.: 11 :.

Epilogue

Crisis Averted and Chick Flick Moments (Which Will Never Be Spoken of Again)

.

Roy wondered if Edward ever tired of waking up in the hospital. Fullmetal could have at least tried not to make a habit of hospitalization now that he'd suddenly gotten a new purchase on life, but there was apparently no helping it.

There were slight rustles as Ed began to stir, and Roy lowered his newspaper and leaned back in his chair as the alchemist beside him slowly wandered back to the land of the living. The Brigadier-General had taken up his watch earlier that morning, stationing himself between the two Elric brothers half out of out of worry and half because he was dog-tired of paperwork.

Plus, he got to watch in amusement as the Fullmetal Alchemist blearily opened his eyes and tried to figure out where he was. Ed sat up suddenly. "Holy sh—"

"—careful what you say there, Fullmetal. Hospital decorum and all that." Roy raised one brow as Ed jerked his head to see who spoke.

"You," Ed said, breathing heavily as he reeled a bit. "Wonderful. Wait. Is Al—?"

"Fine," Roy said, noting that Ed's eyes flicked to take in the steady rise and fall of his brother's chest. "He woke earlier, the concussion has mostly receded, and other than his exhaustion, he seems to be fine."

"Huh," Ed huffed, flouncing back on the blankets. A few seconds of holding himself up, and he was practically falling back to sleep already. The furrowed look on his brow notified Roy that this wasn't exactly the case.

"Alchemy?" he murmured. "Is everything back to normal?"

Roy wordlessly snapped his fingers, and a small spark leapt forward just above his thumb, not unlike the steady flame of a cigarette lighter. He brought his hand back down and it disappeared. "I'm no expert," he said, "but everything seems to be in working order. I suppose there's no way of knowing unless you visit the Gate for yourself."

Ed snorted. "Not planning on that anytime soon," he said. "Anyway. Better than expected."

"For you, maybe. You're the one everyone's been worried about. Selfish brat," he said, but he made sure there was no bite in the words.

"What the hell?"

"You've been out for almost a week. Your brother's been worried sick," Roy added mildly.

"A week?"

"You slept like the dead," Roy confirmed instantly. Al shifted in his sleep, and he lowered his voice. "They kept saying you were fine, but…"

"Huh," Ed said again, covering a yawn with his flesh arm. Roy couldn't help but notice that there was little color in his face, and he still looked exhausted.

"How are you feeling?" he asked cautiously.

The question seemed to catch Ed by surprise, and he stared steadily at Roy before answering. "You're here," he said hazily. "Don't you have…I don't know, a country to take over or something? Isn't this where you emerge triumphant from the ruins or something?"

Roy's mouth twisted, though he wasn't sure whether he meant it to be a grimace or a grin.

No, this wasn't the part where he emerged triumphant. Despite all of the hard work, despite his own men putting their lives on the line, there would be no moving up. Not at the moment.

In the end, Hakuro had played his cards too well, clutching his trusted generals protectively around him and allowing no one else in. In the days that had followed the new formation of the Gate, Mustang kept a good eye on the proceedings of the upper echelons of the military and remembered what had gotten Hakuro the position in the first place: he wasn't a great man, but he was a great politician.

Roy had not expected to have this conversation with Ed—everyone else had avoided the topic like the plague—and he was half-surprised at his own bitterness.

"Not quite yet," he said evenly. "Even with the criticism directed at Hakuro right now…well," he shook his head, "it's not the right time."

Ed frowned. "Thought for sure that someone was going to call him out for working against us instead of with us."

"It takes a lot more than that for a Fuhrer to fall, Fullmetal," Roy said grimly, playing absently with the corner of the newspaper in his lap. "Even one who deserves the position as little as…" he trailed off, realizing the treasonous nature of his own words. In truth, there was no way to openly condemn Hakuro for his actions. The Fuhrer was technically within his rights to protect himself—though it was certainly considered cowardly—and as he had left no trace of his refusal to relinquish the arms and men used to protect himself, there was little to be done.

"But he'll come down, one way or another," Ed said slowly. "And by the time he does, you'll have to be in a position high enough for people to see you as a replacement. To let you step in where he's left off."

Roy inclined his head, feeling the hard expression on his face.

"You'll manage," Ed said suddenly. "Anyone could see that you've got what it takes. You're an alchemist. By the people, for the people…" He trailed off, playing with the IV in his arm, probably because Roy was looking at him oddly. After all, was that a vote of confidence from Edward Elric, of all people…? "Anyway," Ed said, changing the subject, "I guess I have to thank you."

"Thank me?" Roy echoed blankly, still catching up.

"Yeah. For watching Al's back."

Their eyes both fell on the occupant of the other bed. Al had somehow managed to move down toward the foot of the bed in his sleep, and his head rested on the mattress instead of the pillow, his limbs pulled in close.

"It was nothing," Roy said softly.

Ed straightened a little at that, and he fixed his superior with an icy glare. "It was not nothing," he said as Roy turned to him in surprise at the vehemence in his voice. "I don't just leave Al with people—not when I know he's in danger. It may have been nothing to you, Bastard Colonel, but not to me."

Roy was speechless for a moment. Then, faintly: "It's Brigadier-General."

"Yeah, yeah," Ed said tiredly. "That's too much of a mouthful."

Roy rolled his good eye at that. "You know I wouldn't have let anything happen to him."

"Yeah," Ed mumbled. "I know. 'S true you're a bastard, but you're a trustworthy one…so if you say you're gonna do something, you will. I think with anyone else…I wouldn't have left Al." He blinked drowsily, sagging against his pillows, until he caught sight of Roy's expression, which must have been one of open surprise. Roy hadn't thought that Edward trusted him with anything. Not really. Even leaving Al behind had seemed like a last resort…

"You're being awfully kind today, Fullmetal," he said carefully.

"I'm totally drugged up," Ed muttered defensively, his words emphasized by the yawn that punctuated the end of his sentence. "You shouldn't take anything I'm saying seriously."

Roy smiled. "Sure, Edward."

"Really. You're still a bastard," Ed added, eyes closing.

"I'll keep that in mind," Roy agreed warmly as Ed drifted off.

.

It was later that evening that Ed was caught off-guard by a phone call at the hospital. That was one good thing about staying somewhere connected to military headquarters, anyway: anything vaguely related to the military became first priority for reconstructions and renovations. Ed was hardly surprised when word came that the largely-undamaged military hospital was now powered by a generator, one strong enough to cater to the needs of the countless Amestrians hurt in the last few weeks.

By chance, Ed was half-asleep when a nurse poked her head in to inform them of a call to this room number to be taken, unfortunately, at the front desk again. Al simply shook his head as Ed struggled to sit up, and the younger Elric rose instead to pad down the hall. He returned just as Ed began to doze off again, and he gave his brother nothing more than a smile and a simple "It's for you." Ed pulled himself tiredly from the warm blankets and made his sluggish way to the circulation desk.

A nurse handed him the phone, and it took him a few seconds after he put it to his ear to figure out exactly who was speaking. Or rather, sobbing.

"Winry?"

"Who else would it be, you idiot?" She said huffily, voice catching. "I just got the news. Word travels really slowly with all the damaged roads and power lines." She sniffled. "Geez, you're always making me cry…"

"Sorry," Ed said automatically, and afterwards he opened and closed his mouth without really knowing what to say. He might have been a self-proclaimed genius, but there was nothing that could shut his thoughts off faster than a crying girl. He could almost hear Al snickering from where he stood, and although he knew that his brother wouldn't have followed him, he couldn't help but glance over his shoulder down the hallway to be sure.

Winry who finally spoke again, in a very quiet voice. "You're really back?"

Ed smiled. "Yeah. I'm really back."

After a moment, he heard a swift inhale, which was his only warning as Winry began to shout, "Well, why the hell couldn't you pick up a phone to tell me? I had to hear it from Hawkeye this morning! It's been days!"

Images of wrenches started swirling around in Ed's mind, but before he could figure out how to deal with her sudden mood swing, she cut him off.

"No—don't answer that. You guys were too busy, like you always are. I guess I really shouldn't be surprised."

Ed swallowed back his guilt. He hadn't spared his friend more than a moment's thought since he'd escaped the Gate—but not because he didn't care. It was hard to think of a normal life, of Winry and the rolling hills of his hometown, when the world seemed to be crashing down around him and all of it was in danger anyway. Try telling Winry that, though. It was hard to say something like that without sounding like an asshole, no matter how Ed worded it. But he tried anyway, for the thousandth time, using the same argument he always did: "Winry, it's not like we meant not to call you. Things just…there was too much going on all at once."

She sighed over the phone. "There's always too much going on at once with you, Ed."

He shifted uncomfortably, but as always, his discomfort somehow masked itself with anger. "What was I supposed to do? Tell the Beasts to 'hold on for a sec, I just gotta make a quick phone call?'" he bit out.

"I'm sure you could have managed that at least. You're a smart kid, Ed."

The sarcasm only made things worse. "Winry—" he began.

"Save it, Ed," Winry cut him off, sighing. "I didn't call to yell at you. Or I didn't mean to, anyway. I just wanted to see how you were doing."

Ed deflated, thrown off. "How I'm doing?"

"Well, you didn't call me. So you can make up for it by telling me what happened, for starters."

"What do you—you mean with the Beasts?"

"No. Yes. Tell me everything. The last time I heard news about you, it was that you were dead. Well, maybe Al didn't say it like that. But the Gate took you or something. So what happened? I might not have been there, but I still want to know, and it's good for you to talk about it."

"It's good for me, huh?"

"Of course. You listen to me griping all the time, so you finally get a turn, too. You know it makes you feel better." Ed could hear her smile over the phone. "So talk."

"Sure thing, Win," he said sarcastically, but his lips began to twitch back up. "Well…where do I start?"

"The beginning. You can start by telling me how you obviously didn't die."

Ed couldn't keep back a chuckle. "I wouldn't say that, exactly. But I guess it's more complicated than you'd think…"

He began to speak, haltingly at first, of his sacrifice at the Gate, of the creatures inside of it, and of what happened to him in between leaving and returning to Amestris. Winry asked more questions than anyone else had, but not in a nosy or annoying way. Somehow, she managed to pull details from Ed that he hadn't thought to explain, as though she needed to really understand everything in order to make up for all the time that he'd spent shouldering the burden alone without her. Maybe Ed should have found it an intrusion of privacy—and with anyone else, he might have—but the words flowed out of him so easily that he didn't have a moment to think about it.

Winry interrupted him partway through his description of Mustang's and Hawkeye's flabbergasted expressions upon first finding him in Aquaroya. "You idiot," she said affectionately, still laughing. "Alright," she began, once her giggles had finally settled down. "Alright, my time's up."

"Time?" Ed fumbled.

"Yeah. The power went out day before last, and they're only allowing ten minutes at the station phone booths, since everyone's trying to make calls. Actually, I think I took more time than that," she added, "but no one was around until a minute ago."

Ed realized that he'd heard nothing at all about how Risembool had fared. "Are you guys okay out there?"

"We're fine," she said. "We heard much worse on the radio than what we saw in person, and there weren't any major disasters or anything like that. It's mostly that some of the roads aren't passable, so I can't get to Central. But I'll see you soon, when we can…"

"'Course," he said. "As soon as things are patched up."

"Look, Ed…" her voice caught. "When you were gone…" There was a voice in the background, and Winry said something in response. "…and my time's really up. I guess…"

"Don't worry. I'll see you soon," Ed said determinedly.

"Yeah. See you." He moved to put the phone down, but she said something he couldn't hear. He quickly raised it back to his ear.

"Winry?" Ed could hear shuffling in the background.

"Sorry, it's just…I'm really glad you're back. Things were so different when you were gone. Empty, I guess. And I missed you. A lot. We should—um…anyway, I have to—"

There was a click, and Ed slowly placed the phone into the receiver and stood there quietly for a few moments, his cheeks warming for some strange reason, until odd looks from the staff pushed him back toward the room. He thought he had waited long enough for the red to fade from his face, but Al knew somehow, and he watched his older brother smugly as Ed clambered back into bed.

"I take it the conversation went well?" he asked politely.

"Shut it, Al," Ed said without bite.

That made for two conversations that week that he thought he would likely never speak of again. People are funny when you come back from the dead, he thought wryly.

.

After almost three more days in the hospital, the Elric brothers were officially discharged from care. This may or may not have been because Edward had finally managed to convince his brother to participate in a wheelchair race outside in the therapy garden, but there was really no telling.

The nurses, who were particularly fond of the brothers, offered to arrange a ride for them. By mutual agreement, the pair turned their offer down. It had been a long time since they had been able to stretch their legs for any extended period of time, and in an atmosphere of relative peace, no less. Better to take advantage of that while they could.

They passed reminders of the crumbling infrastructure as they walked—fallen buildings, cracked streets, overturned vehicles—everywhere with blue-uniformed men and women dashing to and fro like ants rebuilding a colony. Ed hadn't even been aware that there were so many officers in the city.

He himself had been expressly ordered to take it easy and not to aid in the cleanup (Mustang's exact phrasing was something along the lines of "I've learned to expect property damage over property restoration from you in the past."). Ed wouldn't say it aloud, but that suited him well enough. His energy had been sapped by wrestling his way through the Leviathan and balancing the array for the Gate, and he was just as happy to spend a few more aimless days resting with his brother. He'd put up a good fight for show, of course, but he was no longer so certain that Mustang couldn't see through that sort of thing.

"How's your leg?" Al inquired suddenly, drawing him from his thoughts. Ed had not even realized that he'd been rubbing absently at the place where flesh and automail met, and he stopped instantly, as though chastised.

"It's alright," he responded automatically, but Al shot him such a hard look—one that was every bit as steely as the armor that had once housed his soul—that Ed relented. "It's getting colder, Al," he said, "and automail always gets like this in the winter."

"Ah. Seasonal aches and pains. I'd almost forgotten," Al said quietly. "Maybe you can have Winry take a look at it whenever we see her next." There was no hint of teasing in his brother's voice when he mentioned their mutual friend, but Ed still got the feeling that Al was amused.

"Yeah, maybe," he replied offhandedly.

A few seconds later, in a smaller voice, Al asked, "Does it bother you?"

Ed understood that Al wasn't talking only about the aches and pains anymore. "Not even a little."

His younger brother hesitated. "But…maybe we could—"

"No," Ed said firmly. "We're done with the Gate, Al." He took in the morose look on his little brother's face and huffed. "Don't you think we've messed with it enough? We've thrown ourselves too many times."

"That's not what we used to say, Brother," Al argued. "It was always, 'we won't stop until we get our bodies back.' Both of our bodies. We promised. And for you to live like this, still hurting, still…well, I can't stand that! Can you?"

"This doesn't matter to me, Al," he said earnestly, gesturing vaguely to his right arm. "I don't care that I'm like this, so stop worrying. All that matters now is that we're together, and you're back. That's all I've ever needed."

Al drew back. "So that's what's changed, then?" he asked icily. "That's why you're not all for figuring this out? It's because your real priority this whole time was to fix me and to suffer alone?"

"I'm not suffering, Al!" Ed said exasperatedly, rolling his eyes. "And that's not what I meant. I thought we might both get our bodies back, but now that it's over, this is all I could ask for."

"It doesn't have to be over, Brother! We could still have everything if we just don't stop, if we just keep walking—"

"I do have everything, Al! I have everything I wanted! This is what I was after, and I'm not going to throw it all away again by running to the Gate without a plan!"

"Who's to say we wouldn't have a plan? If you would just listen—"

"Is everything alright?" a voice interrupted, and both brothers jumped, suddenly aware that their argument had escalated in volume, and that they'd both stopped in the middle of the road, fists clenched. A few officers regarded them warily from where they were moving debris from the street.

"Everything's fine, sir," Al said, deflating, at the same time that Ed snapped, "None of your business."

"Well," said the man, eyes flickering from one brother to the next, "see that you move whatever this is along. We don't need fights breaking out in the streets on top of everything else."

Al nodded curtly, and they walked on. "We're fine," Ed growled over his shoulder at the eyes at their backs.

There was a moment of silence as both brothers moved through the small crowd of officers while trying to look as harmless as possible.

"How did you think I'd feel, anyway?" Al hissed once they were out of earshot. "Once I was back to normal and you weren't? Didn't you think I'd be upset?"

"I thought you'd be whole. Happy. The rest didn't matter."

They were approaching the dorms now, and Al looked as weary as Ed felt. "I am," Al said. "I'd just have been happier if you'd let me in on everything too."

"Couldn't have done that," Ed said with a smile. "I'm the older brother. I'm supposed to take care of you."

Al wasn't smiling, and as they took the side stairs, he began to frown determinedly. "You're right about the Gate, I suppose. I don't like it, and I'll probably keep looking even if you won't." He shrugged. "Maybe there's nothing we can do. But Ed," he added, "you have to promise me something."

"What?" Ed asked warily.

"Promise that this is the last of the over-protectiveness. That you'll stop sacrificing yourself for me—for anyone. Last time, things didn't go too well."

"I got back, didn't I?" Ed asked flippantly.

"Brother," Al grumbled, looking his brother straight in the eye. "Seriously. No more. Because I can't go through that again."

Taken aback, Ed sobered. "I know. I can't either…and I shouldn't have…well. Alright, Al."

In the years of living with Ed as a brother, Al had learned to take whatever he could get. He nodded, looking a little more pleased.

Finally, they stood in their simple dorm room, late afternoon light streaming in through the window and the dusty warmth hemming them in from all sides. Ed dropped his coat on the back of one of the kitchen chairs, and Al leaned back against the bedroom door, looking idly about the room.

"So." Ed said suddenly.

"So." Al rejoined after a moment.

Ed frowned.

"So. No news from the Bastard Colonel, no stones or books to chase after, nowhere to be…I mean. We're really…we can…"

Whatever they were and whatever they could do, Ed couldn't quite figure it out.

"I guess," Al began unsurely, "I guess it might be pretty quiet for us from now on. Since we're done with…everything."

Ed snorted, because there was one thing he was sure of. "Quiet? Hell, no. Where's the fun in that?"

Al smiled.

.

"Alright, then. What will it be?"

The following day, Ed sat in a chair facing Mustang in the office at headquarters, having wandered there at his leisure with Al after assuming (and rightly so) that the next leg of the Gate crisis would involve bureaucracy and mounds of paperwork, neither of which he particularly wanted to take part in.

Ed wasn't sure what he'd expected to happen upon their arrival. The brothers were both warmly welcomed by all of Mustang's staff, who had been given only general updates about their recovery. There were small signs—Breda's almost pained look as he clapped Al on the shoulder, a suspicious shine to Fuery's eyes, and a quiet "Glad you're back, boys" from Hawkeye—that showed their mixture of worry and relief. After Havoc had ruffled Ed's hair for the third time (with a smirk that said he knew Ed hated that), he was ushered alone into Mustang's office, where he now sat and listened to his brother laughing at something just outside the closed door at his back.

He fidgeted, tapping the heel of one boot restlessly. "No repercussions for walking away?" He asked.

"None," Mustang said firmly, folding his arms across his chest. "Your contract expired about two months ago, and even without that, no one would blame you if you needed a break after what you've done. If that's what you want."

There were those words again. If that's what you want. Mustang had said them earlier, and Ed was suddenly having a hard time wrapping his head around them.

He didn't have to be here anymore. He didn't have be anywhere. He didn't have to do anything. So what did he want?

The last thing Ed had expected was to be given the opportunity to worm out of his contract early. After all, he'd technically not given his full term of service, as he'd spent the past year inside of the Gate. Plus, the government was notoriously stubborn about upholding contracts, and it was rare for a State Alchemist to be given the chance to worm out of military grasp before the deadline.

Ed might not have believed it at all, except that Mustang had pushed forward a piece of paper and a pen. They lay there at the edge of the desk. There was even a blank line where his signature would go.

He'd spent so long wishing to get out of the military's clutches that he couldn't believe that he was hesitating now.

Mustang leaned back in the chair with a casual nonchalance, one eye trained lazily on his subordinate as though Ed's choice didn't matter to him at all. Hell, Ed thought, maybe it doesn't. But it matters to me.

Ed had been mulling over his attitude toward his commanding officer ever since that conversation they'd had in the hospital, the one that would absolutely never be brought up again. At any rate, he was still convinced that the vast majority of the military was composed of a bunch of second-rate stiffs with their thumbs up their asses, but it didn't necessarily include Mustang. Or least not all the time, anyway.

What was more, Ed owed Mustang. Maybe not enough to renew his contract when it came up again—that might be getting too carried away—but enough to see through what they'd started together, at the very least. Mustang had been watching the Elrics' backs for years, and in the past few days more than ever. Ed couldn't walk out on him now, he realized, no matter how good the opportunity. Not until he'd returned the favor.

"No," he said shortly, shaking his head. "I'll stay."

Mustang was surprised, but Ed only knew because he'd learned how to tell. A minute raise of the eyebrow and a slight twist to the mouth.

It was worth staying for a while longer just to keep the old bastard on his toes, anyway.

"You're staying," Mustang said slowly. "Even after all your complaining about being forced to be a dog of the military?"

"I guess around here military dogs aren't treated as badly as everywhere else." Ed supposed he could give him that much.

Mustang hummed and pulled the paper and pen away slowly. "And you're sure? I have the feeling I won't be able to offer you another chance."

"I'm sure. Me and Al—we're finished. We got what we wanted. But you're still aiming." He fixed Mustang with a pitying look. "Besides, if you're trying to get higher up than you are, you'll need all the help you can get."

"Is that so?" Mustang asked with a smile.

"You bet. Besides," he added, mind spinning, "we'll need a steady income again now that there's two of us, and our savings are starting to dip kinda low. Oh. And I owe someone a boat," he remembered, ignoring the steady climb of Mustang's eyebrow.

"Well," Mustang added eventually, "that will be easier to work out on a Lieutenant Colonel's salary."

"Lieutenant Colonel?"

"A posthumous promotion, remember," Mustang said easily. "It would be…unbecoming of them to take it away just because the recipient came back from the dead."

Ed snorted. "Right. I'm not even surprised. Anyway, things would be boring if I didn't stick around now." He didn't bother to clarify whether that would be on his end or the officers'.

Mustang fixed him with a calculating stare and nodded. "Alright, then," his commanding officer—still—said briskly. "We're done here. I'll make arrangements. I suppose this just means you'll continue to be a pain in the ass around here."

"What, seriously?" Ed exclaimed, rolling his eyes.

"Seriously," Mustang agreed, rising to his feet with a wry smile. "You wouldn't believe the paperwork involved in legally bringing someone back from the dead."

Ed let out a surprised bark of laughter. "It probably serves you right. For something." He stood to go, calling a short goodbye over his shoulder as he wandered back into the room where Al and the others waited. He hadn't saluted or waited to be dismissed, of course, but he thought that Mustang might have died of shock had he done either, promotion or not.

.

"You're staying, of course," Al said, as soon as Ed had told him about Mustang's offer during their walk back to the dorms. Ed would never understand how Al could possibly infer Ed's choices in less time than it took Ed to make them.

"Well, things might be boring otherwise," Ed offered, but Al shot him a knowing glance.

"I'm sure that wasn't the only reason, Brother," he murmured.

"It wasn't," Ed agreed easily, but he wasn't going to go into it past that. "It's just my contract, though, Al. You don't have to stick around if you don't want to."

Al hummed. "Things might be boring otherwise."

Ed smiled as they fell into a companionable silence. Miraculously, in Ed's opinion, many of the businesses along this stretch of road were struggling to reopen, and the brothers had even snared some excellent Xingese food from a vendor who had set up a makeshift outdoor kitchen of her half-fallen restaurant. Al looked on in amusement as his brother munched happily on one of the kebobs.

"Eventually, though," he began with a mouthful of food, "it might be nice to do something on our own. Being a consultant to the military doesn't sound so bad," he said voicing an idea he'd been toying with. "And it means that I wouldn't have to fill out any more reports for that bastard."

"Brother," Al laughed, half in exasperation, "didn't you just agree to stick with him?"

"Not forever, Al," Ed countered. "There's more I want to do than that. It's the same for you, isn't it?"

Al paused. "Well…okay, one day, I thought it might be nice if we opened a business. For alchemy, I mean," he clarified, as Ed shot him a confused look. "It might be sort of the same as being a consultant, but it would mean we could help everyone, not just the military. Everyone needs things fixed or needs help understanding alchemy sometimes."

Ed nodded fervently. "Yeah, that's true! Except if we did it together, you might have to deal with the people who need help understanding alchemy. I'd just rip people's heads off if they didn't get something."

Al laughed. "You're not that bad a tutor, Brother. You help me all the time."

"But that's you, so it's different. Besides, it goes both ways."

"We wouldn't be able to do as much research, though," Al cautioned. "We'd lose the whole library…"

"I'll see if I can work it out," Ed said decidedly, already figuring out if it was possible to blackmail Mustang into such a thing.

"Or we could wander around a bit. I hear that the library in the capital of Aerugo is supposed to be huge. Maybe we should spend some time there…but that's a lot. What are we going to do first?"

Ed knew the answer to that. He tossed the kebob wrapper and slung an arm around his brother's shoulders.

"Anything we want," he laughed. "The world's wide open."

fin

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A/N: Holy crap, the fluff just oozed out of everywhere. I didn't mean for that much sap, honest, but the story didn't want to finish anywhere else. In other news, OH MY GOD I finished a story! I can hardly believe it's really over! :') I rarely take on much more than a one-shot or a short series of one-shots. So when I began this, it seemed like a massive undertaking, but I'm actually fairly pleased at how it turned out!

At present, though, there are no plans for a sequel...I'll never say never because I do like to toy with the idea of finding out where Ed and Al might venture once they realize that they're free of obligations, and whether Mustang ever makes it to the top like he wants to. HOWEVER, whether or not I write a sequel, I will probably (eventually) update my FMA one-shot, Otherwise, which takes place in this same universe, to reflect events that happen after the ending of this story. So keep an eye out for it!

Thanks a ton to everyone who has stuck around to read the whole story, and even more to those who took a second to review. There's nothing that motivates me like a good review, even if it's just a couple of words. If you have the time, please let me know what you thought of the story – it always helps, and it always makes my day!

Until next time,

ket