Unbreakable

Winry awoke that morning and stretched as she wiped her eyes. It was going to be another long day. She had a lot of orders to get out and today was also coda's fifth birthday. She had to bake the cake and get her present in town. It had been five long years since Edward had left to go west. She remembered that day at the train station when he had told her he would give half his life to her and she told him she would give him her whole life but then she settled on 85%. As she sat up in bed she remembered the night before he left, that night he had come to her in her bed and they had shared the most exhilarating thing any two people could share, their first time together. She remembered the kisses he put on her lips and his hands on her body and that he told her he would always love her. But still the next day he got on the train and left leaving her unknowingly pregnant. She had given birth to Coda nine months later and it had been a hard birth. Over the next four years her heart had hardened thinking he would return but he never did. She had only gotten one call from him and that was four years ago right after Coda was born. He seemed anxious as he talked to her and then before she could tell him about their daughter the phone went dead.

After the bombardment of questions from Coda about her dad, it had broken Winry's heart to tell her that her father was dead. She was just trying to save her from the life of hurt that Edward had put her through every time he walked out the door and her life when he left. It nearly tore her apart each time he left and didn't return till he broke her precious automail then wanted her to fix it so he could smash it up again.

She got up and threw the covers back to go check on her daughter and she was still sleeping. Coda had gotten smarter though over the years noticing the pictures of Edward and Al on the wall and looking in the mirror. She would stare at the pictures and then examine herself in the mirror then one day she can out with "Mommy is this my daddy?" she pointed to Al and Winry froze then smiled "No honey that's your Uncle Al" Walking over she looked at Edward in the picture and before she knew it the words had left her lips "That's your Uncle Edward" pointing to Ed in the picture. 'How could you tell her that?' she thought then realized that after she told her Coda lost interest in the pictures. 'Your secret is safe now.'

"Morning Mommy" Coda said looking up at her mother with that amber gaze that reminded her every day of him. Clutched in her hands an alchemy book she liked looking at it. 'She is so much like him it's scary' Winry thought walking over and bending down to take the book from her. "So you've been looking at alchemy books again?" she smiled closing the book and sitting it down on the table.

"Yeah I want to learn alchromy." Winry smiled "Alchemy honey." Coda looked up at her mother "You know about Alcramy mommy?"

Winry walked to Coda's dresser and grabbed her some clothes "Yes but it was your Uncle's that were the Alchemy freaks." 'Alchemy freak' she thought that was a term she hadn't used in years. Bending down and taking off Coda's nightgown she helped the girl get dressed then grabbed a brush and went to work on the girls golden locks of hair and the one stubborn piece in the front that wouldn't lay down so she usually had to pin it with a hairpin so it wouldn't stand straight up in the front of the girls forehead. After getting her dressed she sent her downstairs so she could get herself ready. Putting on her black tube top and overhaul's and tying them at the waist she went to work on her hair. She figured she had been thrashing around in her sleep because it was all tangled in the back. She sometimes did that when she had dreams of Edward.

They were bad dreams too that she had about him being locked in a dark place and he couldn't get out, dreams of him being dead, being beaten, dreams of him being held where he couldn't get home to her and Coda. But she just chalked them up to nightmares. She and Ed had a special bond ever since they were kids she could always tell most of the time if he was in trouble. But these dreams were just unreal, like nothing she'd ever had and they started after the phone call she had gotten from him four years ago. Al on the other hand thought something was seriously wrong. He had called her two weeks after the phone call and told her he felt something had happened to Edward. After she told him about the phone call he had gotten seriously upset and said he received almost the same call a day earlier. She had told Al she wasn't going to put Coda through this so she told Al what she told Coda and of course Al's voice of reason came through.

"Winry, why would you do that? What if something is wrong? What if Ed's in trouble? If he comes back what are you going to tell her? That mommy lied?" Al told her he was going to call Mustang and see if he'd heard from Ed. She explained it to Al as simple as she could "I can't let her lead the life I have Al, Always waiting for him to come home if she thinks he's dead she won't wait and she'll be happy not thinking he doesn't want to be with her."

Al sighed and there was a pause "Winry I talked to Ed three days after he left you and he was only supposed to be gone a couple of months. He said Alchemy just wasn't his thing anymore and that his life was there with you now. So you see something must have changed that."

"Thanks Al that means a lot but as you can see it's been four years, almost five and Ed has yet to show his face anywhere." She had a tone in her voice Al had never heard and now he was worried about her "The nightmares Al, there getting worse and I just can't live my life like this anymore. I need closure, What if he found someone else in the west? What if he doesn't want to be found? These are the questions that haunt me every day Al, and I couldn't take it if he was married to someone else and had kids. That's why I told Coda he was dead to save her from thinking her father didn't love her enough to come home."

"Winry Ed never knew about Coda remember you never told him." Al sighed "Okay I'm going to call Mustang, He's had plenty of time since I talked to him five months ago to get some information, Just hang in there Winry." She smiled slightly and hung the phone up after saying goodbye.

Hang in there, she had been hanging in there for four years now and it was time to finally put it to rest, He wasn't coming back and she knew that. If he was he would have found a way already, she thought they were supposed to spend their lives together? She thought he somewhat proposed to her that day at the train station? Now Al is digging in old wounds and she couldn't take it she wouldn't put her daughter through it.

Going downstairs she found Coda talking to granny about something she saw in the alchemy book she was reading "Great granny if daddy's dead I wead that he could possibry be bought back true humon transmucation."

Winry freak out when she heard that and walked up and grabbed Coda's arms "NO! NO!" she yelled scaring the child as Pinako looked over at her tightly gripping the girls arms "WINRY! Let the child go and explain it to her." Winry looked down and loosened the grip on her daughter's arms and the look on the child's face let Winry know she scared her. As Winry calmed herself, she sat down in the chair and took a deep breath "Coda Human Transmutation isn't possible. Your Uncles tried it once to bring back their mother and Uncle Al lost his whole body and Uncle Ed lost an arm and a leg. But they didn't bring their mother back all they got was a life of hardship and searching. So you see your dad can't be brought back that way." She bit her lower lip "Only a miracle could bring him home."