AN: Happy FMA Day! (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ (I hope this emoji showed up, it was supposed to be :D but with sparkles.)

Many many thanks to my friend Pari for letting me scream about this idea to her at late hours of the night, and many many many thanks to my friend Luxa for proofreading and editing the final draft for me.

Enjoy!

Alphonse's armor lies broken, empty, dead, upon the cracked ground. Hohenheim isn't sure what to feel as he looks at it. Grief, certainly. Guilt, too. And yet, a calm, melancholic sense of loss, one he's far too familiar with; he's lost plenty of people he cared about, over the long, innumerable years. Part of him is almost sick and disgusted that he's so used to the grief that he can bear it like this, seeing his own son dead.

But then again, part of him still has trouble accepting that that empty suit of armor has been his son for years at all.

The former host of the homunculus Greed is offering a Stone to Edward, to bring back Alphonse. It seems like the perfect solution. Hohenheim breathes a sigh of relief, sagging against Izumi; maybe this will work out and be alright. Perhaps, just perhaps, he will have the chance to atone, to be the father he wasn't to these two boys.

It will be hard, but he knows without any doubt that that's what he wants to do.

"I—I can't. As much as I want to, I can't," and here, Edward's voice breaks, his shoulders trembling as he presses his fist into the ground. "I promised Al that we'd never use a Philosopher's Stone."

Ah, Edward...

A sad smile creases Hohenheim's tired lips. He should have known. It could never be this easy. Not for them.

"Izumi," he murmurs, leaning towards his children, and she obligingly helps him walk forward. It has been so long, countless ages upon ages, since he's felt this weak, this vulnerable, this—this human; how long has it been since he's had only his own soul left to him? Too long. His thoughts flash to his beloved Trisha, and her smile and her laugh, lost forever, and his heart grows lighter for an instant. Perhaps he can see her again. His resolve strengthens, not that it was weak enough to waver even from the start.

The few people standing between him and his sons part like water flowing around a rock as Izumi guides him to them. The young Xingese girl sobbing at Alphonse's side scrambles away, but Edward stiffens, his chest heaving with the harsh breaths that come with unshed tears, as his eyes narrow and his hands clench into fists.

"What do you want—" he starts, but immediately chokes on his words as Hohenheim reaches out and gently thumbs away some of the blood dripping down his cheeks. There are tears there, too, but as any good father would, Hohenheim pretends not to notice them, for now. He won't call Edward out on obvious grief in front of a crowd such as this. "What the hell?!"

And now his son, his beloved little golden boy, jerks away from his touch. He expected it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

"Don't touch me! Get away—get away from me! I'll save him on my own, we don't need you!"

Hohenheim smiles sadly. "I know," he says, "that I was not a good father to either of you, but that doesn't change that I am your father."

"That doesn't—" Edward starts. Hohenheim holds up one hand, feeling tears pricking at his own eyes, and his son stops talking, swallowing hard.

"You both mean the world to me," he says, "and though I may have done a terrible job of showing it, I just want the two of you to be happy. I'm—I'm sorry, Edward." He gently shakes Izumi's hold off, barely acknowledging her as she steps back, and lets his exhausted legs give out so that he falls to his knees next to Alphonse. Alphonse's empty shell, really. He gently touches the scratched helmet, no light in its dark eyes, and thinks about a small bundle swathed in blue clothes, blinking up at him with wide-eyed innocence. Laughing as he clung to one of Hohenheim's larger fingers. Falling asleep against his shoulder.

What a failure of a father he is, truly. One of his sons hates him and the other lies dead on the ground.

I will fix this, he vows. Trisha, I will fix this, I swear. They will smile for each other yet. They will. I will fix this.

The Gate is already hovering so close in his mind; he can almost see her smiling sadly back at him from beyond its dark doors. I know you will, he can almost hear her whisper, his Trisha who alone of all people in this world never ever gave up on him. (Just like her son, just like Alphonse, who gave him second, third, fourth chances. Oh, Alphonse.)

He doesn't know if he will see her again after he gives himself up to Truth. But then again, it has been long enough. He thinks he's ready to try. He's more than ready to close his eyes and return to the past, to the laughter of his children on the swing by the house and the warmth of Trisha at his side, to the soft trills of the birds singing in the trees. If that's what might await him beyond the Gate, he's ready to try.

"For once in my life," he murmurs, one hand brushing Alphonse's dented, ruined, devastated armor, "let me be a father, and do as I should have done, all those years ago, and protect you, and protect him," and he meets Edward's gaze, sees the moment when golden eyes so like his own widen in horrified recognition, sees tears spill down bloodied and bruised cheeks.

"No, you dumbass!" his firstborn cries, lunging forward to shove him away. "I won't let you! Al wouldn't want to live a life that was bought for someone else's soul, he wouldn't! I promised him—I promised—" and he chokes up again, breaks down, staring at the armor brokenly.

"In the end," Hohenheim says sadly, calmly, knowingly, "I am his father before I am anyone else. I—" he needs to pause, needs to take a deep breath, needs to blink back tears, "I love you, Edward. Tell Alphonse... tell him I love him, too, more than anything in the world."

"Wait—wait, no, don't you dare, don't do this, you idiot—wait, NO!" Edward screams, but Hohenheim has already closed his eyes and opened his heart to Truth. He will bring his little boy back, his little wide-eyed Alphonse who deserves the world far more than his father does. He will let his son see its wonders once again. And though he's been a failure, at least he can know—his last act was something he did right.

Oh, my Trisha, he thinks as the great door opens onto the Void, it has been far too long. But now, I'm coming home to you, at last...

When Alphonse starts slowly regaining consciousness, the first thing he's aware of is—is warmth. Sunlight, maybe. Wait, no, this is tangible warmth, like someone's body... it must be Brother. That thought is both exciting and relieving; he's exhausted and wants to just lie there, and he knows if Brother is there he's safe, but it's been so long since he's seen his brother with his own eyes that he wants to stare at him and touch him and hear his voice with his own ears and just drink him in.

He settles for a compromise and forces his eyes open. It's hard, harder than he'd thought it would be because after four years without eyelids, it's a bit difficult to remember how to open them, but the memory dredges itself up after a second, and they flutter open and he can see with his own eyes again.

"B—brother?"

His voice is paper-thin and weak and dry, but it's his, and he can feel it in his throat when he speaks, and he has to actively form sounds with his mouth now, and oh, god, he really has a body again, he really, truly does—

"Al—Al, you're awake," Ed breathes, drawing his head back. Alphonse blinks kind of woozily up at him and smiles, then tries to figure out what's going on. He's lying... on the ground, yes, and there are people all around. He knows them, but the idea of looking at all of them and trying to figure out who is who sounds like too much for his beleaguered body and mind, tired and drained as he is, so he focuses on his brother, who's holding him close. Edward's arms are wrapped around him tightly, and until he'd uttered the word brother, Ed's face had been buried in his hair. With a start, Alphonse realizes his brother is crying.

"Hi," he says, because what exactly does one say when they've just gotten a body again after four years and their brother is crying?

Well, apparently that might have been the right thing, because now Edward is laughing, tears still streaming down his face as he shakes his head. "Hey," he murmurs back, pressing Al close, and suddenly he's aware of the fact that he can feel the warmth of Ed's arms and his chest and he can feel his own heart beating and if he focuses he thinks he can feel Ed's, too, and his eyes go impossibly wide.

"Brother..." he breathes, voice full of wonder, as he wraps his arms around Ed. "Brother, I can feel again!"

Ed lets out a laugh that sounds suspiciously like a sob. "Y—yeah, Al, you can, huh? One of those—one of those great things about having your body back! And we'll get some food in you soon, too, and... and..."

Alphonse cuts him off when he turns his head and gently pecks his brother's cheek, just like Mom used to do to both of them whenever they were upset and cried (just like he'd done the night of her funeral, when Ed had sobbed into his pillow the way he hadn't at the ceremony and Al had crawled into his bed and clung to him). It's been so long since he's been able to do that; at least as armor he could kind of hug his brother, even though he couldn't feel it and Ed felt nothing but cold metal. But the more subtle kinds of affection were entirely lost. He makes a mental note to go for subtle affection a lot, now.

He can do that now, he thinks with wonder again. They can go home and he'll have a body, and it'll be like it was before, kind of—their family won't be the same, and they'll have to rebuild the house, but he and Ed can go home, and Dad might even be there, too, now that this is all over, and they can sit on the porch in the mornings and drink tea and listen to the birds singing, just like they used to before hurrying to school. They can do all this, now. He can hardly believe it!

"Don't cry," he tells Edward. "It's okay now, Brother." The irony, of course, is that his own eyes are filling up at an alarming rate and this is what it feels like to cry, isn't it? That tightness in his chest and throat, the pricking in his eyes, the blurring vision...

"You're one to talk," Ed says, laughing again even as he chokes on his own tears, and this time Alphonse laughs too, overwhelmed and exhausted and crying but happy.

"Alphonse! Alphonse!"

Both brothers jerk and look up, startled, as May comes running. She doesn't stop running, either, and careens straight into Al's side, bawling, as he lets out an oof and leans heavily into Ed for a second. It's a lot harder to withstand impacts now that he has lungs and can get the breath knocked out of him just like that, he thinks a little wryly, as he looks down at her.

"May," he says softly, surprised, taking one arm from around Ed to wrap it around her.

"I was," she sobs, "so—so scared..."

His face softens from surprise into something more tender. "I bet. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put you through that." She nods, burying her face in his shoulder, and he glances up at Edward before continuing. "It's okay now. Thank you, for helping me save my brother."

Edward makes a sound of something between surprise and a long-suffering sigh. "Al," he says, drawing him closer and letting him lean his head against his chest, "not everything today was about saving me, you know."

"I know," Alphonse says, "but to me, that's the most important part."

He takes the hand resting on May back and gently wipes away one of the tears on Ed's cheek. To his surprise, though, his brother flinches. It's gone after the blink of an eye and he looks just like he had a second ago, but Al knows him far, far better than that.

"Brother? What is it?"

"It's..." He's thinking about something in the past. Must be the recent past, too, because Alphonse has no idea what it might be. "I'll tell you later."

"Okay," he says, because he doesn't have the energy to argue and he trusts Ed will tell him anyway. His brother doesn't lie to him, not about the important things.

He lays his head back down and gives May one final squeeze before letting go; she clambers to her feet and gives him a slightly dazed smile before walking away. He watches her leave, but doesn't say anything—now that everything's over, she has a lot to think about, what with the contest for the throne of Xing and all that mess, too. He hopes she'll be okay.

"So," Ed says brightly. "Wanna get some food? There's—"

"Edward! Alphonse!"

Both look up just in time to see Izumi hurrying towards them; when she reaches them, she kneels and wraps her arms around both. It reminds Alphonse of the way she held them when they told her about the transmutation, except that this is so, so much better, both because it's happy this time and because he can feel it.

"Hey, Teacher," Ed says as she withdraws. "It's good to see you. Are you alright?"

Al just looks at her and beams. She smiles back at him.

"Yes, I'm fine, mostly. It's good to see you again, Al," she says.

"It's good to be back!" he chirps, laughing, as he nestles against Ed again. He gives him a little squeeze and Al smiles up at him.

Izumi settles into a sitting position next to them, her hands clasped in her lap, and sighs. "Well, boys, it certainly has been a long day, but in the end, we got it done, didn't we?" She pauses and looks at the two of them, huddled up together with tears and blood and smiles on their faces. Especially on Ed's, or at least the blood part. Al frowns and wipes it away again before it can drip from Ed's brow into his eye. "I'm proud of you," Izumi says softly. "Both of you. What you did today..." she shakes her head and smiles at them both. "I'm proud."

"Thank you, Teacher," Alphonse says, reaching out to touch her hand. She offers it to him, letting him trace the contours of her calloused fingers with wonder and delight until he withdraws to lean against his brother some more. "Thank you for everything, too."

There's an odd, fond smile on her face as she looks at her hand. "Of course," she says, her voice warm and low and soft. Something about it reminds Alphonse of Mom, but he quickly pushes that thought away before it can hurt. Then Izumi withdraws and that moment is broken and gone anyway. "You two should get to the hospital," she says. "Al needs to be looked over to make sure everything is alright, and Ed, you need to stop bleeding everywhere. I can assure you from personal experience, that's not healthy!"

"Personal—not healthy—no shit bleeding everywhere isn't healthy!" Ed glares, and then realizes he just called himself out on that too. "Dammit, Teacher."

Izumi laughs, pushing herself to her feet. "Get yourself taken care of," she says. "I'm off to find Sig; I'll see you two around later, alright?"

"Yeah," Ed agrees. "See ya."

"Your arm is bleeding," Al says suddenly, remembering—how could he have forgotten?! It was the reason he broke his blood seal!—and pushing away from Edward despite his brother's protests so he can twist around and look at it. "Brother, your arm!"

"It'll be fine!" Ed waves him off. "We'll go to the hospital and get it looked at, but it's okay, I swear. I'm not gonna like, bleed out or anything, Al."

"But doesn't it hurt?" he asks. He doesn't exactly remember what hurting feels like yet, but he knows it's bad.

Edward shrugs with one shoulder. "Kinda," he admits, "but it's okay. I'm more worried about you, little bro."

"Me?" Alphonse asks in surprise. "What about me?"

"Well, for starters, we gotta get you some food!" Ed answers. "You're so thin..." He trails off, and Alphonse recognizes the look on his face as a guilty one—an expression he's seen far, far too many times on his brother. He doesn't like it, not one bit.

"I've been this thin for this long," he points out, wrinkling his nose. (He can make expressions too, now! Thank goodness they come so readily, though; he's pretty sure he's forgotten how to move half of his muscles. Whatever he does is mostly on reflex. If he thinks about it, he freezes up.) "I can wait a little longer. But your arm..."

"Okay, okay," Ed begrudgingly gives in, holding up one hand placatingly even as the wounded one pets Al's hair. "We'll go to the hospital first and get both of us checked out and taken care of, how's that?"

"Sounds good," Al says. "Now?"

Edward is silent for a long moment. He buries his face in Al's hair again and takes a deep, shuddering breath as if to steady himself, then tightens his embrace for an even longer moment that stretches out to the point that Al wonders if he's ever planning on letting go. After a few more precious seconds, he finally withdraws and nods.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "Now."

"Okay," Alphonse agrees, hugging him back. As Edward gets to his feet, he helps Al up too, but when he starts walking, Alphonse lingers, looking around. Everyone is alright, he realizes—wounded, exhausted, crying, but alive. Over there is Colonel Mustang, leaning heavily on Lieutenant Hawkeye—who's covered in blood and is leaning back on him. But they're alive. And Teacher is somewhere around here, with her husband, and they're alive too.

Zampano and Darius are helping some other soldiers clear away rubble to make a better path to get stretchers out of here. Alphonse smiles at them even though they can't see him, because he's glad to see them and he's glad that he can smile again.

May's safe, too; and over there is Major Armstrong, and a few of the soldiers from Briggs, and going to the Colonel and Lieutenant are a few other people he recognizes, too.

"Al?" Ed prompts, gently tugging him in the direction of the hospital. "Wanna go?"

"Everyone's okay," Alphonse answers, gazing around in wonder some more. "We won. You did it, Brother!" He looks at Edward again, eyes shining. "I knew you could."

There's a flash of something unexpectedly close to pain in Ed's eyes before he forces a laugh—honestly, does he think Al won't notice it's forced?—and ruffles his hair fondly. "Yeah, well, don't sell yourself short, Al."

Part of him is really, really tempted to tease and joke and laugh, to say something about Ed being the short one, because he wants to laugh, but he doesn't. Partly because he's now shorter than Ed, and partly because he doesn't want Ed to think he got away with hiding something that hurts him. Doesn't he know, they always face the monsters together?

Which reminds him.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, leaning into his brother's touch again, "for leaving you to finish it alone. I know I made you promise never to do that to me, and then I did it to you."

Ed lets out a short bark of laughter that doesn't sound like he's laughing at all. "Alphonse," he says, "I think you're the only person I know who'd apologize for saving someone's life."

He rests his chin atop Al's head though, pulling him close so he can let most of his weight lean into Ed rather than his own rather unsteady legs. Alphonse sighs and nestles his head into the crook of his brother's shoulder, relishing the feeling of being able to, well, feel again after so long. Oh, god, he'd almost forgotten just how wonderful a simple hug could be.

"Brother," he murmurs after a second, still taking in the feeling of warmth and happiness that comes from being able to hold Ed like he's wanted to for four years, "what's wrong?"

Edward draws in a sharp breath. Al waits. He can feel Ed's heartbeat and the sunlight warm on his back and he can smell Ed in his arms and in the coat wrapped around his body, and he can taste the dust in the air if he opens his mouth. He's content to stand here until Ed finds words.

"It's—I... god, Al, this is selfish of me, but I'm not ready to tell you yet," he confesses, letting out a shaky, bitter laugh. "It'll make you upset, and I don't want to do that when I haven't seen you smile in so long. Sorry."

Alphonse pauses to consider those words. It's kind of selfish, but he doesn't mind, because it's the kind of selfish that's only twisted around selflessness, and besides, Edward has been selfless enough in the past that if he just wants to see his little brother smile for a time, Alphonse won't fault him. "Will you tell me by tonight?" he asks.

"I... I will, I promise," Edward says. Alphonse is satisfied. Edward doesn't break promises. He knows that's very, very true.

"Okay," he says, content with that answer. Lifting his head from Ed's shoulder but not pulling away from his brother, he looks around some more, at everyone he saw earlier today. There's a few faces missing. "Brother?"

"Yeah?"

"Is Ling okay? I don't see him around here."

Ed chuckles. "Yeah, he's fine. Greed's gone, though. I'm not sure if he's happy about that or not, but he's fine. I think he went off somewhere that way."

"And Lan Fan?"

"What, are you just gonna go on a roll call of everyone we know? That'll take a while, Al, you were always way better at names than me anyway. You might have to explain some of 'em to me!" Edward laughs; Alphonse decides immediately that he loves the feeling of Ed laughing as he holds him. "In any case, most of everyone is okay. Uh, from what I've heard, Scar killed Bradley, and I took care of Pride, and the Armstrongs got rid of Sloth, and that... thing killed Greed, so all the homunculi are gone now. Oh... Captain Buccaneer's dead."

"What?!" Alphonse jerks his head up, eyes wide and horrified. "He—but—oh..."

"Yeah," Ed says lamely, petting Al's hair. "Sorry. I guess we couldn't save everyone."

The Briggs captain's death is something Al will have to mull over later; he doesn't want to spend this time thinking about the death of someone he never got close to, but knew well enough to grieve for. It's confusing, and he knows he can cry now, but he doesn't know if he wants to cry right now. Hopefully that doesn't make him a bad person when it comes to remembering the lost.

Maybe now he can finally cry about what happened to them when they tried to bring back Mom. God, Al realizes, not for the first time: he has a lot to cry for. There are a lot of tears to make up. Maybe it'll feel better when he gets them out. He wants to cry about Mom, about Nina, about Dad—

Dad.

He looks around for his only other family member, hoping he hasn't vanished and walked out of his life again. Dad, please, don't be gone, not again...

"Brother? Where's Dad?" he asks suddenly. "I don't see him, either."

Edward stiffens. Al's heart freezes, skips a beat, and then plummets like a stone tossed into the river at Resembool.

"... Brother? What's going on?" Please no, please don't let him be gone, he's Dad, he can't be gone. He wouldn't leave us again, not like this! Please, Dad, please, please, please...

"I told you," Ed forces out through suddenly gritted teeth, "I promised I'll tell you tonight."

Promise or not, Alphonse's eyes suddenly fill with tears.

That night, they sit in the hospital, on opposite beds. Al's curled up with his knees tucked to his chest and his arms wrapped around himself; part of Edward wants to get up and comfort him, but part of him is terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing and making him even more upset. After all, wasn't hiding it from him this long already wrong?

"I'm sorry," he says lamely. "I should have told you sooner. I just—I wanted... I'm sorry, Al."

"It's okay." Al's voice is a bare whisper, and he's still staring at the tiles on the floor. As Edward watches him, a stray tear escapes and rolls down his cheek. "I..." He breaks off and bows his head, shoulders shaking, and Edward cringes, clenching his hands helplessly because he is so bad at comforting people. The worst thing is that he can't even deride those tears and ask why are you crying because it's obvious enough.

"I'm sorry," he says again. Al doesn't respond unless a hiccupping sob counts as a reply, and Edward wonders if he's a bad son for not being sorrowful like this himself, but like every time he starts to forgive Hohenheim in his head, he immediately dredges up every memory of hate and anger and despair and bleak hopelessness from years of having no father around, and drowns himself in them. He will not allow himself to go back on his thoughts.

It doesn't really help that much this time.

Unwillingly, as if his memory acts independently of his desires, he sees that scene play out in front of him again in exquisitely painful detail, sees Hohenheim brushing his fingers across Al's broken armor with the same tenderness he used to caress Ed's cheek, hears his father—no, hears Hohenheim take one last, deep breath even as Edward himself begins to scream for him to stop, sees that familiar light before Hohenheim's body begins to disintegrate and Al's appears.

Guilt stabs at him, eats at his uncertainties until he wants to cry, too. Hohenheim was a bad father, but Ed himself is a terrible son, too. They match, the most dysfunctional family that poor Alphonse could have had. The only one who got it right was Mom, but she's dead now, too, and Ed's all that Al has left. He has to pull it together and hold on, for his little brother's sake, even if he isn't sure what he thinks of himself.

It's that idea, of pushing his confusion and shame and self-blame aside to take care of Alphonse, to bottle it up to deal with later, that gets him to push himself to his feet and to cross the (enormous gulf, huge chasm, impassable barrier) few tiles between his bed and Al's to wrap his mismatched arms around Al.

"I'm sorry, Al," he says once more, even as his little brother melts against him and cries harder. "I should've told you sooner. I should've—dammit, I should have stopped him, there's gotta be something I could have—"

"I want him back," Al wails, burying his face in Ed's shoulder. "I—I know you hate him, but—but I miss him, I miss him, I wanted us to all be—to all be some kind of family again!"

"I know," Edward says, feeling a stab of guilt again, because he did know that, all along. He knew how much the idea of having a family meant to Al, but because he was so determined not to feel lost and alone and to instead bury himself in hating his father, he'd walked all over whatever Al had thought about him. That was one of the few things they'd argued over, really argued. That was one of the few things Al had always refused to back down on. That was one of the few things that Al had really, truly been angry at him for, in the past.

And it is in the past now. Hohenheim is gone, and Edward may as well keep hating him forever now, because there's no point in trying to love someone again after they're dead, right?

Somehow, he has a feeling hating the man who gave his life to save Alphonse is going to be a lot harder than hating the man who walked out of their lives all those years ago. Doesn't mean he isn't going to try, but he has a feeling it's going to hurt anyway.

"I just, I just wanted us to be happy," Al sobs. "I thought, maybe, m—maybe after this was all over, we could, we could try again, rebuild the house, everything like that. We could live together again, and we'd try to cook and I'd probably mess up and we'd laugh at it anyway and then we could go sit outside for breakfast like we used to, and listen to the birds singing in the trees in the morning. It wouldn't have been perfect, but it would've been something," and he starts sobbing harder. Edward holds him tighter. How many dreams did he have of the future? How many of them were crushed with that news about Hohenheim?

God, Al's always been the dreamer, always looking ahead, even with something as small as his little book of foods to try later. If he had that, why didn't it occur to Edward that he might've had bigger plans, too? It makes sense—as a suit of armor, it was kind of hard to enjoy the present, when he could only see and hear and couldn't taste or touch or smell or sleep or eat or anything. It must've been hell, trapped in there with only his own thoughts and nothing else. Edward never gave too much thought to what they'd do after they got their bodies back; he just... focused on that goal and that goal alone, he supposes. But Al had all these hopes and dreams and everything else. It hurts to think about.

"We can still try to be happy," he says, his words falling flat even to his own ears. "We don't need him to be happy, Al."

"That's not, that's not what I mean, and you know it," Alphonse answers, his voice shaky and muffled by Edward's shoulder.

"Yeah," Ed says. "I know."

That night, Al cries himself to sleep in his brother's arms for the first time in over four years. Edward thinks it's a strange role reversal that for once in their lives, he's the one kept up all night by his own thoughts, unable to fall asleep as the moonlight slants into the room and he tries to make his mind shut up but fails. It's not until dawnbreak starts creeping in, tinging everything with a bit of brightness and warmth, that he can keep his eyes closed.

And outside, amid the wreck and ruin and rubble, a bird begins to sing.