A/N: yeah, this is just the first thing that came to me for this song. it's Change, by Carrie Underwood. as all of my song-stories are, this is written for the 100 Country Moments challenge that i've mentioned in my profile. seriously, people, i would love to hear your thoughts on my work.
good?
bad?
inbetween?
just tell me what to improve on or what you liked! thanks and enjoy!
She sits on the corner of the street every day. Clothes nothing but tattered rags, stained from years of living on the streets. They are too big on her, leaving her swimming in the ratty fabric. Once light blonde hair is streaked with dirt, matted in thick and unbrushable clumps. Once pale skin is darkened by filth - and plastered tight against bone, showing just how far apart her meals are.
Her name is Anna, or so says the cardboard sign that she hold up. Her husband was an alchemist that fought in Ishbal. Eight years ago, a protester of the war burnt her house to the ground. She lost her job, her husband, her newborn son.
Her life was destroyed - and now she sits there, night and day, in hopes that someone will take pity on her.
More often than not, the metal can she uses to collect her donations remains empty. Just like her stomach, just like her heart.
Every day, Roy passes her by on the street. She holds the sign up in one hand, holds her can out in the other - and tries not to beg, despite the fact that she literally cannot remember the last time she ate.
Sometimes, he stops and looks at her. Feels pity bubble up in his chest and his hand floats down to the change laying in his pants pocket. When he jerks his hand back out, just before gloved fingers can wrap around the precious coins, it takes all the self-control he has to force his feet to start moving again.
I can't give it to her, he tells himself, not today.
He won't look over his shoulder, doesn't want to see the crest-fallen expression on her face or the pain that is clear on her eyes.
I need it more, he tries to tell himself, for my studies.
Because that is where that money will go. To whatever work he does outside of the military, in order to reach his goal.
To become Fuhrer - because that is the most important thing right then, to reach that long-standing goal. Become Fuhrer, then make a difference.
After all, he insists, helping her won't change the world.
-x-x-x-
They don't have much money left. Just enough for one more loaf of bread, maybe a few slices of ham. Not even enough for two meals - which is sad, really, because Edward was always under the impression that being in the military meant you got paid well. Especially when you were a State Alchemist.
Quickly, he realized that wasn't the truth. Every penny that he has is hard-earned and fast-spent, because he has to eat and he has to pay for his own train tickets and automail isn't free, after all, even when you are friends with the mechanic.
It costs money to live and, often, he doesn't have that money.
Today is one of those days. Just enough money to scrape by, just enough for one more meal. Then it's off to demand a new mission from the Colonel, while he scolds himself for being glad it's just himself that has to eat and not Alphonse, too.
Edward has his hands shoved in his pocket. His flesh hand fingers the change pouch, his automail one is still. Head toward the ground, eyes counting the cracks as he walks. The call, soft and strange and barely there, startles him - though he isn't sure why it is that he hears and not the rest of the bustling city.
"Change?" she asks. "Anything helps. Anything at all."
Her voice is hoarse, lips chapped. When Edward stops, turns bright golden eyes on her, he is appalled by the way her skin is pulled tight again bone. Blue eyes dull and pleading, even if her voice is still trying to be strong.
-and he was so hungry when she first died. always hungry, always afraid, never able to show it. odd jobs only brought so much money into the house and Pinako could only help so much. until they found the money, hidden away in the basement, everything that Edward had went to food. everything that he had went to his little brother, who was all that he had left now-
Without thinking, he takes the several steps that stand between him and the young woman. Doesn't look at her, because he knows that she doesn't want pity, but pulls the leather pouch from his pocket all the same.
It's near empty, but he can still remember that ice-cold feeling of always being hungry. Of never having enough to eat.
So he pulls out half the coins he has in there, decides that a loaf of bread will get him through the next few days just fine, and drops them into her near-empty metal can.
Then he turns and leaves, dissapearing into the crowd before she feels obligated to say a single word.
He knows that it isn't much, what he's given her, but he also knows that it's enough. Every little bit counts - and while it didn't change the world, it at least changed her day.