1 Year Later
The Alchemists had been booking larger gigs recently, drawing in hundreds of exhuberant fans.
Their two biggest fans stood directly below center stage.
Al cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled out a loud cheer. Winry bounced to the beat, arms raised high.
Ed was dazzling the crowd, as always. He had even added a new move to his reperatoire; a smile.
As he was slinking around the expansive stage, he stopped in the middle and dropped to his knees. He growled a bar of lyrics before making eye contact with Al, running the tip of his tongue across the edges of his top row of teeth, giving a quick wink.
Winry shrieked, grabbing Al's arm and shaking it violently. Al hid his smiling face with his hand, shaking his head, embaressed.
Perhaps their bedroom reperatoire would be expanded upon later, as well.
As Al watched on, the crowd faded from his periphery. Ed became the only entity in his vision.
Through the past year, Al came to know Ed as a fierce protector, with a whip-crack wit and that particular brand of humor that could make you laugh even when the world was crumbling around you. He did everything, from the mundane to the seemingly insurmountable, with his whole heart. A veritable library of information, he was always challenging Al to expand his mind, and they could discuss a topic and not even realize hours had passed.
There were bad days, too; days when Ed got so lost in the past, so deep in his grief that Al didn't think he would ever be able to pull him out of it.
He knew he could never replace Alphonse. He would never try to. But he could be happy forever, they could be, as long as he was enough.