Happy Valentine's Day, here's Part Two! I wish I'd had it together enough to churn out something fluffier for today, but I, uh, did not think of that until this morning, and this was already written. Shout-out to reviewer kaoruca: thank you for your wonderful feedback! This chapter was a little bit shorter before, but since you mentioned it, I fleshed it out with a little more detail about Ed's Alchemy Feelings, and I think I like it.

The title for this one comes from the song "Reservations" by Wilco, so we're about to get gently angsty. Enjoy!

How can I convince you that it's me I don't like,
When I've always been distant, and I've always told lies
For love?

I'm bound by these choices, so hard to make
I'm bound by the feeling, so easy to fake
But none of this is real enough to take
Me from you.

Oh, I've got reservations
About so many things,
But not about you.

Ed kept the phone call to himself until the next morning—Tuesday—at the breakfast table, when the letter arrived.

"You guys wanna come to Central?"

Winry made a vaguely affirmative noise with a mouth full of homefries from across the table.

"Central? They're calling you back to Central?" Al asked, surprised. "Is something wrong?"

"Not exactly," Ed said. "They just want me to come back to work. Apparently not being able to perform alchemy doesn't actually disqualify me from being a state alchemist."

Everyone at the table looked at him in confusion.

He'd been dreading this moment—having to address what he'd given up. Alchemy didn't factor into his new life in Resembool much—and, he knew, he would make the same choice again a million times over as long as it ended with a flesh-and-blood Alphonse sitting next to him. Out here, at home, it barely felt like a trade-off.

But in Central? Surrounded by soldiers and officers and who knew what else—and thinking and talking about alchemy the entire time? People calling him by his old title, whispering rumours about what he could do—what they'd seen him do—and he wouldn't be able to do it. Ever again.

He glanced at his brother, holding his stupid tin camping mug of tea, and pushed the whole train of thought out of his mind.

"Yeah, that was my reaction," Ed said, smirking. "But they want me to be part of this committee to re-evaluate the whole state alchemist program."

"Right," Al said, his eyes lighting up. "Given that the original program was just a tool to find human sacrifices…"

"…The new central command figured it was worth a second look. Exactly," Ed finished.

"Well, isn't that something," Pinako said, taking a bite of her toast. "You're still a government bigshot after all."

"It's just one meeting!" Ed said. "I don't know the whole scope of it yet, so I might not even sign onto the project. I'm just going to find out what they want first."

"When do you leave?" Winry asked, leaning over to refill her coffee.

"Meeting's Thursday morning, so…" Ed turned the envelope upside down and shook, and a thick paper document and two sets of train tickets fell out. "Oh, they booked the train already."

Al picked up the tickets. "Oh man, the 5 AM Express?"

"Ugh," Ed said, grabbing them from his brother. "Okay, so the schedule's not great, but how 'bout it? You up for the trip?"

"I would be," Al said, "but Thursday is when that specialist from East City is coming out here to assess me."

Pinako made a disapproving noise.

"Granny, why do you hate Dr. Whitman?" Winry said.

All Pinako said in response was "Hmph."

"Whatever," Ed said. "So you seriously can't come, Al?"

"Sorry, big brother."

"Aw, man."

"Wait," Winry interjected. "If they sent two tickets, does that mean I can go? I'm all caught up on my work," she added, glancing at Pinako.

"Uh…" Ed looked up from the pile of papers on his lap and met Winry's gaze across the table. "Yeah, I guess. It's not gonna be that exciting, though."

"I mean, I hope it's not quite as exciting as the last time you brought me to Central," she said, smirking.

Ed looked away sheepishly. That particular trip had been one big blur of violence—Maria Ross, Ling and Barry the Chopper, Scar, the gun

"Ed, I was just kidding!" she said, catching his attention again. "There's nothing serious going on this time around, right?"

He blinked. Better shut that train of thought down too, he thought. "Right."

"I just want to get out of here for a day or two, visit Gracia and Elicia, see some sights," Winry continued, "maybe go shopping."

He snapped out of his reverie. "Really? Shopping?"

"Yeah, I want some new clothes."

Ed and Al both looked at each other and scoffed.

"And?" Al said.

"…And new die grinder burrs," she finished.

"There it is," Al said.

"Plus it'll save me the trouble of heading out there after you once you manage to break your leg somehow," Winry said, "seeing as you basically never make it back here in one piece on your own."

"Hey, when have I ever destroyed my leg?"

"I'm just saying, the stats are really against you here."

"What, you keep stats on every patient who breaks their automail?"

"Only the patients who absolutely smash their limbs into pieces, so it's a sample size of exactly one."

"Oh, what—nobody else has ever smashed a piece of your automail? I find that hard to believe."

"The fact that you find that hard to believe just proves how reckless you are with yours!"

The bickering went on for some time, but in the end it was settled—Winry was coming to Central too, since everything was booked and paid for—and if the Colonel was mad that Winry was there instead of Al he could go to hell.

The day before, Ed had been uneasy about the prospect of going back to military command as an ex-alchemist—and he was dreading how much of the previous year he was going to have to rehash with a bunch of high-ranking officers, not to mention the looks he knew he would get from Mustang's crew, who had all seen him fight with alchemy firsthand. All day after getting off the phone with Lieutenant Hawkeye, all he could think about was how much less in control he felt—how he actually was just a kid surrounded by soldiers this time around.

But now, as he was drifting off to sleep on the top bunk on Wednesday night, all packed for the fiendishly early train the next morning, Ed couldn't stop thinking about the last time Winry was in Central. He hadn't thought about it in ages, and now, suddenly, he was full of guilt again. Whatever happened with the meeting would happen—there wasn't much he could do about that. But he could definitely do something about Winry—something to overwrite what he'd put her through last fall at least a little.

As Edward closed his eyes, an image swam into his mind: Winry on the train, about to head back to Rush Valley to work after everything he'd put her through, and him, struck by a sudden wave of equal parts guilt and determination. He remembered how—without planning it, without thinking about it in advance or weighing out the pros and cons or choosing his words carefully at all—he'd made a promise to her, loud enough for the whole platform to hear it.

The next time I make you cry, they'll be tears of joy.

He'd managed to follow through—but that didn't mean he'd actually made up for how much hurt he'd caused. Ed could still remember kneeling on the ground in front of her, the ground around them all torn up, his face covered in blood and hers covered in tears, after the incident with Scar and the gun. He remembered putting his torn-up jacket around her shoulders, and feeling pathetic that it was all he could do. It still felt like a stone in his stomach.

Images kept running through his head like a strip of film. First it was nothing but victories: gaining the high ground by making the ground higher, making doors where there weren't any, pulling spears out of the floor, fixing broken objects in seconds. And then the movie kept playing—he was standing next to the burnt-out bridge on a cliff in Rush Valley, powerless to rebuild it. He was standing in front of Rosé in Reole after taking down the Leto cult, telling her she was on her own. He was kneeling in front of Winry in the alley, surrounded by debris from countless haphazard transmutations, none of which could make her feel any better.

Guilt doesn't get anything done, he reminded himself. He took a deep breath. On his slow exhale, he set his brain to work, scanning through everything he knew about Central, about Winry, and he finally fell asleep with the beginnings of a plan.

Did I say two-parter? Obviously I meant three-parter. We will be hearing more from Ed and Winry on their trip to Central, so STAY TUNED FOR THAT. Up next will be something completely different, but I'll be coming back to this plotline soon for sure. Thanks for reading!