I OWN NOTHING, FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST IS NOT MY PROPERTY - ALSO ONESHOT

Unravel

It had been 6 years since he had left to the West. 6 years he had spent away from home. Of course, he called Al to check up on how things were going with him and May, or Winry when Al went to visit. As much as he himself would have liked to have visited in the past, he was always just too busy. Either fighting dictators, learning all sorts of new things, or just generally exploring. Now, he was on a train ride back to Risembool.

Back home.

The train ride brought back so many emotions for him. Of remorse, pain, confusion, joy or anguish. They swirled around in his head like a tornado of emotions. He wondered if Winry was still there, waiting. He shrugged the thought off. Of course she was. Winry would have waited for him if it took a million years or longer. Although Al had informed him that Granny had passed away, along with Den, he knew that Winry would have coped. Either by accepting it or just not talking about it. Would Winry still look the same? Would she still be the same? Perhaps she grew taller? He allowed the questions to churn in his chest as he dozed off.

Walking down the path was difficult for Edward. He had done so many times before, but seeing Risembool in this state? It was heart-wrenchingly painful. The grass was tall, unkempt and wild. There were large patches of dead crops, and empty rotting houses. The place was like a ghost town. But, he did not let his mind falter. He had good knowledge that Winry would still be there, waiting. As always.

Right?

When was the last time he had talked to Al? Perhaps… about six months ago? Now he had recalled, Al mentioned something about Risembool turning into dump… Was this what he meant? Had his old homeland really be destroyed? And why hadn't Al called him sooner? In fact, now that he recalled… Al had abruptly stopped returning his calls for a while. What had happened though? Surely this wasn't JUST it.

If what he had seen before was painful, then what he saw now could have killed him. His skin began to crawl and go as pale as snow. His eyes watered and poured like rivers. His mouth hung agape. His knees could barely hold him up. What he saw… it could have killed him.

He saw the remains of what looked like, a broken house. The wood was clearly festering away and a sign that just to lead into the house had broken down. The walls had all be torn down, the door was barely on its hinges and the roof had become the floor. The entire STRUCTURE of the house had been broken. On the bottom floor of the house, if you could even call it that, was just an old moldy and broken bed with what looked like a corpse on it.

Ed's legs shook and stumbled at he sprinted to the remains of Winry's home. He smashed the remains of the door away, and looked down at the creaky bed. Winry's cold, lifeless and decaying body laid on the bed, covered in insects. A rusty gun lay hanging out of her mouth. It looked like, from what he could tell, a suicide. And he was not wrong there. He picked up the gun, shaking, shivering and sobbing all the while. Inside the gun were a few bullets and an old, musty note that read:

"Edward my dear,

No one can wait forever. No matter how hard they try. Once Granny and Den died, and everyone from Risembool left too, what was I supposed to do? Continue to manage the entire town on my own? Just keep hoping you would return? Not even I could do that, not matter how hard I tried. Things escalated and my emotions slowly took over until I couldn't handle anything anymore, once even the house had broken down.

Everything unraveled Edward. And I didn't know how to stop it.

Love,

Yours forever,

The best automail mechanic in the world,

Winry (Elric) Rockbell"

After reading, Edward sobbed and moaned even harder then he thought possible, his whole body just collapsing. He hugged the note close to his chest, before slipping the gun inside his mouth like he was sure Winry had done. 'Winry' he begged 'Let me be with you, at least in the afterlife'.

He pulled the trigger.

...

But alas, even the gun had a breaking point. And the bullets refused to empty into his skull.

Edward was left, lying in the broken remains of what was to be his home. At that moment he had simply broken. He no longer felt anything. He couldn't and wouldn't feel. He was numb. He became a husk, as laid down on the floor for days, doing nothing. Simply starving away and drinking the rain that poured down on him daily. Fortunately, Riza and Mustang came by, to check on Winry similarly a couple of days after Edward, and found him before he just let himself rot away into the ground. They brought him to the nearest hospital and checked up on him whenever they could.

Ed luckily recovered, and moved past what had happened. He and Al cried over their losses, once they reunited and Ed was given permission to stay in the Kingdom of Xing, due to Alphonse gaining a higher title.

Ed learned to smile, laugh and feel again, slowly but surely, and became somewhat of the man he used to be, arguing with Mei and being silly.

In fact, he remarried to some other woman he had met in the Kingdom, and had four beautiful children. But he had no feelings of any REAL love or passion for his new wife. And he purely loved his kids, for the fact that they were his kids. Nothing else.

Every day he thought about her, letting her laugh creep into the front of his mind when he let his guard down. He missed the way his head would ache when she would hit him with her wrench. He craved for the feeling of her lips on his neck. He loved her more that he thought possible.

Ed was simply a changed man. He would never be able to make up for making Winry wait that long, or now, even APPOLOGIZE. He had to live with his mistakes.

And ensure that things would not once again, unravel.

Hey there!

Reviews and such are greatly appriciated! This was my first ever FMA/FMA:B fanfic, and I really hope it didn't suck XD

Personally, I hate even the THOUGHT of something like this being canon, being the massive EdWin geek I am but I thought it definatley would have been an interesting turn had it actually BEEN canon...

Sorry if any of this seemed OOC (Out Of Character), I tried my best to make it seem legit.

Anyways, I bid you farewell.