Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, nor anything affiliated with Fullmetal Alchemist. I am not making any money or profit from this work, other than the satisfaction of writing.

A/N: This fic is based on the anime series, set after the movie "Conqueror of Shambala". Though I've had this idea in my head for a while, I intended it at first to be a one-shot EdWin. However, as I began to write this chapter in the back of one of my lecture pads, a plot formed in my head, so I decided to go with that. I don't intend for this to go for anymore than 10 chapters, and will hopefully update it on a fortnightly basis. The chapters will all probably be longer than this one. I am also looking for a BETA, so if you would like to help, then tell me so in your review hint, hint. Enjoy!

Chapter one: Longing

"I only wish..."

She sighed.

"I only wish this weren't a dream."

Then, burying her face in the nape of his neck, she felt herself slipping away from him.

Winry awoke the very same way she woke every other morning, with her long, blonde hair in tangles around her face, and her hands both resting neatly under her head. Opening her eyes groggily, she rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

"Ed..."

She could never really remember her dreams very well, regardless of what they'd been. This had always annoyed her somewhat, and the dreams she'd been having lately, from what she could remember, had been no different, as they'd been just as vague, never really having a discernible beginning. She'd always be with the same person, in the same place; a big, beautiful, white bed in the middle of an empty white room that had no doors, and only one window, from which golden light seemed to flow, but nothing of the outside world could be seen. The bed had a massive mosquito net hanging over it, and seemed to be covered with limitless amounts of white sheets and fluffy white pillows, and the man she was with had appeared just the same way she'd remembered him, though a real arm and leg had replaced his automail. She never had any idea of how she had come to be there with him, of all people, but just accepted it as being completely normal. Thinking back, the whole situation seemed quite surreal, and though vague, seemed as though it was a distant memory form the back of her mind, rather than an actual dream.

The endings to these dreams however were always very clear the next morning; each time she had been on the verge of waking, she had been conscious of it in her dream, and though she'd cling to him as tightly as she could, she'd still slip away from his grasp, as though being pulled through the bed and bed-sheets themselves.

She wrapped her arms around her waist and clutched at her sides, mimicking the way he held her in her dreams.

"Stay here!" he would say to her.

"Please , stay here with me!"

She wished she could've, as she could not remember a more blissful time in her life.

"Except for when you were still here."

The words managed to escape her lips without her being aware of it. Oh, how she missed him, Edward Elric, her childhood friend, one of the very few people who she could actually say that she adored. These dreams made her want to sleep forever, to never leave his side, to never leave that room, to never leave that bed, the one she'd shared with him night after night.

Winry reached over her head and picked her alarm clock up off the windowsill.

11:20am

She'd slept through her alarm, and as a result had lost most of her morning. This was no surprise, as the curtains in her room did such a good job of blocking out the sun, and she'd become accustomed now to the sound of the alarm going off. It was now late Sunday morning and she had nothing to do for the rest of the day, and though the temptation of rolling over and going back to sleep was very inviting, she swung her legs over the side of her bed and forced herself upright.

After getting changed into her usual set of overalls, and convincing herself that yes, there was a lot to be done in her Automail workshop, she left her room and descended the stairs, muttering a fair-well under her breath.

"See you tonight, Ed."

---

Edward Elric woke just moments after Winry had, with the familiar feeling of loss that dwelt in within his stomach every morning. She had been right there, but he still couldn't keep hold of her, and she slipped away into the mountains of bedsheets that always surrounded them, slipping away himself not long after that.

"I only wish this weren't a dream" She'd said. He'd held her even closer, and with slight despair in his voice he had replied "But it's not. Stay here with me, please!"

He grunted and pushed himself up off his stomach to sit back on his knees, on the tiny, worn-in mattress that he'd had the displeasure of sleeping on for the last two nights. He was used to the aches and pains that came with sleeping on hostel beds though, and managed to ignore the pain that jabbed behind his shoulder-blade as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"You had that dream again, didn't you?" The muffled voice of his younger brother, Alphonse Elric, enquired from the other side of the cramped hostel room. Ed grunted in recognition of the fact that he had just asked a question, but had no intention of answering it.

"You talk in your sleep, you know."

Al too was now sitting up in bed, groggily surveying his brother.

"She knows you would've never left her on purpose." He was scuffing his feet on the floor as he said this, he had become too tall for them to dangle properly off the side of the bed for a while now.

"Yeah, I know Al." Ed replied simply.

"Thanks."

After Al had finished getting dressed and packing up all his belongings into his suitcase, he turned to his older brother, who was sitting on his bed silently braiding his hair.

"I'll meet you downstairs for breakfast. Don't take too long brother, we've already missed the first train up north, and the second one's due to leave in an hour."

"Sorry Al," Ed replied, and smiled weakly, "I wont be too long."

The look Al gave him as he left the room said what Ed had been needing to hear. They had lost everything they'd held dear to them, except for each other. Even though they'd both lost their home, friends and family, Al knew that his brother had lost something that he'd never really had, and Ed knew he sympathized.

After his brother had left the room, Ed took some time to think about his dream. It had all felt so real; the touch of her hands as they explored his chest, back, shoulders and arms; her warm breath on the back of his neck as he traced hers with his lips; The feel of her chest as she breathed against him; how warm she had been as she curled up beside him and played with the strands of hair that fell across his eyes. It had all been so vivid... but then again, pretty much all of his dreams had been that way, no matter what they were of, since he and his younger brother tried to bring back their mother...

He would've given anything to be that close to her before he'd come to this world, anything at all to experience that with her outside of his dreams, but he knew that was impossible. For the moment at least he had to focus on the task at hand, and that was to find and, if possible, destroy, the uranium bomb that had found it's way through the gate and into their world. He had finished braiding his hair, the same way he had always done when he'd been home, and decided to finally join his brother in the dining quarters of the German Hostel.

As he got to the table his brother was sitting at, eating a rather suspect looking bowel of grey oatmeal, Ed ran a hand over his braid. It made him feel closer to what he'd lost almost five years ago to the day.

- End of chapter 1 -