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Unhappenings #N

Al was fairly sure that Edward was quite asleep in the mid-afternoon sun where they'd decided to stop for the day. Sure, there were trains and cars but sometimes, when it was just the two of them alone, walking seemed more natural.

As did camping outside of the strange little village they hadn't seen anywhere on a map instead of venturing inside to look for an inn.

But their supplies had dwindled down to just a handful of carrots that neither of them much wanted to eat and while Ed seemed happy to eat whatever he could transmute, ever since Al had gotten his body back, he could taste the difference between what was real and what wasn't.

Besides, he really wanted a nice cold pint of milk, nothing that Ed would be caught dead touching.

There was an echo in the distance, something with a motor growing nearer. Al stepped to the side of the tire-tracks road he'd been walking along to wait for the vehicle to pass. But instead it slowed as it neared, grinding to a rough stop.

"Need a ride?" the driver asked, gesturing to the space behind her on the motorbike. "I... do I know you?"

Al could only nod as he wondered what sort of strange place he'd wandered into.

"It's me, Martel. Al..."

"Al!" She was off the bike in a split second, reflexes painfully fast and before Al could so much as blink, she had him in a crushing hug. "You have a body."

"Yeah," Al replied as he reached to echo the embrace, suddenly feeling a little awkward at the contact. Martel knew him so intimately, after all. Or, after literally sharing a body, they knew one another. "But you..."

"Heading to town?" Martel asked. She glanced back over at the bike that was starting to sputter, unable to maintain an idle.

"Yeah," Al mumbled. He knew he shouldn't have even thought to ask. The world was full of things beyond anything he wanted to understand.

"I wanted to thank you." Martel paused with a hand on the handlebars. "For letting me be human."

"I..."

Her lips against his didn't tell a single secret, either, leaving him to kiss her back and wonder what he was supposed to do next.

But he didn't need an answer, nor did he want one. Five minutes later they were in the small, strange village with Martel seemingly oblivious to the sound of a hundred ticking clocks.

And Al knew that when he left the village, he'd never see it, or Martel, again.