Family Forever Chapter Four - That One Bit More

Al's POV:

"It all started here." Ed explained; the ruins of our old house in front of us. "There was the main room, our room, the kitchen, the basement, the memories; it sure does bring me back." Ed let out a small laugh, walking across where every room roughly was.

"I'm surprised there's still some ashes left and that they all haven't been blow away." I chuckled, scratching the back of my head; glass shattering from underneath Ed's left foot as he tread forward a step. Brother straight away peered down at the floor where the noise had come from. He crouched down and digged in the pile of rubble, he was standing on and pulled out a dusty cracked, wooden photo frame, which had a photo still in it. He shook the ashes out the cracked photo frame before lifting it up to show me.

"Al… remember this photo? I'm surprised it's still in good condition." He said, facing it towards me. I stepped closer to him and glanced at the photo. It was a photo of us as young boys with mother, mum held us both with one of her arms, I was holding onto her arm with both of mine. All three of us were smiling. I sure did remember that photo, I remember exactly where mum kept it, in the hallway, on the table, and she put it there so everyone who visited knew how happy a family we were. I smiled and nodded, memories flashing in my head.

"Wow, it actually lived from the fire. And Ed, don't you think that tree sure has grown over the years and look, it still has that swing." I commented, pointing to the tree that had always stood beside our childhood house.

***

No one's POV:

"Going so soon?" Trisha gently asked, watching Hoemheim pack his belongings in a small, brown suitcase.

"Trisha… I have to, but before I go I must do something for the boys, don't you remember I'm a monster?" Hoemheim whispered, walking outside with Trisha. He stood on his tiptoes and nailed some rope with a tyre on the end of it to a branch of the tree beside their house.

"Stop calling yourself that… you know, one day I will turn into a wrinkled up old lady that looks like a monster." Trisha laughed, hearing both of her sons's footsteps.

"Trisha, remember I love you, I'll be back soon." Hoemheim repeated, stroking her soft, chestnut brown hair, hugging her tightly in his arms. A tear formed from his eye, he wiped it and carefully let go.

Trisha turned around, her two sons behind her in the doorway, Ed sucking his thumb and Al holding onto her leg firmly looking up at her.

"Come on boys, go back to bed." She smiled, gently pushing them back to their room, whilst Hoemheim wandered away from the house, putting a brown hat on his head and holding onto his suitcase tight, which had two sets of clothing inside it.

Al's POV:

I clapped my hands together and touched the floor; two bunches of flowers emerging from the ground.

"Wow Al, they look great." He applauded, carefully placing one bunch of flowers on mother's grave.

I placed the other bunch of flowers on the more recent, dad's graves that stood beside it.

"Mum, you were always there for us, stayed strong for us, never left our sides. Thank you for being such a great mum.  You were so kind, caring and meant the world to us. And dad, though we didn't see you much in our childhood, you were there for us in the end; you saved my life from that look alike of you. Thank you both for everything, words can't explain how much you two mean to us. Rest in peace….mum… dad…you'll live on in our hearts now." Ed said slowly, letting out a faint smile, looking up at the sunset. "… We should go catch our train to central." I nodded, biting my lip to stop myself from crying, letting something go is the hardest thing possible.

Ed's POV:

"Going again… boys?" laughed the ticket warden, passing us our tickets.

"Yeah…" I explained to her, "It's more fun moving around anyway. We can't just sit around doing nothing for the rest of our lives and we made a promise to two men." She faintly smiled and shooed us off.

I peered out the window, elbow resting against the window frame. I watched the country side fly past. I remembered how we would walk along the path that stretched across the entire Risembool on the way home from shopping trips those years ago, with mum. Those were the times we didn't know much about the world, and the fact that everyone has to die one day with no way of bringing them back.


***

"So, as for the two chimeras, we need to gather as much research as possible starting next week. It's going to be hard; it's like picking salt out of the sand. But as planned, we will find as much as we can. You will research in the east and I'll do my part in the west. And Al, I would recommend doing a bit of alchemy practice too; after all, you'll be turning them back." I explained, flicking through a book with some of the notes that we had gathered when I was part of the military.

"And we better be certain it works before we jump straight in. Brother, we've gone so far… met some amazing people, traveled the land, I know if we work hard enough, anything is possible!" Al added, glancing outside. We passed a grassy hill, with graves scattered across it. A tall-ish man was standing at one of the graves, wearing the blue military uniform with the blue military hat. He was too far away for me to be able to work out anything else about him but he looked familiar.

"There's our stop." I exclaimed, standing up slowly as the train grinded to a halt. I helped Al up and we made our way off the train. We hadn't been in central for ages - last time we had been was a bit after the fight with Father. The train station looked pretty much the same and probably the rest of Central did too. It had the normal people wandering around like lost souls with some of the station officers giving a glare at the odd person as they walked straight passed them.

Al's POV:

Ed walked me over to the nearest café, where I had planned to meet Jerso and Zampano, the two chimera men we had promised to help restore back to human. I almost straight away saw them sitting at a table together beside the window, it was hard not to miss them! They were looking around the café for me.

"Jerso, Zampano!" I cheered, taking my seat at the table, bringing a few people who were eating at the café to turn their head around to look what was going on behind them.

"Alphonse, long time, no see," They laughed, resting their arms on the table, grinning.

"Yeah, it's been ages. We've done a bit research back at home about turning you guys to normal but the idea is that next week, I will go to the east to Xing and Ed will go to the west for a month. Then, we'll meet up and put our knowledge together and we'll try our best to get you back to normal soon as possible." I explained, briefly thinking about the near future and how Ling was getting on.

"All that just for us?" Zampano gasped, "We wouldn't be able to pay you back enough, it means a lot Al!"

"You've already helped us return my body to normal and you've protected us, that's enough for a payment by any means. And we've decided to make up our own equivalent exchange as well, say ten from you and eleven from us. We plan on giving that bit extra to everyone." I explained, holding up my hand and pointing one finger up to show that one bit more.