People Never Change

"What about Winry, Edward?" Noah asked as she set down the three plates, filling two glasses with milk, before turning to pour orange juice into the third. "She was all you could talk about… Besides Alphonse."

The older blonde cringed at the way Winry's voice sounded aloud here. She wasn't supposed to be here; not in Germany. Not when the world here was possibly more dangerous than anything in Amestris would ever be. Times were changing, and there was no way the Nazis were going to give up so easily… If he knew anything about dictatorship, it was that their leaders never gave up. He bit his tongue.

"Yeah, Brother…" Alphonse said calmly, watching his older sibling, trying to read the expression on the boy. Though after a few minutes of chewing thoughtfully on his bacon, he couldn't quite read the mood his brother was holding.

"Winry can't come here…" He said after a moment, releasing his tongue to speak. "It's too dangerous here. And besides, we already sealed the Gate…"

The past while had all been a rush – things happened so fast, moving along at a light-speed, it was hard for him to remember. There were finer points that stuck out in his memory; like the day he'd rescued Noah, the day his brother sealed part of his soul to the armor and came across the gate… When their father died… Envy. Envy was a huge part of his memory – the homunculus just couldn't leave him alone. Though even now, the boy couldn't quite say he was glad the menace was dead. He was still angry at the serpent, because the green snake held a key role in their father's death… But he couldn't say he was happy. No, he couldn't.

Other things stuck out in his memory, some of them not even finer details. His stay in Amestris played across his mind when he slept, and he often dreamed, creating alternate scenarios in the water fabric of the dreamworld. Scenarios where death wasn't the only answer. But it seemed in the liquid reality of dreams, everything always wavered from one's true intent, and sometimes the peaceful, well-intended dreams morphed into horrible, terrorizing nightmares. The rest of the days, such short periods of time, blended and blurred in his memory, evolving and drabbling into dreams. It was so surreal, he almost forgot where the boundary between waking hours and sleeping dreams ended.

"It's better that she isn't here." He sighed, forking his egg without much enthusiasm. His hunger had dissolved at the mention of his childhood friend's name. Could he have really been that selfish? He knew that she wanted to be around him and Alphonse; they had grown up together, after all. But he'd just been so selfish… He'd been so absorbed in getting his brother, in staying with him, that he'd almost blocked his childhood friend out completely; the blonde who stayed by his side through thick and thin, and put herself in dangerous situations for him – no matter how much he complained or tried to save her. Hell, she'd almost been killed on numerous occasions.

And all of that was for what, now? Now she was in Amestris, and he was in Germany – they weren't even in the same world anymore. Not just figuratively, either. They didn't have the same comfort of looking out at the moon, or the stars, or even being in the sun – knowing that the other one was under the same sky. No, not anymore. And if she missed him as much as he missed her… He stabbed one of his egg yolks in frustration.

"Brother…" Alphonse said calmly, though if anybody knew and understood his voice, they'd instantly hear the undertone of sadness that was oh-so-cleverly masked by his calm exterior. He misses her too. Ed thought bitterly, stabbing his egg again.

"Yeah, Alphonse?" He asked, trying to be oblivious to the matter. He didn't really want to talk about Winry.

"It's not fair to Winry, Brother…" Edward's golden eyes landed on Noah, purposefully adverted from the darker ones of his brother. The calm, but accusing ones. He'd succeeded in his promise to some point – he had fully restored Alphonse's body, which was his main priority anyway. After all, two automail limbs were nothing compared to being a hollow, unfeeling, senseless hunk of armor… Noah was watching the situation with another calm expression – though unlike Alphonse's, her's was curious, examining. The typical outside looking in expression she had when he and Al started talking about Amestris.

"She's waited too, you know," He was still calm, but Ed knew his stubbornness would turn this calm discussion into a heated argument, or even a shouting match. Most of the yelling on his behalf, anyway.

"Yeah, Al, I know," Was all he could say to that. How could he explain that he was trying to look out for Winry? Because he loved her, and he wouldn't be able to stand it if something happened to her? He couldn't. All he could do was pretend not to see the seriousness of the matter.

"No, you don't know, Brother!" Al's voice was wavering, giving him the juvenile determination that he'd always had when he was in the suit of armor. Hell, he still had it now. Except now he wasn't just a kid anymore – he was a young adult. "You don't know what it's like! What it was like to hear her crying every night! You don't know, that's just the problem, Brother!"

Noah watched the conversation between the two of them quietly, observing how Al raised his voice – something he never did, unless he really meant something. Edward, unlike his younger brother, raised his voice at least once every day. Though the reasons varied time to time.

"It's too dangerous here, Al! Don't you see that? This is a war time, she'd just get hurt, anyway," Ed's tone of voice fell at the end of his speech, as if he was trying to convince himself of that more than anybody else in the room. But how were they supposed to believe it if he couldn't even trick himself into thinking it was true?

"There's war there, too! What makes you think that they won't attack Resembool, Brother? She's in just as much danger as we are here!" He retorted, his voice quivering dangerously, as if he was about to cry. But the determination in his eyes showed that his younger brother was far from tears.

"Besides, Al, it wouldn't be guaranteed that she'd survive crossing the Gate, anyway…"

"Then why don't you go there, Edward?" Noah asked, finally speaking. Although her voice was calm, collected, and thoughtful – unlike both of the brothers at this point. Edward stared at her, though Alphonse wouldn't turn his accusing gaze from his brother.

"We can't, the Gate… It has to be opened on both sides… And… We don't have the right materials anymore."

And that part of his excuse, at least, was true. On this side, they had Envy – or at least they had. Now all that was left of him, by now, was probably the remains of a rather large snake. After all, he had been shot down by the Thule Society. And what about on the other side? Sloth was evaporated, Lust was dead, Greed was dead, Pride was… Wrath sacrificed himself and Gluttony to open the Gate last time… There just wasn't anymore fodder, unless somebody had created another homunculus – but how unlikely was that? And it was even more unlikely that they would be wandering around, or even in a state to be wandering around. And the chances of them accidentally opening the Gate on the side while somebody used that homunculus to open the Gate on the other side at the same time? Impossible. Utterly impossible.

Although Alphonse couldn't quite argue with that, he could still prose how wrong it was to leave her behind in the first place. And, if he knew his brother, motivation was a key component to getting him to do anything. If he could motivate his brother just enough to find some way… Or at least look into perhaps an alternative method to opening the Gate (there had to be at least another, Alphonse was sure of this), then maybe they could go back.

"Brother… Winry's waited so long to see you… You don't know what it was like, when I came back… And you weren't there. You didn't see how sad she was. She thought you were dead." He said solemnly, his voice lowered back to it's calmer octave. "She's been waiting, just like Mother was."

That froze Edward in his tracks, his fork paused against the plate, and the fingers that had been drumming absently on his knee froze. The only part of his body that hadn't been immobilized by his brother's accusation were his eyes, and they were locked firmly on his brother.

"I'm not like him!" He bellowed eventually, finding the use of his tongue useful. "I'm not like him!" But he couldn't think of anything else to say – he was like him. No matter how much he hated it, he was. He had left Winry on a whim, on a mission to get their bodies back. And now what? Al had his body back, so why weren't they with their friend? Why were they in another world? He'd told himself he had to go back to close the other side of the Gate, but did he, really? It wasn't like anybody would be able to get across without the aid of the other side… But the ones who tried would have died, like all the other ones before. But it was their own fault if they tried – how could he justify his absence to his friend, who had been waiting for them? Waiting for them for years?

Edward's mind whirred, creating a nauseating blur of thought. What if she grew sick, just like Mother had? What would people think, knowing he wasn't at her funeral? What would they say? He'd seen it first hand – he saw what the gathering at his mother's funeral had been like. The murmurs, the accusations, the pointing fingers. "She waited all this time for that Edward Elric, but we knew he wouldn't show up. But she just wouldn't listen." But his father hadn't been shoved across the Gate, with no means back! His father had been there, somewhere, and no matter how his body was deteriorating, his mother still loved him.

But what if Winry loved him?

He clenched his automail fist and hit it against the table, fluidly shoving his chair back as he got up in a huff and stomped nosily upstairs. The young blonde stormed into his room, slamming the door and sitting on is bed; head in his hands. He couldn't go back – and he knew the real reason. Maybe he'd just been denying it; maybe he was some sadistic fool. But he was afraid she wouldn't wait for him. And that scared him the most. But what if she kept on waiting, and dulled herself down until she grew so sick she couldn't turn things back around? What would happen to their friends, friends who had loved her too? What about Pinako? What would she say? She would speak of him in the same disgust she used when she mentioned Hohenhiem. And in a sense, he was no better than his father.

But when he stayed away, it increased those chances that her worry and fear would eventually kill her. Just like their mother. And the poor blonde would rot away emotionally on the little hill of their childhood, just like mother. She would die waiting for him.

And it was in that moment that he could only hope that she wasn't waiting for them. That she had moved on, no matter how painful that thought was.

He pressed his forehead into his hands harder, clenching the golden eyes shut, in vain attempts to block the tears that were leaking from them.

"I'm sorry Winry… I'm so sorry."

--

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA.

Stuff: Um, if you haven't figured it out yet, this is based post-movie. It's a pretty serious matter, and it just kinda popped up when I was working on Stonier, so I wrote it down, and here it is! Review.