Long Winding Road

EdxOC &AlxOC

Edited: 8/3/12


Nami walked up the steps to a house she was very familiar with.

Its been a while, she thought, smiling before knocking on the door.

The door opened and Pinako appeared in the doorway. She blinked in surprise. "Nami? It's been a while! Finally come for a tune up?"

Nami nodded. "Yeah, is Winry around?"

"She is, come in while I get her," Pinako opened the door and Nami stepped inside the house. It was the same as she remembered: same kitchen, same furniture, and same crazy dog.

"Hey boy," Nami bent down and petted Den on the head. He barked happily and nuzzled her leg.

"Winry!" Pinako called up the stairs. "We have a visitor!"

"Coming!" Winry called back.

Winry quickly wiped her tears and tried to calm herself down.

I should have known this would happen. She thought, I knew he still loved her...

She then walked down the stairs to see who the visitor was, "Nami? How are you! AND WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL TO TELL ME YOU WERE COMING!"

"I called and told Pinako," Nami defended, holding her hands up in front of her.

Both girls turned to look at where Pinako was standing but saw no sign of the old lady.

"Guess she forgot to tell you," Nami shrugged. "Anyways, can you fix up my leg?"

Winry nodded and sighed, "Oh well, follow me and let me take a look at your leg."

Winry ushered Nami into the next room and had her sit on one of the benches. She pulled out some of her tools and started examining the auto-mail.

"Well by the looks of it you've been taking care of it." She muttered, "That loose screw could be a problem though."

She pulled out a screwdriver and started fixing the small problems, "So how have you been?"

Nami sighed. "I've been okay, ran into Roy Mustang the other day."

"Oh really?" Winry raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"

"He completely shut me out when I asked him to train me."

"Aw! I'm sorry!" Winry said, "What are you going to do now? Try and find another teacher?"

Nami shrugged. "I don't know. I heard from a girl named Mikayla there is a flame alchemist here in Risembool."

"Mikayla?" Winry questioned, "She's back?"

She could almost feel her blood start to boil but tried to stay cool.

"Um, yes?" Nami was taken aback by Winry's reaction to Mikayla's name. "You know her?"

"Sadly..." Winry muttered, continuing her work on Nami's auto-mail. "I really don't like her...you remember Ed don't you?"

"Uh, not really," Nami answered truthfully. "But I've heard enough about him with the whole Father disaster. Why?"

"Well, her and Ed use to date but then she left and we thought she died... then two and a half years later she came back. By this time I had confessed to Ed and he accepted my feelings. I thought maybe he had gotten over her but when she came back the look on his face said that he still loved her." Winry explained, "And today... he broke up with me..."

Nami patted Winry on the shoulder. "I'm sorry Winry," she said sympathetically. "You deserve better than him, okay?"

"Thank you Nami..." Winry sniffed, "Well I'm all done. Next time you come we might need to do more adjusting because you're growing."

"Curse my tallness," Nami joked. She stood up and stretched out her leg. "Okay, thanks Winry. I'll see you around, 'kay?"

"Okay, bye Nami," Winry smiled and hugged her friend before putting her tools away. Nami turned and walked out of the room, only to bump into someone and fall to the floor.

"I'm sorry!" The person said quickly, "Are you alright?"

Nami grabbed onto the hand stretched out in front of her and pulled herself up.

"I'm fine," she said, brushing herself off.

She looked to see who she had bumped into and blinked. There in front of her stood a tall, blond boy with adorable brown eyes.

He smiled, "That's good." Nami turned to leave but stopped when the boy spoke again. "What's your name? I've never seen you here before."

"Nami Clark, I'm a client of Winry's," she said, turning back around. "I'm also an old friend. You?"

"Alphonse Elric, a friend of Winry's." Al replied.

He wanted to get to know the girl a little more but he didn't know how to. The only girls his age he talked to were Winry and Mikayla and they were more like his sisters than anything.

"Well Alphonse, nice to meet you," Nami smiled slightly. "But I must go, I have someone to go visit. It was nice meeting you."

"Yeah, nice meeting you too," Al said. Nami turned and headed downstairs, bidding goodbye to Pinako before leaving.


[Mikayla]

After asking a few people for directions I finally found Kane's house.

"You've got to be kidding me!" I shouted, "He's not freaking home!"

On the door there was a note that said, 'Sorry, out on a mission. Will be back next week. Pinako leave the bullets on the kitchen table.'

"Well the note is dated from last Wednesday so he should be back tomorrow then." Reena said, pointing at the date.

"So where are we supposed to go for the night?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"It was a rhetorical question."

"I smell Ed."

I gave her a look, "What?"

"As in Ed is coming around the corner."

On cue Ed came around the corner and stopped in his tracks, "Mikayla?"

My jaw screwed shut and I couldn't think of anything to say to him.

"Why are you at Kane's house?" He asked.

Noticing that I wasn't going to reply to him anytime soon Reena answered, "He's going to be Mikayla's trainer, but this note says he won't be back till tomorrow."

"I see…"

"What are you doing here?" Reena asked.

"Pinako asked me to drop off Kane's specially made bullets." Ed replied, unlocking the door to the house.

I wasn't going to go in, but Reena took my hand and tugged me inside. Ed set the box of silver bullets on the kitchen table and turned towards us.

"Are you going to be staying here?" He asked.

"Don't know, since Kane's not here we can't exactly ask." Reena replied.

I continued to look at the ground and I could feel his gaze burning my skin.

"Hey look, a puppy dog!" Reena suddenly shouted, "I'm going to go pet it!"

And with that she left the house…WHAT THE HELL! WHO DOES THAT? My jaw dropped as I watched her run out of sight. I was going to strangle her when I saw her again.

I heard Ed start laughed and I turned to glare at him, "That wasn't funny."

"Well it got you to talk to me didn't it?" He grinned.

"Do you guys mind speak or something?"

"Maybe."

I couldn't help but to give a short laugh before making myself look away from him again, "Well I better get going."

"And go where?"

"Don't worry about it. One night sleeping outside won't kill me or I'll go find an inn."

"The nearest inn is twenty miles away."

Well screw that idea, I guess I'll be sleeping in the corn fields.

"Mikayla I-"

"I have to go find Reena to make sure she didn't hurt herself or something. I'll see you later Ed," I interrupted, turning around and trying to make my escape.

"No, wait!"

I was stopped by arms wrapping around my shoulder and Ed resting his chin on my shoulder. Where did he get off wrapping his arms around me?

"Ed, you've got two seconds to let go of me," I growled.

"Can you give me five?"

"Winry's going to be looking for you, now let me go."

"That's the thing…I broke up with Winry."

I spun out of his arms and looked him in the eyes, "What?"

"Mikayla this morning I broke up with Winry. I was only torturing her and myself because… because I still love you."

I think I stared at him for a good two minutes before stuttering, "What?"

"I still love you. I'm sorry I didn't wait long enough."

I felt all my anger and frustration towards him melt away and I felt as if slowly my heart was healing.

"Would you-"

"Edward, what are you doing in my house with a girl?"

I turned and saw a familiar silver-haired man in his mid-twenties. His violet eyes looked at us curiously.

"Kane?" I questioned, "How did you survive getting attacked by the Blade Children?"

Kane looked at me closer, "Mikayla? Are you the one I have to train?"

"Yes, but you never answer my question."

"Well when you and Ed attacked them I was able to bust myself out. I was severely wounded though so I didn't get far but some girl helped me out." Kane replied.

He then turned to Ed and asked, "Did Pinako send you out to leave me my bullets?"

Ed nodded, "Yeah, she has a customer right now."

"Kane the note on your door said you wouldn't be back till tomorrow." I pointed out.

"Got back early. It was an easy mission, some boarder control stuff." He replied, setting his bag on the floor, "I was hoping to catch some sleep but then you show up out of the blue."

"Well so sorry to ruin your day. Didn't Mustang tell you I was coming?"

"He did, I just forgot."

Fail.

"Mikayla, the puppy-"

I stopped Reena in her tracks by glaring at her, "Reena, I would suggest you don't talk to me."

"I love you." She grinned, skipping over to me and hugging me around the waist.

Kane tensed up and look from me to her, "She's a-"

"Ex-Blade Child." Reena interrupted, "I'm not here to kill you."

"Putting that to the side," I said, "Kane, I need a place to stay. If needed I can go the twenty miles to the next inn while I train with you-"

"It's fine, you and Reena can stay in the guest room. I need you here early in the morning and you going twenty miles away would put us off schedule." Kane said, going through the box of bullets on the table to make sure all of them were engineered correctly.

"Thanks Kane," I grinned.

"No problem," He glanced at the clock on the wall, "We start at 8:00 am sharp."

He put the bullets down and walked down the hall with this bag.

"If you and Winry broke up where are you staying?" I asked Ed curiously.

Ed grimaced, "Still at Pinako's but only for a little while. I'm like her grandson so she doesn't really want to kick me out though Winry had a lot to say about that."

"I can imagine." I muttered.

Though he broke up with Winry and told me he loved me, I still felt like I couldn't trust him completely. Well, not yet at least. I still loved him; I just wasn't ready to be with him yet…

I'm so confused…

"Well, I need to get going. Granny probably needs me to run more errands." Ed said, "I'll see you later."

He leaned down to kiss me but stopped short - looking at me for permission.

I'm not there yet…

I leaned in and kissed his cheek, "See you later."

I watched him leave and I felt Reena slap me in the arm asking, "Why didn't you kiss him!"

"I did kiss him." I replied, raising an eye brow.

"No dummy on the lips! I left you purposely in hopes that you would but you didn't!" Reena shouted.

I sighed, "Reena, I'm not there yet."

"What do you mean?"

"I just can't right now. You'll understand when you get older. It's hard to rebound from a two, almost three month break up."

"Do you still love him?"

"Yes Reena, I do."

Reena looked at me for a moment with a look I couldn't read, "Okay… I'm going to go back outside now. I wanna watch the sun set."

I watched her go back outside; wondering what was going through her mind.

It was almost like I was talking to my own child. Like she was trying to understand why the two people she looked up to the most aren't together.

I picked up our things and set them in the guest room where we would be staying.

I wonder what type of training he'll have me do. I wondered, trying to get my mind back on the reason why I was here, I hope he doesn't ship me off to a random island…


Author Corner:

~Hoped you liked it :D

~Hm...I don't think I made any obscure references in this chapter...we might need to change that for next chapter