Homecoming
Las ganas de inventar
Y una tiza al cielo
marcarán la frontera de mi razón
The train was rattling loudly, window vibrating against his cheek. Through the smudged glass he could see an unknown lake glittering in the summer sun, a city spreading out around its shores. Still not even close, he thought and rubbed at his tired eyes.
Al had fallen asleep at some point, and was currently drooling on his shoulder. He had considered waking him, but this finally gave him undeniable proof to show Al that he did drool in his sleep like a little baby, and also it had been kind of a rough day.
Sensei had woken them up at an ungodly hour for training, and after doing the dishes from breakfast they'd had to clean up their room („What did you think, little runt? You are going to leave this guest room as you have found it, I don't want to see even a single spot of dust, is that clear!"). Then she'd thrown the broom at him, and although he'd managed to catch it, the stick had still knocked him upside the head. Sensei had an uncanny knack for that sort of thing. For example, he never would have considered kitchen towels potentially dangerous projectiles, but when she threw them, it fucking hurt.
Anyway, needless to say, tidying up what had been their room for nearly a year took forever. At least they didn't have a lot to pack, just one set of spare clothes each, and some notes they'd taken throughout the year (even though Sensei said the key to true study of alchemy was understanding the principle, not learning every array by rote). „Easy to say when you don't need one" he'd whispered to Al, clearly not quietly enough, because the stare she'd fixated him with was not something he wanted to relive. Ever. „Fine then. Buy yourself a book and memorize every symbol, every arrangement, so you can spout them off like a trained parrot. Maybe you even want to become one of the army's lap dogs? But I'll have you know, I have no use for pets in my house!" He'd been quick to apologize and assure her that he never wanted to join the military, and thankfully she'd forgiven him with a nod. (They couldn't afford to lose their teacher. What they were studying couldn't be found in a book anyway.)
He rummaged through their bag for the food Sig had packed them for the trip, and found that all but one measly sandwich at the bottom of the (quite large) paper bag had mysteriously disappeared. As he bit into the sandwich he discovered that even the sausage that Sig had very certainly put on it had been removed. Damnit, he knew he shouldn't have been reading at the beginning of the trip! He aimed a lazy kick at his brother's calf, who didn't so much as twitch.
It was no wonder he didn't grow when Al kept taking his food-he stopped himself and scowled. He was not small.
Also, he couldn't really stay mad at his little brother, who had crawled into his bed last night and told him he didn't want to leave. It was strange,really, how much both of them had gotten used to life in Dublith. Of course, since they had started training with Sensei, he couldn't remember going to sleep without some part of him feeling sore anymore, and constantly being told to clean this or that sucked too, but they were learning so much, and sometimes, when they all sat around the dinner table, Sig ruffled his hair and Sensei got that strange smile on her face and it almost felt like family-
He didn't tell any of that to Al, obviously. No point in making things harder. So he'd just hugged his brother and told him that they needed to return home so Mom could come back, and besides, Winry and Granny were surely missing them.
Saying Goodbye to Sensei had gone over quite well actually. They'd bowed respectfully, and she'd inclined her head a fraction, and then she'd whacked them both upside the head and told them she'd better not catch them neglecting their training.
After that she'd had to lie down, so Sig had accompanied them to the train station. Standing on the platform he'd lifted both of them up in a one-armed hug (he hated how his legs dangled at least a meter over the floor) and told them to come visit soon.
At that point Al had started sniffling uncontrollably, and Sig had tried to cheer him up by showing him the huge bag filled with pork pie and their favourite sandwiches. In Al's case, that was an absolutely disgusting creation of tongue sausage and cream cheese, which tasted a lot like milk. It really wasn't fair, Al never had to worry about him stealing his food.
With a last annoyed sigh (that noone heard anyway) he stuffed the last of the sausage-less sandwich into his mouth and adjusted Al's head on his shoulder to a more comfortable position. It would be at least another hour still.
In the end, it was Al who woke him up. „Come on, we're home!" he whispered with barely contained excitement, pulling on his sleeve and then sprinting ahead towards the doors when Ed didn't get up fast enough for his taste. „You forgot our stuff, idiot!", Ed called out after him, swinging their bag over one arm as he followed after him.
Al was hanging precariously over the gap between platform and train, holding on to the door with one hand and leaning into the streaming sunlight outside. He had a serene smile on his face as he asked „What, is it too heavy for you, brother? I mean it sure looked a lot smaller when Sig was carrying it"- „I'M NOT- it might have been heavier if you hadn't eaten all my sandwiches!"
Al had the grace to look ashamed for a second, which was immediately ruined when he replied primly „Well I didn't eat all of them".
„Oh yeah right, you left me one sandwich with just the bread!"
„I was hungry, okay?"
„I was hungry too! I'm still hungry, actually!"
„Well we had better get to Granny's then, don't you think? She said she'd make us our favorite food when we get back, so you should have a whole nice pot of stew waiting. Oh, maybe Winry is waiting for us here? You did remember to call them, right?"
„We-ell..yes-" Ed rubbed his neck stiffly, trying to formulate an explanation. „I mean, yes, I called them, I just didn't say exactly that we were coming back today- Sensei had mentioned biotransmutation that day, remember, and I thought maybe she was gonna go into more detail about it, that maybe we would stay longer-I couldn't, you know, tell Granny and Winry we'd come and then don't show up, it's-"
Al turned around and had that look on his face, the one that meant he was thinking brother, you could have just called them again in that case, or brother you should have called them yesterday at least. He had no idea how Al had managed to perfect the exact same look Mom always gave him whenever she knew he had done something stupid.
But- something could have happened, he could have broken his arm this morning, or the train could have had an accident, and Winry and Granny would have been here, waiting, expecting them to come back-
„They're still gonna be happy we're back, it's just- a happy surprise", he muttered under his breath, eager to change the subject.
Al was still frowning, but one corner of his mouth twitched up and he replied „Of course they'll be happy. They just won't have stew for you."
The air smelled of hay as he stepped out of the station, bees buzzing between the poppies and cornflowers growing next to the road. Mom would have loved this, he thought, she always said summer was her favourite season. Another year, maybe two, then they'd bring her back, he resolved silently.
He glanced at Al, who was still chatting with the girl who worked the tickets; the cousin of someone from their old class if he remembered correctly. „Come on Al, they're waiting for us, even if they don't know it!" he called without turning around and started walking.
He heard footsteps catching up to him and Al huffing indignantly. „That was rude, brother. She was just asking if we could take a look at their barn, it got damaged in a storm two weeks ago."
„Whatever, we can repair that tomorrow", he groaned, snapping his fingers with impatience. He was dying to get some food, and then head to their house to look at their previous research again now after they'd trained with Sensei, and compare it with their new notes- now that they were more proficient at the practical aspects as well, they should do some smaller experimental transmutations, skin maybe, to see how well it worked- they should probably look into medical biology and anatomy for that, Winry still had all of her parents' old books from university as he recalled...
They had to stop several times more on their way to the Rockbells, people waving at them from the fields, some old neighbors wanting to strike up a conversation about the weather or if yes they just got back- and he couldn't pull Al away from it every time, he'd just get that reproachful look in his eyes and go REMEMBER WHEN they gave us two pounds of ham for free-
Anyway, by the time they arrived at the Rockbells' doorstep, he was thoroughly pissed off, and Al's jolly mood did not help one bit.
„Granny? We're home" he called, pounding on the door. He heard Den barking and footsteps approaching, and then the door opened to reveal a tiny grey-haired woman with a grease-stained apron leaning against the door frame. It was unmistakably Granny, and yet something was off, Granny had never looked so old, worn down and thin like Nelly's uncle had been when he'd come back from the war with half his leg shot off-
He blinked and shook himself out of it, it was probably because he'd gotten taller, so now Granny seemed shorter, that must be it-
Granny took the pipe out of her mouth slowly, and gave them both a once-over. „Now that's a surprise..Why didn't you call to say you were coming?"
„Ed was supposed to tell you", Al, the traitor, spoke up from behind him. „I told him that it's rude just to drop in on people. I think he doesn't fully understand the concept of time, he-"
„Yeah, yeah, should have called, blah blah I'm sorry. Do you got some food here?" he interrupted, following Granny into the hallway.
„ We're having casserole for dinner, it's in the oven.
Go put your things in the living room, boys. I need to finish up with a customer, then we'll talk. Help yourselves to a glass of milk."
She answered his glare with a smirk and turned away to enter the exam room. „There, there Mr. Weiß, now let's see if you can stand up" he heard before the door slid shut.
He turned to Al. „And then she always goes and gets mad at me when I don't do the things she wants immediately. Mean old hag!"
Al ignored him and asked with an innocent smile: „Would you like a glass of milk, brother?"
He gave him the darkest scowl he could muster and kicked the door to the living room open with one foot, throwing the bag onto the sofa and plopping down next to it.
While Al went to the kitchen to get his disgusting milk, he helped himself to the entire plate of cookies that Granny kept in the living room „for guests".
They were technically house guests. They might eat here most days, and sleep here sometimes in winter when their house got too cold- Granny always said it was a waste of resources to heat two houses when they could just as easily sleep in the room upstairs next to Winry's-
But still, this wasn't really home, and Granny's smirk wasn't the same as Mom's smile.
Mom had always been able to cheer everyone up, just by being in the room. And of course he did his best to comfort Al when his little brother got nightmares, or started asking when that miserable bastard Hohenheim would come back- but he didn't know what to say, or what to do, and no matter how much he tried, there was always that little voice in the back of his head that told him ‚not enough'.
Granny pushing open the door pulled him out of his reverie. He hurriedly angled his body to shield the empty cookie plate from her view.
Al, who had returned from the kitchen with a white milk-mustache on his upper lip, looked at him with arched eyebrows. He glowered in response.
„Granny can we help you with dinner? I fear that my brother is close to starvation", Al quipped, handing Granny her kitchen apron while she put the oil-stained one into the laundry basket.
„Unlikely. If he still eats like he used to, there should be plenty of time before that. Not like any of that food went into making him any taller."
She had turned around before he had the chance to formulate an appropriate response, calling out „and don't think I didn't see what you did to my cookies, boy!" over her shoulder.
He jumped up from the sofa and hurried after her into the kitchen. Granny had ways to make you regret making her ask twice.
„Where's Winry?", he asked as Granny stacked the four plates on his hands. Granny didn't say anything and instead made to open the drawer for forks and knives.
„I mean it's not fair, why doesn't she have to help" he continued.
The metal cutlery pinged as Granny set them atop the plates. „She's upstairs in her room probably. You can go get her when you've set the table, she'll be happy to see you boys."
He rolled his eyes at her, and shouted at the top of his lungs instead: „WINRYYY! DINNER!"
He quickly ducked outside of the kitchen before Granny could deck him for yelling, and after two seconds he heard the distinct sound of Winry jumping down the stairs- She always skipped two steps and then nearly stumbled on the slightly crooked one near the bottom.
A moment later she went flying into his side, the last set of dinnerware falling onto the table with a clang as her arms wrapped tightly around him (and ouch, that was where Al had gotten in a good kick yesterday)-
He spit out some of her hair and slowly gripped her wrists to extricate himself from her- was she trembling? Damnit, somehow he always made her cry-
„Hi Win", he said nervously, trying to muster up a smile. „Uuhm- we're home-"
He must have imagined the trembling, because now she was frowning at him just like always. „Idiot", she shouted, tugging on his bangs, „why didn't you say you were coming?"
„Ouch- Winry knock it off- ow, see the thing is, I didn't know for sure if we were gonna come today- you know Al totally didn't wanna come back because the neighbor's cat is gonna have kittens soon-"
„That is so not true brother, I did want to come home. It's great to see you Win!"
Al proceeded to give Winry a hug, which at least made her stop pulling out his hair.
Scowling, he noticed that Winry was still about half a head taller than Al (whom he had only managed to best in height due to his clever hairstyle). Winry's hair looked different now though, pulled back from her face in two tight braids that were jumping up and down her back as she gave Al a teasing punch to the shoulder.
She looked...cute, he realized and promptly felt blood rush to his cheeks. He did not find Winry cute. Always bloody threatening to murder him with her stupid wrench, and talking his ear off about automail, and-
Fortunately in that moment Granny entered with a steaming dish in her gloved hands, allowing his thoughts to focus on more pressing matters.
He was on his third plate of delicious casserole when he noticed something was off.
Al was telling Granny about their life with the Curtises, and Winry had not made a single comment about how alchemy was stupid and for nerds.
Come to think of it, she hadn't even started her usual gushing about automail being the greatest invention in all of mankind's history when Al had asked Granny how the business was going.
He looked at her over the rim of his glass. She was still pushing the food around on her plate. It didn't seem like she'd eaten any of it.
Actually, she did look a bit sick, face pale and eyes red. That alone wasn't anything out of the ordinary since she cried all the time.
But something- in her eyes maybe, or the way she was slumped against the table- looked so terribly tired and drawn and unlike Winry.
So he leaned forward and whispered „What's up with you?".
When she didn't react he kicked her shin lightly under the table and asked again: „What's wrong with you? Are you sick or something?"
It came out slightly louder than he'd planned and Al and Granny stopped their conversation to look at him disapprovingly.
„Nothing's wrong, you jerk" Winry snapped and gave him an angry glare, then looked away. „And what do you care anyway, it's none of your business".
„It's just-you're not eating" he remarked, feeling stupid for pointing out the obvious. He gave a quick glance for support to Granny, who was usually very strict about not wasting any food.
Granny just gave a bone-deep sigh and took another swig of her beer. „Finish your plate girl", she stated finally, but it lacked her usual bite and she wasn't even looking at her granddaughter.
„Well I'm not hungry", Winry said sharply. She cut her eyes to Granny, daring her to say anything, but the old woman was pointedly buttering a slice of bread.
They fell quiet after that, everyone finishing their meal except for Winry, who had gone back to playing with the cutlery, a deep scowl set on her face.
He glanced at Al, fidgeting nervously on the chair next to him. His little brother kept looking at him with wide eyes as if expecting him to know how to handle this.
But shit, this was even worse than that time when the Ishvalans had blown up some train tracks and Winry's parents hadn't been able to visit. She'd cried then too, of course, but Granny hadn't been acting all weird, and Winry had pushed him into the creek that same day because she didn't get his hilarious chemistry jokes, and everything had been okay.
Damnit, this was supposed be easy! This was home, goddamnit, why could things never just stay the same?
And he'd forced Al to come here, knowing full well that Al liked it in Dublith, and this wasn't like it was supposed to be, he had to fix this-
„Do you have any new projects Win? Any automail you're- ah, helping Granny with?"
Granny coughed. Winry did not even look up to utter a flat „No".
He stuffed a chunk of bread into his mouth to escape from the conversation, and promptly started choking when it got stuck in the wrong tube.
Al had to clap him on the back while he was spitting and coughing bits of bread onto his plate. „Your casserole was really good Granny", Al said quietly, handing Ed a napkin.
„Thank you, Alphonse", Granny replied, but her smile didn't quite reach her eyes.
„Mr. Sig and Sensei taught us lots about the different meats, and they would've taught us how to cook too, if Ed hadn't burnt my arm when he was trying to make pancakes-"
„Hey what's that ‚trying to make pancakes'? I made awesome pancakes, and if you hadn't picked something weird and disgusting like apple sauce then I wouldn't have lifted up the pan to keep it from becoming dry and- you didn't even remember which arm!"
„Of course I remember, I've got a scar right here on my-" „Can you both just shut up?" Winry shouted. Pink spots were creeping up on her neck and her eyes looked even redder than before.
Ed gave a quick look to Al, who was usually better at figuring out Winry's weird moods, but his brother seemed as confused as he was. Winry was just as loud as they were normally, and she'd definitely never let his slander of apple sauce go unchallenged. Where the hell was it that he'd messed up?
„We're- I'm sorry Win" he said finally, rubbing his neck nervously.
„Whatever." It sounded like she was about to cry.
He could feel his hands becoming sweaty and started twisting the tablecloth between his fingers. This whole situation screamed at him to get out of here, hole up in the study with Al and look over some nice, logical equations that he could actually understand. And maybe he could put some nice decorations on the house, since he wasn't half bad with transmuting wood now, and then he could show Winry tomorrow and maybe that would cheer her up, or at least she'd make fun of his sense of style again-
Granny seemed to have come to the conclusion that dinner was over and slid off her stool, her pipe now stuffed and hanging in the corner of her mouth.
„Do you boys need me to set up the guest room?" she asked, reaching for Al's plate to stack on hers.
„No thanks Granny" he answered and attempted a smile for good measure. „We still wanna get a look at the books and compare them with Sensei's notes."
He slid his plate over to Granny and took a deep breath. They'd been waiting all day for their library, hadn't they? This was going to be good. They were getting so close. Just a bit more practice-
„Hey Winry, could we borrow your parents' books from med school again?"
Later he could hardly remember actually articulating the words, there seemed to be a splintery swirl in his memories of thinking that he'd wanted to look at that histology book with Sarah Rockbell's little scribblings on the side, and then Winry crying and screaming ‚They're gone!They're gone!'-
Clang! He instinctively raised his hands to block any incoming attack, but there was only Winry, crying harder than he'd ever seen her cry in his entire life. Her chair was knocked over and pieces of porcelain and casserole were scattered around her feet.
„They're gone Ed, you can't have them. Because they're gone!"
She choked off, shaking and gasping for air. But she kept looking at him, cornflower-blue eyes overflowing with tears, as if waiting for him to say something- well of course he had to say something, but his mind seemed to be filled with thick white fog, turning in useless circles, because why would the books be gone suddenly? There had to be something he was missing, something right there in front of him damnit-
„Win, I-" he took a step in her direction, his hand reaching out, but his words seemed to fall to the ground as he realized he had no idea what to offer her. A pat on the head, like when Al got scared of the dark? Say he was sorry?
„I'm-"
Her lower lip quivered, then ticked upwards in a crooked smile. Tears and snot were still streaming down her face, but he could only stare as she finally broke their eye-contact, wiped her nose roughly on her sleeve and disappeared out the door. Her sobs still echoed through the house as she ran up the stairs.
„Granny?"he heard Al ask, his voice thin and high-pitched. It was the voice that meant he wanted Mom.
„Granny what does she mean?" Al sounded like he was four years old again, standing next to him before the grave, and clutching his hand like it was the only thing tethering him to the earth. Ed felt a cold shiver dripping down his spine as he turned to look at them.
Granny sat the plates she'd collected down on the table again and lit her pipe. She never smoked inside. „My son and daughter-in-law were killed in Ishval. The letter came three days ago."
Al started crying silently. He wanted to hug him, or something, to comfort him somehow, but he felt frozen to the spot.
„They can't spare a transport at the moment of course, so there's no bodies for a funeral." Granny's mouth had twisted into a bitter smile around her pipe.
„Not like I should have expected anything else", he could hear her snarl under her breath as she turned towards the kitchen with the dirty dishes.
„Why didn't you call us?" he found himself saying, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears.
He could hear things clanking in the cabinet, and the sounds of liquid sloshing.
A moment of silence, then Granny sighed again. „ There's some things you don't tell in a phone call, Edward."
The clink of a glass being set down on the counter, then Granny reappeared in the doorway, dustpan and brush in hand.
She knelt down on the floor mutely, sweeping away the shards of the plate that Winry had smashed.
He could still hear her crying upstairs, damnit. He clenched his fists slowly, digging his nails into his palms. „What about Winry, Granny?"
She looked up then, and in her tired, wrinkled face he swore her eyes were shining with tears too.
„Leave her some space to calm down. This ain't something any of us can fix."
„But-" he bit his lip. It felt wrong. They couldn't just leave Winry,not when she'd just lost her parents, and not when he'd made her cry!
He looked to Al for help, because Al was always better at talking and stuff, but his little brother had jumped off his chair and was now sobbing into Granny's shirt.
Granny stroked Al's back with one hand, then pulled herself up slowly. „There, there. Now can you help me clean this up, Al-boy?"
Al nodded tearfully and reached for their water glasses on the table.
„C'mon shrimp, let's get th-" „ NO!" His voice echoed through the room, nearly as cutting as Sensei's when she got angry.
„We can't just leave Winry when she's crying!" It felt good to yell, even if he had no idea what exactly he should say to Winry.
Granny just turned away with a resigned sigh.
Al held his gaze for a second, his eyes still swimming with tears, but then whirled around with the glasses clutched to his chest. He left splashes of water on his way to the kitchen.
Ed clenched his fists in the sudden silence, only broken by muffled sniffling from upstairs. Damnit.
His steps were heavy on the wooden stairs, his fingers gripping the metal banister with slightly more force than necessary.
„Take care of your little brother", Mom had said. „You've only got each other until your Dad comes back." And who did Winry have to take care of her, without her parents, when Granny wouldn't do it?
He kicked the bars of the railing, which produced a marginally satisfying twanging sound. Stupid Granny. Stupid Al.
Stupid parents who always ended up dying. (Or leaving).
He rubbed his eyes angrily, then slowly lifted up one hand to knock on Winry's door.
„Win, it's me. Ah-can you open up, please?"
„Just- go away, Ed" her voice rang back, interrupted by hiccups.
„I won't!"he said loudly, rapping his knuckles against the door again and then trying the handle. It was, predictably, locked.
Well this might have stopped him a year ago- he quickly started rummaging through his pants pockets for some chalk, carefully sketching out a circle that should separate the bolt from the frame- cast iron, right? So should be an easy reaction, just gotta account for the bits of carbon-
„I won't leave you Winry, not until I see you're-" „The next person who asks if I'm okay I'm gonna punch three ways ta Sunday!" They were both sitting before the grave after the funeral, and he turned his head to the side so Al wouldn't see him wipe away a tear, because damnit, how the fuck would they be okay? -
„Until I see you", he finished awkwardly, and pressed his hand on the array. Blue lightning flared up, and a sound like the ringing of perfectly tuned bells, or- well a nice sound anyway.
Also, he could hear the bolt falling inside the lock.
He pushed the door open slowly. The room was dark, illuminated only by the moon and stars slowly appearing on the night sky. He could just barely make out the silhouettes of her furniture, bed unmade with the blanket half on the ground, and the desk, which seemed unusually tidy. No metal parts, no slew of sketches spread out on every available surface-
„Jeez you just can't stop, can you?"
He had to enter further into the room to locate the origin of her voice, treading carefully because the floor was always littered with spare screws-
„You know, just because you can do alchemy that doesn't mean you got an open invitation." The look she threw him was pretty close to her normal level of irritation, even if her eyes were all puffy and red, and her voice was hoarse.
Winry was sitting on the balcony, arms drawn around her knees and back leaning against the wall.
Her naked feet were tapping an uneven rhythm on the floor while her shoulders kept shaking with quiet sobs.
He sat down next to her hesitantly.
Not quite close enough to touch. But close enough to count the little hairs on her arms that had risen up against the shallow breeze.
„I'm sorry, Win", he whispered, mimicking her pose and resting his elbows on his knees.
She didn't look up, her head buried in her knees. Her hair was tumbling over her arms and back in wavy strands, hiding her face like a silvery curtain.
„Your hair, it- it looked nice before" he said quietly, and dug his nails into his palms to distract himself from the blood rushing to his cheeks.
She made some kind of jerky movement with her head, he wasn't sure if she was nodding,or shaking her head, or just trying to get away from him- damnit, why had he said something so stupid? Maybe he should have just left her in peace like Granny had said-
She straightened up suddenly, joints cracking, and Ed suppressed a wince.
„They kept saying I looked like her". She was still avoiding his gaze, staring straight ahead between the bars of the balcony railing.
„Like-your mom?" He swallowed.
She nodded slightly, head dipped to the side, then pulled her lips into a smile with no humour in it at all. „It's like the whole village got the letter along with us. Granny wasn't even on her second bottle yet when they started showing up to ‚express their condolences'."
Her fingertips pressed white circles into her forearms.
„And- some of them were nice, of course. We got lots of food from everyone. It's just- I don't even know how long it took them to write that letter, my parents could have been dead for weeks-"
Tears started dripping down her cheeks again.
„And now we can't even bury them, because they have no t-transports or whatever, and I'm just so sick of everything-"
He averted his gaze, pushing his knuckles into the floor until the stones scraped at his skin.
„Ed, I- I want them back!" her voice broke on the last word, and he flinched, because damnit, wasn't that the same raw desperation and anger in her eyes that he'd felt that day after the funeral?
But should he- could he tell her that there was a way? That they were working on a way to fix everything?
But what if she freaked out about the ‚human transmutation' bit and told someone, and then they'd take away their research, he couldn't take that risk, right?-
„It's gonna be okay, I promise", he whispered, and hesitantly reached out to stroke away the hairs stuck to her forehead.
And it would be okay, they'd figure out how to bring her parents back too right after Mom. Just a little bit longer-
She gripped his arm suddenly and collapsed into his chest, shaking and sobbing against his shoulder.
He could feel her tears and snot quickly soaking through his T-Shirt, but Al had already drooled on it earlier anyway, and he should really remember to study the chemical composition of the body liquids-
„They all left me alone" Winry choked out, the words dissolving into a violent coughing fit.
It sounded like she was about to start hyperventilating, so he gripped her arms and forced her to look at him.
„Hey. Hey Win. You're not alone. Me and Al, we're both here. And we're your family too, right? I mean, kind of...agh, but I promise we're not gonna leave you! And the old bat's there too, even if she always makes us do the stupid chores and you know, but she's way to stubborn to kick the bucket any time soon, right? So you gotta, you know, you can't leave us either, okay?-"
„Do you promise?"
He could see the sky mirrored in her eyes as she blinked up at him, or maybe her eyes had always been that same sparkling dark blue- he couldn't really tell, but at least he knew for sure that he hated that hopeless look on her face.
Winry could go for days without sleep to finish her weird projects, or scream at him for hours if she thought she was in the right.
She wouldn't let anyone dissuade her from saving Den, even if nobody had ever seen a dog with automail and everyone had taken one look at the mangled mess of blood and bones on the kitchen table and said to just put the poor thing out of its misery.
Winry had never given up though.
She was the one who always had an answer.
And this wasn't fair.
Damnit, he would kick God or whatever else kept people's souls in the face and then he'd make everything go back to how it should be.
He clenched his fist.
„Of course I promise, dummie. I'm never gonna leave you."
He didn't get an answer.
They stayed on the balcony, him leaning against the wall, and her snoring softly on his lap.
It wasn't exactly comfortable, her elbow was poking into his stomach and he could feel his leg slowly growing numb with her head weighing down on his femoral artery.
But she looked so tired that he couldn't really wake her up again.
Al joined them after a while, sitting down quietly at his side.
„Is she gonna be okay, Brother?"
Ed nodded without turning around, careful not to jostle Winry.
„Yeah. We'll all be okay."
Al yawned and then crawled over to Winry, curling up next to her.
A small thread of smoke had started to rise into the air, and Ed lifted his eyes again.
The moon was bright enough that he could make out their house in the distance, white against the night sky.
Nearly close enough to touch.
He smiled.
He'd get Mom back, and then Aunt Sarah and Uncle Urey, and then they could all finally go home.