Oh, my god I can't believe it took so long to finish this! I've been busy with looking for colleges and writing the five hundred essays my taechers are giving me but still!

I had writer's block for a little while on this. I wasn't entirely sure how my presentation of Resi (my OC) came out. I think the last part of this chapter is the best, definately. OCs are always the hardest to get right without making them irrelevant or Mary-Sues. I'm also not sure if I protrayed Roy's feelings for Ed correctly, and I'm not entirely sure of what to do with Ed's feelings for Roy, but I have a pretty good idea. I promise I will get the next chapter out without such a long wait next time...!

NaNoWriMo's coming up, so I will be spending time on that (maybe I will actually do it this year, instead of wimping out a quarter of the way through!) but I will not neglect this!

Please reveiw. Reveiws feed my story, which is very hungry. My stories live off of reviews.

Thankyou to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or alerted so far!

Disclaimer - If I owned Fullmetal Alchemist, I wouldn't need a disclaimer, now would I?

Ed swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. His legs wobbled. "Whoops!" he said. Granny Pinako only just caught him before he fell. It was only now that he registered the pain throughout his body – nothing intense, but a light ache from a multitude of shrapnel bruises.

The girl from the other side of the Gate gave him a light laugh. "It's strange to see you so uncoordinated," she said. German seemed to be the same language as Amestrian, which was one less hassle to deal with when crossing over the Gate. She continued to laugh as he glared good-naturedly and made his shaky way over to her. She lifted her left hand up and spread out her fingers, looking at the whitewashed ceiling from them.

Ed sat down on her bed by her legs. "Hey, Resi," he said seriously. She looked at him, dropping her arm down and frowning. Her eyes were dazed, as if she weren't really there.

"Yes, Edward?" she said.

"Thanks. For getting me back."

He felt his family and the Col – General look at him and back at her. He knew the question they were all dying to ask, but he wanted to let Resi know how much being home meant to him, first.

She closed her eyes and brought up the corners of her mouth. "Yeah… I know, Edward." Her breathing evened out into that of someone in a deep sleep.

Ed stretched his arms above his head, yawning hugely. As he brought them back down, he noticed that the auto mail was back. It was his price for crossing back over the Gate. That and…

He frowned. The Gate had taken something else, he knew that. But what was it? He couldn't remember for the life of him. He shrugged and put it aside, knowing it would come back and bother him later, as his stomach gave another fierce growl.

"Food, now," he demanded. "And clothes. Then I'll talk." He stood up and stretched out his back, then bent over and reached toward his toes.

"Here you go, big brother," Al said, handing him a bag. "I brought some of my clothes, so they might be a little big…"

"Oh, really? You think I'm still a little shorty, huh?" Ed snatched the bag away from Al, who was grinning. He couldn't help growling a little, but he made sure no one could see the tiny smile that danced on his lips as he stalked away. Al might start thinking Ed liked being called short. He didn't!

…Well, maybe a little, but just because he missed his brother. Not because he actually did!

"Of course not, brother, but I'll always be bigger than you," Al said, following Ed into the bathroom to make sure he didn't slip and crack open his head.

Roy watched them go. He was in a daze, wondering how Ed had gotten back, who the girl was, what he'd been doing all this time, and most of all where he'd been. And why he couldn't get back before now.

And, in some selfish little (or not so little) portion of his mind, if Ed had missed him.

He nearly jumped several feet into the air when Pinako Rockbell laid a hand on his shoulder. She smiled up at him, her glasses flashing. "Thank you for calling us as soon as you could, Major General," she said gently. "It means so much."

Roy looked down at her. He remembered delivering Al to her when the boy was still lost without his brother, and he remembered having to break the news to her that Ed was missing. He never wanted to have to do something like that again. But calling Pinako to tell her that Ed was back, that he was safe, that he was healthy, just sleeping… "That was a pleasure, Mrs. Rockbell," he said, smiling at her and Winry.

"Thank you, Mr. Mustang," Winry said. "You've… taken care of them as best you could for years. I know Al, at the very least, is grateful." She was still awkward around him, but he knew she forgave him for taking away the people she held most dear.

"Well then," Pinako said, patting Winry's knee. "I'm going to go get some food for Ed. Would you come with me, Winry?" Winry nodded mutely and stood up to follow her. She bowed her head to Mustang as she left the room.

Roy sighed and slumped forward. His eyes strayed toward the bathroom door, and then quickly looked away. He could hear water running, but the sound didn't quite cover the whimpers that began to come from behind him.

He turned to look at the girl. She had her eyes shut tight, and moisture leaked out from the corners. She appeared to be asleep. Clearly she wasn't enjoying whatever she was dreaming about. He hesitated slightly before touching the pads of his fingers lightly to her arm. She jerked away almost instantly. Her skin was cold, and had an odd texture, not like his skin, though it looked almost exactly the same. It wasn't smooth enough, not that it was rough, and too dry. Almost like a well-preserved corpse.

He shivered. Who was this person? She continued to whimper, and hunched her body inwards, as if to protect herself. He took her arm more firmly this time and shook her to make her wake. She gasped and sat up, her eyes unfocused. She didn't even notice him as she looked down at her empty right shoulder and grabbed it, letting her head fall forward. "My arm…" she whispered. "It hurts…"

"Madam?" Roy said carefully, suddenly realizing that he didn't know her name. She looked up at him, and he saw that her eyes were a grayish mud brown, a color that he'd never really seen before.

"Yes, sir?" she said. She straightened up as she took in his uniform.

"May I inquire as to your name?" he said.

She looked away, muttering in a language he didn't know. "Resi Jana Thalberg," she said, refusing to look at him. "That is my name." She spoke Amestrian oddly, as if she was not entirely comfortable with it. She had a hint of an accent, one that he seemed to remember hearing from some ambassador…

"Where are you from?" Roy asked. She seemed to be pouting.

"Germany!" she said hotly, defensively.

Mustang frowned. He didn't know of any country called 'Germany', and he knew of all the countries in the world. "Are you sure?" he asked, gazing at a world map in his head.

Ed strolled out of the bathroom, covering up his soreness quite well. Al followed him out, carrying the hospital gown in his arms. "Technically, Resi, you used to be from Britain – or, England, whatever – and your name used to be Alma Roz Hall."

"But it's not anymore, is it," she said, still refusing to look at anyone. She gazed out of the window, into the bright sun. She barely blinked, drinking in the light.

"Uh, Resi? I think that's bad for your eyes." Ed's statement of blatant fact didn't provoke any reaction from Resi, or Alma, whichever she actually was.

After a moment, Resi sighed. "It seems so much more… real." Her expression was one of longing, of someone who was, for the first time, experiencing something akin to heaven. "The light, the colors… the warmth, the texture of the fabric… even the hunger and the pain. It's like the rest of my life has been artificial, and now it's real, and I can't tell if I'm dreaming now or if I was dreaming then."

Ed hummed his agreement and turned away, sitting back down on his hospital bed. He ran his fingers through his hair repeatedly and played with the ends, not particularly paying attention to what he was doing. Al and Roy stayed silent, unsure of how to deal with the two silent people. Roy found himself noticing Ed's broadened shoulders and more muscular back. His hair was longer and thicker, too, and his face was older now. Ed had certainly matured in five years.

The silence was interrupted as Winry burst back into the room, her cheerful, rambunctious self again. "Hey, Ed," she announced, drawing out the vowels in the words. "Guess what we got!" She dropped a case next to him. It made a heavy thud as it hit the mattress. Pinako followed, holding open the door for a nurse who pushed a cart with a tray of food into the room.

"Wait a moment, Winry, the nurse here has to do a quick check-up on Ed here," Pinako said, putting a hand on Winry's arm as if to restrain her. Winry's lower lip jutted out, and she made a little "Hmph!" of disapproval, but she stepped back and allowed the nurse full access to Ed.

The nurse placed a stethoscope on his chest and back as he took deep breaths and let them out slowly. She also shone a light in his eyes and took his pulse before declaring him perfectly healthy. She smiled at Ed and set the tray on the bed next to him, then closed the door as she made her way out of the room with a cart.

Ed's eyes lit up at the food, enough so that he ignored Winry's prodding at his artificial arm. He ate with his left hand as she removed the arm and leg from Earth and set them aside to exclaim over later.

She opened the heavy case happily. "See, Ed, I improved them!" she said, beaming at him. A metal arm and leg lay in the case, bigger than his last ones. They looked like they would fit him perfectly. And the lines of the metal, the design, looked more refined and elegant than Winry's previous work. He ran the pads of his fingers over them, awed, and glanced up at her, unsure of what he could say to express what he was feeling right now. Things like that had never been, and would never be, his forte – they made him uncomfortable and exposed, but she had gone to so much trouble…

He swallowed with some difficulty. "Thank… you," he said, the words closing up his throat somehow. He flicked his gaze away from her delighted eyes, looking carefully at the pattern of tiles on the floor as she smiled with sheer happiness. He missed the wry, amused smile Granny Pinako and Mustang shared, and the grin Al gave Winry, as if telling her, "See? He does appreciate you." He even grabbed the bottle of milk unconsciously and had downed half of it before realizing what it was and spewing it back out, horrified.

"It's not funny!" he insisted for the fifth time, sulking like a child. Winry and Al were giggling uncontrollably, Pinako was chuckling under her breath, and even Mustang had let out a large, deep laugh for a few moments. Winry got herself enough under control that she could start getting Ed's automail ports ready to be joined to the shiny new limbs, though she was still hiding her face from Ed and shaking slightly trying to contain herself. Al didn't seem to be intent on stopping anytime soon, but Ed could forgive him that. The laughter that came from all of them was the relief of having someone they cared for deeply back, alive, and whole in body and spirit. It was the kind of stress relief you get when there is nothing more you can do besides laugh.

Once again, please reveiw! Honestly tell me what you think about Resi, please!

Thank you for reading my story!