Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.

- x -

"What's a zeppelin again?"

Ed was reclining against the folding table that made up the usual Rockbell 'mechanical limb application' area. His eyes were closed, and the visible portion of him, which was pretty much from the waist up, appeared relaxed. He'd been talking the better part of an hour, now, and never once had his words caught or his voice hesitated.

Al was torn between congratulating him or hitting him.

Ed lowered his left arm, which had been flung carelessly above his head, and scratched one of his eyebrows with his thumb. "Ah, it's sort of like a cylindrical balloon with an inner aluminum skeleton, a couple combustion motors, and an enclosed basket that carries passengers. There's a flexible but durable skin over the skeleton, filled with hydrogen gas so it floats. The motors power fans and rudders that steer and direct the zeppelin, and gas is added or released to control altitude."

Winry didn't say anything for a moment, concentrating on one of the many tiny pistons she was calibrating, and Al took a moment to stretch.

It was much less stressful watching Ed get fitted for this automail. His brother had been very careful to prevent him from seeing as much of his automail maintenance and installation as possible, but he'd never forget the first time nii-san had been outfitted. Even if what he remembered best was the sound of his own armor rattling and the slightly yellowing wall that had been directly across the hall from him.

And the pained breaths of his brother, trying not to cry out.

Alphonse extended his legs out into the room and crossed his arms over his chest, content to wait for his brother to continue. He really wasn't sure who nii-san was putting on the show for – Winry knew both the subject and the new 'bionics' were bothering him. She was doing a much better job of keeping it to herself, though. Ed's open posture, the cavalier way in which he was talking, and most of all, the subject . . . but then again, he always did like to overcompensate.

Al smirked to himself and decided now was probably not the time to pick on him. Even though Ed had been pretty much dragged kicking and screaming into this conversation, the fact that he was continuing it probably meant a great deal to Winry.

After all, she'd never heard any of the parts that hadn't included her directly.

"Hydrogen is extremely flammable," Ed finally added. "It was shot down by the British, and I couldn't get out of the way in time."

Winry exchanged one incredibly tiny instrument for another, and bent over the elbow joint she was attaching. "So you burned to death," she concluded quietly.

Ed's face never changed expression, and he laid his left arm across his chest. "To tell you the truth, I really don't remember. I think more of the aluminum must have collapsed onto us, because it was just after I tried and failed to transmute a way out when I was back at the Gate."

"So it was alter-Edward's life that paid the price to get you to the Gate," Al murmured. "But it wouldn't have been enough to pay for a trip through."

"No, just to," his brother confirmed without inflection. "For some reason I was able to turn around and I could see the crack of light between the two doors. To be honest, I think they let me escape just like they let Wrath. My body was still in the Gate, after all."

Al considered that. He hated to give something that should be bound to natural laws such a personality, but there was no doubt that there were free-thinking . . . beings . . . that lived inside the Gate. The structure itself, the bridge that connected their two worlds, obviously did follow the natural laws. And Wrath had once been one of those beings, so . . .

"Aluminum, you say?" Winry was clearly still stuck on the mechanics of the zeppelin. "But not all of the gas should have burned all at once . . ."

Ed nodded once. "The skin wasn't completely burned away, so there wasn't enough air exchange to give the hydrogen in the middle sufficient oxygen to support combustion. The more skin that burned away, the more gas could escape and combust, so its rate of descent increased –"

Winry put down the second, delicate instrument she'd been using and picked up a crescent wrench. Without missing a beat she clobbered Ed across the temple with it.

Ed did a very good job of not reflexively hitting her, considering she'd more than halfway connected strength-augmenting mechanics to the arm that was closest to her. He sat bolt upright, bringing his left arm up to cradle his head, and never so much as twitched his right arm. Or maybe he couldn't; perhaps she had the mechanism frozen until she was finished with her adjustments.

Al winced on his brother's behalf, and pulled his legs further away from the bristling mechanic.

"YOU COULDN'T GET OUT OF THE WAY OF A FALLING BALLOON?!" she shrieked at him, which earned her a murderous look. "WHAT KIND OF STUPID ARE YOU?!"

"ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!" he roared back. "THE CLOUD COVER WAS LOW AND I WAS DISTRACTED! THEY'RE HUGE, WINRY, IT'S NOT LIKE I JUST STOOD THERE STARING AT IT-"

"I'm not making this stuff for you so you can get killed by something falling at one foot per second," she growled, tossing the crescent wrench back onto her metal tray and picking up a tiny screwdriver. Ed just pressed the heel of his palm into his right temple and glared like he'd never seen anything like her before.

That wasn't completely unexpected. She'd taken Edward's first death on this world pretty well, all things considered. Then again, Rose had seen it, and since she'd lived in Resembool for a while, and brought the little ten year old him back to the Rockbells –

Winry was back to adjusting things too minute to see from where Al was sitting, and other than a extremely dark expression, she appeared to be over her anger. Nii-san was still glowering, which probably meant he was going to clam up-

"I'm not going to get killed by a falling zeppelin here," he noted, in a surprisingly calm tone of voice. "We don't have them."

Winry muttered something and picked up a medium-sized screwdriver. Ed looked wary, but she just continued working on the elbow joint. "What about you, Al? How many times have you died?"

Al blinked. When had his turned into the hot seat?

". . . Winry, we never . . . really . . . er, died. Alchemy can't resurrect the dead. I learned that when we tried to bring back mom." She knew this story, so he was relatively safe, even if she did have very good aim with projectiles. "My body was taken by the Gate, but nii-san transmuted my soul to the suit of armor. Then . . . I guess the next time was when I healed Edward's body and transmuted his soul back to it. I didn't have a body again, but I wasn't dead, per se, since my body was still in the Gate . . ."

And of course she'd seen him in the hospital. Hopefully at least not until the Tringums had had some time with him. "As for two weeks ago . . ." Well, hadn't he encouraged nii-san to tell her everything they'd been keeping from her? He'd set a poor example if he didn't as well.

"Winry, are you sure you want to-"

She froze, cutting him off instantly. "How many times are the two of you going to ask me before you believe me?"

Al just nodded. "Uh, well, it's skipping ahead in the story a little bit, but . . ." How to tell this without revealing anything nii-san wasn't comfortable dealing with yet? "When the Thules invaded, after you replaced brother's automail, he came up to the surface and found me. I still didn't really remember him, or what we'd done, and I saw . . . all the civilians that had died. A little girl . . ." How could Ed say all this so matter-of-factly?

Al took a deep breath. It was all history. They couldn't go back. "I picked her up with some vague idea of resurrecting her, and nii-san stopped me. He reminded me what had happened to get us to that point, and we refocused on stopping the invasion, doing what good we could. We found a relatively tall building in the path of the commanding airship, so I transmuted a few suits of armor at the foot of the building to watch our backs and we launched an attack."

The colonel showing up had certainly been a surprise, though. "Then who should come floating by on a balloon but Colonel Mustang, and the three of us took the ship back from Eckhart." That was a very brief way of putting it. "She told us she had come here to annihilate our world, because it frightened her. Nii-san decided one of us needed to go back and destroy the gate there, and one of us needed to stay to destroy the one here. He separated the ship and walked away."

Al smiled slightly at the memory. "As if he thought telling Mustang to hold me back was going to do any good-"

From the bed, Ed snorted, still rubbing his temple. "That reminds me, I need to have a word with him."

Winry glanced up at him, her expression . . . wary. "Didn't you have time to talk to him when Al snuck off to wreck the bomb?"

Ed was silent for a long time. "We didn't say much," he finally replied. "Had other things on our minds."

"It is odd how everything worked out, though," Al supplied into the sudden silence. "That Mustang was used by the military like he used to use other people, elevated to a hero status because the military wanted to look like it had handled the problem."

"You guys have no idea," Winry shook a few stray strands of hair from her eyes. "He was immediately reinstated to his former rank, he was on posters, in parades – 'an example of the strength of the Amestrian people.'" The last was muttered in a low announcer's voice.

Ed had opened his eyes at some point, and his expression was no longer blank. "Winry . . ."

She just shook her head, then drummed up a wistful smile. "But as you said, Al, it did all work out."

Al watched her drip a bit of oil onto the elbow joint, and then move down to the hand. "So you were explaining how you managed to get shot full of holes?"

Alphonse stared up at the ceiling. "Uh, so I was . . . well, Mustang let me go. I'm pretty sure I could have eventually throw him off, but I wasn't thinking too clearly." That had been an understatement. "I stowed away in a suit of armor until the ship passed back through the gate, and when we arrived back there, it seemed that the event that had triggered Eckhart's invasion into Central had happened and had not ended positively for the forces that had researched and created the gate."

He wondered if he should include that his alter was there, dead. "I picked up my properly aged body and all the memories I'd lost on the trip through, which made squeezing back out of the armor a little awkward," he added as an afterthought. "Alfons Heiderich, my alter, was dead. He'd been shot probably after he'd sent Ed through the gate in the rocket, and Noa was there. She helped us seal the gate on that side. After that . . . Ed mentioned that he'd seen a photograph of the uranium bomb Huskisson had transmuted into the Gate, so we decided to pursue that."

And pursue it they did. "We ended up in Germany, the aggressors of the war the British were fighting when Ed first arrived in that world. Their army had gotten ahold of the bomb, so we started working there in an effort to get nearer to it. Since the Thules knew who nii-san was, we took the names Russell and Fletcher Tringham."

Winry shook her head slightly, but otherwise just bent closer to the mechanical hand that was fitted so perfectly over Ed's real one.

"Hey, I thought it was funny."

"It was Ed's idea, wasn't it."

Ed snorted again.

"He studied and became a doctor, whereas I began as an enlisted man. We weren't sure whether the military or the research division was more likely to have the most access to the bomb, so we wanted to hit it from two sides." It had been a very successful assault, all told. "I moved up the ranks as a physical trainer, teaching the soldiers a little hand to hand, which is incidentally how we met the samurai."

It had been odd, the differences between sensei's training and the Japanese forms of martial arts. Al felt a pang of sadness, and shook it off with difficulty. She would have loved to have learned a few of the forms he'd picked up from the Japanese representatives.

"In a couple years, we figured out where the bomb was. Nii-san got transferred to a laboratory in the same building with the bomb, and after a couple weeks of not much news, he didn't come home."

Winry stopped working, but didn't say anything, so he continued.

"We'd worked out that if we didn't hear from each other in two days, something had happened and we should act accordingly. I'd just gotten back from . . . from an assignment. Recently I had been deployed with a few of my top groups to observe how they functioned in combat situations."

"What kind of combat situations?" Winry had not resumed her work.

"Search and seizure of suspected traitors to the German cause." That was the way the propaganda had put it. "They would break into houses of known disloyalists and take them in the night, as part of a method to instill fear into others that might not agree with Germany's new goals." Al glanced up to see Ed staring straight at him.

He dropped his eyes away from his brother's gaze after only a moment, and continued. "So when I didn't hear from nii-san or his secretary, I figured that something had happened. We lived just above a laundry facility, a family that washed all the uniforms for the soldiers stationed in Stuttgart. I broke in and stole someone's uniform, and then snuck into the building where I knew brother's laboratory was."

Al chuckled quietly. "I'd been planning, if I'd gotten caught, to reveal myself and show my superiors how easy it was to break into a German facility, but it proved a little more difficult than I'd anticipated." The words were coming easier. "Two guards at nii-san's door caught me. I tied them up in his lab, but their absence was noticed fairly quickly, and building security was tightened before I really knew where he was."

He could still feel his brother's stare. Ed didn't know this part of the story, after all.

"I was . . .rude, you could say, but I made some of the soldiers tell me where he was. Apparently it was the talk of the base, that he was some sort of mechanical monster, a spy sent to steal German secrets for the British." If it had happened to someone he didn't know, it would have been funny. "I fought my way down to the more secure parts of the building, and I found him. But, since it was more secure, and he was . . ." Al glanced up at Ed again, and held his gaze.

"He didn't know I was even there." It had been possibly the scariest moment of his life. "I was shot trying to get us both out of the building." He half-smiled. "Mustang would be disappointed with me," he added. "I was shot by a guard I'd previously disabled. I suppose if I'd just killed them it wouldn't have happened, but . . . I was shooting to injure only. And he wasn't."

Al shrugged apologetically at both his brother and Winry. "So, we stumbled into a janitor's closet. When I'd . . . talked to the other soldiers, I'd gotten more information. The subject of a lot of the research in that building was human experimentation, just like Laboratory Five here in Central." Funny how some things were so alike. "There had been a lot of security in the building, more than I'd anticipated, because of that research, and specifically, experiments that had been going on there for the past few days."

He didn't feel he really needed to elaborate. "I knew that those experiments were going to result in deaths." Al said it as frankly, but gently, as possible. "And I thought that, if I was going to die, and brother was too injured to help, then the best solution was to make sure the Germans couldn't use the bomb. That way, everything that had gone from this world to that one . . . it would be gone."

Winry looked away.

"So, I drew a transmutation circle, hoping it would work. Even if I couldn't use the other deaths, at least I could use mine." He shrugged again, though now he knew neither one of them was looking at him. "And we ended up back here. Where I didn't die," he added. "So technically, neither one of us has died. Not really."

Technically, that probably didn't make Winry feel any better. She just sighed after a moment, and kept working.

Ed half-glared at her. "Oh, but you don't hit him."

"He wasn't stupid enough to get squashed by a falling zeppelin," she retorted. "Besides, currently I'm trying to think up what kind of woman could deal with being your secretary."

"She was sort of like Falman, actually," Al volunteered, earning a glare from his brother. It was nice to be able to lighten the mood a little. "Her name was Mary Marguerite, and she was the epitome of efficiency. She didn't take any crap from him at all."

Winry actually smiled, glancing up at Ed, who huffed his bangs out of his eyes. "She made terrible coffee, too."

"What happened to her, anyway? Did she not transfer with you to Klein's lab?"

Ed shook his head, glancing at what Winry was doing for the first time since she'd started working. "No, they assigned us technicians instead. The research was supposed to be more focused, so . . ." He trailed off, his expression slipping towards the blank one again.

Al hid his disappointment by rubbing his face, noting the stubble there. Aunt Pinako was probably going to scold him for not shaving, but then again, he was an adult, and was no longer in the military, and he could wear his whiskers however he wanted! He wasn't sure how he'd look with facial hair, but he'd rather liked their father's combination of long bangs and the trimmed but full beard.

Though now was probably not the best time to start growing it, considering –

They'd skipped that part of the story. Winry didn't know their father was dead.

"So, how did you pay?" she asked matter-of-factly, straightening Edward's pinky finger and brushing something onto the metal joints.

Ed blinked at her. "Pay who? Where?"

Winry nodded towards Al without stopping what she was doing. "Al, you said that you snuck onto the ship that took Ed back to that . . . that other world. If it costs something every time you go through this Gate, what did you pay?"

Al pursed his lips, and noted that Ed was also looking thoughtful. "That was actually something I figured out when the Gate tried to take you back," he murmured. "I think ever since I reconstructed your body, you've been traveling back and forth on loan."

Ed shifted so he was sitting up a little straighter, and received a whack on the chest from Winry. "Sit still."

"Al, what do you mean?"

Al lined up his thoughts. "When we – we tried to bring back Mom, you lost your leg in return for her soul. Even though it wasn't her soul, it was just . . . a soul. Maybe one of the beings from the Gate. I lost my entire body. But all we needed was that soul to transmute to the body made of the ingredients we'd already provided, so . . . what did my body pay for?"

Ed's eyes started shifting, and Al knew he was no longer seeing the room, but searching his memory. "Didn't you say Dad figured it was the ability to transmute your soul to inanimate objects?"

Al nodded. "Partially. I think that was a symptom of it, actually. The Gate is drawn when the connection between the body, mind, and soul is weak, like with the dying or a newborn baby. When you reaffixed my soul to my body six years ago, it was to a younger version of my body, because you only took the part of my soul that was sitting in the Gate with my body, instead of the part that had been living in the armor for all those years."

Ed opened his mouth, looking stricken, but Al cut him off. "When you originally transmuted my soul to the armor, one of the reasons I couldn't remember things as well as I used to was because a piece of my soul had to remain with my body, or it would have died. Remember? That was why Dante's and father's bodies were rotting. Their souls weren't strong enough to sustain them. If we'd totally removed my soul from my body, it would have died, even in the Gate."

"Al . . ." Ed's brows were furrowed. "That doesn't make sense. How could my limbs -?"

"Your limbs were borrowed by the Gate. Wrath took them, and kept them until they were taken from him by the Gate when Dante called it. Once the Gate had them back, technically they belonged to you anyway, because by then, Sloth was . . . was gone." He licked his lips. "You traded your leg for the soul that was tied to Sloth, so you should have gotten your leg back the next time you went through the Gate. Only you didn't, because Wrath had it. Then when you came back, you came back in your body with the automail still attached because you . . . well, I think because you didn't argue with the Gate to get it back."

If they were really going to accept that the beings in the Gate had taken their bodies in the first place.

"But that doesn't explain . . . the gate had my arm and leg since 1915, when I left here and ended up on Earth. Two years later, I came back, and we left again. Now it's 1921. If the Gate had these limbs for six years –"

"You don't know what it's been doing with them since then," Al reminded him. "After all, Wrath kept them inside the gate for years, and another being took them from Wrath, not the Gate itself."

Ed and Winry both looked back down at Ed's right arm.

"Whereas you didn't see my body wandering around anywhere," Al continued. "I don't think it could be used the same way your limbs were used, or it would have been. One of those things would have taken it and escaped the Gate like Wrath did. But that never happened. The only reason I can think of is that they couldn't, because it was already occupied. With me, just like I was at ten years old. When you went into the Gate and pulled me out six years ago, that's all you pulled out."

Ed tore his gaze off his arm and stared back at Al. "But-"

"It's okay," he said, as reassuringly as he could. "In the end, it works out. When you brought my body and that piece of my soul out of the Gate, you should have gotten your arm back. All you traded it for was the ability to transmute a piece of my soul to the armor. But you didn't get it back – you ended up on Earth with the automail ports. Just the ports," he added. "I took the automail limbs off before I tried to reconstruct your body, but I couldn't get the ports off you, so I ended up leaving them in the Gate when I reattached your arm and leg."

"You left some of my equipment in this Gate?" Winry's voice had taken on a dangerous lilt.

"But Ed ended up taking them back, because he willingly offered the arm and leg back for the ability to get my body out of the Gate," Al told her. "So he ended up back on Earth with the ports, and I ended up a ten year old that was missing the piece of my soul that had been in the armor."

Ed blinked. "Wait. So you're saying that I had earned my arm and leg back by the time you returned them to me using the Philosopher's Stone?"

Al nodded. "Yes. The Philosopher's Stone paid the fee for healing the hole in your chest and transmuting your soul, but it wasn't necessary to get your limbs back. I didn't know that at the time, so I offered the whole thing. And at that point, I also owed nothing. I was now sitting in the Gate and I think that if you hadn't come to get me, I probably would have ended up being allowed to force my way out, just like you and Wrath did. If nothing else, the part of the Philosopher's Stone that I used to 'buy' back your limbs would have paid for me to get out."

It suddenly occurred to Al that this was not reassuring his brother. "But you didn't even let me chance that," he added quickly. "You bartered your arm and leg – the ones you didn't owe – to pay for me to return to this world. Which I would have done anyway. At that point, you gave the Gate something, and got nothing in return. Since then, the Gate has owed you that debt."

Ed rubbed the bridge of his nose with his left hand. "And it owed you as well, for the piece of the Philosopher's Stone you used to buy something that it already owed me. And for the piece of your soul that stayed in the Gate."

Al nodded. "Since then, I've been using the debt owed me unconsciously. The first time by sending a piece of my soul to Earth on the armor, the second time by getting that piece of soul back, and the third time coming through the Gate with you back to Earth. At that point I picked up that missing piece of my soul, probably because that time the entire rest of it went through and the missing years were attracted back, like all the other pieces. I think the fact that it had been kept so long is what allowed my body to age to catch up to my soul. At that point, if there was any 'debt' left with the Philosopher's Stone, I spent it either by coming back from Earth here, or when . . . when we took the Tringums there."

Ed closed his eyes, and didn't move his hand. "Or the deaths on Earth paid for our trip." His voice was dull. "Even if the Gate owed me my arm and leg, it didn't owe me anything else."

"It owed you the time it kept them," Al corrected. "It lent them to other beings, and they were used in that time. That's why they grew to be the right size, and they still work at all."

"But what about my memories, Al?" Ed stared at him. "I didn't lose those because a piece of my soul got left behind . . . there would have been no reason it would have been."

Al looked at the floor, a little guiltily. "I think that was my fault," he admitted. "I told the Gate to . . . make you like you were before. I thought I was dead, so I figured at least I could make you whole again." Ed glared at him, and Al made a face.

"I meant for it to give you back your arm and leg, but I think it interpreted that as . . . taking the memories that were hurting you. That might have cost me part of the Philosopher's Stone, as well, since it sort of gave them back to you as a punishment . . . " If the malicious laughter had been any indication. "The fact that it gave them back might have paid for all of us to return here safely, come to think of it."

Ed was still glaring, but it was the kind of glare he occasionally gave his research. He apparently couldn't find any other holes in the theory, because he finally sat back with a shake of his head.

"So it swindled you," Winry said slowly. "You held out a handful of money and it took it all, because you were too stupid to know what the goods you were trying to buy should cost."

Ed chewed on that, then sighed, and Al stared at him for a couple of seconds.

"Yeah, I think that's really it," he agreed. "I think the first trade, a limb for a soul, was something you felt was fair. I was . . . too desperate to get Mom back. I was willing to give up everything just so at least you could . . . could see her smile." He tried to grin, but he wasn't sure how well it came off. "I always thought she was more proud of you," he explained. "I thought she'd be happie-"

His perspective changed, and a ringing clatter on the ground assaulted his ears at the same time the shock of the impact on his forehead turned to pain.

Al clapped both his hands to his head, and it was several seconds before all the little black dots faded back to clean floor tiles.

"SHE LOVED BOTH OF YOU THE SAME, YOU IDIOT!" Winry raged. "HOW COULD THE TWO OF YOU BE SO STUPID?! YOU ALMOST DIE FOR EACH OTHER, OVER AND OVER AGAIN, AND IT WAS FOR NOTHING?!"

She continued shouting, but Al tuned her out briefly to shake the last of the fuzzies from his head. Damn, her arm had gotten better in the last four years.

By the time he'd shaken off the rattling his brain had gotten, and the lump on his forehead was quite egg-like, Winry had calmed back down. In fact, she was leaning away from Ed with a rather smug look.

"Go help granny with dinner," she ordered, wiping the grease off her fingers.

Ed was obviously taken off-guard, because he just stared at her a second. " . . . Winry-"

"I heard enough." She stood, picking up several of her largest tools and also wiping them clean of grease. Threateningly. "You're back, you have no reason to leave again, and there will be no more 'not technically dying.' That means that you're mine." The glare she turned on the two of them was enough to make them sweat.

"You." She pointed at Ed with the crescent wrench. "Same rehab as before. Chop up vegetables, learn how much pressure it takes to control that arm. I've currently set it to support its own weight and 'cost of energy,' so it shouldn't be too far off using your hand and arm normally. Inside the thumb you'll feel a slide lever. If you push it all the way to the top of the cap, the amount of leverage the mechanism will apply increases significantly. We'll test that later, when I'm sure you're not going to wreck the house accidentally."

Then she turned on Al. "You," she growled, "are going to help me clean up, and then carry the leg down here. We'll put it on him tomorrow, after he's gotten used to the arm. There will be no sparring for the first week he trains. You're not indestructible and bulletproof anymore," she added acidly.

He just held up his hands placatingly. "Yes ma'am."

She glared. "And neither one of you better mistake me for a secretary."

Al blinked, trying to hide a grin, and Ed rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "This is why we never used to tell you anything," he muttered.

"Good! I wish you hadn't! Next time, just keep it to yourselves! Upstairs, now."

Her tone hadn't changed markedly, but it was more than enough. She had her head down, viciously wiping at the rows of silver implements she'd been using to attach and calibrate the armor, and her hair was over her shoulder nearest them, hiding her from view. Ed caught Al's eyes and gave him a helpless look. Al just shook his head, then nodded at the stairs.

Obviously she didn't really want to deal with either of them right at this moment. It would be better to do what she said and let her calm down. She'd heard an awful lot, and it was probably true that now she wished she hadn't.

Years had gone by, with them in pain, because they'd been stupid. That much was true. And she'd watched them suffer through some of those years, and suffered herself because of them.

And they had no way to make that up to her.

Ed stared at Winry a second, but she didn't pause in her work, and after another moment's hesitation, he crossed the room and began up the stairs, shaking out his right arm. The door creaked open quickly, and they heard the clicking of Den's toenails on the kitchen floor above. There was a brief exclamation, the sound of a body hitting something fairly solid, and the door closed.

Al waited a few more seconds, watching Winry's back. She was still scrubbing almost frantically at the tools, and didn't issue him any instructions. In fact, outside of the one tray she'd used, there wasn't anything else to clean up. They hadn't even put a sheet down on the reclining table, because there hadn't been any blood. Everything she'd connected to him had just slipped on, like a shiny and extremely hard sleeve.

Winry slammed down the piece she'd been scrubbing, and leaned hard into the tray, bowing her head. Al watched her another few seconds, then crossed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

He'd gotten much taller, considering she was a grown woman and her head now rested neatly under his chin. She tensed the moment he touched her, but he just pulled her against him, and laid his cheek on the top of her head.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

She shivered in his arms, and he realized she was crying. She was really crying.

"Please don't cry, Winry." He held her tighter, and she kept shaking. "You made it work, just like you promised."

"Stupid-" She broke it off before her voice could fail her, and shook her head vigorously. He didn't move, though now her hair was tangled into his two-day-old beard and it tickled his nose when he breathed.

"Get off me." It was weak. "Let me go."

"No." He made sure his voice was strong. And it was lower than she was used to hearing it, too. She paused in her half-hearted struggles. "Not anymore, Winry. Not either of us."

"You left me behind!" Al winced at the volume, imagining that Ed could probably hear that no matter how much water Pinako was running.

"We did," he admitted, in a quieter voice. "One of the many stupid things we used to do. But not anymore."

She struggled harder against him, trying to pull his forearms away from her, but he didn't let her. Her back was pulled tight to his chest, and he could feel how tense she was, how much strength she wasn't really using. But she didn't stop. Didn't say anything at all. Just kept pulling at him.

He didn't want to turn this into a wrestling match – it wouldn't make her feel any better, and she had all the weapons anyway. He was about to relax his hold a little to see how she reacted, when she suddenly slumped against him, shaking harder. He held her close. "I'm sorry, Winry. I'm so, so sorry. We were stupid. We . . . didn't want anyone to get hurt. We didn't want anyone to have to pay for our actions." He chuckled softly. "We were so stupid, we thought we actually had control over that."

"Please let me go." For the first time, he could hear the tears in her voice. "Please let go."

"Can't," he said easily, lifting his head and trying to untangle her hair before he gave up and switched to the other cheek. "Too late."

She sobbed quietly, and for a long time they just stood there. They'd really had no right to come barging back into her life like this, he reflected. Neither of them had been asked, but if they had, would they have let Mustang's subordinates call her in? Or would they have elected a different automail mechanic to take care of Edward? A military one?

Would they have preferred to stay a secret? So nii-san could have his quiet life in another country? So Winry always believed they were gone? They'd left her behind for the last time?

"You know," he tried tentatively, "if Mustang gets elected Prime Minister, in a year or so Ed can discard this armor you've made him. We can explain away the return of his limbs, or say that it's painted." He felt like a heel for offering her an out like that, because he knew she'd never take it, but if she really wanted them out of her life –

Winry shook harder, and it took Al a second to realize she was laughing through her tears. "That ass will break it ten times between then and now." She swallowed. "Besides, he's not used to living without it anymore. If he's going to keep being an idiot, I want to . . . to protect him. Even if that's all I can do."

Al smiled into the top of her head, and then laughed a little himself. "You remind me of someone else I know," he teased her.

Winry groaned, but it didn't seem sincere, and he gave her a little squeeze before he relaxed. She made no move to scoot out from under him, though, and they leaned into each other companionably for a moment.

"So you guys are going back? To Central?"

Al nodded. "Yeah, I think Mustang has a plan for him. Besides, things are . . . dangerous right now. And that's more than partly our fault."

She sighed, then hiccupped, and turned her head so that she could look up at him. "You got tall," she noted. Her nose was quite red from crying, and he released her to hunt for a handkerchief in his back pocket. Mary Marguerite would have shot him on the spot if she'd seen him standing here, not offering a crying young lady his handkerchief –

"And, knowing that bastard, he probably has a plan for both of you," she added, eyes widening in surprise as he fished the square of soft white cotton out and offered it to her.

"Yeah, well, I never joined the military," Al reminded her, turning away while she wiped her eyes. Although, if she were embarrassed now, it was a little late. He was probably red to the roots of his hair. "Not much he can do about that."

Winry blew her nose loudly. "You were posthumously awarded a National Alchemy certification," she informed him, after she was done wiping her nose. "On the anniversary of the Thule Invasion, as a part of the recognition of outstanding Amestrians that gave their lives that day to protect the country."

Al stared at her. "W-what? Why didn't anyone mention it before now?"

She stared at him. "You almost died! And then you were paralyzed! It wasn't like anyone was even thinking about it!" Her expression turned thoughtful. "And between that, and the bomb, I'm not even sure the Tringums remember it."

She was obviously contemplating handing him the handkerchief back, because he shook his head. "Keep it. I have more." It wasn't actually true, but he had no intention of either of them making her cry for the next week, before they could get back to Central and buy some proper clothes.

She sniffled, and then blushed a little. "Thanks."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Thanks yourself."

They stood that way a moment, then Al grinned. "So, what name did they give me?"

Winry shook herself, then went to fetch the tool she'd hit him in the head with. "They named you the Vital Soul Alchemist." Her voice was quiet, and somehow serious again. " . . . I hated it," she added, pausing before she stooped for the tool. "I hated that name."

He stared at her, completely nonplussed. Vital Soul Alchemist . . . probably a nod to his admittedly unique gift of 'vitalizing' an inanimate object with a piece of his soul. Or the fact that he'd lived so long as a grey suit of inexpressive, cold metal when he'd been in fact a young and energetic child. And he supposed it was better than 'Animated Soul Alchemist', which made him sound a little bit like a cartoon character . . .

"What's wrong with it?" he asked, letting his confusion be reflected in his voice. He didn't want to pick a fight, not now, and he didn't want to upset her again, but –

"The first time I heard it," she said, and shook her head. When she straightened and turned, she was all smiles. "I thought it was 'Vital Sole Alchemist,' like you were a bright light and you were all alone. Just because Ed was gone didn't mean-" She waved her hands – and the wrench. "But then when I saw it spelled, it made sense. I just, that first impression –"

"It's okay," he reassured her. "I didn't like nii-san's name the first time I heard it, either. But . . . when I heard other people say it, and it sounded like it made them happy . . . then it didn't seem so unbearably heavy."

Winry beamed at him, so that her eyes were almost hidden, and put the wrench with the others.

"Maybe," she agreed cheerfully. "Come on, let's get that leg before the lunkhead decides to put it on and come crashing through the ceiling."

Al moved to follow her upstairs before something clicked in his head.

"Ah, Winry?"

She glanced over her shoulder as she jogged up the stairs.

"Who submitted my name for that posthumous award?"

She grabbed the doorknob, pushing the door open to be greeted by the white, wet muzzle of Den. "The same guy that pulled your records to prove you'd passed the written test."

Ah, so Mustang had done it. Even though the colonel knew damn well that he wasn't dead. Nice of him, to use his new position to get his people promotions and try to give the credit where . . .

. . . it was due . . .

Maria Ross had told them "Your orders." He'd assumed she meant only Ed, but if Mustang had been the one to have the certificate awarded –

Al started to laugh. He was still laughing when he topped the stairs, and saw Ed standing at the counter. He was holding a piece of the green vine of a tomato in his new armored hand, and the rest of the fruit was dripping from his hand, his face, his hair, and the immediate area.

The immediate area included a slightly damp Aunt Pinako, with several tomato seeds in her steel blue hair.

Ed didn't appear to appreciate the laughter, because he glowered at them as Winry also burst out giggling.

"You try it," he growled. "Normal pressure my ass, Winry! You expect me to pay you for this?!"

Al shook his head, and bit back his laughter. "No, not you, brother," he reassured his older – and dripping mad – sibling. "You remember that little talk you were going to have with Mustang next week? I think I'll go with you."

- x -

Author's Notes: So, more wrapping up of stuff. It takes me a long time to do that. This should have completely answered any questions you guys had in reference to the Gate and my 'owing' theory, as well as the biggest plothole in the anime – how a well-trained martial artist, capable of holding his own against opponents with superhuman strength and speed, and accustomed to thinking and moving quickly in dangerous situations, could manage to get hit by a falling zeppelin. Come ON, people!

Sorry, got a little off-track there. All better now.

Next chapter really should be the last (I hope!). I know I said last chapter was your last chance, and it pretty much was, but on the off chance there's something else you can think of that I haven't addressed yet, let me know and I'll see what I can do. I found loads of typos, so the standard apology is in effect.