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

Special Plugs Time!

The lovely and talented silverfox2702 has made this fic some art! GateRoses and Colonel Mushroom Mustang, and some encouragement for me to actually end this monster. ; ) Go to photobucket and search for 'jayamitai.' You should find three pics. Then come back and tell her how nifty she is!

And there's a just excellent introspective manga-based one-shot you guys need to check out. It's by inkydoo, titled "Between the Panels." A scene that should have happened between Ed and Winry shortly after her discovery of who killed her parents, and the ensuing fight. Hit inkydoo's profile page and check it out – and all the yummy Trigun fic, if you've got time. After all, since you like one blonde with a prosthetic arm in a red coat, I don't see why you wouldn't like another one. Although Vash is quite a bit taller . . .

- x -

She didn't knock. Then again, she didn't have to. Her light footsteps on the pile carpet were unfamiliar, if only because he'd never heard her walk on pile carpet before. But he knew it was her.

No one else would have been permitted to enter the room.

He never turned from the window, though he couldn't be accused of staring or of daydreaming. He was allowing his eyes to be drawn across the city, by motion and color and sound.

He was looking with both his eyes.

The parade grounds were covered with civilians. Long, orderly stretches of them moved obediently in one direction or the other, taking this visit to Central to tour the government buildings, or introduce their children to the museums and libraries. Squares of color indicated those that were picnicking on the lawns, and bright greens, yellows, and reds dotted the landscape.

Those splotches of color were all there was, amid the white and dust of the crumbled, shadowed buildings. The bright yellow was a rare square of sunlight, filtering in from the jagged holes in the cavernous ceiling. Faded green on long-dead trees still poked up between the ruins, skeletons that massive earthquakes and tragedy had finally revealed. There was no red to mark where the bodies had fallen, because they had simply vanished into a single stone.

His gaze was captured by a pigeon, having feasted on the handouts from a picnicker, flying off to feed its young or notify its mate. He followed it as far as he could see, taking in the city's horizon. The still-visible swaths of Central missing, great scars cut into its shining face.

It didn't look so different to his other eye, only there were thick columns of smoke still rising, and the cries ringing across the shattered city were horrified, too much like Ishbal.

Four years, and this was all the progress Amestris had made.

Would he look out from this view, four years from now, and see nothing but shining white walls and stately new buildings?

What could he really hope to accomplish in three?

"Are you ready?"

He felt a smile tugging at his lips, and he willingly released it. It wasn't sincere, but so many of his smiles had learned to do without, and it was easier than frowning.

"Do you even need to ask?"

She was standing just beside him, looking out the window. If she was trying to follow his gaze, she didn't show it. Knowing her, she was probably looking for snipers, some nest or position she and Havoc had missed.

It was her excuse, and he would let her have it. They'd come up with so many, over the years.

"I wasn't referring to the speech." She settled into a parade rest stance, possibly out of sheer habit. "You waited a long time."

They all had. "I feel like I'm still waiting." After all, one speech, one ceremony – it wasn't about being the 'Fuhrer' or the 'Prime Minister.' It had never been about the title, about the office.

It was about never giving an erroneous order. It was about never making mistakes. It was about fixing the problems, righting the wrongs.

This was just the first day he couldn't screw up anymore. No more mistakes.

This was just the beginning.

"Then you've got it all wrong," Hawkeye told him matter-of-factly, cocking her head to the side as a particularly shrill child demanded the immediate return of his ball. "Being able to issue reasonable orders is the reward, not the obligation."

He took a deep breath, leaning his forehead against the windowframe instead of his shoulder because he was afraid to get dust on his jacket. The seamstress they'd found was a complete hag, very talented but terrifyingly formidable. She would kill him if anything happened to his uniform, considering it was not only the first of its kind, but the only of its kind.

His first order was probably going to be the redesign of the Prime Minister's ceremonial garb. He supposed he looked very much like a respectable member of Parliament, but there was no way he could be expected to fight in this thing.

Of course, no one expected him to.

What they expected him to do was look like a politician. It was what they expected him to act like, too.

There were a lot of expectations. He was rather glad, all things considered, that he had never really given a damn about expectations, other than a silent agreement with himself to meet the ones that mattered.

"He'd be very proud of you."

Prime Minister Roy Mustang cocked an eyebrow at his subordinate, and Colonel Hawkeye pointedly ignored it.

"I'd say he always had been, but it's not true," he admitted after a moment. Finding him in a room with a gun under his chin hadn't been a high point. Studying human transmutation, becoming a drunk, those hadn't been high points either.

Oh, Maes would have kicked his ass for the whole demotion thing, too. He'd made a lot of mistakes on his way here. Now that he stood in this office, looking out this window, he wondered if the cost wasn't going to be worth this 'reward.'

He liked it better as an obligation. Then cost wasn't an issue.

"Don't tell me you're doubting yourself now." Her voice was brisk. "I'm afraid it's too late for that."

His smile became wider, but no less meaningless. "I've made that mistake twice already. I don't think anyone survives a third."

Riza sighed softly, the sound no louder than the gentle breeze coming through the open window.

"I've not even officially taken the seat, but I've already been judged by every person out there." It wasn't a new concept, it had just never happened to him on such a scale. "Some people measure the worth of other people by what they've accomplished. I wonder, to those people, whether or not I've accomplished enough."

"The only people who would so judge are fools," Riza responded, her tone a bit harder. "The value of a person lies in what they've tried to accomplish, not the accomplishment itself. Whether or not they attain their goal, the fact that they wholeheartedly gave their everything . . ." She trailed off thoughtfully.

"You believe the path a person takes to their goal defines them."

"I do." She uncharacteristically smiled. "For better or worse."

Mustang was silent a moment, watching the curtains shift slightly as spring wormed through the hard, dark fabric.

"That's too bad," he finally responded. "Maybe I took a good path, but my goal is anything but laudable."

"You're not going to issue that order," she stated flatly.

He gave her a sidelong glance, and she half-glared.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm sure you do. And your collar is crooked."

He remained still as the colonel reached up, straightening the dress shirt beneath his oddly stiff jacket. Her fingers were warm and sure against his throat, and for the first time in a long time, he had to resist catching them.

She really hadn't been that close since he'd been injured.

"Any fool can aim for the heavens, even sincerely. Would you give value to stupidity?"

Her eyes were fixed on his collar, and by the tiny bunch of skin between her eyes, she disapproved. "I thought Fuery said the alterations were correct," she muttered. "It's digging into your skin –"

"I think it's supposed to. It's based on the current Parliament design, and might explain their sour expressions and less than agile minds."

She glanced up at him, trying to bend the heavily starched collar away a bit. "Courage and stupidity are easily mistaken for one another. Only a man that dreams can reach the heavens."

Hawkeye gave his jacket a good hard yank, and he was surprised that it was significantly more comfortable when she was done. "Besides, I don't think she's going to hold it against him," she continued, in a quieter voice. "Though if he doesn't stop treating her like a tagalong, it's only a matter of time before she loses her patience."

Roy just stared at her. Somehow, this conversation had spun out of his control, and he wasn't even sure when it had happened. And when had she started referring to herself in third person . . ?

Riza blinked at him, apparently taken aback by his expression. "She came to Central with him," she explained slowly. "You probably weren't made aware, but the three of them showed up on the early train. They're both using the automail as their excuse, but . . ." She trailed off.

Automail. Why was she talking about automail -

"We are talking about Edward Elric, aren't we?"

Mustang found himself fighting to keep his expression blank. The her was Winry Rockbell, then.

She'd come to Central for the inauguration?

"Of course," he replied smoothly. "I just found it surprising, that's all."

Riza just nodded, as though she'd expected that response. "He seems much better."

Roy turned away from the window, letting his expression falter back into one of seriousness as he pocketed his speech. "I wasn't sure he was going to recover so quickly." Even after Edward had discovered the main ingredient of the Philosopher's Stone, even when they'd found him dejected and drenched on the HQ stairs all those years ago, he hadn't been like . . . like he'd been in the hospital those few weeks ago.

All he'd said was that he'd done something stupid, and lost his automail along with his temper. It hadn't answered the question, but he'd offered nothing further, and Roy hadn't pressed it. He'd seen that haunted look before, too many times.

He'd just never seen it on such a young face. Not since his own.

And all Edward had done thereafter was shake beneath the blanket and stare at the far wall, for two and a half hours, while they waited for Alphonse to return.

"Their debriefings went well, and they're currently attending the Alchemists' reception," she informed him. The soft voice was gone, and the head of his security detail was back as though she'd never left.

"And Miss Rockbell?"

"She's actually going to be staying in one of their suites, and First Lieutenant Ross has reserved her a seat near the Alchemists' benches. Incidentally, she indicated the Elrics didn't react positively to the news concerning their research notes."

He chuckled softly. "I didn't schedule that battle for another several hours."

"Only two, sir. It's time to start."

He took a deep breath, casting a last look over the office before nodding. She turned on her heels and proceeded from the room, and this time he followed her, watching the back of her head as she scanned the hallways and corridors.

It had been decided that he shouldn't wear his ignition gloves at the acceptance speech, as it would lend too much of a military air to the proceedings. As such, he was in the care of his security detail until the completion of the days' ceremonies.

But care was relative.

As they proceeded out onto the balcony that led to the speaking platform, he couldn't help but brush his trouser pockets with his hands, just to make sure the cloth was still there, tucked away neatly and ready at a moment's notice. It wasn't that he didn't trust Hawkeye and Havoc to have swept the grounds; on the contrary, the problem was that they were too good at their jobs.

If anyone had to take a life today, in front of the country, it was going to be him. It was time to set everyone's expectations, instead of meeting them.

- x -

This had to have been the worst idea ever.

Winry Rockbell closed her eyes and groaned aloud. Neither mattered; the solid wall of people in front of her wasn't moving, and they were making so much noise she couldn't even hear her voice inside her own head. The only reason she could be sure it was audible was because she could feel the vibrations in her throat.

Intellectually, she knew Maria had pulled her away to save her the difficulty of waiting for the brothers to get out of their 'interviews.' And she knew they were probably being asked some very difficult questions. She'd asked them the same ones, after all, and their answers had terrified her to the point that she was glad they'd stopped where they had.

She didn't want to know what Ed and Al remembered about . . . Stuttgart. Not anymore. Whatever it was, it was so awful she just couldn't stand it. And what she saw, happening in her head as they described everything they'd been through . . . the idea that it had been worse than she was picturing it –

She opened her eyes, surprised to see that the solid mass of people was moving again. She was pretty sure she was in the right line – the lawns had been roped off, and there were pieces of paper bearing the numbers on a post along every row of chairs. The rows seemed never-ending, and made up more than two hundred seats at a pass, but there was an aisle every thirty or so.

And lucky her, she was within the first thousand.

Winry moved along at the snail's pace, missing the familiar weight of her bags. She'd had to leave even her clutch in Hawkeye's offices, because of course she had a few small calibrating tools and she had been advised they'd be taken in a search of her person if she was flagged as 'questionable.' Of course, she'd been waved through the security checkpoint without more than the standard leer, but as she wasn't carrying anything at all . . .

The problem was that she didn't have anything to hang onto but the hem of her skirt. And if she hung onto that, she was going to give everyone in a two-hundred-seat radius quite a show.

She hated it when her hands were empty. With nothing in them, nothing to do, nothing to fix –

Well, she'd had years to realize and accept that automail was her way of coping with her parents' death. And it helped with the waiting, too. Work was her crutch, and it had the added benefit of paying well.

Winry groaned again, noting her number was on the column two rows ahead of her.

Work.

Sure, Granny Pinako could handle it for a few days, but not forever. They had too many customers, now, and David was going to be upset that she wasn't there to personally make the suspension adjustments for his shoulder –

And he wasn't the only customer sweet on her.

What was she even doing here? What had possessed her to take that jerk's invitation – if it could even be called an invitation? Who the hell was she kidding? They were State Alchemists! It wasn't as though she could just move Granny Pinako to Central and set up shop.

The woman would never agree to it, for one. For another, why uproot her whole life?

Then again, wasn't it uprooted already?

They were back, and at least for a year, Ed was going to have to fake it with that armor. She had half a mind to talk him into keeping it, and she really wasn't sure if that was because she was certain he'd get killed without it, or because she knew, sooner or later, he'd have to come back to her.

Even if she was never certain whether he was coming back for her, or for automail.

Maybe that's why it was so safe that way.

Winry growled at herself, glad that none of her grumblings could be heard. She was too used to being locked in a room with a drill press and some metal, where she could mumble to herself all she liked.

They weren't kids anymore, damn it! What was her problem?

Ed and Al had been a constant in her life when she'd had nothing else. Her parents had died and the only distraction from her grandmother's sadness had been the two young blonde boys who lived up on the hill. Then she'd felt as badly for them as they'd felt for her. They knew what it was to lose their parents. They understood.

But they'd moved so very far away. When she saw them, she acted happy, told herself she was happy. They chose a different work, a different distraction. They tried to actually get their mother back, and then . . . then they were too busy trying to find themselves again. They tried so hard they just kept losing, over and over again.

They burned their home. They made it clear that they weren't ever coming back.

They died.

And yet here they were.

All three of them. Standing in Central.

The line edged forward, and she couldn't have been happier to embark on the journey down the row to her seat. She walked quickly, further and further to the left of the main podium. That was fine with her, having an exterior seat. All the better to sit farther from that . . . that . . .

She couldn't do this.

God, she was an idiot.

Winry glanced around at the rows and rows of orderly, bright white chairs, the green banners flying the Amestrian flag, the building-wide platform with its empty wooden chairs and large oak podium. The seats behind her were dotted with early arrivals, children, balloons. There was an old couple sitting about a dozen seats ahead, and she glanced down at the slip of paper clutched in her hand.

Seven hundred and fifty-two.

She'd already walked past her seat.

And that was fine. She'd just keep walking. It wasn't like they'd pick her out of this sea of faces, no matter where they would sit for the inauguration. No matter how she hurried, she'd never make it through traffic back to the station, she'd never make the last train back to Resembool. She'd have to stay the night, but Al was right. Ed would bury himself in the library, and she'd have a suite to herself.

Just one night. She could handle that.

It was a pity she couldn't burn down Central when she left.

"Where's the fire?"

She stopped dead in her tracks, wondering for an instant if she'd been talking to herself the entire time. Then she glanced back at the makeshift platform, just in time to see a flash of red as the speaker leapt lightly off the edge.

There were three rows of chairs between them, but the aisle was just ten chairs over, and to her chagrin he moved towards the aisle in front of her rather than behind. Cutting off escape, her mind noted. But that was ridiculous. He had no idea she was upset.

He wasn't smart enough for that. He'd just seen her hurrying, that's all.

Winry remained still, letting him head down the aisle towards her. She expected him to look at the ticket in her hand, but instead, he just threw himself into a chair at random, stretching out his legs comfortably. When he casually tossed his arms over the backs of the two chairs beside him and let his head fall back., she realized he was settling himself in for a long stay. Winry swallowed her sigh and sat down gingerly beside him, careful not to lean on the arm draped over the chairback.

"How was the reception?" He probably didn't want to talk about the interview, but since he was here and not there –

He gestured vaguely with his armored hand, which happened to be behind her. "Booze. Food. Questions." His eyes were closed, and his face was turned up towards the sun, as if he needed the warmth. "Al decided to stick with the party line, and they got past the part I knew, so I bailed."

Winry just nodded, using the opportunity of being seated to wrap her fingers around the hem of her skirt. It came nearly down to her knees when she sat, so it wasn't as inappropriate as it might have been. She was glad his eyes were closed. He couldn't see what was right in front of his face, and if she could just hold it together a little while longer -

"Well, it's a long story," she said, when he didn't seem to feel the need to continue talking.

He frowned. "Something's going on with him," he said slowly.

"Al?" Was Ed really that blind? "He's probably just getting used to everything being different for him now." For once, the brothers were on equal footing. Surely Ed wasn't jealous of the attention Al was getting?

. . . he probably was.

Ed's frown deepened. "This isn't how Al gets used to things being different. I learned that in Germany." He opened his eyes slowly, narrowing them as he adjusted to the bright sunlight. "He's definitely up to something."

She couldn't think of anything to say, but her mouth was long used to autopilot from hours of working on limbs attached to men with their teeth ground shut against the pain. "Then why did you leave him alone?"

His gaze shifted to her without blinking, and she realized that she'd been wrong. He'd never really taken his attention off her, and he'd never really relaxed.

"You're up to something too," he informed her. "Currently he's surrounded by a pack of hungry alchemists. He's not going anywhere."

Insinuating that she was.

That he knew she was.

Winry glanced away, staring at her skirt hem. If she wasn't careful, she was going to rip it, and now she didn't even have a needle and thread. She'd have to go all the way back into the building to get it, when she really just wanted –

Well, that was the question, wasn't it.

"Why'd you come?"

She didn't look at him again. "You told me to, moron. Don't you remember your little lapse in judgment this morning?"

He was quiet a moment. "You could have said no."

No, she couldn't. Not when he'd made the gesture.

But that was all it was. A gesture.

There was a time that was all she wanted. But now, hours later, the pleasant surprise had worn off, and left her with the reality of the fact that she was sitting in Central, alone, with ten thousand people she didn't know.

They were surrounded by people, in a veritable sea of them, and she felt completely isolated.

And she wanted to be. She wanted to be alone so much it ached.

"I thought maybe you wanted to talk. About all this."

Winry closed her eyes, and concentrated on her fingertips, counting each separate stitch as her hand trailed over them.

"Pop never apologized, either. Not really." Ed's voice was that curious hollow one again. He'd never had that voice before, not till three weeks ago. She hated it. "But he died to send me back here. A couple years ago," he clarified. "I told him not to, but he never listened to me anyway."

She couldn't help a little smile, despite the sad news. "Kids are supposed to listen to their parents." Another piece of information to add to the list. Ed carried that guilt around with him as well. Now he could blame himself for both his parents' deaths.

Lucky him.

"Can't if they're not here anymore."

She swallowed back her retort. He wasn't purposefully being hurtful. He didn't know what was on her mind, he was just babbling.

It had been easier with Al. At least she could say the words to him. Let me go.

Not that he had . . .

"Do you hate him?"

She heard a few voices approaching out of the general din, and looked up to see three people moving towards them from the aisle. She moved her knees to the side, to give them more room to pass.

Ed didn't so much as twitch. Nor did he glare at them; he simply ignored them. After a moment, they seemed to get the hint, and moved back to walk around in another aisle.

As soon as they were out of earshot, she glared at him. "That was rude."

The look he gave her was almost equally angry. "It was, wasn't it?"

Winry stared at him, the hem of her skirt forgotten. "What's the matter with you?"

His face was stony. "You are." After a few seconds of silence, he seemed to realize that he needed to elaborate. "You told us to include you. We did. I told you everything you asked. Only then, you decided you didn't want to know anymore. You want to come, but once you're here you're either all fake smiles or –" He cut off with a shake of his head. "You didn't used to wait until people were out of the way to point out when I was being obnoxious."

Winry just stared at him. "Oh, so I've learned tact in the last six years and you think that's a problem?"

Ed threw his head back with an audible thump. When next he spoke, his voice wasn't the cool arrogance she'd braced against.

"What do you want from me, Winry?"

His tone was too much like back at the hospital. He was tense; she could see it in the armor even if no one else could, the way it was sitting on his shoulder. But he was always tense in it; he hiked up his shoulder and that limited his movement a little bit. Just having it there bothered him, even though it didn't really hurt.

She turned back to her skirt hem, though he was back to staring at the sun.

She hadn't answered him in the hospital. But then again, back then he'd been heaping guilt and blame onto himself. Blame for involving her again, for almost killing himself, Al, and the Tringums. For putting Mustang in that position. For imposing on them.

That pissed her off more than anything.

But didn't he have the right to think it? Given how she'd reacted when he'd finally actually told her all the things she'd always thought she wanted to know?

I want you to say goodbye, and leave.

If she said it, he would. He would stay where he was a moment, coolly, as though she hadn't said something horrible, and then he'd find an excuse to have to return to the reception to get ready for whatever part the State Alchemists had to play in this farce, and he'd jam his hands in his pockets, and he'd say it. And then he would walk away.

She'd finally get her goodbye. And even if he wrecked the armor the next day, she'd never see him again.

Was there anything else she could ask for that he could actually give to her?

What did she want from him? She wanted him to stop dying That was pretty high up on the list. She wanted him to stop getting into fights, getting beat up, getting shot. She wanted him away from the people and places that reminded him about all the horrible things he'd seen. She wanted him to forget his mistakes. She wanted him to forgive himself.

He couldn't give her any of those things.

Winry squeezed her eyes shut, then gave up and leaned back in her seat, resting her head on his armor. It wasn't like he could get any more tense, after all, and while the armor was hard, it was nicely curved to fit the back of her neck. She'd gotten used to falling asleep on automail a decade ago, working late too many nights.

He had frozen pretty solid by the time she'd gotten settled in, and she let him get used to the weight, staring at the bright light shining through her eyelids.

"I want you to tell me the rest of it."

Ed was silent for so long she was afraid he wasn't going to say anything at all. "Not right this moment in time," she clarified. "I know you've probably just relieved it all a dozen times. But, sometime, if you want to. When you're ready."

"You don't want to hear it." He did a good job of draining any emotion out of his voice completely.

God, she hated these new inflections of his. "If you're going to say something like that then don't talk."

"Then you stop saying things you think other people want to hear. Make up your own mind."

She pressed her lips together forcefully against the words she wanted to snap. She should have just told him she wanted him gone. There'd be no more fighting, he had enough to worry about right now and she just –

"I don't want to fight."

"I didn't come over here to fight."

She supposed that was true. He'd said he came over to see if she wanted to talk.

About Mustang.

But maybe not. Maybe just to talk.

"Ed . . ." She couldn't say those things to him. It would be awful of her.

"You have a life in Resembool. A client base. You have a business and responsibilities that –"

"Are my responsibilities," she cut him off. "I have the capability of prioritizing my own work, thanks."

Beside her, she heard him take a slow breath. But she didn't look at him. People would see them, sharing each other's company, enjoying the beautiful, warm spring day. She liked imagining what they looked like, what they appeared to be, better than what they really were.

"You're not going to settle down, are you."

Ed shifted slightly beside her. "You mean in Central, or generally?"

"Anywhere." It wouldn't matter what city, really, if she could be certain that letters she wrote were actually getting to the person they were intended for. If she could get on a train and expect to see the same face at the same station. The same intact face.

"I don't know." For once, his tone was . . . something. Weary. "I can't retire from being a State Alchemist. Now more than ever."

"You can't keep going the way you have. You're going to get killed."

She heard his hair grinding softly against the wooden back of the chair. He was looking at her.

"I'm not going to get killed."

She shook her head gently against the armor. "I can't wait anymore, Ed. I . . . I won't."

His response was slow in coming, but he wasn't withdrawing his arm. "I know."

"And you can't keep taking responsibility for that." She rolled her head to her left and opened her eyes, surprised he was still looking at her. "It was my choice to wait, Ed. And it's my choice to stop."

God, he really wasn't the same boy, was he. He'd gotten so good at hiding things, she couldn't even see a glimmer of what he was feeling. What he was thinking.

He really wasn't the same.

And neither was she.

"I can't just pick up shop, Ed. You're going to have to learn how to stay still more often."

He blinked at her.

"I figure in the beginning, the best I can expect are brief pauses," she relented. "And no phone calls. It's like you're allergic to the thing. But there's going to have to be effort involved."

He picked up his head to look at her. "Winry-"

"We're going to have to have a proper friendship." Nothing else would do. She couldn't get rid of him completely. Just like he and Al were two of the first pillars in her life, she knew she was one of his. And just like she'd been left behind, she couldn't turn around and leave him in the same position.

Not after everything else he'd been through.

"More than just your tune-ups. Letters. Some expectation that I can arrive somewhere and find you without searching the entire country."

He withdrew his arm, and she picked up her head, sitting straighter in the seat. He turned so that he was facing her, and she drew back slightly when his expression wasn't what she hoped for.

"I can't make that promise." His eyes shifted, like he was looking for the words. "I don't know where I'm going from here-"

She shrugged. "Then you don't know you can't. It's this or goodbye, Edward."

That got his attention.

She offered him a small smile, guiltily pleased that he looked slightly stricken. "And please don't say goodbye. I don't think I could get through today if you did that."

He stared at her for such a long time that she finally turned away, noting the vast number of seats that had gotten filled since their conversation began.

She hadn't even noticed. It had been like they were alone.

At least if he said goodbye, it was his choice, because of demands she'd put on him, and not because of some desire to protect her. At least he could tell himself that.

And at least, in some small way, it was a resolution.

They weren't the same people they'd been as kids. He was both harder and more fragile than he'd been, like metal heated too long, so that he'd become brittle. And she wasn't the same smiling girl. She did have a life. She did have responsibilities that she'd chosen, no matter how she looked at it.

It was ridiculous to think anything could be like it was before. They'd have to figure out if they even had anything in common anymore besides apple pie and Granny Pinako.

She and Al had already come to their own agreement. It was time to stop thinking of them as a single entity.

It was time for them to stop thinking that way, too.

"You have to go," she told him quietly. "Your presence is probably required somewhere."

He paused another moment before standing rather stiffly, and she didn't raise her eyes to his face, staring instead somewhere in the vicinity of his right hip. He had to make up his own mind, and she wasn't as good at hiding her emotions as he was.

So she was completely taken off-guard when he reached down and pulled her up, so that she was standing right next to him.

"I think my presence is required right here," he said, in an oddly low voice. "But you can't come out on stage with the alchemists. And you won't wait, so . . ."

She stared at him, baffled for a moment, and then she socked him in his flesh shoulder. "You know what I meant."

He flashed her a tiny little grin, and then, even more shockingly, he put his arms loosely around her shoulders.

"I'm glad you're here."

She hugged him back, wrapping her arms inside his red overcoat. "Me too."

- x -

Author's Notes: Okay. My current goal is now less than twenty chapters. I'm going to stop estimating. I went back and looked at my estimates in my previous notes, and it's laughable. I am incapable of doing anything with brevity.

And I know I promised no pairings, but we did have to resolve a few relationships. Which we didn't really do with Riza, other than her flatly telling Roy that she thought he was worth it all along. And we didn't really do with Winry and Ed either, because they're adults now, and they really don't know each other anymore. I think supporting a nice, steady friendship is totally believable. If they want something more, well, they're adults. They can handle it themselves outside of the scope of this oneshot. ; )

And, a special announcement! Every large fic I write, there's usually some lunatic who just goes above and beyond sanity to help me with a fic, to leave egoboos, to encourage and enjoy and above all, someone who lets me know these things. This fic, that is absolutely silverfox2702. I choose to recognize these wonderful, wonderful readers by giving them a fanfiction by request, just for them. Any fandom I can write, any characters, any situation. So get thinking, silverfox, and let me know what you'd like in your present. And thank you. ; )