Hey, everybody! After how many years this finally gets updated? You can thank AdventureAddict for that. She's been looking through all my unfinished stories lately, and took it upon herself to help me finish as many as possible. So here is a chapter written by her in the hopes of helping to inspire me to finish this story, even though my writing style has improved so much since I started this story that I honestly couldn't see any future for it. I guess she does, hehe. Anyway, the hope is that I'll write the next chapter for it, but if not, she'll write it, and keep writing until I do get inspired. That's the idea anyway. Wish us luck!

Disclaimer: I dare not claim Ed as my own after all the crappy writing I've done in this fic. :P

Al snuck out of the house as quietly as he could, so as not to wake his father. He didn't want any chance of Hoenheim coming along and stopping him. Okay, he was being just as reckless and stupid as his own brother, but something needed to be done. For all anyone knew, Ed could be lying in a ditch somewhere, bleeding to death or something. Someone needed to go after him. And Al always was the one to get Ed out of trouble, after all.

He was able to find his way back to the metaphysical shop easily enough, since he could remember the last time he had gone there, when he and his father had been trying to figure out what had happened to Ed.

The shop was closed, obviously, since it was well past midnight, but like most shops around town, the woman had her home right above the shop, and there was still a candle flickering in the window. Al took a deep breath, then reached down and threw a small pebble up at the window.

After waiting a moment, a head poked itself out of the window, the same woman that Hoenheim had questioned before. Al waved sheepishly at her.

"Goodness, child, what are you doing out at this hour?"

"I need to talk to you," Al answered. The woman looked confused.

"Come back tomorrow morn!"

Al glanced up. There was a full moon out, part of why he had thought of sneaking out tonight, since it was the most light he would get for midnight adventures for a month. And that lady believed in witch practices, didn't she? Maybe he could bluff.

"I seek the full moon for protection," he tried. She looked surprised, obviously having not expected that to come from him. "And besides, it's the witching hour," Al added. He wasn't sure what the witching hour meant other than midnight, but he had overheard some people say it before, and it sounded good.

The woman seemed to think for a moment, then sighed and motioned for him to come in. Al gratefully nodded his appreciation and waited for her to come downstairs to unlock the door.

Al couldn't help but have a shiver run up his spine as he walked into the shop. It was hard not to feel a little spooked out while standing among all sorts of mystical objects without any sort of light other than a weak candle. Al swore he could see a skull winking at him from the depths of the shelves.

"What is it you seek?" the woman said with a sigh as she set the candle on one of the shelves and started to rub her arms for warmth. Al was grateful for having as many layers as he did, it was rather cold in the shop.

"I need a spell," Al said. The woman frowned. "One to let me travel through time and space."

Suddenly, the woman recognized where she had seen Al before. Her frown got even deeper as she looked over him.

"And what does your father say to that?"

"Er..." Al fumbled for an excuse, but ended up looking sheepishly at his hands and saying nothing. The woman shook her head and made some sort of motion that Al assumed was to protect herself.

"No," she said quickly. "I got in enough trouble with your father for doing that spell on your brother. I might not be the smartest person out there, but I know better than to make the same mistake twice."

"Please!" Al said, eyes desperate.

"You are just like your brother," the woman sighed. She then took the candle and started walking towards the door. She turned the knob and held it open for Al. "I'm sorry, but I can't help you."

"If you can't do the spell for me, then at least tell me what I need to do to cast it myself!" Al tried desperately. The woman hesitated, and the door swung closed an inch.

"Why are you so desperate to have this spell cast upon you?" she said. "If it fails, then it could leave you as a victim of time for all eternity!"

"Better to be stuck like that for eternity than have to spend another minute doing nothing while I can feel my brother calling out to my soul, begging for my help." Al said firmly. The woman stared at him.

"You two are close, aren't you?"

"Close doesn't even begin to describe it," Al said. "Where he goes, I go. I have to find my brother."

The woman considered him for another minute, then finally sighed and closed the door. Al let out a sigh of relief.

"Come with me," she said. "I'm not going to cast that spell again, not after putting your brother in so much danger, but there might be another spell in my book of shadows that will help you in a... less dangerous manner." Al nodded his gratitude, and followed her upstairs, to a room with a large pentagram in the center of the room. Candles had been scattered around the circle, and a decorative table had a large book on it that the lady started flipping through.

"Make yourself comfortable, this may take a while," the woman said, and then gestured to a pile of pillows in the corner. Al ignored the pillows and instead walked over to where the woman was and looked over her shoulder. She was flipping frantically through the book, barely spending a couple seconds to look at each page. Al could understand why, considering how huge the book was.

"What exactly are we looking for?" he asked.

'Some sort of spell that would help us locate your brother," the woman said as her eyes flicked back and forth. Al frowned.

"You're a witch, can't you just do some sort of spell for find the spell you need?" he asked. The woman shook her head.

"Never heard of such a thing," she muttered, still flicking through pages. Al sighed and gently put his hands on the pages.

"Can I try, just for a minute?" he said. The woman frowned.

"You don't even know magick!"

"No, but I know a trick my brother and I used to do all the time before we memorized alchemical symbols," Al said plainly, the shut the book, holding it upright on its spine. "Dear book, please show me the spell that would be most helpful for what I am intending tonight," he said, and then let go of the book so it fell to a random page.

"Spell of following," the top of the page read. Al and the woman exchanged surprised glances.

"I'll have to remember that trick," the woman said with a shake of her head. Al chuckled and scratched the back of his head.

"Brother was never very polite when he asked our books for help, so he never got answers as good as me," Al said with a chuckle.

"I can imagine," the woman said, and then leaned forward and read the spell. "This looks like it would do it," she said after a minute. "This spell is designed to lock you to a certain person so you can follow them no matter what time or space they travel to. It only lasts for a day or two, though. Then you'll be stuck wherever you ended up."

"That's fine," Al said dismissively. "I only need to find my brother."

The woman gave him a sharp look and shook her head. "Oh, no," she said. "I've already gotten in enough trouble with your father, I'm not about to get into more. I'll give you something for you and your brother to return home with. That way, this is actually a rescue mission, not a suicide." The woman then turned to an ornate wooden cabinet, stuck a key in the lock, and pulled open the doors. Al only saw the objects in there for a brief moment before the doors were closed and locked again.

"This is one of my relics, so be careful with it," the woman said, holding a pendant out to him. It was ornate gold with a large ruby set in the center. "Normally I don't let anyone see these, let alone use them, but I suppose I have to do something to make up for my mistake with your brother. Just... be careful. This pendant is older than you or I could even imagine."

"What does it do?" Al asked as he carefully took it from her and held it, staring at the ruby.

"If you wear this pendant and summon upon your magickal powers, it should send you to a time or place you focus on. Mind you, it can only do one or the other at a time, it just copies the other from whatever time or place you're in when you use it. So if you want to go to a specific time and place, you'd have to use two trips, but I don't know how many charges it has left anymore. It's very old."

"And it will be able to bring Brother back with me?" Al asked, still entranced with the ruby.

"It will bring back anyone you are holding onto, but every extra person will take up another charge, and..."

"And it's an uncertain number of charges," Al finished for her. The woman nodded, and Al sighed and carefully put the pendant around his neck, then tucked it under his shirt. "Thank you very much, I'm sure it will help us."

The woman nodded, still seeming a little nervous as she glanced at the bulge under Al's shirt. Al had decided to be polite and not pester her about why she hadn't bothered to even tell his brother about the pendant.

"Stand in the center of the pentagram," the woman motioned as she walked back towards the book. "And I'll send you on your way. Your father's going to kill me if this doesn't work out," she added under her breath. Al held back a snicker and stood in the center of the circle. The woman double checked to make sure everything was in place.

"You're going to need to focus as strongly on your brother as you can," the woman said. Al nodded, closed his eyes, and started trying as hard as he could to picture Ed. The woman started reading.

Send this blessed one to whom he seeks

Let him follow through all obstacles

Aid in his search, through time and space

Keep him safe, oh goddess I pray.

Al could feel a weird sensation creeping up his toes. He squeezed his eyes tighter, trying to focus even more on the golden eyes and bark of a laugh that he had been picturing.

"Oh, and just to warn you," the woman said, though it was getting a bit hard to hear because of the whooshing in his ears. "These spells can be arbitrary . When they say they're sending you to the same time and space as your brother, you might be a few miles or a couple years different from where he is. They aren't very precise, because—"

Al couldn't hear or say anything else after that, because the world turned black, and the whoosh had become a roar. He fell.

Hope this makes the story pick up a bit. Suggestions are as welcome as ever, or just comments, but I won't beg for them like I used to, hehe. Just comment if you wish, and hope to see you back when there's an update. Thanks for reading, and take care!