Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, any of its characters, storylines, or graphics. Le duh. There might be a charactor or two later on in the story that I sort of part-own, however.
Ed's mind whirled. Where was he? What was going on? There was no input, nothing. His mind was blank. He started to panic. Just like that, something came to him. A female voice, bossy and reassuring at the same time. Something inside of his brain told him 'Sensei. That's Sensei speaking. You better listen or she'll hit us, hard.' Listen? Ok. Ed could do that. The voice was telling him to calm down. 'Slow down, Edward! You're panicing! Observe, and take control of your situacion!' Automatically Ed's arm snapped up in front of his face, bracing himself for a blow that never came. Confused, still half flinching, he realized that his eyes were closed. The voice had come from inside his head. A memory, then. That was good. It meant his brain wasn't totally wiped.
Ok, Ed. You have memories, so your mind must be functioning. That's good. Let's try the eyes next. Tentatively, he opened his eyes. The sun hit him with what felt like a solid wall of light and his eyelids slammed shut again. Never one to give up, Ed repeated this process until his pupils had dialated enough to allow him to take stock of his surroundings. That was a good place to start.
He was on a grassy hill, sprinkled with flowers and the occasional tree. Fairly normal, as hills go. In the distance, he could see what looked like the start of a city. There... wasn't much else, really. Nothing definite enough to get a fix on. The city would be the place to go, he supposed. Set your sights on the goal and all that. He pulled himself off the ground, wincing as his muscles complained- evidently, he had been sitting on that hill for quite a while.
Ed soon found that 'setting your sights on the goal' didn't work so well when you were walking down a grassy hill that seemed to be about 90 rabbit holes. He hadn't taken five steps before his foot snagged in one of the dratted things and he fell, rolling and trying not to hit the patches of nettles that surely hadn't been so numerous before. Reaching the bottom of the hill, he rolled to a stop, groaning and checking to make sure he was still in one piece. Nothing seemed seriously hurt, but his face was scratched and he'd torn one of his gloves.
He stared at his hand, puzzled. For a second his eyes projected metal plates and rods onto his skin; then his vision cleared. His brain seemed to have been submersed in fog; what was wrong? This was his right hand, wasn't it? He checked it against his left- all present and correct, as far as he could tell. Two perfectly normal hands, albight a little scratched. Yet something was not right. The fog inside his brain swirled before shoving a thought into his conciousness. Automail. Yes, that was right! He didn't know why- the word didn't sound familiar- but somehow, it seemed to click. All right then. He wasn't willing to fight his own brain, not when the rest of the world was so confusing. Automail. Sure.
His acceptance of this myterious fact had reawakened the little voice that had warned him about Sensei, whoever that was. The voice was now insisting that his right hand wasn't supposed to be there; he was supposed to have automail instead. No, argued Ed, it's a hand. Look. Nothing wrong with it. He held the digit in question before his eyes, as if that would somehow convince the voice. The voice, however, was not giving up. No! it scolded. Automail! Look! A picture formed in his head, focusing and growing larger. Ed couldn't help it; he gasped. There, in his mind, was what appeared to be en entire arm made of the same sorts of plates and rods that the voice was telling him were supposed to make up his right hand. Even more incredible, the memory- for that was what it had to be- made it look like the arm was attached to his own shoulder!
This was irrifutable evidence, and the voice knew it. Automail, it said smugly. Ed was too busy examining his incredible new memory to pay attention to its gloating. In the memory, there was a wrench hovering over the arm. No, not hovering- there was a hand attached to it, a small, soft one, and its twin was holding the arm steady. The hands were attached to wrists and arms, which curved up to meet a body, bent over the arm. The face was looking down, shadowed by a curtain of blond hair. This was important, Ed knew. The part of his brain that wasn't the memory or the voice bragging was screaming at him, trying to make him remember the significance of the arm and the girl. Then, in the memory, the girl put her head up, and Ed saw her face.
Ed's brain exploded. There was no other way to put it. He felt like a door had opened inside of it and let everything he couldn't remember out. Images flashed behind his eyes, with Ed's brain putting a label on each of them. Al, Roy, Winry, a tree, Den, Winry, a barn, a house on fire, Winry... too many images. Gradually they died down and went back to their proper places in Ed's brain, leaving him with a complete picture of his life.
Ed jumped to his feet. He was ready for anything now! Confident, with a spring in his step, he set off for the city on the horizen, which his newfound memories told him was Central, a 45-minute walk away. Soon, though, his confidence faded, leaving doubt and worry in his wake. The last thing he could remember was being killed, coming briefly to life again, and dieing. Again. That was all there. What he couldn't remember was death itself- what had happened on the other side of the door?
How long had he been gone?
Ed's muscles had warmed up, gotten tired, found their second wind, and pretty much died on him before he finally reached the train station in Central, where his memories told him to go. He didn't notice them, though, his mind too caught up in worrying how long it had been, where Al was, and how hard Winry was going to hit him when he finally got home. He was so worried, in fact, that he didn't think about how he was going to pay for his train ticket until the man behind the counter asked him.
Ed's mind froze, yet again. Crap. What was he going to do? He had to get back before any more time passed! The only thing he could think of was the account he'd set up after forgetting money to pay for a ticket the fifth time. Fingers crossed, he gave the man the number, hoping to everything he'd ever heard of that it would still work. Against all odds it did, and Ed got on the train feeling as though for once in his life, everything was going his way.
The train ride to Risenbul was comparitively short, but to Ed it felt like hours. He paced up and down the train until a security guard politely asked him to stop; then, all he could do was sit in his seat and twitch, reminding himself of everything positive he could think of to keep from exploding. At the moment, there weren't that many, the biggest being that he could not have been gone for more than a month or two- if the military had lost track of him for much longer, the first thing they would have done was freeze his accounts. He'd been gone that long before. Winry probably wouldn't hit him too hard.
At long, long last, the train ride was over. Ed leaped out the second the doors opened; without any luggage to slow him down, he made it out of the train station before it got clogged with people. His restless energy could be contained no longer. Trying and failing to pace himself, he practically sprinted down the streets of Risenbul. Shopkeepers waved to him, yelling greetings. See? he told himself, shouting a hurried hello at a lady he couldn't remember meeting, yet who knew his name. I can't have been gone long at all, if everyone still remembers me enough to say hi!
Gasping and sweaty, he made it to Winry's house. He paused outside the door, reliving old memories and catching his breath, before he entered. Everything was just as he remembered it, although nobody appeared to be home. Part of him wanted to pause, make sure nothing had changed, but he had to find out what day it was. He tiptoed into the kitchen, wondering why he felt like he was invading even though this was, technically, his home. Sneaking over to behind the table, he looked up at the calendar. Half of the days were crossed off- Winry's handiwork. The calendar showed he'd been gone a little over two weeks. Ed sighed with relief, chuckling as he remembered how much Winry would spazz when she couldn't instantly find the date and everything written that she had to do.
The chuckles died in his throat. He had just noticed something, something that couldn't possibly be right. He stared at the calendar, double, triple-checking. Was it a joke? Was it not the right calendar? No, this was the one the household used; he could see meetings, deadlines, and trips to Central written on it in Winry's tiny handwriting. According to this calendar, he hadn't been gone only two weeks- he'd been gone almost two years!
Ed turned, intending to find someone and ask them what was going on, and felt his breath catch- there she was. Sitting on a chair in the next room, trying to eat ramen and read an automail magazine at the same time... Winry.
She looked exactically the same, and yet different; her hair was longer, falling in her face as she read. She reached up to push it away, and Ed noticed that she still wore the string bracelet he'd made for her fifth birthday. He'd planned to ask her questions, say hello, anything... Instead he froze staring at her. "Winry..." The name was out of his mouth before he could think. Cursing himself mentally, Ed waited, getting ready to duck should she throw something at him
Winry didn't even glance up. "'Lo, Ed."
Ooh, cliffie! Sorry... sweatdrop I just couldn't resist. I'll probably update later today, cause I'm home sick from school and I've got nothing else to do.
A few apologies from me to you:
Firstly, I'm very, very sorry if the whole 'thoughts and descriptions' thing is hard to understand. Next chappie Ed's thoughts will be in italics, I promise. Right now I'm working on Notepad, cause Word is currently eating anything I try to type, (including my English project xx). The bad side of that is that I can italic my heart out, Fanfiction just won't keep formatting options off a .txt document, which Notepad is. So, until Word has stopped throwing tantrums, thoughts are going to be in plain text. Sorry.
Also, sorry if my spelling/grammar/etc are horrible; another thing Notepad lacks is Spellcheck. Again, when computer's fixed, blah blah.
So... Please R&R! Reviewers get a mention in next chapter! (If there are any by the time I get it up, hehe.)
Oops, just kidding, I'm not done. If you like cute, fluffy Ed/Winry type stories, go to my favorites and read Cold As Metal, Yet Warm As Gold, written by ThatFullmetalShrimp. Aka... My Niisan! (Isn't that the username you're writing under? You go through so many I can't tell...) Anywho, Niisan's a super awesome writer, her story's really good, and it's so sweet it makes my teeth hurt! I mean that in a good way, of course. Kays, now I really am shutting up.