have to resort to using a blood seal, wouldn't he?

"Al!"

Al finally stood up, staggering under the weight of his brother's body. He managed to get it almost standing and he lifted one of his brother's arms to press against the pipe.

The next thing he felt was that some sort of dam had broken loose as a surge of energy passed through Edward's hand and into the rest of his body. It was so intense, Al could feel it even without being the recipient of such energy.

The energy settled down a few moments later, and Al looked at his brother's body. To his delight, he was breathing again. Al's knees buckled in from the excitement, so he carefully lay his brother down on the floor to avoid dropping him.

A few more minutes passed by, and Edward finally opened his eyes. Al was instantly upon him. "Brother, are you okay? What happened? Is there anything I can do to help?"

Edward slapped his hand over his face, probably to hide himself from Al's barrage of questions, and he said, "Geez, Al, can't a guy make a simple science experiment without you freaking out?"

"But this isn't science," said Al, "This is about your life, Brother! Don't toy around with it. I wouldn't know what to do without you!"

"I'm not toying, Al." Edward turned his eyes upward to look at Al, who was sitting behind him, resting Ed's head on his knees. "If I don't find an alternative way out of here, my life will be finished. I don't think my little counterpart wants to know that he's going to grow up only to die once he travels back in time."

Al bowed his head. "You're right." He lifted his eyes to look into his brother's. "So how did the experiment go, anyway?"

Ed closed his eyes and sighed. "It felt weird. I can say that much." He rolled over onto his side and propped himself up to look at Al better. "But once I accepted the pipe as my body for the time being, I was able to travel anywhere I wanted through the pipes." He paused for a moment and then smiled. "Mom's making cherry pie."

"Really?" said Al, and Edward nodded. Cherry pie was his favorite kind, and he hadn't been able to have his mother's cherry pie in ages. He was going to have to have at least one slice of it before they exercised a plan to fix this mess they had gotten themselves into.

"Are you okay with walking, Brother?" Ed nodded, so Al stood up and walked out of the old shed, his brother following closely behind. Al then turned, smiled at his brother, and then took off running back toward their house.

"Hey!" Ed called, "That's not fair! I never said I was okay with running!"

Al chuckled under his breath and ran anyway. Cherry pie was his favorite, not his brother's, so it only made sense for him to get there first. Besides, he wasn't as likely to eat the whole thing without giving anyone else a chance as his brother was. The sugar content alone would make him stop, unlike his brother who didn't seem to realize sugar existed, and so he ate and ate until he was sick and couldn't figure out why.

Al reached the back door and turned the knob so fast it looked like he'd burst it open. The smell of cherry pie flowed over his face. His mother looked up from what she was doing and chuckled. "You haven't changed a bit, Al. How do you always know when I'm making cherry pie?"

Al shrugged, just as a heavily panting Edward arrived at the back door and pushed his way past Al. He wiped some sweat off of his forehead and said, "Mom, punish him."

"Whatever for?"

"For being an obnoxious, sneaky little brother."

Trisha chuckled and took several of her utensils to the sink to wash them off. "I think I'll leave that to you guys."

So, they commenced the stupid faces game. Edward stuck out his tongue. Al did it back. Edward stuck out his tongue and pulled his lips back with his fingers. Al stuck out his tongue and pushed his nose back like a pig. The two continued with their nonverbal dispute until Al decided it was too stupid to continue and Ed shouted, "See? I can win against you!"

Al shook his head bemusedly. "I couldn't have won that game if I'd tried, Brother. You were born funny looking."

At this, Ed jumped up and chased Al into the living room, both boys laughing as hard as they were able to. Trisha, continuing to prepare her pie, shook her head and sighed pleasantly. Even she couldn't tell who had won that one.

Lust folded her arms across her chest, not the easiest thing to do in her body, and she turned toward Sloth. "So this new guy comes up to us claiming to be a homunculus and wants to join our team. What do you think?"

Sloth sighed as she sat down and patted Wrath's head. "There are already seven of us. Seven sins. There is no eighth sin. Would he be able to fit in when all the positions are taken?"

"Hey, slow down a minute," the intruder finally spoke up and held up his index finger for silence. "I don't care how many sins there are or how many sin positions have been taken up. I didn't come to ask to be a sin, I came because I wanted an edge with these government affairs, and you guys have your fingers intertwined into everything."

At this, Sloth crossed her arms across her chest too, and Wrath, seeing her do so, proceeded to copy her and glare at the newcomer. "What do you have to offer in exchange for these things that you want?"

"What do you want me to offer?"

"Power," said Lust. "We want to know what you can do and how you will be useful to us."

"No problem," said the newcomer, and he clapped his hands and then crossed his arms so his hands touched his shoulders. The three homunculi watched with awe at what he was doing. Another homunculus who could do alchemy?

The newcomer's body twisted and turned for a bit under the strain of the alchemic energy, and then it settled down into a figure that looked just like Lust. "Is this enough to impress you?"

Lust slowly stood up and approached the figure who now looked exactly like her and ran her fingers over the curves in this person's body. It wasn't an illusion. The man really had changed his form right in front of them, and he'd done it with alchemy. He had Wrath's and Envy's skills combined into one.

Sloth stepped up. "How can we know we can trust you?"

A snicker. "How can you expect any homunculus to be trustworthy? Don't you all rebel from time to time if you don't get what you want?"

"No, I---" and then Sloth stopped. She may have been the most innocent-looking one, but that didn't stop her from having her periodic issues of rebellion.

"As long as I'm getting what I want, I won't rebel. It's common sense."

"You've made your point clear," said Lust, "Now change back into your other form before I'm completely creeped out."

The man chuckled and then did as she'd asked. He was now a young man with brown hair and blue eyes, the appearance he had brought with him when he'd first entered their lair.

"You must work for us and do our bidding to get the benefits you desire," said Lust, "But so long as you do, we will reward you. Rebel, and we may be forced to punish you."

"Understood." The man bowed politely to them and then stood up and looked into their eyes. "I'm not a sin, and no sin positions are open. But you can call me whatever you like."

"Any ideas?" said Lust. She was talking to Sloth, but it seemed the man had assumed she was talking to him.

"Eh, just call me Trouble I guess. Because that's what I'm going to be causing to the people out there from now on."

"Trouble," said Lust. "It's not a sin name, but I like it. Very descriptive of your personality. Very well, Trouble, go about your business as usual. We will call you when we need you."

"Thank you," said Trouble, and he bowed and exited their lair, leaving the three homunculi to wonder who was going to get the brunt of most of the troublesome things he would cause. Would it be the humans, or would it be themselves?

"I want out of this body! This doesn't feel good!" Winry couldn't tell who was complaining at the moment, but whoever it was, they were suffering enough to be brought to tears by it.

She hugged Al's body and said, "I'm sorry, I don't know what to do. I don't know any alchemy, so I can't pull you guys out of there and send you back to your own time."

A sad look from Al. "You don't know any alchemy?"

Winry shook her head. "Nope, just auto-mail."

Al put on a pouty expression and so Winry just hugged him all the tighter. It was so sad to see grown up Al acting like a little child. It meant things weren't quite as they should be. And with the brothers time traveling all over the place, things definitely weren't as they should be. Time travel had the potential to mess things up, didn't it? Surely if the authorities had known it could be done, they'd have outlawed it.

A light tremor began to surface in Al, causing Winry a little concern, so she rubbed her hand against Al's back to try and calm him down. The tremor only increased in intensity until it was full-fledged shaking, and neither of the two beings in Al's body seemed to be able to do anything about it.

Winry held him tighter. She was scared herself, but she had to pretend to be strong in front of the boys. She didn't want them to be too terrified over their future. Finally Al lurched forward, took a couple deep breaths, and then relaxed into her arms.

She continued rubbing his back and saying things to try and soothe him, but nothing was getting through to him. That is, nothing got through to him until he finally looked up at her, blinked a couple times, and said, "Winry?"

Winry raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

Al sat up and looked at his arms. "I'm back in my own body?" He touched his chest, abdomen, and legs. "I'm really back in the right time. Brother really managed it."

Winry's eyes were wide with hope. "…Al?"

Al looked up to her and said, "Yes?"

So Winry threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, saying that she was so glad he got back safely. Then she pulled away to look into his eyes and said, "You said Ed got you back? What happened to him?"

Al shook his head. He looked like he really didn't want to talk about it, but she had to know, so she pressed on. Finally he sighed. "I don't know what Brother did. He said he had something planned, but he wouldn't tell me what it was and made me come back here anyway. I think he was afraid of getting my hopes up if he failed."

"I see," said Winry. Her face carried a forlorn look, and she offered Al a somber smile, one which he returned to the exact degree she had offered it. Neither one of them was very optimistic about what had happened to Ed. If he wouldn't tell Al about his plans, then that meant there was a very high risk of failure, and failure was probably exactly what had happened, since Ed was not currently here.

Winry nuzzled herself into Al's shoulder and said, "I'm just glad you're back, Al," though her voice betrayed her underlying tears. Al hugged her back, and rested his head on her shoulder. They never meant to do it since they both valued looking strong for each other, but they both started crying, right there.

They were too exhausted to get to their destination that day, so they returned to their house for one more night, hoping against hope that the soldiers would delay looking for them there for just one more day.

The next day, when Winry went out to get the mail, she nearly got a heart attack when she found a certain postcard among all her other mail. There was no name, no return address, but still…

She ran back into the house and said, "Al, take a look at this!" Winry was waving the postcard wildly, and it took a few tries to catch it, but eventually Al got it and pulled it out of her hand, which made her pout slightly.

Al's eyes went wide. "That's his handwriting. I know it is!"

"I thought so too!" said Winry as the two looked down at the postcard.

There, printed on the postcard in large letters, was the phrase, "I'm Alive."

Hope you liked that. With any luck, we should hopefully have another chapter soon, so check back soon, and feel free to nudge us if we don't have it ready soon.