Disclaimer: Already stated in first chapter…

A/N: The next chapter, if I decide not to change anything, will be the last chapter, sadly I want to thank everyone's patience for my… spacious progress.

Chapter Eleven: Starting Over

The reason for continuous departures didn't need to be explained to her just as frequently as they did do so; she knew that there were things that needed to be done. There were things left unfinished. And, although it wasn't Edward leaving this time, Al was still a part of her life and family. It still hurt.

She stood on the porch, hands clasped behind her back and Ed standing beside his younger brother. Ed's cough from his "mild hyperthermia" had cleared up surprisingly fast, not a few days after his return in fact, but she had wanted him to still take it easy. She didn't even think he had it mildly. You could never tell with him…

"I'll be back, Winry. Don't worry." Al said apologetically as she stood there, Den at her side. She nodded, truly understanding.

"I know."

"And I'm gonna walk down to the station with him." Ed added, not even waiting for her to acknowledge his words before he took up motioned to Al with a jerk of his neck toward "town", if it was even big enough to be called that. With a quick step, she hugged Al briefly.

"Make sure you come back in one piece, alright?" she joked, although she let her gaze harden with serious worry before smiling as he nodded and turned with Ed, toward the station.

She watched them descend into the peripheral sunrise of morning, only for them to disappear behind a rolling hill somewhere in the distance. A smile lingered there on her lips before she gave a sigh and looked down at Den.

"C'mon, Den."

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Al only smiled when his older brother gave a great growl of a yawn while they walked a all too familiar dirt path toward the station. And, although it was odd out of context, his smile warmed when he looked off toward the cemetery where he and Ed had been reunited for the first time in a long time. Any other time, the corners of his lips faltered into a frown.

It had been such a overwhelming feeling of clarity when he had thrown his arms around him then; Al hadn't doubted a moment that his brother would return one day, the proof had embedded itself in his heart once he'd felt his brother's silent tears of joy.

He cast a look at Ed, who had his hands bent behind his head and was walking with a drag, his eyes closed.

"Are you thinking about joining the military again?" Al asked, hands balled in his pockets. Ed gave a incredulous snort at the idea.

"Are you kidding? I have no desire to see the smug look on Mustang's face. Ever." he opened a eye to stare at the younger Elric, golden iris narrowing in stern disapproval, "I'm still getting over the fact that you became something as disgusting as a military dog." With a scowl, he remembered that he, too had been chained by the leash as a dog under the military service. That wasn't true anymore. What if another civil uprising had occurred while Ed had been away? He didn't want to have Al participate in that with him, undoubtedly, unwillingly wanting to. He hadn't asked what title they'd given him; he didn't want to know any other name that Al was referred to other than "Alphonse."

If it was one thing he could say about the soldiers in this world, however, it was that they had some sense of compassion for the human life; the world on the other side of the gate had soldiers who thought of it as a game. His nose wrinkled and a crease formed between his brows that steadily drew together in a frown.

Al watched the different expressions play on his brother's face, not sure how to interpret them. Al cast his gaze forward again before finally saying,

"It's weird. I know, at one point, we associated with some people in the military that I currently call my superiors, and yet, I can't remember them." he paused, looking at the pocket watch hooked in his belt loop. "Winry told me what had happened sometime after I came home and you didn't. But it was odd. She told me the stories she knew, and the things she thought I should know, but it all sounded like a non-fictional story written with my name in it. I felt detached from it." Ed stared at the back of his head, a unreadable look slowly sliding into the frown that held strong. "But, even though I knew I couldn't regain the memories I lost, I knew I could get my brother back somehow, if I worked for it." Ed didn't, nor couldn't say anything to that as he looked down at his feet, "Equivalent Exchange, right?"

He brought his face up to look at the back of Al's head, only to find him giving him a sideways glance over his now broadening shoulder. The shock that Al was steadily growing had been something he still hadn't succumbed to with eagerness. Not only had Al, at one point, grown almost as tall as him, but his voice no longer sounded the same. Ed's hope was that, in some weird paradox, that time would slow down or stop while he was gone; life would momentarily stop for him until he returned. But it hadn't, and with cruelty, the reality that he'd missed portions of Al's life slapped him in the face with such vigor, he felt light-headed. But, time was what gained his return. Ironic.

"You're not angry with me at all?" Ed had let those words fall from his mouth as he thought of them. Surely Al had to be upset with him even a little for his absence? For the choice he'd made to save him? Ed didn't regret for an instant the latter. A quizzical stare, so much like his own, fell upon him courtesy to Al.

"Angry?" no matter how deep Al's voice may have got, Ed still heard that childish voice that would've emitted in the same manner if he were younger still.

"Yeah… With me not being there." Confrontation was not his strongest social characteristic; Ed had looked away then, pretending to be occupied by the rolling scenery. Al's ponytail swayed as he shook his head, a understanding smile gently looking over his brother's solemn figure.

"How could I?" he asked simply.

"I thought you'd at least be upset that I chose to do what I did."

"From what I know, what you chose to do couldn't have been helped… We'll just have to pick up where we left off. Start over, I suppose." Ed shrugged, but he still chose not to stare at him completely.

" 'Start over?' You say it like it'll be easy." In truth, it wouldn't. Once people got wind of his return, then what? It was rumored he was dead. And what about Al's future? Sure, after this short inspection, he'd resign from the military ranks, but what then? What about where they were going to live? Ed wouldn't allow for the Rockbells to house them the rest of their lives, and Ed was currently broke. He guessed he could make a withdrawal from his savings during his occupation in the military, but Ed himself (he guessed) would have to make the withdrawal, raising suspicion among other things.

A audible groan raked through his throat at all the mess. Al weighed his response, before finally replying,

"When I said 'start over', I meant just that; a clean slate." Al slowed his pace to walk in sync with Ed as he asked, "Maybe even go back to school? You don't have to go back to the military."

"I'm a little old for school, Al."

"Not grade school; college. We can help people with alchemy. I'd like that a lot." Ed pondered it a moment before giving his younger brother a forced smile.

"I'll pay for your way through schooling, if that's what you want. I'm not too qualified for anything like that."

"You can be a… alchemic doctor. I heard of job openings for that new field of work."

"You mean like Marcoh?" he faltered. Al didn't remember him. "Never mind… Is that what you want to do?" Al nodded slowly, looking ahead.

"I've been thinking about it."

"Then do it." Ed said simply and with a affirmative and assuring nod. "But without military involvement." Ahead, the brothers could see the outline of the train station. Ed noted that several new buildings had been put up to accommodate a changing society.

"What about you?"

What about him? The military had been the only job he'd ever had, and currently, with a dark realization, possibly the only job he'd ever be… qualified to do per se.

"I dunno, Al. It's a little early to say."

"We'll think of something." A long, comfortable silence bubbled there between them. It was something they hadn't been able to do in a long time and it still felt oddly surreal. "Did Winry tell you what she plans to do? In the future I mean?" Ed shook his head. Of all the things that he and Winry had been able to discuss, the future had not been one of them. "She wants to start a auto-mail shop of her own, away from Resembool." With satisfaction of a desired reaction, Al inwardly smiled at the look Ed shot his way. He took pleasure in teasing his brother with thoughts of the blonde mechanic.

"Why? When did she tell you that?"

"She didn't go into detail on why… She and I kept in touch with letters and she wrote to me saying so." Ed stared at Al's back after Al quickened his pace slightly. And, with a distinct disgust from Ed's part, Al flicked open his State pocket watch, glanced at the time and returned the blasted thing back into his pocket.

"We have ten minutes."

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It was a pungent smell. A smell that, no matter how much it had wafted beneath his nose, made his nose cavity tingle and pinch, making him want to sneeze. For once, however, Edward really didn't mind the smell of the train's smoke. It billowed in large blacks and soon dispersed into dirty grays above the train's massive mechanical body. Was it the time he'd been away, or was this train so much different than he remembered?

Edward had avoided looks of familiar faces; some he'd never seen before, but nonetheless. Al had stepped over to a booth, purchasing a ticket while Ed, shoving his fists in his pockets, leaned against the train station's wooden support beam. He watched idly as a little girl, no older than five, he supposed, pranced and skipped around the station's platform, humming a song that sounded as if she was creating as she went. Her mother warned her to stay still as she wiggled in excitement around people's hurried legs, somehow avoiding being knocked over. She was excited over something obviously. Vaguely, he wondered why he was taking such interest. He didn't get much farther in observing the little girl's antics before her mother took her hand and headed off to a ticket inspector where they would board shortly afterward.

It occurred to him, that a similar girl had done the same dancing and prancing in a train station in Germany not too long after arriving… there. He'd went searching for Oberth at the time. Only difference was, he'd boarded the same train the girl had and she had given him a childish smile over her mother's shoulder as she was being carried. That's where the interest had come possibly…

"Hey, you okay?" Al asked from behind him as he looked over his ticket.

"I- Hmhm…" Al cast him a sideways glance before frowning.

"You're not missing me already, are you?" he joked, elbowing his elder brother in a attempt to get that frown from between his brows. Ed grinned,

"Heh, I was counting down until you were gone."

"Right, brother." Ed gave the suitcase by Al's feet a momentary glance before, on sheer impulse, he gripped his younger brother in a hug. A moment passed where Al thought Ed was going to cry, but when the elder Elric held out the younger at arms length again, he thought better.

"You sure you don't want me to come with you?" Al shook his head.

"We don't need the military knowing about you yet, right? Wasn't that what you wanted to avoid?" Al bent down and took a good hold of his suitcase. The train gave a loud warning howl that reverberated off the walls of their insides. "Besides, you need the chance to tell Winry how you really feel." Ed blanched and Al quickly made a turn on his heel.

"Wha-"

"I'll call Winry's and tell you how things are going. Bye, brother!" Al waved a hand and smiled, enjoying the look that played upon Ed's face.

Edward watched as his brother boarded the train, and disappear onto the train. Defeat, I give you Edward Elric. How'd he… Why didn't I say anything! How could he have known! He stood there dumbly, wanting more than anything to have had the chance to tell Al he had been mistaken… But that point would have been moot. Al knew, simply put, though he wondered how. It hadn't been obvious in the slightest… had it?

Giving the back of his neck a scratch, he watched as the train pulled away from the station and, just as silently, turned on his heel and headed off. Admitting he had feelings of anything other than friendship for the mechanic had been a something that sort of happened at one point during his time in Germany. Vaguely, he knew that a part of him had known all along what he had always wanted to say, yet could never bring himself to succumb to the obvious, much less say it. He'd thought foolishly that he'd get over it; that it would eventually fall away from him. Those feelings for Winry were such that were so disconnected with him (and at one point shameful), he didn't know whether to make heads or tails of them. Or, that's what he thought. But those feeling were in no way disconnected with him at all; being disconnected with those feelings had been a old part of him.

Maybe… it was time to start over…

A/N: I hope you guys will forgive me for the late update and that I won't be individually replying to all my reviews in this chapter…