Title: Ghost in the Night

Author: S J Smith

Rating: K+

Summary: Alphonse wonders if ghosts are real.

Disclaimer: Just playing paper dolls, here.

Warnings: Pre-canon, back before Ed and Al try to bring their mom back from the dead.

Notes: Unedited except for me, but I wanted to get this posted. Happy Halloween!

"Did you hear that?"

Edward barely glanced up from the text he was studying. Why was it so hard figuring this stuff out? Why couldn't Hohenheim have written plainly? "Hear what?" he asked, using his finger to mark the line he was reading, so he could write it out. Maybe if he took the sentence apart completely, he would understand it.

"That!" Alphonse nearly yelled at him.

Scowling, Edward raised his head. "What?" Alphonse made a 'hush!' gesture at him and Edward heard it, too. His frown deepened at the scratching sound. "Al, it's just a branch rubbing against the roof of the house. It's windy outside, remember?"

Alphonse hunched his shoulders, his lower lip poking out. "Are you sure?"

Edward rolled his eyes. "What else could it be?"

"A ghost?"

"Al, come on, there aren't any ghosts!" Edward blew air out through his pursed lips, exasperated. "They're scientifically implausible!"

"Just because the books say there aren't any doesn't mean they don't exist!" Alphonse whined.

Edward snorted. "Geeze, Al, don't be a baby."

"I'm not a baby!" Alphonse's lower lip got bigger.

"Do you want me to do a scientific experiment to prove it?"

"How do you do that?"

"Well," Edward got to his feet, "first we go outside and see that the wind is blowing that branch against the roof." His hands bounced at his sides while he waited for Alphonse to come with him. His little brother really was a baby sometimes. "Come on!"

Alphonse trailed behind him, drywashing his hands. "What if the branch isn't rubbing against the house?"

Waving his hand behind him, Edward led the way outside the house. The wind caught his shirt and tugged at it. He shuddered once, thinking it'd probably freeze tonight. That old hag, Pinako, had them working in the Rockbell garden until late, picking vegetables. Soon, she'd be making pumpkin soup, and that made him think of stew, and how hungry he was. He wondered if there was anything in the house he could eat. Shaking off that thought, he pointed up at the tree. "It is," he said.

"Oh!" Alphonse pouted, watching the branch scraping across the roof. "Oh."

"See? It's a branch," Edward said, smug. He folded his arms, nodding in his own satisfaction.

"Okay." Even though Alphonse could see the branch and hear it rubbing on the shingles, he still didn't sound like he believed Edward's explanation.

"Geeze, Al, now what?" Edward whined, rubbing his hands over his bare arms. Maybe he should make some hot tea to drink. It'd warm them both up. If they'd spent the night at the Rockbell house, Granny might've made them cinnamon toast for a snack. His stomach growled at that thought, but Edward ignored it.

"Nothing," Alphonse muttered, ducking his head. "You're right, it's a branch."

Edward chucked his little brother on the shoulder. "Let's got back inside. It's cold out here." He headed for the house, realizing Alphonse wasn't behind him, and stopped. "Hey, come on."

Wrapping his arms around himself, Alphonse followed him, still glancing up at the tree. The swing that Dad had hung up swayed in the wind. "Brother," he said softly, the sound of it nearly lost in the breeze.

"What?" Edward repeated, trying to control his temper.

Alphonse turned to him, his expression troubled. "What if there really are ghosts?"

Already on the stoop, starting to reach for the door, Edward caught himself before he rolled his eyes this time. "Al, what's this about?"

"Well," Alphonse scratched the back of his neck, sheepish, "I was thinking about Mom."

Edward screwed up his face. "Uh, huh?" They were always thinking about Mom. What made this any different?

"And…what if she," his voice trailed off in a mumble.

"What, Al?" he snapped.

Face red, Alphonse yelled, "What if she was trying to get in touch with us?"

The question shook Edward. For a second, maybe two, he wondered, but then he knew. "There're no such things as ghosts, Al! No matter how much," his voice cracked, "we might want it!" Mom, he thought, heart falling straight into his belly like a rock. "Mom's gone, at least until we figure out how to bring her back from the dead. Alchemy - iscience/i - is going to do that, not some fairy tale!"

"What about Mrs. Culbertson?" Alphonse shouted, his hands clenching into fists. "Huh, Ed? What about her?"

Groaning, Edward slapped himself in the forehead. "What about her, Al? She's a crazy old woman. So she says she saw her husband's ghost. She said there's a train that runs on certain nights through her house, too!" He pointed in the direction of the Culbertson property. "There wasn't a train track anywhere near her place!"

"She's not crazy. She saw Mr. Culbertson." Face screwed up, Alphonse took a step toward him. "She saw him, and he talked to her."

"Like Granny says, she's got a," Edward circled his first finger near his ear. "Screw loose!"

"No, she doesn't!" Alphonse screamed the words at him. "She knows. She saw Mr. Culbertson! What if Mom's here, in the house, or watching us, or – or something!"

"It isn't Mom," Edward said through clenched teeth. "It was a tree branch." He pointed straight up. "It is a tree branch. It isn't anything else, Al. And Mrs. Culbertson is plain nuts!" The wind gusted around them, and far off in the distance, Edward could hear the train whistle, a lonely, spooky sound, and a shiver crawled up his spine. Cold air, he told himself, nothing more. There were no ghosts, not of Mom, or of Auntie Sara or Uncle Urey, or anyone. "Al," he said, before his brother could start arguing again, "let's go inside. I'll make some tea," he really wanted the cinnamon toast now, "and we'll keep working. If anyone can bring Mom back, it's us, right?"

Overhead, clouds rolled in, heavy with rain, blocking out the light from the sky. Edward could smell the upcoming storm in the air. Alphonse was barely visible in the dark, just a shadowed sliver of his face and the gleam of one eye. His mouth twisted, determination on his face. "Yeah."

Edward kept his shoulders from sagging in relief, but only just. A smile widened his face. "Come on. Let's get that tea, and go back to work."

Alphonse took a deep breath, and, just like that, whatever it was that Edward couldn't quite name drained away, and his little brother smiled at him. "Yeah." His grin lit up everything like the sun. "Yeah, let's get to work! We need to find the way to bring Mom back." He climbed the stairs to the house, frowning. "But I can't figure out all of Dad's works."

"Neither can I," Edward admitted, pulling the door open so they could go inside. "I think we need to find someone who can teach us more about alchemy than we can learn on our own."

Nodding, Alphonse said, "A teacher! That's just what we need!" as the door closed behind them.

The branch scraped across the roof, leaves shredding in the wind as the storm drew ever closer.

- end -