Safe Haven

Chapter 1 – Insomnia

It had never been a secret that Edward Elric loved to sleep.

He was a very active young boy with loads of energy just waiting to be spent playing tag, learning about and practicing alchemy, bickering with his little brother Alphonse or simply having fun. But once the sun had set and they were home with their mother Trisha, he never so much as resisted when his eyes started drooping low… after dinner of course. (He wanted to become big and strong… and he would, just without drinking that gross milk…!) He was always already too tired to even really understand what the others were saying anyway, so he just crawled into bed without a word and snoozed away for the next eight hours or so…

Sleep was bliss after all. Just dreaming about fantastic adventures or just having fun with his loved ones, it made him look forward to the dark hours of the day. Even the craziest of dreams could be discussed and laughed about with Al and Winry later on.

And it's not like he had anything to fear happening either while he was in his dream world. Sure, sometimes there were nightmares, but – as ridiculous as it sounded – Ed knew that they were merely figments of his overactive infantile imagination (not with that vocabulary yet, though). That didn't mean it didn't scare him once in a while. No, sometimes he was close to crying out in fear. Only his reputation as the older and more mature Elric brother was (apparently) at stake, so he wouldn't allow himself to be overcome by his fear. The young boy would forget about his dreams by morning anyway, so why bother being thought a wimp by his little brother over something so meaningless?

He wanted his mother to be proud of him after all.

Really, Trisha was the reason the boys were living for. They learned and practiced alchemy to hear her praise her talented sons. They would bring her flowers and drawings to see her smile warmly and pat their heads affectionately. They would tell her about their day's adventures to feel the warmth of her laughter.

And suddenly, all of that was taken away from the boys.

Trisha's illness had become apparent so suddenly, not even the doctor seemed to have suspected anything before she collapsed. And even if neither the doctor nor anyone else ever told the two of them, at the very least Ed somehow knew that their mother was not going to get better. Again, he put on a brave face for their mother's sake. She shouldn't have to worry about them when she was the bed-ridden one. Or at least that's what he told himself, so as not to be overcome by his emotions in front of his brother. He had to be strong for the both of them, so that it would be easier for Al and his mother to move on.

And somehow the young boy managed to remain almost composed during her final days.

It was only after her life had been lost that his feelings seemed to be able to catch up with Ed.

Nightmares haunted the young boy on a regular basis, darker and worse than any he had ever had to experience. And it was almost always the same one.

It was his mother. One moment she was smiling happily at her boys' progress in alchemy and the next she was writhing on the floor, blood spewing from her mouth along with her violent coughs, painting the wooden floor a dark red. Her irregular breathing was so shallow and raspy it could barely qualify as a wheezing sound, escaping her lips as she struggled to make out words he could not understand. Her face was turned to him, begging him to come help her, to make the pain stop, to get help. To do something. But he couldn't. He was rooted to his spot and as much as he willed his legs to move or his mouth to cry for help, he was completely in shock.

The worst part of it was that he was alone.

There was no (seemingly) level-headed Al that could tell him to get help from the Rockbells and no Winry embracing him and his brother while he was immobile in shock, muttering "Mom…!" over and over again, and no Granny Pinako listening to the doctor's explanation because he was too far gone to hear a word. There wasn't even a pitifully whimpering Den nuzzling his leg in an attempt to get his attention.

He was all on his own.

And suddenly the woman would begin to speak, so quietly he almost couldn't understand her, but he still could not move closer either. His heart was pounding over the sound of her voice, which he was so desperate to hear. But it was futile. He could neither get closer to understand more, nor could he escape the sound of her words. He was trapped.

"Edward-…!" Another bloody coughing fit would interrupt her as her hand reached out towards him. In hope of grasping something Ed would mirror the motion, but his legs still refused to move, so he was still so utterly useless, the boy felt disgusted by himself. "Edward, come… here, please…! Help me-!" The fog in her eyes would thicken, making her look so very lifeless, yet she would just barely manage to squeeze out the last bit, before her hand fell to the red-painted ground along with her head, the sound being drowned by his own erratic breathing and heartbeat.

"Why… didn't you… help me…?"

Her last words would echo through his mind, again and again and again, along with the image of her motionless body on the bloody mess on the floor until a merciful soul let him wake up, drenched in cold sweat, nearly breaking down at the memories.

This nightmare, he could never forget.

Not because it was scarier than his other ones, but because it wasn't simply a figment of his imagination. It was real. It had happened. And he really could not do anything… at all.

And that fact was what would make Edward slowly change his opinion about sleep and dreams.

With the ever reoccurring nightmares tainting his supposedly blissful night's rest, the boy couldn't even escape the ghosts of his past in his dreams. They were haunting him. And there was nothing anyone, much less Ed himself, could do about it. The results were foreseeable. For the first few weeks after the incident, the child was trapped between two choices: sleeping a few hours of restless slumber and experiencing the horror of his nightmares again and again and again… or not sleeping at all.

His choice was the second one.

It seemed that at least when he was thoroughly exhausted, he could sleep dreamless for a few hours, before some subconscious fear awoke him, in case the nightmares would return.

He preferred suffering from insomnia.

It was no news to him of course that this wasn't exactly healthy for him either, but it was keeping him sane for the time being. Ed wasn't sure the same could be said if he had to endure his dreams every night…

And so he would study the alchemic texts in his father's room into the early hours of the morning. When the time would come for him and Al to get up, he would fake sleep so as not to get his brother suspicious about his sleeping disorder. Only in the rarest of cases would he collapse from exhaustion hours after midnight, mostly only after having gone through several sleepless nights in advance.

He wondered if anyone was able to see the dark circles under his matted-golden eyes. For quite some time at least no one had tried to speak to him about it.

Until that one day of course…

It had been another long night of reading, writing down notes and trying to understand this ridiculously complex text about the individual signs for certain transmutation circles, all the while trying his best to not wake up Alphonse who had fallen asleep on the floor next to him sometime around midnight.

The fifth all-nighter in a row now…

That alone should've made it more than obvious that he was feeling anything but fine. His body craved for rest, he was even more irritable than normal, and he did neither eat nor drink all that much either since the start of it all.

Ed supposed that someone had to have figured it out for sure.

But he honestly didn't know if she really noticed something, when Winry showed up the next afternoon at their house.

"Hey Ed, Al! Wanna play?" The blond-haired girl called cheerily when she entered the study room, where the two boys were busy digging through the thick tomes in the book shelves. Seeing as they were completely on their own now, the Rockbells had made a spare key for the Elric residence in order to be able to check on them once in a while.

"Don't wanna…" was Ed's uninterested reply. The little girl seemed quite pissed off that he wouldn't even lift his head to answer her. She was this close to chucking something heavy at that dumb, nonchalantly answering boy, when the younger brother spoke up, trying to smooth out the tension between his two best friends.

"I'm sorry, Winry. It's kind of a bad time right now… Maybe next time, okay?" Winry knew of course that there would not be a 'next time' either, because she had heard exactly those words far too often by now to still believe in them. She had enough of their excuses. So she decided to do something about this gloom around the boys, like she should've done from the beginning.

"Oh really? Well, it's not like there will be a better time anyway, so why not now?" She kind of felt bad for being angry at Al who only wanted to be as polite as possible, but these boys were just… They didn't even seem to be themselves anymore!

Ever since… that happened, they had been different… All they did, day in and day out, was sitting at home and studying alchemy! Winry was starting to believe that they had forgotten how to have fun altogether! They were her best friends, and here she was getting shot down every day because 'it was kind of a bad time'! She had to do something!

So she grabbed the book out of Ed's hands and dashed off.

"What-? HEY, GIVE THAT BACK, WINRY!" The older boy's shouts followed as she ran out of the house and over the fields towards their place. The tree on top of the hill near the riverbed. It was where they three children had always met up to play in the afternoon until the sun set and where they had stayed to marvel at the beautiful shades of yellows, oranges and reds before the bid each other good night. It was where the memories of their childhood were most vivid and where they would stay forever. And it was where they could always come to in case something troubled them.

"Come on, slowpoke! Hurry up or you'll never catch me!" It was like playing tag again, despite Al apparently having given up the chase when they left the house, preferring that his brother get some actual exercise and he would continue working. At least that way, Ed wouldn't be too upset about his little trip and maybe he would even be able to sleep a little after running around for so long.

"Don't call me slowpoke!" His voice answered, not too far behind her, but it was still unlike Ed to be unable to outrun her. He might be small, but the boy was actually incredibly fast (at least it seemed that way to her).

"Alright, pipsqueak, catch me if you can!" She laughed out, still holding his book to her chest. She enjoyed this, running around with him, even if she kind of had to force it on him. And although Ed would probably call himself short before admitting it, he was still having fun… Just a little! It was refreshing to be outside, breathing in the air of a warm afternoon, with the smell of apples invading his nose.

"WHO'RE YOU CALLING A PIPSQUEAK, HUH?!" The sudden burst of anger fueled him into being able to run even faster and he caught her in a matter of seconds, tumbling over the ground with her. When they stopped, Ed rolled on top of her, his body weighing her down while he tried to snatch the book out of her arms, still panting heavily.

"Let me go, Ed!" Her breathless demand wouldn't have even been audible to anyone that was not currently sitting on top of her, faces merely a few inches apart. That little detail went unnoticed however, as both children were too transfixed into their tug-of-war of sorts.

"Not until you give me back that book!" In their squabble of tugging at the book, it somehow flew right out of their hands and a fair distance away… into the river, of course. "See, what you did?! This is all your fault!"

"My fault?! How is it my fault that you tugged the book out of my hands?" The girl snapped back, as she shoved Ed off of her, both of them looking at the book being washed away by the current. It wouldn't be of any use to go after it anymore anyway, since the text would be beyond readability after being soaked by the water. Winry felt a little bad though. She didn't want the book to be lost completely. She just wanted to see the normal, temperamental and speed-loving Ed again.

"Well, you didn't have to take it from me in the first place! Why'd you do that anyway…?" All she got for now was an angry one instead. And even though she knew that the fault was hers to a certain tiny degree, she was far too upset at the moment to listen to reason from her conscious. It was for his own good really.

"So you'd have a little fun!"

"Fun…? Winry, this isn't about having fun. That was one of my-… Hohenheim's books and it was really important!" Despite saying that, Ed couldn't deny the feeling of having fun (if only a little) and Winry couldn't take her eyes off of the eyes that now somehow sparkled a little with life, unlike what they had appeared only minutes ago. He was serious about the book though, so the girl looked down at her hands in shame after jerking out of her reverie.

"I-I'm sorry… I didn't know that it was that important to you…! I just wanted you to smile again… You're always so serious and all, but you don't smile anymore! And I miss seeing my best friend smile like he always did…! And I barely see you anymore and when I do, you're always looking awful… I'm worried, okay?" It was her conscious speaking now. And maybe it was fine like that, because who knows if she would've gotten these things off of her mind if not for her suddenly loose tongue…? Somehow the girl felt a little better now…

"Gee, thanks, Win. That was exactly what I wanted to hear…" Okay, so what if that had come out a little wrong? That guy should know that she wasn't talking about his all-over looks, but the fatigue showing on his face and most prominently in his golden eyes.

"Oh, you know what I mean! Or have you not looked into the mirror for weeks? It would explain a lot of things, really…" And so what if she was getting really snippy? Ed just had a way with her that always drove her up the wall until her head hit the ceiling. Even what most considered to be a normal response never failed to get her riled up and in the fighting mood.

"I have looked into the mirror, thank you very much!" The boy shot back just as snidely, mostly out of reflex. And really, seeing him arguing with her was still much better than just watching him read away in three books at once. "But looking into the mirror doesn't change the way I look…"

"Well, duh, you have to do that yourself!"

"Then what should I do?!"

"Well, for starters, you could try sleeping more…!" Well, that was rich! As if he hadn't tried and failed more times than he could count to actually sleep for a few hours! But he didn't want to speak to the one person trying to help him like that. It wasn't her fault that he was irritated (or at least not to the point where this much hostility would be called for) and neither did his best friend deserve this kind of treatment, no matter what happened between them. (Not to mention that sharing the fact that something as childish as nightmares was his excuse for looking like a zombie would be kinda… really embarrassing.)

"… I can't." Leaving his motives unexplained was certainly no method to keep Winry from getting what she wants out of him, but there really was nothing he could do otherwise. She would get her way no matter what he did…

"What do you mean, you can't?! Don't tell me that working on your stupid alchemic texts is more important than your own health!"

"It's-" Ed wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to answer her then. Maybe he was ready to tell her the truth or maybe he wasn't. Maybe he would've told her anyway while his mind was still kind of numb. Of course, he never got to know either, since the girl didn't even let him open his mouth (which was, by the way, a nice method of getting answers out of him).

"Don't try to make up other excuses either! Ed, I'm really worried about you…" That kinda took the wind out of his sails, though. She had sounded so caring, almost vulnerable herself, as if she was afraid of something… And the boy never really could deny her anything when she sounded like that. Winry didn't need puppy dog eyes; she had them in her voice. And that was going to be his ruin one of these days…!

"Win… I just can't sleep, okay…?" He responded tiredly. What could he do though…? He didn't want to lie to her and his voice betrayed him either way, so what was the sense in any more stalling?

"… Well, why not?" However the golden-haired boy remained silent, to Winry's utter frustration. "C'mon, you can tell me and you know it! I won't tell anyone!"

"… Nightmares…" That shut her up, if only for a while.

"You have nightmares?" The girl asked cautiously, as if he was going to break apart just from a simple question like that. Please! He wasn't that much of a sissy! (Or at least that's what he told himself… Maybe he would've actually fallen apart if he had actually answered, if he had told her everything… And maybe it would've helped to come undone for once instead of taking it in and keeping it there…!)

"…" Ed didn't reply though. He was embarrassed, really, that he had to admit his weakness in front of a girl. Admitting that he was scared in general, even to his best friend, wasn't really something he wanted to do, but there just was something about Winry that could make him do stuff like that anyway. "You can laugh if you want, you know? I know that it's ridiculous…"

"It's not ridiculous!" As proof of her conviction about her vehement protest (or maybe she did it unconsciously?) the girl took ahold of his hand and squeezed it a little in her own. It felt somewhat comforting, but it was still nothing less than downright awkward for the young boy. "Listen, whenever I have a nightmare or if I'm scared of something, I try to think about all the good things in my life. Like, granny and Al and you… and Den, you know? Sometimes I even think about my parents, although I don't have many memories about them. I still love them. And they help me forgetting about the bad dreams…!"

"… And that actually works?" He asked doubtfully. Was it really that easy to get rid of his problem? It couldn't be. Otherwise he would have surely already found a way… Right?

"It does for me!" Winry proclaimed proudly, smiling gently to herself.

After a long minute of silence, Ed spoke up again quietly, not wanting to break the peace of the moment.

"Thanks, Win…" And the two children stayed there, on the hill near the river, lying on their backs and watching the few clouds passing by. Winry tried to make out shapes, but it wasn't easy when the sky was almost cloudless.

A few minutes later the girl gave up on that and turned towards Edward, wanting to talk more to kill her boredom, when she saw that he was peacefully asleep. Mouth slightly open and the hand that wasn't still in her hold riding up the edge of his shirt so that his belly was exposed, completely comfortable with the world around him as he snoozed away.

She hadn't heard the quiet, but even snores of the boy until then, but they were like a lullaby to her and soon she was also dosing off, the sight of his sleeping face engraved into her mind as she drifted into dreamland, still not letting go of his warm hand.

Edward would later be unable to explain himself or anyone why he had no trouble sleeping that time, without dreams, fear or angst, much less nightmares. He refused to believe that it had something to do with Winry's hand holding his own or her childish way of getting rid of troubling thoughts.

He told himself that it was because he was exhausted.

Since… he had run a long way just before…! And it wasn't really surprising that he would be tired after a sprint like that with a couple of sleepless nights beforehand…

…

And yet, deep down Ed knew he had discovered his anchor from the chaos around him that day…

Okay, so this is the first chapter of my first Fullmetal Alchemist multi-chapter fanfic... And it's EdWin! ^-^ (I hope nobody's too OOC... Anyone care to tell me their opinion in a review? ;D)

Honestly, this wasn't supposed to contain so much EdWin, but it seems I just can't not write romance... which is why I had to change the general story line again after having finished this chapter...! XD

I don't really know yet when the next chapters will be uploaded... I'm trying to get them done so I can upload one chapter per month, since that's my usual uploading rhythm (and I have a feeling that life's going to be back in full bitch mode as soon as school starts again for me in two weeks), but I can't promise anything yet. The second chapter is almost done, though, so at least that one should be punctual.

All in all, I think there will be around five chapters, since I already have the general storyline itself planned out in my head...! (I'm always open for suggestions though! XD)

It should be noted that this story will take place in the storyline of the first anime of FMA and the movie "Conqueror of Shamballa"! (You would've found out later anyway, but just to be sure I'm already telling you now!) There will be massive time gaps between each chapter, but I'm not planning on showing every aspect of Ed and Al's lives in all the years' time. It'll probably be more like a certain situation in a period of their life as a starting point and we'll go from there, kay? I'll try to hint at the timeline at the start of each chapter, though, so it'll be easier to follow along with the storyline.

Also, I'd like to dedicate this story to my dear friend and sistah~ Telitah, since we first wrote each other exactly one year ago and ever since then she's done so much for me, I don't know what I would've done without her! Thank you very much for all your help and advice, you're an awesome, wonderful person and I'm so glad to have reviewed your story twice and called myself an idiot for it last year! XD

Last but not least: I don't own anything I wrote about! Even the ideas belong to the plot bunny hiding under my bed!

- Tracy247