Author's Note: Wrote this because I was bored and needed closure for this series.

Cold indifference and malicious intent. It's on the face of every man, in the eyes of every woman, and a sense of vague understanding in every child. That's what the virus did to people. It killed more than just life, destroying what little sense of humanity managed to survive when the world went to Hell.

Winry was fourteen when it all happened. She'd lived out in the country, on a farm with her parents and grandmother, and the news that the cities had been overrun didn't reach them until it was far too late. She went to check on the cows one morning with Den at her side and noticed a man walking around the edge of their property, near the grazing pasture where the horses were roaming. Winry watched him lope through the tall grass for quite a while, only becoming nervous when the stranger approached one of their horses.

Den had licked her fingers while she stood, paralyzed, as the man lunged for the closest filly and started to feed.

Her father swore over and over that they could continue to live on their land even while the world crumbled around them. The barbed wire fences could keep out the Diseased, and their livestock would feed them all for many years if they continued to breed their animals. Back then, Winry believed every word her father said, found nothing to be as comforting as the sound of his voice or the warmth in his eyes, though she should've known that in Armageddon, no one could live peacefully for too long.

It happened on a Tuesday, in the morning. Winry woke up to the sound of Den's barking and found her entire front yard overrun with the Diseased. Den, unaware of the dangers and merely overjoyed to see so many people at once, only lured them in with all the noise he made, and Winry bolted down the steps while shrieking for her parents, barreling out the front door and grabbing Den's collar to drag him inside the house.

Strangely enough, even with the Diseased pounding on the windows and front door, no one managed to be afraid aside from Winry. Her parents strategically gathered all the essentials while her grandmother tried to calm Winry's panicked breathing, and by the time the Diseased managed to break through the windows, the entire Rockbell family was piled into the car and roaring away from the place that was supposed to be their safe haven.

Winry doesn't know how the Diseased got in that day, not that it really matters. Some part of her had known it would happen eventually, even when she was a naive kid who believed her father could fix any problem. They lived on the road for a long time, hopping from vehicle to vehicle and scavenging for whatever they could.

All those months she spent clinging to life with her family out in the world reprogrammed everything Winry had learned in her fourteen years of living. She'd taken so much for granted before, and it took a while for her to get used to sleeping without a pillow and not showering every day. Her mother taught her to get by with as little as possible, her father taught her how to survive, and her grandmother taught her to suck it up and to always keep going, no matter what happened.

Those lessons were more invaluable than anything Winry could have ever learned going to school. In a world ruled by the dead, what good would a high school or college diploma do anyway?

So, Winry adapted and learned a new lesson each time one of her family members died. By the time she was seventeen, she was no stranger to loss, and she knew how to dig a proper grave.

In the end, all she had left was Den. Den, her overgrown puppy who grew up alongside her through it all, who steadily became wary of anyone who wasn't her. She remembered quite clearly how he greeted the Diseased in their yard that morning, tail wagging as they staggered ever closer, snapping their jaws and extending their gangly fingers toward him, not to pet, but to kill.

The both of them were forced to grow up before they were ready, though they made ends meet, and Winry found that the two of them were quite capable on their own. Den chased the squirrels and rabbits, and Winry shot them. Den barked and snarled when the Diseased made an appearance and Winry shot them, too. They relied on one another in the midst of the end of the world, and Winry often wonders how she came to trust an animal more than she does humans.

Something snaps in the undergrowth, and Winry reaches for her gun, though it's only Den, sniffing around in an attempt to find some place to relieve himself. Winry huffs, blowing stray pieces of hair out of her eyes. She hasn't seen any Diseased all day, and the silence is starting to chip away at her sense of security.

Funny. Normal for her used to be milking the cows and collecting eggs, but now she feels off-balance whenever something isn't trying to take a bite out of her.

A rumble, muted by the many layers of clothing she's wearing, catches Winry's attention, and when she whistles, Den comes bounding back to her side in an instant. "I'd say it's about time for lunch." She says when Den looks at her expectantly, and he woofs softly, as if agreeing. "Go find!"

Den never made much of a hunting dog before although Winry's grandpa was training him to be one before he died. It wasn't until Winry and her mother were so close to starvation that Den started bringing his kills back of his own volition. The young woman doesn't know how her dog could have possibly understood how dire their situation was, though she's grateful to him even to this day.

Den takes off at her command, bounding through the undergrowth, and Winry forces back a laugh. His skills certainly aren't the best, and he doesn't rely on his sense of smell so much as he does startling animals out of their hiding spots, but he gets the job done.

Winry changes direction and walks the path Den took, tugging the hood of her coat up over her head in an attempt to fight the cold. Technically, it's not really her coat, but none of her possessions are, save for her gun, which was her father's. Everything else she's acquired by chance and good fortune, though there's hardly enough of that to go around nowadays.

She actually manages to enjoy her walk, though she does pass a few of the Diseased – actually dead this time – that someone who passed through before her killed. She can't tell any of their genders, not that she particularly cares, and continues on her way, blowing into her hands in an attempt to keep warm.

A series of loud barks from up ahead startles her, and Winry reaches for her gun, taking off at a run, terrified that Den's been caught up in a hoard of the Diseased with no way to defend himself; but she doesn't have to worry, because she begins to realize what the problem is the further she runs.

It's a campsite, abandoned from the looks of it, if no one's poking their heads out at the sound of Den's barking. Clothing and empty food containers are strewn all over the forest floor, and from the slits in the side of some of the tents, Winry assumes that whoever looted this place before her was in a huge rush; but even if the place looks like it's been stripped bare, Winry will take the opportunity to see what she can find.

"Useless." Winry sighs as she pockets her gun, referring to Den, who seems to have forgotten about his hunt for food, sniffing around the abandoned campsite, perhaps in search of people. "You seriously have the attention span of a goldfish sometimes."

She's about to step into one of the tents when suddenly Den starts to growl, and she's instantly on alert, whipping around and redrawing her gun in a single, fluid motion. The fur on the back of Den's neck and along his spin is raised, his tail held high, and Winry follows his line of sight, though she doesn't see or hear any sign of Diseased.

It's quiet, almost too quiet, so Winry knows that whatever spooked Den isn't an animal or a Diseased, but something that's smart and knows to stay quiet, knows how to hide. Winry squares her jaw and clicks her tongue, drawing Den back to her side. "Come out and I'll shoot." She calls, debating whether or not to remove the safety just yet. "Or stay there and I'll send in the dog. Take your pick."

There are a few moments of terse silence, only broken by the sound of Den's growls, but then Winry hears a voice, a male one. "Sounds like both of those choices don't end well for me."

"That's the point."

"How 'bout I come out and you don't shoot me? I promise I won't hurt you."

Winry scoffs. "Yeah, okay. Come out slowly and I'll make my decision after."

She hears a few muttered curses before a figure steps out from behind a tree, and Winry's grip on her pistol tightens when she notices that while the man's hands are raised above his head, he's holding a gun. Den notices as well and his growls deepen considerably in response, though the stranger makes no move to put his gun away.

His expression is mild as he stares over at them, mouth quirked in amusement, though his golden eyes are intense and weary as he continues to take cautious steps forward, his blond hair, pulled back into a pony-tail, fluttering with the faint breeze.

It's with a jolt that Winry realizes he looks no older than she does, though that in no way means she can trust him, so she doesn't put down her gun. "This your camp?" He asks suddenly, hands still above his head as he waits for Winry to make her decision.

"No."

"You know who it does belong to? Where they are?"

"Dead. I killed them." Winry says, lying through her teeth but too on edge to even consider the fact that the man might be able to see through it. By the way his posture stiffens the slightest bit, he obviously doesn't. "And I'll kill you, too, if you don't put your fucking gun away."

The man quirks a brow at her words, a look of irritation appearing on his face as he slowly holsters his gun. Winry narrows her eyes as she tracks his movements, unable to believe that he actually listened. What moron would leave himself unarmed like that?

"My name's Edward." The stranger says, startling Winry again, because this is really no time for pleasantries. "What's yours?"

Winry has a few options. She could shoot this Edward guy now and make her getaway before his group – if he has one – comes after her, sick Den on him and chase him away, or allow him to stick around for whatever it is he needs and open up the possibility for him to turn around and shoot her later.

She struggles with it, but in the end, she can't bring herself to shoot someone who hasn't done her any harm. It both relieves and sickens her. Slowly, she lowers her arms, though her guard is still up as Edward relaxes and Den stops growling. "Winry."

"Who's the pooch?"

"Den." She replies, and her dog's ears twitch at the sound of his name. "He may not look it, but he can be nasty."

"I'll take your word for it." Edward says, letting his arms drop back to his sides. "You scared the crap out of me. Jesus, what happened to common decency? Talk first and shoot later?"

"That doesn't exist anymore." Winry says scathingly, placing her pistol in the waist band of her jeans. "Not today, not when the dead are walking and it's every man for himself."

Edward looks mildly surprised at her words, though he's not looking at her, instead scanning the area with keen eyes. "Is that right? Well, I guess I'm a little nostalgic, then."

"What do you want?" It's better to get straight to the point so Winry can get what she needs and hightail it out of there before Edward changes his mind about killing her; but if he thinks he can just take whatever he finds in this – hopefully – abandoned campsite, he's sorely mistaken. First come, first serve, and Winry won't give up even a single bullet. "What are you doing way out here on your own?"

"I could ask you the same thing." Edward says as Winry falls back to sit just outside the tent, snapping her fingers to urge Den closer. His fur is lying flat and he's stopped growling, but his movements are slow as he settles at Winry's side, nuzzling into her anxiously. "But if you must know, I got separated from my group. We were walking through these woods and a bunch of the dead appeared out of nowhere. I fought my way through 'em but got turned around in the process. Been wandering around for about an hour now. What's your story?"

Winry curls her fingers into Den's collar as Edward continues to move closer, mostly to keep her dog from lunging if the urge hits him, and Edward eyes Den warily as he settles on the ground a few feet away from Winry. The eighteen-year-old has a sinking feeling that she's stuck with Edward until his people come and find him, though as long as he behaves himself, it'll be tolerable.

"It's just me and my dog." She says at length. "That's all you need to know."

Edward nods, crossing his legs and leaning back on his palms, tilting his head up toward the sky. Winry takes the opportunity to observe him, his tangled hair and chipped and dirtied nails. He looks a little worse for wear, though she knows she doesn't look any better. Everyone's got it rough. Winry wonders if humanity would be any better off if they all worked together instead of using and stealing from one another.

"Have fun surviving out here on your own." Edward says, lowering his head to peer over at Winry. She finally notices the cut on his left cheek, crusted over with dried blood, and the bruises underneath his eyes, signifying loss of sleep. "I've got my friends and we're still struggling to get by."

Winry resists the urge to roll her eyes. Since the world went to shit, she's yet to encounter a person who's willing to admit weakness, not that she stops to actually talk to anyone. Weakness means death out here, and Edward seems to have not realized that yet. "How big is your group?" May as well get some information out of him so she knows what she's up against should she stay in these woods for a while.

"Seven strong. Three men and four women, one being a little girl. We're a ragtag group indeed."

Something in Edward's tone sounds sad for a moment, and when Winry focuses her attention on his face once more, exhaustion isn't the only thing she sees. It's really none of her business, but she can't help but ask, "Did you guys recently lose someone?"

The cloud Edward creates with his sigh is a large one, and the man pushes himself upright, clasping his hands together in his lap. "Who hasn't lost someone these days?" Winry looks away, unwanted memories rising to the surface. "But… yeah, we did. My younger brother."

"Oh." Winry wasn't expecting an admission, though now that she has one, she wishes Edward would've shut his mouth. It's damn near impossible to be weary of a man who looks and sounds that devastated over losing a family member; and if Edward is willing to show emotion, even after all that's happened, how bad can he really be? "I'm sorry."

Edward shrugs. "We were careless. Something was bound to happen."

"Was he bitten?"

"Yeah. In the arm. It happened about a week ago."

A heavy silence falls over them, and while Winry isn't the one suffering in silence, her face is the one Den licks in an attempt to soothe. Winry wasn't present when her father was bitten, nor did she stick around to watch as her mother put a bullet in his head. She isn't quite sure what Edward must have seen, what he might have had to do in wake of whatever happened to his brother, but she knows it couldn't have been easy.

"I lost my family." Winry blurts out, and Edward shoots her an incredulous look. Honestly, Winry is yelling at herself internally, wants to clam up and shut down, take Den and leave, but she can't. This is the first time in over a year that she's talked with another human being, and she feels as if she has to say everything to anyone who will listen before she's on her own again.

She could very easily die tomorrow and then walk around until someone comes along and puts a bullet through her brain. That person won't know her name or her story, will only know that she'll need to die so she doesn't hurt anyone else. So, if and when that does happen, at least someone will know who she was.

"Dad was making a pharmacy run when he was bitten, looking for medicine for my grandma, and my mom was the one that shot him. I cried after, but I kept on going." Winry continues as she rubs Den's ears. "A few weeks later, Granny had a stroke. I held my mom's hand while she cried and closed Granny's eyes with the other. Then, about a year ago, a starving man tried to steal our provisions and shot Mom instead of just asking for our help. So, I repaid the favor and shot him. He was the first living person I ever killed."

Edward opens his mouth, maybe to tell her to stop, but Winry won't have it. "You don't have to say anything, I just… thought you should know. I understand how you feel. It sucks, losing people."

He's frowning, and Winry feels as if she's being sized up, calculated, though she can't quite bring herself to care. She probably won't see Edward after today anyway. His opinion of her doesn't matter. "You know, before the dead started walking, I don't think there would've been a soul alive who just randomly dished out their life story to a complete stranger. Must be a side effect of not knowing how much longer you've got on this earth."

Winry scowls, glaring in Edward's direction, though he's looking out toward the trees. "This world changes people, makes them do things they wouldn't have under normal circumstances. My brother Al, he… when he was bit, we were making a run for medicine for the little girl in our group, like your dad was doing when he was bit. She was real sick, and although we got the medicine, he and I were separated, so I had no idea it even happened.

"When they got back, Al shut himself up in our room and didn't come out for over two hours, two hours that I could've spent with him, but I didn't get back quick enough. They told me he locked himself in there and put a bullet in his head before he could turn into one of those… fuckers, and by the time I got there, they'd busted the door down and Al was already gone. I didn't get to say goodbye."

"That's – "

"Al wouldn't have done that before. Not my brother. He was always the one that told me to keep my chin up, that things only got worse before they could get better. But when the virus showed up… well, he grew up, I guess. About a year ago, he told me that if he were to ever be infected, he wanted me to let him kill himself. He didn't want to come back after, and he knew that I wouldn't be able to do it myself. I told him I would let him, but I promised myself that I would be there when it happened, so he wouldn't have to die alone."

Edward looks up then, and while his eyes are clouded and slightly red, he doesn't look as if he's going to cry anytime soon. "And I wasn't. I wasn't there for him. I don't think I'll ever stop blaming myself."

"You look like you're handling it decently."

"Pfft. Yeah, 'cause in this world, you have to shut everything down. I loved Alphonse more than I'll ever love anything in this life. Honestly, an Infected could walk up right now and I wouldn't even try to stop it from killing me."

Winry swallows past a lump in her throat. She understands now. Edward approached her recklessly, put his gun away when she asked, admitted to weakness openly, and told her how many people were in his group without prompting.

Edward isn't stupid or reckless. He's not weak. He just doesn't care anymore.

A bark sounds from Den, startling Winry and Edward, and the young woman tears her gaze from the interesting stranger to find a Diseased stumbling toward them. Winry uncurls her fingers from Den's collar and reaches for her gun, though Edward is already on his feet, pulling a dagger from his belt as he walks over to the Diseased, which looks like a woman to Winry, at least from this distance.

He drives the blade through the dead woman's skull with practiced ease, and he shoves her back as she starts to slump into him. "Why did you go for your gun?" He asks as if nothing happened. "That would have made noise and attracted more of them."

"Well, I… don't have anything else."

Edward scoffs, and her sympathy for him evaporates. Almost. "You telling me you've been wandering around on your own with only your dog and a gun to protect yourself? Don't you run out of bullets?"

"I've managed so far. I find enough bullets to keep myself going."

"If only all of us were that lucky. Well, I'm definitely not leaving you by yourself now."

Winry blinks. "Come again?"

"You really think I stuck around some crazy girl with a gun and a rabid dog just to have a chat?" Edward is smirking, and Winry glares at him.

"I could still shoot you."

"You won't. I knew you wouldn't the moment I saw you. That whole thing you said about killing whoever camped here. That was a lie, yeah?" Winry won't meet his gaze, though that seems to be enough for Edward. "Look, I could've left and found my group a while ago. I stayed because I think you should come with us."

"What? Why?"

"Well, we're one man short now." Edward says with a rueful smile. "We could use you and you could use us. And Den seems like a capable hunting dog."

Den is on his feet, still spooked and on alert even though Edward took care of the Diseased, and Winry can tell he wants to get moving. So does she, but where exactly will she go? Edward's made his offer, but why? "Why did you tell me about your brother, Edward?"

Edward sighs, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his pants and resting his weight on his left leg, looking to the ground. "Well, you spilled to me, so I thought I'd return the favor. Equivalency, or… some shit like that. I've been a fucking mess since Alphonse died, and I can't keep quiet forever. You're an outside party. You don't know me and you didn't know Al. If I told my friends any of what I told you, they'd never let me out of their sight. It's bad enough as it is."

Winry mulls this over for a moment, frowning to herself. "You didn't get separated from your friends. You left on your own, didn't you?"

"You caught me. I needed a moment to myself, I guess. They're probably searching the area for me now. I got pretty drunk the night Al died and have been sick ever since, so I wasn't fit to bury him until last night. We were supposed to move on this morning, but I left before they woke up. I was gonna head back but… I saw your dog and got curious. I followed him and then I found you."

Winry stays silent, and Edward sighs a little. "You remind me of Al a bit. You act like this shit doesn't bother you, but I can see it in your eyes. You've been through some stuff, but you haven't let it get to you completely. Like I said, you didn't shoot me. Any other person in this world would have done it and taken whatever I had on me, but you, you didn't. You're still human. I wouldn't ask you to join us if you weren't. You don't have to, though. Just thought I'd offer."

The young woman is speechless. Somehow this man who's known her for about fifteen minutes has managed to pick her apart and dissect every little thing she's done, taking her actions for what they are. He's entirely too intelligent, and Winry reasons that she won't have to worry about that intelligence working against her if she joins his group; but then, it's been just her and Den for so long. Socializing with Edward was definitely a stretch, but all his friends, too? There's no way.

"Before he died, Al told the others to tell me that he was sorry and that he loved me." Edward says, and he wipes the blood on his knife off on his pants, sheathing it once more and offering Winry a slight smile. "I can't even begin to imagine what it must have felt like for him. I don't even want to think about it really, but I know that staying human in all this meant more to him than anything. So, for as long as I'm able, I'm gonna stay human, too. For my brother." He turns then, and Winry realizes with some regret that he's leaving. "It was nice meeting you, Winry."

She stares hard at his back as he walks away, wiping her runny nose with the sleeve of her coat. Den moves forward to sniff at the dead body of the Diseased that Edward killed, and Winry hugs her knees to her chest, resting her chin atop them.

For some reason, she can't stop thinking about Edward's brother. How strong must his resolve have been that he would rather shoot himself than turn into a monster? Personally, Winry doesn't think she could do it if she were put in that situation, and while she didn't know him, she respects Alphonse greatly for his decision.

She understands the desire to stay as human as possible in this hellish nightmare they've all been thrust into. Everyone around her changed, the world suddenly stopped being kind, and Winry's been struggling to keep up since the day her home was overrun. She doesn't want to be like that man who killed her mom, so desperate and unable to believe that anyone would show her kindness that she would kill without a thought in her head.

On her own, can she achieve that? With only Den and her gun, can she really afford to keep her morals if she wants to live to see another day? She's been slipping recently, reaching the home stretch in a race that started the day her mom was murdered. If Edward had run into her days from now, weeks even, would he have lived to tell the tale, lived to remember her story?

Winry doesn't know. She's terribly uncertain, and although she doesn't want to admit it, she's too terrified to keep living in this world on her own, especially now that she's met Edward and has heard Alphonse's story.

Den wags his tail as Winry stands on uncertain legs, musters up her courage, and calls after Edward.

A.N. Ed and Winry will sure get a rude awakening when they get comfortable around one another to act like themselves and really start to get on one another's nerves.