The red string of fate first brought them together at a time when both were far too young to remember, and kept them close in all the years that followed.
Pinako was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a pipe and working on her latest automail project, a leg for some 40-year-old man who lost his in an accident- while simultaneously keeping an eye on her granddaughter, who was barely more than a year old. The girl's parents were out in the field again, God bless their souls, and had entrusted the old woman to take care of their only daughter while they were away. Currently little Winry was playing with her teddy bear, the one she had gotten from her parents for her first birthday. It was already quite worn, of course, having been chewed on almost constantly since then, and one of its button eyes was hanging by a thread.
At one point there was a knock at the door. Pinako sighed, and then got up to go answer it, wondering who could possibly be knocking on her door right now. When she opened the door, she raised an eyebrow at the nervous man standing there, holding a rather sullen-looking toddler in his arms.
"Hey, there, I'm so sorry to bother you, but I need someone to watch him for me, and I was hoping you could help me out with that. You see, Trisha just started going into labor, and so I need to take her to the hospital, and-"
She cut him off, saying, "Alright, alright. I'll keep an eye on him for you." Pinako rolled her eyes. "Jeez, I would have though that, since you've already been through this before, you would be a little more calm about it. But you're obviously still so damn nervous about having another little one."
"I know. I just hope nothing goes wrong. Anyway, thank you so much. I have to go now. I'll pick him up as soon as it's all over." And with that, he thrust the toddler he was carrying in her arms and left, clearly unable to stand there any longer, not with what was going on right now.
She huffed, turning to go back inside the house. She hoped this was going to be a one-time thing only. After all, she ran an automail repair shop, not a damn nursery.
At least now Winry could have a new friend to play with. She called her granddaughter over now, but Winry only looked at her curiously in response, one of the bear's arms stuffed in her mouth.
Pinako headed over to where Winry still was, placing the little boy down on the floor in front of her. "This is Edward," she explained patiently. "He's going to be staying here with us for now, all right?"
But the little girl wasn't paying any attention to her grandmother. She was too busy staring at the boy, who stared right back, unmoving and not all that happy. She locked gazes with him, noticing that his eyes were yellow, kind of like one of the necklaces her mommy wore. Those eyes were so pretty, and they fascinated Winry, in a way that her year-old brain couldn't yet fathom. So of course, like any curious child would, she reached out, wanting to poke at the object of her curiosity.
Which, of course, led to a sharp cry from Ed and a scolding from her grandmother.
"Don't poke him in the eye!" But before she could do anything else, the little boy reached out and slapped Winry in the face. Winry, of course, started wailing, and Pinako gave an exasperated sigh. It hadn't even been five minutes, and already the two children were fighting each other. She could only imagine how spectacularly the rest of it was going to play out.
Not knowing what else to do, she did her best to separate them, hoping that this way they wouldn't get into any more trouble. With that, she turned back to her work, praying that Hoenheim would pick his son up really soon, before anything else happened.
Naturally, there was no such luck. In what seemed like no time at all, Edward and Winry were fighting again- apparently he tried to take her teddy bear, and she had pushed him away, clinging even harder to it and yelling, "Mine!" This fight was worse, it seemed, and it wasn't five minutes after being separated again that little Ed went back over to Winry and hit her for what seemed like no reason at all.
After that, Pinako had a customer come to the door, and it ended up taking a little longer than she would have liked. She hadn't heard anything else that would be of concern- no more shouts or cries that told her that they were at it again. She could only hope it was a good thing, and when she finished up and came back, she did more than just breathe a sigh of relief upon finding out that there was, in fact, no further trouble occurring at the moment- in fact, she couldn't help but smile at what she saw.
Both had fallen asleep at some point, and in addition to that, they had fallen asleep right next to each other. They were propped up against the wall, Winry's head on Ed's shoulder, and Ed's arm wrapped around Winry's waist. They undoubtedly had no clue that they were doing this, or how it looked to the rest of the world, which made it all the more adorable. It made Pinako think that, as much as they bickered in the short time that they had known each other, there was still hope that they'd end up becoming friends. In fact, when Winry started asking a couple weeks later where the boy with the "pwetty yewwow eyes" was, she was able to go so far as to tell herself that they would ultimately end up becoming really close despite the rocky start to their relationship
Yes, I absolutely love this pairing. As I mentioned already, they're officially my OTP. I mean, I had to go and devote an entire story to them as a couple...
So, this story isn't going to be all that long- probably no more than ten chapters, I'm thinking- and it's about how Ed and Winry's relationship evolves over the years. The title comes from the myth about there being an invisible red string tied to everyone's finger, with the end being tied to the finger of their soul mate. Which is really romantic, if you ask me :)
Anyway, please do review and tell me how I did! Love it? Hate it? Tell me! Pretty please?