There's a slight breeze, ruffling his hair and striking a pleasant contrast to the warm sun on his back. He's not sure if he used to notice these things in such detail—the way the clothes feel, brushing against his skin at the slightest movement, or the scent of grass and fresh air, the wholesome feeling of just breathing, breathing deep—but now, there's no question; after not having them for so long, six months is nowhere near long enough to get used to all the wonders of being alive.

He looks down, at the green hill beneath his feet. In some places the ground still looks scorched, in the places where there's still remnants of burnt concrete and brick; otherwise, the charcoal served as good fertilizer, and the grass is long and vibrant and springy. There's a few weeds and wildflowers sprouting up here and there along what used to be tall white walls, or in what was once a homey kitchen or sitting room. He's glad to see them. It's good to know that something good came of this place after … after everything.

"Al?"

The breeze picks up as he turns, springy grass bouncing up to brush his legs. Winry's standing there and looking at him with mild curiosity and a bit of concern, but she's smiling as her hair floats around her face. After a second he realizes that he's smiling, too.

"Hi," he says simply. He hadn't noticed her getting here, too engrossed in the flowers and the grass and the blue blue sky. And the scorched bricks.

"I thought I might find you here," she says, looking past him at the ground. Her eyes travel straight to the spot where it was buried, where Ed dug it up not too long ago. Alphonse wonders if she's ever looked at the little white flowers, under where windows with their painted wooden windowboxes full of Trisha's trailing roses and daffodils used to be. Somehow, he feels like she hasn't.

"There's not a lot of other places I'd go. Maybe two or three others, but not a lot," he agrees, turning his head to follow her gaze for a moment, but only for a moment. He's devoted enough thoughts to that thing for a lifetime, on dark, sad, lonely, quiet nights, nights that were too still and far away even when there was a raging storm. Thoughts about that belong in dark nights when he can't feel, not on beautiful days with warm sunshine and blue skies. He looks at the grass instead.

"Are you okay?" Winry asks, getting straight to the point like she always does. "Ed was getting kind of worried when you didn't show up for lunch."

"Oh, it's past lunchtime already?" Al blinks, looking up at the sky to judge the sun's position, but it's bright and he has to shade his eyes with a hand. He never really had to do that before—when he was in armor, he didn't have eyes. There was no need to shield sensitive pupils from sunlight. But sure enough, the sun's in the middle of the sky, maybe a little past its zenith. "Whoops. I guess I didn't notice."

Winry shrugs. "It happens sometimes," she says with a little laugh. "Every time I start getting into my work, well, you know how it goes…"

"Yeah, I know," Al says with an easy grin. "You sit down and suddenly there's fifteen coffee mugs piled up next to you and it's dark and Brother's probably asleep on the floor next to your chair or something."

"Using the rug as a blanket," she adds, wagging a knowing finger at him. Then she laughs again and nods. "That's pretty much how it goes, yup."

"He's the same way," Al tells her. "We'd get working on some research or something and then we'd keep working until he fell asleep on the books. We've gotten locked in the library before, because we forgot to leave around closing time and it was big enough that no one noticed."

He leaves out the parts about how he'd had to sit there in the library all night after Edward fell asleep. Honestly, that hadn't even been the worst night—at least there was plenty of reading to do, always another book to keep him occupied. It was just… well, exhausting isn't the best word to use, because he was just a suit of armor and he couldn't get tired, but the way that he couldn't sleep, couldn't rest, left him feeling perpetually drained. On the Promised Day, once he got to the hospital and all the excitement and rush and adrenaline wore off, he had fallen asleep and not woken up for almost thirty-six hours. It had been pretty restful, though there had been plenty of worried faces gathered around his bed when he'd opened his eyes again.

He's drawn back to the present moment when Winry breaks the silence again. "I'm not surprised, somehow," she says wryly. "Honestly, you two."

Al can't help but laugh. "You're the exact same way! I could put you and Brother in a room together and say the same thing. Honestly, you two." He pauses, looks at her. "You both are pretty similar in some ways, you know. Have you kissed him yet?"

"Wh—what?!" Winry goes a bit red in the face, startled into stumbling back a step, and Al grins knowingly at her. She huffs and rolls her eyes, then shakes her head. "No."

"Yeah, I figured not," he nods. "Even though I left you two the house all to yourselves this morning to take a walk. But I guess if you did kiss him, I would have known because I'd have heard him screaming, all the way out here."

Winry giggles, glancing back behind her as if to make sure Ed isn't there. "That's probably true," she agrees, face lit up with a sunny smile and rosy cheeks. "He's silly like that."

"He is," Al agrees warmly. He looks down the path too, over to the hill where the Rockbell house waits patiently, ever welcoming. Well—it's the Rockbell-Elric house now, pretty much. It's not like this is the Elric house, he thinks, turning again and looking at the springy grass and burned bricks and little flowers.

"Al," Winry says again, the concern back in her voice. She must think he's looking at that spot on the ground, the one he doesn't want to look at. "Why don't we go home? You can have lunch now, even though it's a little late, and you won't have to be out here…"

"I like it out here," Al says simply, turning back to her. His legs are tired, he suddenly realizes, because he's been walking and wandering for a few hours today, just marveling at the taste of fresh air. He plops down in the springy grass, cross-legged, and looks up at her with a little smile. "It's nice."

She bites her lip a bit uncertainly, but she plops down in the grass too, still watching him. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he nods. "The sky is so big and bright, and the grass is… it's… it's grassy. It feels like grass! And I like the sun. It's warm." He excitedly runs his hand through the grass at his side, relishing the way he can feel the little green blades against his palm. They're cool to the touch and they bend easily and they have a little bit of a grainy texture, running against his skin. He knows that that's because grass is a monocotyledon and there's only one embryonic leaf in the seeds from which it sprouts and that's why the plant fibers only run in one direction, parallel to that of growth, instead of branched veins like in dicotyledons, but it's still amazing to be able to feel it.

"Okay," Winry says, her voice still a little doubtful. "Are we just going to ignore the elephant in the room?"

"Don't you mean the elephant out of the room?" Al jokes, lying back in the grass. It tickles the back of his neck and his ears and he almost laughs from the sheer joy of feeling. He's been laughing at the sheer joy of feeling just about every day because of something or other, different every time. At first it was overwhelming, but now it's just wonderful.

"The elephant on the hillside, then," Winry amends, rolling her eyes. Even though he's not looking at her, he just knows she is. "There obviously is one, because you're acting like Ed."

"I don't know whether I should be flattered or insulted," Al tells her, closing his eyes against the too-bright sun. It's warm on his face, though, and it feels golden, if it's possible for something to feel like a color.

A light jab to his side makes him open them again, defensively curling up as Winry reaches out to poke him again. "You're still avoiding the question!" she accuses. "And I happen to have it on good authority that you're really ticklish, so if you don't start telling me about our hillside elephant…" She raises her hands threateningly, fingers curled into claws that she menacingly wiggles in his general direction.

"Oh no, don't you dare—!" He breaks off into a yip, rolling away and wildly flailing about to push her arms away as she reaches for him, laughing. "Winry, stop! No! No—Winry!"

Scrabbling for a way to get away from her, he catches her wrist and tries to push her back but in the process leaves himself open for attack from her other hand. And in his already disadvantaged position, lying on his back with the sun in his face, he can't really be blamed for not seeing it coming in time to stop her.

Winry pins him in place, laughing victoriously as she twists her arm around and latches onto his wrist when he's forced to let go. "Ha! So much for the undefeated sparring champion around here!" she teases, leaning across his legs.

"That's not fair!" he objects, breathless and pink in the face from laughing. "I have to relearn everything now! I used to be bigger and stronger, but now I have to learn to fight like a normal-sized, tiny person." He pauses, and then adds with a little grin, "Kind of like Brother."

Both he and Winry turn to look at the Rockbell-Elric house, fully expecting to see Edward jump out a window screaming what did you just say, you little punk?

Then Winry turns her attention back to him, her hand still pinning his wrist up over his head in the grass. "You're still trying to change the subject?" she asks disbelievingly. "The way you keep not talking about it makes me think there's definitely something to talk about here!"

Al shrugs one shoulder, then with his free hand reaches up and touches her shoulder, gently pushing her a little bit to the left until her head blocks the sun from his eyes. "There," he says. "That's better."

Winry snorts, rolling her eyes. "Okay, sure," she says. "So? What's up?"

"You really wanna talk about it?" Al asks, looking up at her questioningly. He's not entirely sure she does, considering that she seems to only associate this place with that thing, and not much else. Well, only that thing, and the day they burned it down. Basically, only bad memories.

"Alphonse, I swear you are just as dense as that brick Ed baked when he forgot to put eggs in the cake batter," Winry says disbelievingly, letting go of his wrist to smack her forehead. "I've been asking you to talk about it like fifty times now! Yes, I want to talk about it!"

"Well, it just seemed like something you never like to talk about, so I wasn't sure," he shrugs again. "But okay. It's nothing bad. I don't think it's all sad, this place."

She seems surprised, to say the least. Drawing back, she looks around and then back at him, bewildered. "What?"

"Hey!" Al protests, sitting up in complaint of the sudden sun in his eyes. "You're no good at being shade, Winry."

"Sure, whatever," she agrees distractedly, then shakes her head to get back on track. "What do you mean, it's not all sad?"

Al sighs slightly. "I feel like all you see when you look at this place is just… ruins. Something we used to have. You see the day we burned it down and you see the thing Brother and I made—or, well, you see where it's buried." She didn't see it. Which is good. And he's not about to start talking about it.

Winry is quiet for a second. "And what do you see when you look at it?"

"I …" He looks around, not sure how to put it in words that he's content with this place as it is, that it makes him kind of sad but not a lot, that while he misses things the way they used to be, he's let go of them, too. "I see that we make bad life choices sometimes," he finally says, lighthearted and dry before he sobers and adds, "But I don't see anything I regret right now."

"You… you don't regret that?" she asks softly.

Al sighs again, more deeply this time. "I've had a long time to think about that," he finally says, looking away from her and out into the valley, lush and green. "I mean, obviously, it was awful, yeah, but… aside from everything we gained over the past four years, all the people we helped that we wouldn't have helped if we hadn't been travelling, aside from all that, I'd still say it was worth it. Because the homunculi would have tried to activate their circle anyway—after Ishval, they only needed to cause bloodshed at Briggs. Everywhere else was already gone. And with things with Drachma like they are right now, I doubt they'd have had trouble doing that, even if we hadn't gotten all mixed up in it.

And I really, really doubt that they needed the sacrifices to be me and Brother. We were convenient because we'd already opened the Gate and everything, so they kept us alive because we were already prepared for them, if you want to call it that, but you see, Winry, they forced Colonel Mustang to, because they figured he'd be good for it. If we hadn't done it, I'm sure they had a list of other people they would have forced into it too, and I'd rather it was me than someone else, who didn't deserve it."

Winry is silent for a long moment after Al finishes explaining himself. She just looks at him, and looks at him some more, then looks back at the house. "Oh, Al," she finally says, and then she leans over and hugs him. "You're a good person," she murmurs as he rests his chin on her shoulder, more than happy to share in contact. Even though he's been at home for four months now, he still absolutely adores physical affection and the fact that he can actually touch the people he loves.

"You are too," he says. Then he draws back a bit, excited to keep telling her why this isn't a wholly sad place. "But, Winry, see, that's not all!" And now he grabs her hands for emphasis, and pretends not to notice when she blinks too-bright eyes and smiles a smile that's a little bit watery. "I know you're sad we burned it down, but if we hadn't, I don't think it'd be as happy today. I mean…" He looks off to the other hill, at the other house. "That's home now, and I count that as something happy."

"Yeah," she nods, her smile more real. "Me too."

"And look," he continues, letting go of one of her hands to lean over and pluck one of the little white flowers growing by the remnants of a wall. It's in full bloom, six white petals and golden stamen in the middle, and he holds it out to her. "it's not like things are only dead here! Charcoal makes great fertilizer—it helps the root nodules with nitrification. Look at all the grass, too," he adds as she gently takes the flower, smiling. "I think it's nice. No matter how much we mess up, there's always something good."

It reminds him of their training all those years ago, of their time on the island, of realizing that they aren't much in the grand scheme of the world. And as cold as a realization as that might have seemed at the time, by contrast it's comforting when he looks at this place. No matter what he or anyone else does, no matter how awful, the world still goes on. Things still grow and flourish. There's always something beautiful, no matter what. It's reassuring.

Winry reaches up and tucks the flower into her hair behind her ear. "Okay," she says with a little smile. "That's true. I'd never thought of it that way."

"I know," Al says. "I figured you only really thought this place was sad and bad. So I figured you might not want to talk about that."

"But now that we talked, I don't think it's all bad," she contradicts, lightly tapping his nose. "So don't be silly and don't make up excuses to not talk to me!"

He laughs. "Okay, fine. Next time I won't pretend the elephant isn't on the hillside."

"Good," Winry says. The breeze picks up again, and Alphonse smiles because it's so nice, and even though he's been outside since morning he's still drowning in how good it feels, sun and wind and grass with that big, open blue sky overhead. Everything is bright and beautiful.

He reaches over and tucks Winry's hair behind her ear next to the flower, still smiling, and says with a bit of wonder, "Your hair is really soft."

She laughs lightly and shrugs, then reaches over and ruffles his hair in return. "So is yours," she says. Then she sits back, looking around. "Hey, Al, you know… we could make something up here. If you want. I mean, if you like the idea of it being a place for new things to grow and all…"

"What kind of something?" he asks, curious. Winry always has ideas on making new things, from her usual intricate machinery to grand plans for renovating the shed behind the house to culinary experiments that usually (usually…) turn out delicious. It's something he's always admired about her. "I don't really want to build something on top of it, you know?"

"Oh, no, no, nothing like that," she shakes her head quickly. "I was thinking… maybe we could plant some flowers around here. And maybe even some herbs, like a bigger version of the garden outside the kitchen. I mean, you said the ground is really fertile, right? So we could take these little flowers and plant a lot of them!"

"Yeah!" Al claps his hands, beaming. He can already see it—not in the place where it was buried, but everywhere else, sure. Flowers blooming, herbs and green plants carpeting the ground. "Winry, that's a great idea! I didn't even think of something like that. I bet Mom would've loved that, the entire place a big garden. Remember she had the trailing roses outside the windows?"

"Yeah, I remember that!" Winry laughs. "Remember that one time when we were playing tag and I got my hair caught in some of the vines? I still don't know how I managed that."

"Me neither," Al grins, shaking his head. "You're just… talented that way."

She lightly punches his arm. "Well, I'm not the only one! You're the one who tried to pet that old mangy cat outside the bakery and got your arm clawed. That's your talent!"

"He looked all lonely and sad! It was raining!" Al protests. "I just wanted to help him."

"You still got your arm all torn up," Winry points out, eyes dancing. "I didn't try to get my hair stuck in a rose vine, and you didn't try to get your arm clawed. But if I'm 'talented', then so are you!"

"You know who's the most talented?" Al asks, grinning. She already knows the answer is going to be Ed, of course—obviously, the one to rag on is the one who isn't here.

"Hmm, I'd say the guy who got his automail stuck in his hair when he first tried to braid it," she suggests, tapping her finger against her chin as if she's deep in thought about it. "He sounds like a good candidate for talent."

"Yeah, I think you're right," Al agrees innocently. "Should we give him a medal when we go home?"

"Maybe," she shrugs. Then she stiffens. "We should go home, though! You know why? Because you haven't eaten lunch and I nearly forgot! C'mon, no skipping meals unless you're working on automail, it's a house rule!" She hops to her feet and brushes off her pants to get rid of any grass, then holds out her hands to him.

"But it's so nice out here," Al sighs, even as he acknowledges defeat and lets her pull him upright. "Then again," he reconsiders, "lunch sounds pretty good, too."

"We can get food and sit out on the porch if you want," she suggests as they start walking back home, hand in hand. "And we can get some paper and start sketching ideas for the garden! Though I guess we should ask Ed about that first."

"I'm sure he'd like it too," Al says. "We'll ask him, but I'm sure he'll say yes."

"Yeah, especially if you ask," Winry teases, swinging their joined hands. "He practically melts every time you ask him anything!"

Al shrugs and laughs. It's not untrue, after all! "Well… as we said earlier, he's silly and talented. …But I don't think we should let him design the garden. He has a kind of, well… y'know, his sense of style is…"

"I know," Winry groans, her free hand smacking her forehead in disgust. "Believe me, I know."

"Yeah…" Al agrees, shaking his head. "Anyway. We could get him to come up here later with us and start measuring things so we can make our plans properly!"

"Oh, yes, that sounds good! We can get him to run around with the tape measure," she laughs. "What do you want for lunch? I made some bread this morning after you went out for your walk, so there's that. And I think there's some fresh raspberries, unless that brother of yours ate them all."

"A sandwich maybe?" Al asks. "Berries for dessert."

"Alrighty!" Winry beams. "I'll make it if you feed Den before you go wash up."

"Deal," Al says immediately. Feeding Den is his favorite household chore.

"And if you would, remind Ed that it's his day to put up the laundry on the clothesline, would you? I have a feeling he hasn't done it yet. When I left he was busy pretending he wasn't fretting that you weren't back yet."

"Why didn't he come looking for me?" Al asks, curious. Not that he minds Winry's company or anything—he's just not sure why Ed didn't come out himself.

"I told him to keep his ass in the kitchen and finish the dishes because he skipped out on them last time it was his turn," she laughs. "And that I'm perfectly capable of finding you out here myself."

"Okay, true, on both of those things," Al chuckles. They're getting near the house now, and it kind of reminds him of when they came home from Resembool Station four months ago—the hill, rising up in front of them, all verdant and emerald green and behind that, the deep blue sky, streaked here and there with a few pale white clouds. It's normal for Resembool, it's normal and he's used to it, and it's still just as breathtakingly beautiful as ever. He smiles. "I don't think I'm ever going to get sick of the way fresh air tastes."

"It's pretty nice," Winry agrees, giving his hand a squeeze. "I'm glad you're home." He knows she means it in more ways than one, and it fills him with warmth that feels like the sunlight, but inside.

Al squeezes her hand back. "I'm glad, too."

They walk up the front steps together, and they're home.

Al and Winry have such a good pure friendship and I love them a lot okay

"Welcome Home" by Radical Face is such a good song for them, and I was also inspired by "Little Wonders" by Rob Thomas!

Thanks for reading, feedback is appreciated c: