Title: Misconceptions
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Humor, wacky, some spoilers for up to episode 40.
Summary: Unexpectedly, Al finds himself in the family way. But how could this have happened...?

"What do you mean, you're PREGNANT?" Ed yelled through the door.

"Just what I said," the muffled, cranky voice came back to him, sounding strangely hollow from being reflected out of a toilet bowl. After a minute, a horrible retching sound punctuated the words.

"Just because you're getting sick in the morning doesn't mean you're pregnant!" Ed howled back. "And neither do the stupid cravings or the fatigue or anything! You aren't pregnant, you're sick, and I'm getting you to a doctor as soon you get out of that damn bathroom!"

He banged on the door with his metal fist, and nearly fell over as it swung open under his hand, bringing him eye to glaring, bloodshot eye with his brother. "Oh yes we're going to the doctor," Al snapped tersely, "because I am pregnant and I want to know why! The strip came up blue, Nii-san, go look for yourself. Chemistry doesn't lie!"

As expected, the appeal to science was enough to stall Ed's denial, temporarily at least. Al headed into the bedroom, while Ed rushed into the bathroom to view the incriminating strip for himself.

"This isn't possible," Ed's voice drifted faintly through the doorway. Al ignored him, sorting through their combined laundry for a pair of pants with a loose waistline.

"Al, how could you have gotten pregnant? I know for a fact that you can't have had sex with anyone, we've been sharing the same damn bed every night since you got your -- Hey!" Ed stuck his head out of the bathroom, blond hair wild and disheveled. "It isn't... It couldn't be... No way! I'm too young to be a father!"

Al ignored him, grimly yanking on a pair of loose drawstring pants. "How could you have gotten pregnant from just sharing a bed? We haven't even had SEX!" Ed wailed from the bathroom.

With a sigh, Al picked up the receiver and began to dial the number for the town's doctor.

"AND ANYWAY, YOU'RE A BOY!"

"Well," the doctor said, and cleared his throat in the sudden silence, "It seems congratulations are in order."

"So that means he's not pregnant, right?" Ed demanded. Al shot him an exasperated look, which he ignored. "Congratulations on him having some kind of rare weird hormone condition that makes it look like he's pregnant, but he's not?"

The doctor cleared his throat again. "As a matter of fact," he said, "he is, or at least he is according to all the tests that I can run, pregnant. Physical, chemical, ultrasound -- I could run an x-ray as an extra check, but there is some concern as to what that might do to the fetus."

"About how far along is the, er, baby, doctor?" Al said, cutting across Ed's next explosive denial.

"It's difficult to say for sure, of course," the doctor answered, after a nervous glance at Ed, "but several months, at least. It's rather rare for this... condition to go unnoticed for so long, although I suppose in this instance I can see why you would not, er, suspect..."

"Forget when!" Ed broke in, sputtering. "What I want to know is how you can possibly justify this scientifically!"

"Well," the doctor said; he got up from his chair and switched on a light screen, clipping up a few films over it. "As puzzling as it seems, that indeed seems to be the case. This is a scan of your younger brother's abdomen. All the organs which you would expect to find in a young man of his age are there, as you can see, with several important additions."

"Additions?" Ed demanded.

"These --" the doctor pointed out a couple of swoops of white among the gray, "are fully developed female ovaries. Here are the fallopian tubes, here is what appears to be a fully functional uterus, and yes, there is the infant." The doctor eyed the splash of gray critically for a moment. "Seems to be progressing quite normally for the third month."

"But that's bullshit!" Ed exclaimed, gesturing wildly. "How did that... get in there?"

The sweep of his hand took in the entire array of organs, but the doctor, with his back to the young man, didn't notice. "That is an interesting question, young man," he agreed, "because if you will look closely, you may have noticed that certain other major components of a female reproductive system are missing." He glanced over at Ed's blank look, and clarified. "Specifically, your brother does not appear to have a vaginal opening."

"I could have told you that," Al muttered peevishly.

"But if..." Ed stopped, and turned bright red. He might not have had a father to get The Talk from, but he certainly knew his anatomy. "If there's no... then how did the baby get in there?"

"Well, that's the puzzle, isn't it." Slowly, the doctor pulled off his glasses and began to clean them. Ed and Al exchanged an uneasy glance, then looked back at the man.

He put his glasses back on, and cleared his throat. "So tell me, young man, are either you or your brother particularly religious?"

There was a moment of silence, while both brothers gawked at the man.

"That's it, Al," Ed announced, jumping abruptly to his feet and pulling Al to his. "We're leaving."

Al's cry of 'But Niisan!' was ignored as the determined youth swept out the door. "Thanks for your help, left the kettle on, sorry Doc, glad to hear your wife's doing okay, hope we never have to see you again!" he yelled as he wrestled Al out the door.

"Be sure to come back in a few weeks for your second trimester checkup!" the doctor called after them, as the door swung closed. "And avoid tuna fish!"

tbc.