Al is whole, and he's in Ed's arms, and he's perfect and huge, and he feels heavy, and Ed is so relieved, he can feel the tears prickle at the back of his eyes. The only thing he'd need to make this moment utterly perfect is to have Roy here, supporting him.

He doesn't have that, still doesn't know for sure that Roy will even want to still be with him, but the warmth on his wrist reassures him that Roy is alive and he is okay. As long as they are both alive, there is a chance to make things better. Ed is not an optimist. No matter how he might try to dispute it, Roy has always been the optimist and Ed the realist, but if Ed has faith in anything, he has faith in Al and he has faith in Roy. Having Al in his arms again reminds him that as long as they are both alive, there is a chance. There is opportunity to set things right. They have been through far too much to walk away over this argument. Ed has finally found his way home, even if he didn't do it on purpose. Now he needs to get his partner back, and with Al, that goal suddenly seems so much more in reach.

After hugging each other so tightly, Ed thinks they may have given each other bruises, Al finally straightens. Ed is exasperated to realize Al kept growing, but he supposes he should have expected it, and even though Ed got to 5'7", Al is probably of a height with Morgan. Ed reaches up to ruffle his hair.

"Look at you getting so big after leeching off me for four years," he says. He can tease only because Al is whole and beautiful, and even though he got to see Al be whole before he and Roy got pulled to Earth, the last time Ed saw him, he was still scrawny, his joints weak, and far too thin. He had still needed canes to walk for any distance, so seeing him now, healthy and filled out and tall… it's almost everything Ed had ever wanted after their failed attempt. He looks like he's always been strong and healthy.

"Where have you been? How did you get back? Where's the General?" Al asks. He had to have seen JJ and Morgan, but he must have dismissed them as a threat since they are with Ed. "And hello, there. I'm Alphonse Elric. You're acquainted with my brother?"

JJ and Morgan are looking rather shell-shocky again, which is not great. They really ought to get into some shade, if not indoors, and get some food in them.

Ed opens his mouth to introduce them, but as if on cue, his stomach growls audibly.

It turns out to be a great icebreaker because nearly everyone laughs. Al laughs so hard that there are tears in his eyes, but Ed thinks that's probably not just from Ed's stomach growling.

"Laugh it up," he tells them, trying to be grumpy but honestly too happy to see Al to quite pull it off. "Anyway, these are Morgan and JJ. They were on my team in their world, and they got pulled into this fucking mess. I'm assuming Roy's still in their world, so we got to get them back to their world and get Roy back to ours," he explains. Hughes's surprised face flashes across his memory, but he doesn't know for sure if he was brought back for Truth to kill him again or if he actually ended up in the world with Roy. Until he figures out a way to be sure, he doesn't want to argue with anyone about it.

He hopes Hughes is with Roy, that Roy isn't stuck with Ed's rightfully suspicious team alone. There are other reasons he's hoping Hughes is with Roy, not the least of which is hoping that he can bring him home to Gracia and Elicia. But until he can find a way to confirm, more than not wanting to argue, he doesn't want to get anyone's hopes up.

While he was spacing out, JJ and Morgan had stepped forward introducing themselves properly.

Ed's stomach grumbles loudly again, and Al grins so wide it looks like it has to hurt.

"Let's go get some food! It's almost dinner time anyway. I left Scar and Adiayah handling the stew," Al says.

"Scar's here too? And Adiayah?" Ed asks as a kid catches his eye again. Well, he looks young to Ed, but he's probably sixteen. "Ruutan?" he asks.

The boy's face lights up, apparently delighted that Ed remembers him. "Yes, Ed!" he says. "And yes, Aunt Adiayah."

Fuck , the kid has gotten big. Ed remembers meeting him, if only briefly, the last time he was here in the Xerxian ruins. "Stop fucking growing already," he says, not able to help the smile. "Your grandpa still around?" Ed thinks the kid's grandpa was the chief he had talked to last time he was here.

"You actually remember?" Al asks, sounding stunned, and Ed doesn't really blame him. Ed would usually have sucked at remembering this shit—it was always Al's forte.

"Yeah," he admits. "Roy and I—sometimes it felt like a dream, you know? So we started this game—describe everyone we could think of in a place and how they all knew each other. We'd just pick a place we'd been and try to remember everyone we'd interacted with. Anything we could remember about them."

Al is looking at him with strangely misty eyes again. Ed pulls off one of his water bottles and tosses it at him, not surprised when Al catches it easily despite not being prepared for it. "We're in a fucking desert. Quit wasting water."

His stomach grumbles again, and Al smiles happily. "Let's go get you all fed before you wilt on the spot."

Before they go back in, Ed looks up at the walls. "Any reason you haven't restored the walls?" he asks.

"As of right now, we have more important places to divert resources to rebuilding than the walls," Miles tells him.

Ed raises an eyebrow and glances pointedly around at the desert. "Are the Ishvalans objecting to using alchemy?"

Al cocks his head curiously. "They've been allowing me, Mei, and Scar to do some limited assisting. Why?"

"I'd be happy to help if they're okay with it," he says, shrugging.

"You have your alchemy back?" Al asks, going straight to alarmed. He immediately grabs Ed and starts manhandling him around, checking to make sure he's all in one piece.

"I didn't pay anything! I think just going through the Gate again did it!" Ed protests as Al effectively pats him down.

Al frowns at him. "You know it never gives anything without a cost," he says.

That puts a damper on Ed's relative good mood. "I don't think it did it without a cost… there were just other people to pay it."

"And it would accept others paying for your toll?" Al asks, skeptical.

It has been bugging Ed too; he seems to have gotten off far too easily. "Twelve people died, Al."

Their eyes meet, and Ed can see some of the knowledge Al gained in the Gate there. He knows the value of so many lives, knows what it could pay for.

"We should talk to the elders before you decide to steal half the sand in the desert to rebuild the walls," Al says diplomatically. "Why don't we get you all into some shade and fed?" He turns to Mei. "Mei, it's almost dinner anyway—" he starts.

"Heinkel and I'll go gather everyone for dinner, shall we?" she offers with a sly little smile before Al can finish. A strange look passes between them, one Ed can't read but one that speaks volumes. He's not used to being outside his brother's silent exchanges, and it sits uncomfortably in his skin.

Al reaches out to brush some stray hairs off her cheek, and Ed feels like an idiot. "That'd be great," he says with a softness Ed has never seen, but it makes him miss Roy with a physical ache.

She reaches up, gives his hand a squeeze, then nods, first to Al, then to them. "We'll see you at dinner shortly!" she says.

Ed crosses his arms. "Do I need to have a discussion with you or with Al?"

She gives him a cheeky smile. "Who did Master Alphonse give a lecture to about the General?" she asks, but turns on her heel to dash into the city without waiting for a response. They begin to follow in her path, Al leading the way, though Mei, Xiao-Mei, and Heinkel are soon out of sight.

It's just fine, really. Ed gives Al a glare. "You told her," he accuses.

"That I warned you about breaking the General?" Al says, a picture of absolute innocence that doesn't work quite as well as a twenty-four-year-old as it did when he was a fifteen-year-old, but it's a close thing.

"Yeah," he says. "About that."

"To be fair," Al tells him, "I did also have a discussion with the General."

"You… were okay with Ed being involved with General Mustang?" Morgan asks, only the slightest hesitation before he says Roy's rank.

Al gives him a blank look. "Of course I was. Why wouldn't I be?" he asks, reminding Ed that he does, indeed have the best brother in the world.

JJ and Morgan exchange a look, and this time JJ speaks. "It's just… he was Ed's commanding officer, and Ed was… rather young."

"He was sixteen," Al says as if pointing out something that is obvious.

Ed sighs. "The age of majority in their world is eighteen, Al. I only told them about Roy recently, and they're… still not very comfortable with it," he explains.

"I know it's not so common in the city, but Winry's mom was only sixteen when they were married," Al points out.

Blinking, Ed realizes he can actually use Amestrian law since they're now in Amestris . "Sixteen is the age of majority in Amestris," Ed tells them. "You can legally join the military or get married, even without parental consent. You can also get dispensations for certain trades to practice. In the cities, the defacto age of majority has been moving toward eighteen for a while, but in the country, where Al and I grew up, it's still pretty common to be considered an adult at sixteen."

"Besides which, you were legally an adult when you became a State Alchemist," Miles points out. "You were the first to do it underage, but in theory, if you had wanted to get married, you could have. Honestly, even in Briggs we heard rumors about you and Mustang long before you actually transferred to General Armstrong's command."

Ed wants to complain, but honestly he and Al were aware of the disgusting rumors for years before Ed and Roy actually hooked up.

"At least no one who ever actually met you believed the gossip?" Al offers.

"Ed?" Morgan asks, sounding alarmed.

"I was sixteen when Roy and I got together," Ed reconfirms. "For the last time. But scuttlebutt is scuttlebutt, and soldiers talk. There were a lot of ugly rumors that went around when I was put under Roy's command, and when I did actually transfer, a lot of people just assumed that it was because I was of actual legal age, besides my murky legal status, that we decided to stop hiding it. Insisting that we hadn't been doing anything before then would have been a case of 'the lady doth protest too much,' and no one would have believed it."

"And they let you transfer anyway?" JJ asks.

"I had kind of just helped to save the country," he admits a little awkwardly. "The military really wanted to keep me on the payroll, so they just took the transfer request in good faith."

"Mei mentioned that before," Morgan says. "That you saved the country. What exactly did you do?"

Ed sees Al open his mouth to explain and promptly kicks him in the shin.

"Ow!"

"It's not that big of a deal," Ed says before Al can say anything. Ed doesn't know what he's complaining about anyway—it's not like he kicked him with the automail.

"It seems like a big deal," JJ points out.

"It was a group effort."

"Ed…" Morgan begins.

"Look, if you think everything you've seen so far is completely crazy, that whole fucking nightmare is going to sound even crazier, and honestly, I don't want to talk about it. What I want is to get food, then get started on how to get you home and Roy back here—in that order, preferably." He knows he's being short, he knows how incredibly frightened and frustrated JJ and Morgan must be, but explaining exactly what happened in Amestris is not likely to lower their blood pressure any. There's really no reason to give them those kinds of nightmares if he doesn't have to. He's worked with them for nearly three years; he knows what kind of nightmares haunt them well at this point.

He turns and glances back at Morgan, ignoring the way people have been staring and whispers have been running ahead as they move into more populated areas. "I'm not trying to hide shit from you or anything," he tells them. "It's just… you guys deal with really horrible shit."

" We deal with really horrible shit," JJ corrects.

"Yeah, no. That's the problem. You deal with really horrible shit, but it's still human . There's only so much someone with human limitations can do, no matter how imaginative." He stops and turns to meet their gazes squarely. "You know I respect the hell out of you. So please, trust me when I say you do not want our nightmares added to yours . Okay? You just don't. We're going to get you home, and it isn't going to matter, and there's no reason to take those nightmares back with you."

"What makes you so sure?" JJ asks, almost a plea. "You and Mustang have been in our world for over eight years. What makes you so sure you can get us home so quickly?"

She reminds Ed of Winry giving him her earrings, trying to make him promise he would survive to return them. But JJ isn't afraid of losing Ed; her fear is a deeper one.

He wonders if his mother ever looked at him and Al like that? If she knew she was going to die and that they would never see her again, and if she was this afraid for them?

"We have three important things we didn't have before," Ed tells her firmly. "First, we have a connection." He holds up his wrist. "Roy and I are separated, but we're still connected. We didn't have that in your world. It was dead the entire time we were there until I got close to the array. Our connection is open, and that is a game-changer. Second, we have alchemy. There is no one living who knows the gate and soul alchemy better than I do."

"And the third?" she asks, almost as if she's afraid to hope.

He gives her a smug smile. "We have Al. Between the two of us, we'll figure this out, Jayge. I promise. I'm going to get you home."

She meets his eyes unblinking for almost uncomfortably long before she nods. "Okay," she says. "I'm going to hold you to that."

His smile softens. "I'd expect nothing less."