3. A year after he was gone, they celebrated his seventeenth birthday. Al and Winry made a cake while Alicia mixed the icing and Sciezka puttered around the kitchen attempting to help in her own clumsy way. Pinako smoked solemnly in the living room while Roze just pet Den between the ears, staring at some unspecified space far off in the distance, her eyes clouded with memory.

Al couldn't remember Ed's ssixteenth birthday. Not that they had celebrated it, but he couldn't remember Ed's fifteenth birthday either. Or his fourteenth, or his thirteenth. He couldn't even remember his brother's twelfth birthday, no matter how many times Gracia told the story and Alicia gushed about how cool it had been to have an "older brother" who had the same birthday as her.

They sat in the Rockbell's dining room and ate the cake, telling stories about Edward Elric while Pinako shook her head sadly, watching the smoke from her pipe curl in the air. Al grew frustrated by the end of the night, listening to story after story he couldn't remember despite having played a starring role in.

The next year, Armstrong came to the party as well, as did the Tringham brothers. Fletcher could nearly stand eye to eye with Al and for some reason, this made Russel laugh uncontrollably. Al couldn't rememeber why ir was funny, but it still caused him to flush with embarassment.

Brigandier General Mustang attended the next year. He sat Alicia on his lap and laughed about all the times he and Ed had fought. Or rather, the times Ed had fought and Mustang had simply remained calm behind the confident curve of his smile. Pinako still sat in the corner, dark eyes watching but never revealing or betraying and single emotion.

The year after that, Winry made the cake on her own (utilizing her newest invention, the convection oven) while Roze's son Cali mixed the icing all on his own. When Winry brought the cake to Al, he just frowned and told her that there wasn't going to be a party. Talking about Ed wasn't going to bring him home- Auntie Pinako's quiet disapproval hadn't been misguided. They were the foolish ones.

Al didn't want to admit selfish reasoning, but he couldn't stand to hear one more story about his brother and feel absolutely nothing in response.