A/N: I'd like to thank everyone who read and reviewed and enjoyed my first FMA story, it was a great ride, I really liked writing it a lot and the challenging parts were fun too and this category as a whole I really hope to write some more for it soon again in the future (if work gets better, and I think it will...) like maybe a short lil fun story about Ed or even like who knows, something really "out there" like a Rose/Scar story. I love FMA and I enjoyed writing about it. In the beginning I was thinking about taking this to a different direction, where Ed doesn't survive and does die and Al is left alone and the story becomes about his new journey all alone... but this is my first story, no angsty ending, happy ending! Then I was thinking that Ed and Shelly would get together and like have a daughter they name Trish after his mom, but again I chose not to and chose to end it this way. So again, read, enjoy, and once more, thank you!

"Al gave his mind, body and soul to give me back my life, and my lost limbs." Ed's face was dark in his memory as he stood on the transmutation circle. "All of this was for him, it's not fair, I should've been the one who died." Al had said the same thing about Ed. "He gave it all up for me, it would be selfish for me not to do the same, to make this world a better place for him, and everyone else, no matter what happens to me, my spirit, my heart, that's what makes up a human being, not the flesh or body. Is that really what a homunculus is supposed to teach it's creator...?" Ed closed his eyes and clapped his hands. "If not, then I guess that I learned it on my own... through our own sacrifices for each other... and this is for you, brother..."

Ed snapped awake from the dreaming flashback and looked up to see Al looking down eagerly at him, "Are you feeling alright now, brother?"

"Oh my head, it's killing me... this is the worst headache I ever had. And I've been hung over before...!" Ed sat up groggily and groaned as he felt his forehead, "But, I think my fever's fading..." It was the winter now, a few months had past and because of his weakened condition (mainly in his chest) he'd caught a very bad cold that became bronchitis in his lungs and they were worried it could become something more serious like influenza because it had been very chilly and was raining a lot. "I'm still so dizzy though..."

Al sighed and picked up a glass of water from beside him and handed it to his brother, "You need to be more careful now, brother. You can't be as reckless as you once were anymore."

"I know." Ed drank it. "But at least I have you here with me."

Al lowered his brow, "I might not always be here for you..."

Ed scowled slightly at that, "Don't say something like that Al..."

"Sorry..." Al took the glass back and sighed, then smiled over at Ed who was breathing very struggled, it sounded wheezy and raspy, very congested in his chest. "Hey, brother?"

"Yeah?" He cleared his throat to speak to him clearly.

"Would you... will you mind tell me something?" Al paused. "About dad...?"

"About him...? Why?"

"Yeah... well, you spent time with him here, I want to know everything. I never got to live with him, even as a baby, I just want to know, what it all was like."

Ed blinked but then smiled, "It was... something else alright, nothing like living with you and mom. After I successfully returned you to our home I ended up back in London. Dad and I were able to stick with the heard and go with the flow during the war and we survived. While he was working for Winston Churchill he met a German man who was doing something with religion and stuff that was a lot similar to alchemy. He gave me a Cornello vibe, but dad decided to join up with him and so we moved back with him to Munich where he became a science professor at a university."

"Was it the same university that Shelly..."

"No. No, and I was nervous about that at first, I wasn't sure myself. But it was in a different city, we were in Munich and this university was outside of Berlin. I worked part time at a nearby beer hall to help dad pay for things during the inflation following the great war, it wasn't for that many march's, but, and we lived nearby to a book store where I found books on aviation and rockets from an American writer. They were very good, and their words an ideas inspired me. I thought it might hold some kind of answer to getting back home to you, so I traveled to learn and went to a school where I met Alphonse, I wasn't old enough or had enough education or money to go to a university but it was still a very good school. Later when I came back home, dad was gone, he had been, and nobody had seen or heard of him in a while. So I moved in with Alphonse since we were already starting to work together." Ed paused. "But, living with dad... it was something else alright, different, a real adventure." He smiled, remembering it. "I, dare I say it… had fun."

Al smiled as he watched his brother, "I'm glad, brother... that you realized now, that he really was a good man..."

A year had finally passed, about every five weeks Ed would send out for a new bottle of the mediation spray for his lungs. It would've still been free of charge but now that Ed was back home with Al in their apartment and working again, he sent them money. Al had gone back to the grocery store, and Ed didn't go back to his old job, rather he worked with the nice old man in the furniture store under their apartment, so everything was working out great. But a year had indeed passed, it was time for Ed and Al to return to the university's health lab, Ed needed his annual follow up check up to see how he was fairing after the chemo, and the new lung ailment. Nurse Rosemary gave him a complete physical examination once again like she had done before when they first met, but she paid most attention to his vital organs and also carefully examined his lungs and throat with great detail testing. Finally after the exam was over, they were able to speak less professionally and more as old friends.

"Well good news Ed." She said as she took off and threw out the gloves. "You are doing just fine. I'm so proud of you."

"Thanks, I'm happy too. I owe my health to my better half."

"Brother..." Al rolled his eyes.

Nurse Rosemary smiled, "I know you've been taking good care of your brother Al, and Ed I know you've been looking after your little brother too."

"It's what we do." Ed and Al shrugged at the same time, and that made her smile in amusement again.

"Shelly."

"Yeah Ed?"

"I still want to say thanks, I can't thank you enough for what you did, I owe you so much, my life, after all you saved my life."

"And I owe you too, if you didn't save brother, who knows where I'd be and what may have happened to me."

She laughed, "Come on, it's my job."

"The medicine works wonders too." Ed looked at the spray bottle he had in his pocket. "At first my body wasn't used to it and in reaction I got a terrible sinus infection in my nose, and I even got laryngitis. But we took care of that and it went away quickly."

"And it also irritated his throat at first too because when he first became sick from the cancer in his stomach he threw up a lot and had numerous cases of acid reflux from heart burn, and the medicated spray was stinging the erosion scars in his throat and causing them to heal slower. But they've also gone away over time and now his voice is better."

"My, such big medical words." Nurse Rosemary smiled. "Sounds like somebody's been doing their homework."

"Brother and I both want to learn more so we know more next time something else might happen. Besides, who knows, maybe one day I'll become a doctor."

"That's wonderful Al. In fact, I'm almost finished with my credentials, next year I'll be a professor here giving lectures."

"Wow, congratulations." Ed gave her a big grin. "You've worked very hard, you're a nice person and you deserve it. If you work hard, you will be rewarded. That's just equivalent exchange."

"Thanks Ed, all this flattery, are you sure you're not hitting on me?" She winked, that caused Ed to go pale white and slack jawed, making her laugh. "That's very kind if you, but I'm much too older than you to be dating a little boy."

"Little...?" Ed grumbled to himself. But a man always should be the older one in the relationship... I agree Shell.

"By the way there, Ed…?"

"Yeah?"

She gave him a coy smirk, "How old are you exactly anyway?"

"Eh?" Ed blinked. "Well I was born in 1899, I don't see how hard it would be for you to do the math off of my report folder." He looked at his medical file.

Shelly gasped, "You're in your early 20's!?"

"Yeah, why, what's so surprising about it?"

"You and your brother are so alike, you look about only a couple of years apart, and I figured you were still teenagers and… well I mean since you're kinda short I didn't think you were in your early 20's."

"Short…!?" A lightning bolt shot through Ed's head. "He's only like a couple inches taller than I am...! Same old story, different world, same... old... story...!"

"Well I always was the more mature acting one..." Al laughed nervously at Ed who had a thunderstorm hanging over his dark head, he turned to the nurse with a smirk, "Maybe once I go to a school and graduate with my doctorate degree, if Ed ever gets really sick and needs an operation, I can be the one to take out his tonsils." He made a snipping motion and winked over at Ed.

"That's not funny!" Ed stood up, stoming his foot as he roared. "How many times have I told you to cut that out! And stop picking on me, I'm the older brother OLDER!" He jumped over to tackle Al but he dodged aside. "I hated that doctor, and I'm sick of that ploy! Darn you Al!"

"Missed me, miss me, now you gotta catch me!" Al ran off out of the room.

"Get back here!" Ed jumped up and chased him down the hall around and around.

"I promise to give you lots of milk tasting vanilla ice cream Ed! Just don't get a brain freeze... oh no wait, you can't! Hahah!"

"SHUT UP!!"

"Boys, come on now... don't act like children." Nurse Rosemary smirked and rolled her eyes as she watched them run around. "Well they still are kids. But they're growing up so fast they don't realize it. Enjoy your childhood, and maybe one day Al, you two will come to the university here, and learn more about health and medicine. And then, if that were to be the case..." She smiled up as she looked out the open window. "You'll be the students, and I'll be the teacher..." She watched the boys wrestle each other in the field that sunny afternoon under a clear blue sky as Ed gave Al an arm bar on his left arm until Al tapped out. She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, "Note to self, I just hope Ed decides to take something like English philosophy instead of my medical class..."

In the end, the second world war happened. Nurse Rosemary became a doctor and was shipped out to war rather than being able staying at the university to be a teacher. Al studied hard, went to school and became a doctor as well (granted though it happened AFTER the war... but he still did it) and Ed, much like back in their home, became a military dog with some other Germans forming a group against the Nazi party but to still defend their country from any threat from the other non-allied powers in the war. He didn't die and came home in one piece (again I could've killed him off, but I love Ed so I'm nice to him... lol -huggles her Eddie-), his artificial limbs of course had come in handy. Shelly returned safely as well. Ed had been one of the ground ops but a tank shooting out poison gasses had fired upon them during the final days of the war and it caused Ed's lungs to worsen. Dr. Rosemary and Al both helped him though, they were still there for each other even after the war and after the years passed by and they grew older they staid in contact as friends. And Ed was able to still once again continue to go on living, no matter what it took or what happened to him, he was to make sure to keep that promise he'd made for Al... and Al, now a doctor himself, had all the more talent and ability to keep his own promise he had made for his older brother Ed. Together, they live.

A/N: Okay, two juts popped into my mind... "Touch Of Passion" Can Ed regain what he's lost? Rose/Scar ... or maybe "Cat Got Your Tongue?" After a bad trip to the dentist leads Ed into falling for cute a neko chimera, can this day get any wierder. ...I dunno, I still gotta find time before I can do ANYTHING good or bad, this or not... anyways, thanks again for enjoying!