A/N: Enjoy (hopefully)!

Disclaimer: Title is derived from "After the Storm" by Mumford & Sons.

Get Over Your Hill and See What You Find There

It's been a week after the Promised Day and Ed is drinking lukewarm tea, wanting it to be hot again, when he realizes that he can't.

(Can't boil it, can't freeze it, can't evaporate it, can't use alchemy.)

Not only that, but there's an empty feeling in his gut that he's never felt before and it scares him. It's enough to make him lose his grip on the mug, letting it crash to the floor. The pieces scatter around and the tea soaks his bare feet, but he doesn't register it as he tries to keep the rest of his insides from imploding to fill the void.

"Brother?"

Ed clenches his hands into fists, forcing himself to focus on his brother, who's here, whose voice isn't tinny anymore. And if Ed really focuses, he can hear him breathe.

"Damn right hand spazzed," Ed mutters, crouching to the ground to pick up the broken pieces.

"I can fix it –" Al starts to say, but Ed cuts him off.

"Shut up and go back to sleep – you need it."

Al sighs, but settles back down and closes his eyes.

Ed doesn't regret one damn thing, even when he accidentally cuts his finger on a shard and his blood mixes with the tea on the floor.

There's concern over the metal pieces lodged in his shoulder, which doctors eventually remove, but they leave in the screws in his collarbone for Winry and Pinako to remove.

(Winry.)

It's going to take a while for his right arm to be as strong as his left, which is frustrating, very much like when he was first learning to use his automail.

But sore muscles and achy joints are so much better than tender ports and malfunctioning wires.

A part of Ed used to feel guilty every time he fell asleep since he knew he was leaving Al alone for so many hours. Now Al is sleeping soundly and Ed is up at night, staring a blank ceiling, waiting for daylight to come.

He doesn't even know what his mind is trying to get at during those hours.

(He almost wants to conclude that he's lost his purpose and he's trying to find something to do, but it can't be that – he feels too much peace now for that to be right.)

Mustang freezes when Ed steps through the doorway. "Fullmetal," he says once Ed makes it way to the empty chair beside Mustang's bed.

"Yeah," Ed confirms, glancing past Mustang to see Riza reclining on her bed reading a book. She looks over to him and gives him a brief smile, which he returns.

"What brings you here?" Mustang inquires, facing Ed's general location even though his eyes are still cloudy.

Ed's glad for the moment that Mustang can't see because he clenches his jaw and with a trembling hand, he pulls out his busted pocket watch. "Hold out your hand," Ed says, getting to his feet.

"If you put any of that disgusting hospital food on my hand, I swear I'll burn your hair off, blind or not."

Ed smirks, wondering why he didn't think of that before. "I'm not. Come on, I haven't got all day."

Mustang glares, but holds his hand out. Ed places the pocket watch in his palm and sits back down again. Mustang's fingers curl into the watch, feeling out its texture before he realizes what it is.

"I'm resigning," Ed states.

Mustang clenches it. "I suppose there's no point in trying to convince you otherwise, huh," he asks in a surprisingly kind voice.

Ed exhales through his nose with a laugh. "Even if I wanted to continue being a dog of the military…I can't."

Mustang lowers his hand to the bed, the pocket watch left forgotten. "So…that really was your last transmutation," he mutters.

"Yeah. Really went out with a bang."

Mustang snorts. "You keep telling yourself that."

They both know better.

Watching Al wake up is probably the great thing Ed's ever seen. Al's expression of pure joy, every morning, is more amazing than any flawless transmutation.

Phone lines are down everywhere – everyone is relying on post and the military to reach family and friends.

Ed sends a brief letter to Pinako and Winry, just letting them know that he and Al are alive and will be home soon.

Home.

Home.

(They're coming home and it's so surreal, he half expects to wake up from a hallucination.)

Ling comes by the day before Al and Ed leave, claiming that he'll be leaving in the early morning as well.

"Take care, Al – make sure you get your strength back and be taller than your brother," Ling says to Al with a grin, nudging Al with his elbow.

Ed grunts and flips Ling off as Al laughs.

Suddenly, Ling throws an arm around Ed's neck, bringing him close to his side. "It's been a crazy journey, Fullmetal."

Ed scoffs. "I'm not Fullmetal anymore, dumb ass."

"You'll always be the pipsqueak Fullmetal to me."

Ed wrangles himself out of Ling's hold, annoyed and maybe just a bit touched. "And you'll always be the spoiled prince," he growls before sighing. "At least this is the last time I'll be seeing you."

Ling stares at him with more seriousness than Ed is used to (even though he knows he's capable of it). "I doubt it'll be the last."

Ed doesn't think it will be either.

(He'll never admit it, but he'll look forward to that day – especially if he continues to grow at this rate.)

Ed wakes with the sun and breathes.

They travel slowly, Al's muscles still weak, but he's getting better. Ed would normally be frustrated and pissed beyond belief, but his patience is endless as he takes another break off the side of the road, letting Al gain his breath.

Ed admires the rolling hills and blue skies, colors saturated and gorgeous, more so than all his trips back here. (He hasn't realized how limited his perception has been, like faded photographs with so little color in concentrated areas.)

"Sorry, Brother," Al says, using his cane to lift himself up.

Ed shakes his head. "Don't be stupid." He nods toward the road and grins.

Al smiles back and they continue.

Winry cries when she sees them, sees Al for the first time in years. She touches Al's face and arms and grins so beautifully that Ed's breath catches in his throat.

At one point, though, she notices that his right arm is flesh, which she worships with her work-worn hands.

"You're lucky because I would've kicked your ass if you had shown up without an arm," Winry mutters into his neck as she holds him so tight to the point that he can barely breathe.

(It's so much better than the buzzing under his fingertips during a transmutation.)

"There's always my leg for you to futz with."

She pulls away and looks down, her eyebrow twitching. "Yeah, about that…" she starts threateningly.

It's so nice to be home.

But later that night, she sneaks downstairs where Ed's reading, tears in her eyes.

He knows she realized what's wrong (different) about him.

He glances up from his book to stare into her eyes. "Equivalent exchange. Even though it's crap because I got the better deal."

She sits down and rests her head on his shoulder, neither saying a word as his sleeve dampens with every passing second.

He supposes he'll always be a little bit jealous of Al, who gets to actually practice and apply their future studies and experiments; it makes him human.

(Thank God, All, One, Truth, whatever for that.)

He learns how to use tools the hard way. He sprains fingers and bruises his body, but he'd rather be feeling the pain than dealing with the empty space inside him that probably won't ever go away.

(Although it doesn't feel like it exists when he's helping Al recover or watching Winry make apple pie in between reading pages of books.)

"Ed…" Al starts as they're lying in bed in their shared room.

"What."

"…Never mind."

Ed sighs, not unkindly. "Just spit it out, Al."

"I just…" Al takes a deep breath. "Do you regret it?"

The words hang in the silence of a too warm night in between summer and fall.

"I think you were out in the sun too long – brain's all fried," Ed mutters, turning to his side.

He can hear Al make a sound between a sigh and laugh. "'Night."

"'Night."

He can't understand the concept of regret when he sees his brother and not an empty suit of armor.

He wakes up one rainy day a year later from nightmares and in agony.

Usually the base of his automail would ache with extreme weather and rain. But even with his arm back, his shoulder – with all its fresh and old scars – aches just as badly as his leg. Delirious, he looks across the room to find Al's bed empty.

He has no idea of the time as he drifts in and out of conscious.

At one point Winry storms into the room holding hand towels and bottles.

"You idiot, why didn't you say anything," she demands in a shrill voice, lifting Ed up so she can wrap the hot (gloriously hot) towel around his shoulder. He grips it tight as she lifts his legs so she can sit down, plopping them on her lap.

He thinks he tells her that he's fine or to go away, but he can't remember.

"I've got it, stop," Winry says quietly, her second hand taking over hold of the hot compress on his shoulder, urging him to lower his hand.

He sighs in defeat, resting his head on her shoulder, his nose lightly touching the soft skin of her neck. She smells like motor oil and soap. Home.

Her breath is shaky as she keeps her hands on his lower thigh and shoulder. He wants to tell her to not worry, but there's no point. She's always going to worry about him, just like he'll always worry about her.

Eventually the soreness fades to a reasonable level and he passes out.

He wakes up on his side, the compresses long gone cold on his shoulder and lower thigh with Winry's arm behind his neck and other hand on his left leg, asleep.

Just as he's about to close his eyes again, hers open and she asks in a scratchy voice, "How are you feeling?"

He considers answering with achy, but strangely content. Thinking that sounds stupid in his head, he exhales and burrows his face onto the pillow under him and closes his eyes again.

(He's never been good with words anyway.)

Al teases him for days about it, which leads into a sparring match.

Ed wins decisively, even though he knows it's only a matter of time before Al beats him like he usually does.

Ed and Al get into a scuffle in the house at one point and Ed throws a book at Al, who manages to duck, surprisingly. The book soars through the air and crashes through the window.

Without thinking, Ed claps his hands and attempts to transmute it, but nothing happens (of course) and his pulse pounds in his ears.

Al fixes it and doesn't say a word as Ed blankly stares ahead.

Sometimes he just forgets when he's not thinking.

Pinako shakes him awake at the wee hours of the morning, nodding towards the door.

They sit in the kitchen, the tile cold under his feet as the pale light streams through the windows.

The moment feels oddly tense, so his eyes are wide as he watches her stare at him, trying not to shift too much in his seat.

"I won't tolerate any impropriety under my roof," Pinako states in a calm, but threatening tone, twirling her pipe between her thumbs and index fingers.

Ed turns bright red, unable to open his mouth to sputter anything. He had hoped Pinako wouldn't notice that every few nights he and Winry sleep together in her room. He usually left before the sun rose and Al never said a word, even if Ed were to walk in and Al would be awake, reading.

Should've realized that Pinako's age will never dull her observant nature.

"N-Nothing's…we're not…" he finally starts to say, but Pinako interrupts him.

"Trust me, I know," she says with a snort. "I'm just saying."

It's always when he wants to fix broken things. Oh, the fucking irony.

He should really just leave that to Winry.

(He's getting better, though, he really is.)

When Al finally beats Ed, Ed realizes that there's an itch under his skin that almost masks the void in his gut.

He's ready to leave.

And when they both look out at the vast country of their home on the Rockbell's roof, they agree that it's time.

Ed claims the west – he states the practical reasons: his automail would make it difficult for him to cross the desert and Al is more interested in the healing properties of Alkahestry, anyway.

(Ed doesn't mention that he's seen the letters addressed to Al and the way his brother smiles fondly when he reads a certain feminine scrawl.)

Besides, just because he doesn't hate the prince, doesn't mean he wants to see him anytime soon. Spoiled brat.

"Just make sure to punch him in the gut for me, would ya?" Ed says, slapping Al on the back.

Al's face then breaks into a smirk that's so similar to Ed's.

(Al will only do it if Ed does something in return. After all, Equivalent Exchange may need to be reworked, but its basic properties are still there.)

Al leaves first, claiming he wants to say goodbye to everyone and how he's going to need time to travel across the desert.

Only Ed really knows that he's got wanderlust in his veins. Not that Ed doesn't have it; it's not as intense as it was before.

Winry holds Al tight and tells him to write and call.

Ed and Al just look at each other and grin.

Yeah, they're ready.

They walk to the train station together and she's wearing his jacket, the one he wore coming home, and he wishes he were a bit more sentimental beyond keeping a pair of her earrings in his pocket.

…That makes him seem like such a little kid. But that's the thing: he feels older and younger at the same time when he's with her; they've experienced and watched each other grow up – all three of them: Ed, Al, and Winry, together. Even if they're living next door, traveling hundreds of miles apart, or sleeping in the same bed.

Even if Ed's and Winry's feelings change for one another and Al finds a spirited Xingese girl to share his life with.

They'll always have each other.

And that's how it'll always be, if he's got a say in it.

A/N: Please review!

MissGoalie