Title: Growing Old
Word Count: 687
Rating: K, since it's just depressing.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters herein contained. I only own the text.
This is angsty. About the end and after the FMA movie, and consequently has spoilers. Clearly. Sad. Tell me if I got anything wrong: it's been a while since I saw the movie and I don't remember all of the details at the end.
Ed and Al grow old together. They adopt the ways of this new country, this new world, willingly enough—it'll be just like home, you'll see, Ed tells him hopefully, with despair hidden in his eyes—since they don't have a choice, and both embody the "make what you can out of what you have" philosophy. The years pass slowly and then faster, and Ed finds a wife and Al finds a girlfriend—she is blond, with her hair parted on the side and almost always in a ponytail; she fixes cars for a living—but they still live together. Ed never has any children—he never has anyone to tell the truth to, except the one person who already knows it far too well—and Al never marries his girlfriend. Eventually she gives up on him—she cannot handle the ghost hanging around that she is both similar and so different from—and leaves, and Ed's wife dies of influenza. Ed doesn't mourn and all doesn't miss, and together they are growing older and older. One day Al looks up and realizes that Ed has grey hair, with a few strands of blond here and there, and his own hair is turning silver. They are growing old together, but neither has noticed until that point.
Winry grows old alone. Pinako dies from a lung infection, and quickly returns with Winry's parents. They all live together, with Winry cooking for all of them—you didn't eat your dinners again, any of you, you're going to starve at this rate—and cleaning and making up everyone's beds. She only gets the odd client or two every once in a while, and it takes years before she realizes that her passion for automail is gone. She closes her shop then, and waits for all her money to run out—Pinako, can I borrow some money out of your retirement? I need to buy us groceries—and watches as her dog disappears one day. He returns, of course, though now he is the same color and texture her parents and Pinako are, and she wonders briefly why she herself isn't like they are. Sometimes she thinks she's going crazy—did you hear about old woman Rockbell? Been alone in that house for half a century, talking to people who aren't there—but her parents tell her she isn't, and they're doctors, after all. She grows old without feeling lonely, with her house so full of family she can't ever be truly alone. They count her grey hairs together, laugh and poke at her wrinkles, and wheeze up and down stairs, and no one is ever alone.
Roy and Riza grow old in the same house. They are so happy to be able to afford a house of their own—No more military dorms and uncomfortable cots for us, Riza my dear—that they move in even before the walls are painted or anything besides two blankets and pillows are packed. Roy wanders around looking for things that aren't there, and Riza follows, seeing everything that is. She is so empty now, without purpose now that Roy is safe—Brigadier General is high enough for me, I think—and doesn't need anymore protection. She is still happy, and content with her life, but she lacks purpose. Roy is lonely. He has Riza, and some days that is enough for him—I love you, he says over breakfast—and he could not be more grateful for her presence. Some days, he sees memories and remembers all the people he has lost—Ed, he whispers brokenly, Al—and not even Hawkeye can save him. He doesn't notice his hair turning grey until she points it out to him. Riza wonders if she looks as old as she feels, many years later, after they have both retired. If she looks as old as Roy looks—he is grey-haired now, and his eyes are turning both cloudy and glassy, and he has trouble with stairs. He doesn't really see her anymore. They have both grown old in the same house, but not the same world.