Judging from the poll on my profile, it seems a lot of you want to see Vagabonds before I take off! So here's another chapter, and I guess I'll be devoting more time to it from now on. :D
Don't forget to check out Ferio Wind's illustrations. They're really gorgeous, and they're all linked in my profile!
Ed's conversation with Winry seemed like such a deeply personal thing that Alphonse had trouble staying in the same room as Ed tangled himself in the phone cord. So he stepped outside and ushered Rose out with him. Pinako had already gone to bed and Kain had already been put to bed, and now it was just Ed and Al and Rose awake and too alert from the day's unusual events to even consider sleep at the moment.
Al couldn't help but notice the googly-eyes that Rose continually cast in his brother's direction. Honestly, he'd tried not to notice. He'd pointedly forced his eyes in the other direction during dinner when she'd stolen his place next to Ed or when he first noticed that some part of her had been touching his brother since she walked in the door – because Rose's intentions had been easy to write off as nothing serious in the wake of their miraculous return at first. But it was clear that she had no intention of backing down anytime soon, and even now, as Ed's face twisted in something like pain and he whispered into the receiver in an attempt to find some semblance of privacy, Rose was there, seated at the kitchen table with her head on her hand and her lips curled in a dreamy smile.
Rose flashed her eyes at Ed again and seemed almost disappointed to find him too engrossed in the faltering conversation to notice as she rose to her feet and walked slowly out the door with Alphonse – as if she thought he would turn around to stop her. He didn't, and Al had known he wouldn't because Edward didn't love Rose no matter how much she wanted him to. Just as he didn't love Noa or Winry despite their strong intentions toward him, just as he never really took the approaches of any barmaid seriously. That was just his brother. He had some sort of sex drive anyway, because Al was vaguely aware that he wasn't a virgin anymore (though he really didn't want to know the story behind that, honestly, this was his brother and associating Ed with sex was just – disgusting), but aside from that, Ed seemed inclined to let commitment to women fall to the wayside in favor of protecting them with everything he had left to give and maintaining a safe, peaceful distance in the meanwhile. Ed was a coward like that and Al was aware of it, but he was proud if only because it was more mature than taking advantage of these women and seeking a purely sexual relationship with someone who cared for him much more deeply.
Rose stepped out into the cool summer air behind him and shut the door softly. Al leaned against the fading white banister of the back porch and eyed the twinkling lights of the town below, noting with a lazy sort of intensity that there hadn't been that many lights three years ago. Huh. What a funny thing it was to imagine a constant place like Risembool changing. He heard Rose approach from behind on the squeaking of the wooden porch, soft-footed. He glanced over as she took a similar position beside him, but instead let her eyes drift upward toward the stars.
"Rose," he said.
"Hmmm?" she murmured back, let her eyes fall to him. When he didn't say anything, she asked, "Al, what was that big display in the living room before dinner?"
Al puffed out his cheeks and let his hands fall loose and limp in front of him. Somewhere beyond the screen door Ed had started raising his voice. Al couldn't hear the words, but it had gone thin and reedy and grating and high, which said he was probably defending himself from an onslaught of automail-induced verbal abuse.
"I did something back then. You remember how – how desperate I was?"
"I remember you throwing yourself onto a suit of armor flying into a massive glowing purple abyss, if that's what you mean."
"Hah. Yeah. Well, I – trusted someone I probably shouldn't've because he told me I could get Edward back. And I did, I did get him back, so I can't say I regret it entirely, but ultimately it was me who let the Thule – those ships, the soldiers – into Central."
"What about Liore?"
"Naw, that wasn't me."
Rose inhaled sharply and glanced back toward the house just as something heavy hit the wall behind them. "I see," was all she said, voice wavering like she'd been betrayed again.
"Rose – "
"But it's not as if – you weren't controlling them like they say, were you?"
"No, no. Of course not. It was Ed 'n I who defeated the ships in the end, actually."
She breathed a sigh, but it didn't sound relieved, and all she said was, "Oh," in a bereft sort of exhale. Something else hit the wall behind them, and it sounded a bit heavier. Al desperately hoped that Ed hadn't thrown the telephone. Telephones were damn complicated and he was out of practice just yet. Their back-up plan for paying for repairs was out too, given that it was rather hard to access money in a state bank account when you were wanted by the state. Funny how that works.
They sat in silence for another awkward moment, Rose twiddling with some little gadget on her wrist and Al gazing at the distant Risembool city lights.
"Al," Rose said suddenly. "I know you don't remember – remember back then, but – "
"I do, actually." Rose's face lit a little at that.
"What?"
"I do remember before. When I was in armor."
Rose's face lit in a sudden smile. "Al, that's fantastic! No more stories, then. You really know who I am!"
"Well, yes, though then I was much better acquainted with the top of your head…" She smiled warmly and slapped the back of her hand playfully against his biceps. When he laughed, she scooted a bit closer, abandoning all pretenses that the three year absence had thrust between them, and laid her head on his shoulder. He looked down, and he could only see dark lashes above the crest of her cheeks, the gentle slope of her nose below wispy bangs. She really was a beautiful woman – it was his brother's own fault he hadn't noticed.
"I didn't know you as well as some others in the time before. But sometimes I would still touch you, after you got your body back, and wonder at how warm you were."
Al wondered at that as well. He still did. It gave him goosebumps to think about how hot his blood ran beneath his skin – to think about blood running beneath his skin at all. The time before was hard to connect to the time of now, because it was hard to relive something so utterly sensationless when even the slightest bit of wind or the feeling of a seat or the ground beneath him or the tickling rasp of clothing always assaulted him now. He couldn't think of any way to describe it because it really had been absolutely nothing. He had an inclination to call it 'cold' now, but it hadn't been that either.
Back then, he would have given anything he still had to give to feel some sort of chill.
She sighed wistfully, and Al felt her burrowing slightly at his arm. "You still are… Al. You remember the time before then."
"Yes."
"Ed…he – "
Al let out an unconscious groan. "Rose – "
"No! There was something there, Al, there was." Uncertain pause. "…Wasn't there?" She added the last bit as if she was afraid of the answer, doubtful and meek. Ed's return had no doubt manifested that tone. Days before, when their return had seemed like nothing but a far off dream, it had probably been easy to convince herself that of course Ed was interested in her, and of course Ed had been in love with her, and of course Ed would make a suitable replacement for every man that had left her high and dry – if only he would just come home.
But now he was home, and it wasn't difficult to see that Ed didn't feel the same way, that he was happy to see Rose and pleased to be back with her, but she had only received the same hug that Pinako had gotten – one of friendly or even sisterly affection – and that was all that she was ever going to get.
"Rose, I'm not sure you understand my brother."
"I'd like to know him better!"
"No, no. It's not that. There are some things that no one but me will ever understand about him. And it's just that – I've observed that his…eh." Al didn't want to start in on scientific terms and start diagnosing his brother like some sort of lab speciman, but in a way that was accurate. Consistent scientific observation was the only way to really crack Ed's shell. Otherwise, his movements were just too damn sporadic to find any sort of pattern in.
But Al had been on surveillance duty for his whole life, and he was well aware that that was the only way Ed would allow himself to be judged anyway.
"Ed is somewhat crippled in his capacity to maintain a relationship. It's nothing that's your fault, Rose – he's just lost too many people he was close to."
"That's not true, he loves – "
"He just doesn't have the ability to protect as many people as he would want to were he to get close to them." Quietly, Al admitted, "So he doesn't. Not anymore."
"But you – "
"I'm one person, and I nearly exhaust him!" Not by choice. If he didn't know it would crush his brother, he would have told him ages ago that he didn't need protecting. That he didn't have to go spitting mad after every person that dared to impugn his little brother's honor. Rose looked down, pained expression on her face. She looked utterly torn.
"I do remember the time before now. Back then Ed tried to distance himself so many times, and every time he ended up getting attached again. I think – I think he finally decided to break it all off when he left. When everyone he knew just went away. He had no one, and even though he was trying desperately to get everyone back, I can't imagine how – how infinitely painful it would have been to have no one." Al didn't like like to imagine that sort of thing. It always left him feeling down, the implications of two years of isolation. They had no doubt changed his brother in very subtle ways, as Al had been able to realize shortly after his memories were returned to him.
Rose was still looking down when Al looked back over, and he tried to raise her eyes to his with sheer will, begging her to understand that Ed didn't want to be hurt again, that Ed probably wouldn't ever love her the way she wanted him to and that it would be easier to accept that than to make his brother uncomfortable and skittish and shy with her advances. But instead, he saw her shift and tighten her knuckles on the banister in the moonlight. Her teeth grazed her lip, ghostly pale specters against the darkness of her face.
"Rose?"
"I did something stupid, Alphonse," she whispered.
"Come on now, it's not that bad, I just don't want you to get hurt."
"Not that. Something worse."
"…Rose?"
"I told Kain that…that his father was the Fullmetal Alchemist."
Almost a full minute later, Alphonse didn't even realize he hadn't spoken, that his mouth was hanging open stupid with shock, until Rose looked up and her eyes were as pale as her teeth, stark on a vibrant face.
"I – Rose, what the hell! My brother was – fifteen!"
"Don't tell him! Please, don't. I thought you weren't coming back, and saying – how do you explain rape to a six year old boy, Alphonse!? He's his hero."
"Fifteen!"
"I'm sor – "
"Winry's coming!" Alphonse turned abruptly to the sound of the screen door slamming against the outer wall. Ed was suddenly there and beaming, hat tilted rakishly to the side and braid slung sloppily over his shoulder. "She's getting on a late train in an hour and she'll be here sometime tomorrow – I told her to wait and take her time, so don't act like I didn't Al, but she's coming anyway." Al lifted his lips in a faltering smile.
"That's great, Ed." Rose didn't even try to smile with him.
It was only then that Ed seemed to notice the stillness, the awkward haze above the chirping of cicadas. "…What's wrong with you two?" Ed lifted an eyebrow. "Did I miss something?"
But before either of them could answer, Granny Pinako was yelling down the stairs to tell them to get in bed already, and they were helpless but to obey. The Elrics retreated to a room they hadn't slept in in a very long time, with twin beds that were too short for Al now, but fit Ed quite snugly indeed.
Ed slept very soundly.
Ed stepped out of his old room at noon the next day, shut the door quietly so as not to wake Al, and then very nearly landed on a little boy. Kain looked up at him with painfully hopeful eyes as Ed sputtered out some kind of mangled German expletive – the same eyes that had implored him to feel some kind of fatherly affection the night before. Ed rubbed a hand over his face and combed it back into his loose hair. It hung lank and greasy behind him, waved girlishly from the braid, and he wanted nothing more than a nice hot shower.
But then the little boy was right beside him, delicately running little fingers over his automail arm, sleek and shining and very poorly hidden beneath a thin white undershirt. Ed flinched back automatically at having his personal space so blatantly violated, but the little boy didn't seem to notice and continued his quiet exploration of Ed's automail arm.
"Cool," he said under his breath, and smiled up at Ed. Ed shot helpless whithering glances in both directions down the hallway, pleading quietly for Rose or Pinako to come and save him, please. Then, the tingling little sensation of something turned into full blown whoa-why-the-hell-is-there-a-hand-there when Kain touched the delicate scar tissue just beneath the hem of the boxer shorts Ed had slept in. Ed really did flinch back then, abruptly jerking his leg away, and Kain looked up, wide-eyed.
"Does it hurt?" he said.
"Naw," he said in feigned nonchalance, putting his foot down next to Kain again with a soft click against the hard wood hallway. "It's just weird is all, kid."
"…Did it hurt?"
Ed quirked his lips, hoped that his expression was adequately distant. "Yeah. But there are worse things."
"I want automail."
Ed couldn't help but laugh a little. He had spent so long trying to get rid of his. "I really doubt that. It's useful, but don't go hacking your arm off to get one. There are worse things than the pain, but it's still not worth it."
"I've seen Aunt Winry making it. She says it doesn't hurt so much as it used to. She said it's getting better."
Ed did smile at that. "That's good to hear. Your Aunt Winry's going to come work on me today."
There was silence for a moment, filled only by Ed scratching at his head again as Kain continued to block his way to the blessed bathroom with his mild contemplation of Ed's automail foot. He let out a loud, frustrated sigh.
"Look, Kain – "
"Yeah, Dad?"
"You – " Whoa. Whoa.
Wait.
Hold the phone.
"Kain, what –"
Al chose that moment to emerge from the door to their shared bedroom, bumping into him from behind. It was clear that he didn't quite have his eyes open yet, because he rubbed stupidly at them for a moment before walking right into him again. Then he seemed to realize that he hadn't just walked into the doorframe, and he opened bleary eyes to Ed with what was sure to be an absolutely horrified expression on his face and Kain looking admiringly up at them both. He promptly turned on the heel of his foot, arms still raised and rubbing at nonexistent sleep, and even dumb as Ed was with shock, he recognized the groggy recognition for what it was.
"Al, you – !"
"I don't know anything!"
There was a sharp, grisly knock on the door downstairs. All three froze for a moment before Kain took off running down the stairs, arms out wide and flapping like a bird as he trounced down the steps. "I'll get it!" he singsonged, like he didn't have a care in the world. Al attempted to use the distraction as an opportunity to get the door closed, but Ed's automail fingers were prying at the wood before Al could pull the lock. Ed was pushing at the door, watching his fingers dent at the wood and flake the paint when he heard Granny shout something frantic from the kitchen beneath them. The resistance from the other side stopped, and he knew that Al had realized something at the exact same time he had.
The implications of someone knocking at the door. It could be a patient or a neighbor or a policeman or a military man, but regardless, Ed and Al couldn't be seen. Ed suddenly went from being pushed away from the room to being hastily pulled inside as Granny grandly announced the arrival of a neighbor that Ed remembered. He had repaired their barn once, if he recalled correctly.
Al huddled close to him and they both crowded against the door. After a brief squabble for the area at the floorboards (which Al won without too much trouble) Ed settled for putting his ear against the door and settling his breath to a shallow, hardly-there rasp. He could almost hear the conversation clearly, and Al filled him in on most of the bits he missed.
"I – Elrics are here," said a gruff voice. "Hand them – want – reward."
" – don't – what you're talking about." Pinako. Cold and unyeilding as usual.
"They know we're here, Ed," Al said in a ghost of a whisper against the floor boards.
"I know – sons but – forever."
"Granny's going to get herself killed, this guy sounds serious," Ed said, scraping unconsciously at the door.
"You're crazy." Ed heard that clearly enough and felt his lips quirk.
"Where – they? You looked – stairs, they – close – "
The conversation must have moved closer to the stairs then, because Ed heard footsteps and then the dialogue was much clearer. Ed was almost certain that Granny wouldn't let him upstairs, but he glanced around the room just in case. There was a window that he could escape from without too much trouble – if he'd done it when he was eight and scrawny, he could do it now easily enough. Al squirmed uncomfortably beneath him.
"I saw the papers this morning, Pinako. They're back in Amestris, they were a few scant miles from here just the other day – "
"Mr. Flint, I would appreciate it if you would get out of my house. The boys are dead; I've told you before." Granny had some good acting skills. When she'd said dead, there was a peculiar sort of pained bite to the word that Ed wouldn't have heard if he didn't know his Granny so well. His pride didn't last long in the face of the realization that her expertise had probably come from genuine pain. He never did think about how Granny had reacted to their initial disappearance. This man was right, they were like sons to her. How hard it must have been –
"Listen Pinako, I appreciate all you've done for the town and everything – but I just can't condone harboring mass murderers. Those kids are crazy. I know they came up here the last time they were on the run, we've all seen the destruction up by the old forest path. My wife won't feel safe until I bring home their heads."
Ed wondered vaguely where this man got off thinking that he could take two (falsely accused) notorious murderers down alone. Were they really the murderers he sought, they could have killed him five times over by now, they could have eaten him alive the moment that he walked through the door. Hell, the stupid man had even knocked. Ed had little doubt that his pigheadedness had a lot to do with the inexplicable swelling of the brain that accompanies the possibility of wrangling a reward the size of Ed and Al's.
"You won't find them here. They're dead. Now take your silly axe and go home, you stupid boy."
Yeah! You tell 'im Pinako!
"I said move, you little – " There was a brief scuffling of boots and then a single pound on the bottom stair step before another very familiar voice entered the fray.
"Mr. Flint, may I ask why you're brandishing that axe at my Grandmother?" There was a heavy metallic thud that could only be a toolcase dropping, and then slow, almost dainty, steps across the floor beneath them. Al twitched under him, cast a brief anxious glance up in his direction.
Winry.
Well, Mr. Flint was pretty well fucked now. Ed smiled smugly into the door. It was good to know he wouldn't have to scramble out a second story window in his boxer shorts.
"They're not here. We've told you they're not coming back, so why do you keep doing so?"
Ed and Al shifted in silence above them as Winry quietly convinced the man below that they didn't exist. The irony was delicious.
After Winry arrived, the tone dropped to a whisper that Ed and Al could barely hear over the old house noises. Creaking pipes and shifting floorboards and groaning ventilation shafts. Then suddenly there was a slammed door. Al jumped to his feet, rushed over to the window, and leaned out a bit. He gave a gleefully detailed report of their guest lumbering down the dirt road with his head hung in shame. Ed was almost certain that some of it was exaggerated, but that was just alright with him.
When Al shut the window and approached him again, neither of them spoke. They were both unavoidably aware of the stillness on the floor beneath them, the hushed quiet of people restraining themselves. Even Kain's high voice didn't register. They were waiting – they were waiting to see if he would come back.
"Al. Did you hear – Granny could've gotten hurt."
Al nodded. "More will be figuring it out. It must already be in the papers."
If only they hadn't met that damnable little girl!
"We – can't stay. It was stupid to come here anyway, damnit!"
"It wasn't our fault, Ed. Calm down. How could we have known?"
They couldn't've. They couldn't – but.
A wrench flew through the door. Blearily, Ed realized that his world had tipped sideways, but he could see from Alphonse sort of chortling over him that this wasn't any sort of horrible threat. Just –
"Winry! Damnit, why don't you ever throw anything at him!?" Ed sat up and rubbed tentatively at the swelling lump on his head, sulkily popping out his bottom lip.
"Reflex. He couldn't feel it and then for the longest time he was just so little and cute that I couldn't."
"Hey!" Al squawked.
"Well." Winry approached them slowly, feet tapping rhythmically in some long-heeled boot that she wouldn't have been caught dead in when he knew her. She eyed Al up and down. "Not so cute anymore." A wrench appeared again out of nowhere, and Al pitched sideways too. She toed him and grunted in a satisfied way when he whimpered and twitched.
"Welcome back." She smiled, and Ed lifted his eyes from her boots to her face, happy and wonderful and heaven help him, was that make-up there?! She extended her hand, and Ed felt his eyes creeping down her arm. Broad shoulder, firm muscles (he remembered those), but her fingers were long and slender, ending in finely sculpted fingernails that definitely didn't belong there. He took her extended hand with his right and just barely felt the tender squeeze there.
"You look good," he said as she helped him up.
"You look thin," she said, then pulled her hand out of his and cupped his cheek with it. Her eyes roved over his face with a painfully tender sort of intensity. "And ungroomed. I think you could use a shave."
"Sure, help him up," Al grouched from the ground. Winry turned to help him too, laughing again, and Ed noted her full figure, slender waist and softly curved hips. She'd really grown into herself. Maybe she had finally realized just how lovely she had always been.
"I was just about to take a shower when – " a little boy mistook me for his father? " – that asshole came to the door."
"Ah, don't mind Mr. Flint. He's been coming here since you two disappeared the first time. His farm isn't doing so well, and he would do anything to keep it from going under." Al straightened himself out – he, unlike Ed, had bothered to dress himself.
"Breakfast then?" he chirped cheerily.
"Try lunch, Al. It's nearly one," said Winry. Al eyed Ed guiltily before making a beeline for the door, and Ed shot him his best we'll-discuss-this-later face.
Al left, leaving Ed and Winry alone in a comfortable silence.
"Thank you," Ed whispered after a moment.
"Don't be silly, Edward."
"No. I mean it."
"You told me on the phone. Has this been tearing you up? It's really no big deal, it's just what I do."
"I can't – I can't tell you how much it meant. Back then." He clenched his automail hand, let his eyes drop to it.
"I knew you were coming back," she said warmly. "I'd always known then. I wasn't so sure when you left three years ago, but here you are again. Come on, let's go to the workshop."
"I should get dressed…" he made a half-hearted gesture at the dusty rags lying heaped at the foot of his bed.
"Why, so you can take them off again? Just c'mon."
He followed her out of the room and down the central stairs. They passed Rose on the way there, and while Winry paid her very little mind, Ed couldn't help but notice the way that she eyed him hungrily up and down, possessive and strange in the face of a new female presence. He couldn't help but think of poor Kain, wherever he was. Misguided kid, who honestly thought Ed would be able to stick around and do – what? Teach him to play catch? Ed had hardly had a normal childhood himself, Rose had picked a pretty shitty father figure to foist onto him.
…Had she honestly told him that he was his son? Ed desperately wanted to believe that that was an assumption Kain had made himself. But something about the boy's expression said otherwise.
"Ed? Are you still with me? Sit down." Ed did. Right on a stool on the side of the workroom he hadn't realized they'd reached in all his consideration.
"Not there, stupid. Over there." She pointed to a reclining patients' chair, red and covered in fresh crispy paper. That was definitely new – Ed had always just used the living room couch. "Granny decided that the den wasn't cutting it for check-ups anymore." Her lips quirked up at a memory that Edward had very obviously missed. "Look at us, we're almost a proper business now."
Ed moved to the patients' chair and scootched tentatively onto the paper. It crackled loudly in the cold, clinical quiet of the room. There was no carpet, no wallpaper – just the stark white of the walls and the harsh linoleum beneath them. It was such a far cry from the last environment he'd last had a "check-up" in that it was almost humorous.
Winry pulled up a stool beside him as he loudly settled into place, suddenly feeling open and vulnerable under her watchful eye. She propped her chin in her hand and her hand on her knee, bent double and silently considering him. Her eyes traced down his forehead and over his face, past the muscles at his chest and the sinews pulling on his arms. When she reached the hem of his shorts, he blushed and made a weak effort to cover himself in order to retain some sliver of his pride. He'd never been concerned before, he knew, but Winry had never been a girl before, either.
"How've you been?" she said, eyes still roving over his features.
"Eh, it's been alright. The elbow sticks a bit sometimes and the ports never fucking stopped aching over there – "
"No, no, Ed. How've you been?"
Ed looked at her, blinked owlishly. "Ah, sometimes I forget you think about more than the metal parts of me." Her smile went a little sour and desperate.
"Of course I do. You know that."
"Yeah. Yeah, I know."
"So?" she urged.
"I've actually been – alright. Better than I had been before, when you saw me the last time. I – Al's a really great kid."
"He looks good." She gently eased his arm up onto the rest beside him and gestured with a waving roll of her wrist. Keep talking.
"He is good. He keeps me in check."
"He has more meat on his bones than you do." Ed plucked up the fabric of the tank top at his chest and billowed it out once. He was admitedly a bit thin, but he'd always been slender, and food hadn't exactly been plentiful in war-torn Germany and America. She smoothed her hands down his shoulder. "That shouldn't be. He's certainly grown more."
Ed jerked his head up at that, and Winry laughed. "Al's got baby fat! I'm all muscle," Ed said, and snorted.
"Yeah tell me about it. You've not got an ounce of fat – that's not healthy, either."
"What, are you my mother now?"
"Excuse me for worrying after you've been gone for three years, Ed. For all I knew, you were dead." She gave him another dangerously hard look. "Look at us, we're still fighting like children." Ed resisted the urge to stick his tongue out.
Just then, Winry apparently decided that Ed hadn't been paying enough attention to the movements around his shoulder, because in a quick jerking motion, Winry had unhooked his arm from the shoulder socket. He gasped loudly in the sheer surprise of suddenly seeing the arm that had been there for three years on his lap, along with the utterly startling feeling of just having an appendage go missing. His brain didn't quite know what to do with the signals it had been sending there, so it flashed white fireworks in front of his eyes instead. Not a painful feeling – just a strange one.
"Winry!" he said breathlessly.
"Don't be a baby."
"Fuck, do you realize how long it's been since I took it out?" He reached up to finger the hole in his shoulder numbly, paper still crinkling obscenely loud behind him. "How would you feel if I just yanked out your arm right now?"
"I'd be grateful, because then I could try out a few prototypes myself. Now sit back and let me clean it." Ed did. Winry got up and puttered around the workroom for a moment gathering supplies, and the familiarity of it all was almost astounding. She returned and set about cleaning it immediately – always a strange feeling, a cloth tickling over nerves that were never meant to be exposed.
"Win – "
"I have a boyfriend. A serious boyfriend." Ed did a doubletake.
"That's – good. Winry?"
"You took too damn long, bastard."
He didn't know how to respond to that.
"Winry. Al and I – can't stay anyway." If anything, he'd learned that from Mr. Flint's visit. Risembool would be the first place they looked for them. Ed almost didn't catch Winry reaching toward her face with the oil-stained cleaning cloth, but there were tears there. Damnit, there always were.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I told myself I wouldn't."
"S'okay, it's just – " Ed squirmed in his discomfort and Winry thwapped at him with the towel. When did women start liking him? Why did girls have to complicate things? Winry didn't used to be a woman, when the hell had that happened?
"I know you can't stay, you never can stay. When'll you be gone this time? A week, a month – for how long!? We just got you back, for God's – where the hell did you even go?"
"If it were up to me, I wouldn't leave this time! It's not my fault we're into all this," he gesticulated wildly with his left hand, "shit over here!"
"I've got a petition," she said desperately. "The prime minister is a mostly fair man, he'll listen, he will!"
"You sound like Al," Ed mumbled. "I never figured you the idealistic sort."
"And I never knew you were so goddamn jaded, Ed! You've never lost hope before, you just have to fight!"
Fight, fight, fight. Ed was tired of fighting.
"Winry, don't make this harder –" Ed said. He knew he was wheedling, but Winry always did this to him, damnit. "I don't want you to get hurt – you saw what almost happened to Granny down there."
"How noble of you Edward, God forbid little old me get hurt." Her cleaning went a little rough then, and she was swiveling the cloth wildly inside his dirty port.
"Damnit, Winry! Not so hard!" She wrenched her hand particularily violently in the socket once more before she turned on the stool and presented him quite abruptly with her back.
"When are you leaving?" she asked, and it warbled dangerously in her throat.
"I dunno. I'll have to talk to Al," he answered quietly. "Soon, probably."
"I'm sorry."
"No, I'm – I've never been fair to you."
"I thought. When you called. I thought you were going to tell me something else."
"I'm no good at relationships, Win. You know that."
She turned around, and he saw oil and tear stained cheeks. "You'd better not tell Rose that. She seems to think you're going to whisk her away on a white horse or something."
Ed rolled his eyes up and flopped loudly against the chair. "Geez, why don't any of you guys like Al? He's the nice one, not me."
Winry jabbed him in the ribs under his port. "It's your irresistible charm. We can't keep ourselves away." She sniffed hard and looked him in the eye. Just like that there was understanding. You know what I am and what I have to do. She'd always known, he knew, but just like six years had given Rose a false image of him, three years and a tender moment and three more had convinced Winry there was something there between them that never was. Winry was able to realize, he only hoped that Rose could too.
…He also hoped he didn't meet up with Sheska anytime soon only to find that she'd interpreted the cook book as a love letter and the military stipend as a confession.
"Ahh, shaddup." Pause. "Winry do you know what – what Rose tells Kain about me?"
She wiped at her eyes once more and scooted the work bench over the linoleum toward his outstretched leg. "I don't know; I don't see Rose so much anymore. We're usually in different parts of the country. He really has a soft spot for you, though."
"I'd noticed," he said half-heartedly and sighed.
She worked on his leg for a moment more in silence, disconnecting it the same way she had the arm. Ed didn't cause a fuss – he wasn't sure Winry would stand for it, now. And it wasn't quite so much of a shock the second time around.
Finally, after she had properly cleaned both ports and set about attaching a spare leg, Ed spoke up.
"Boyfriend, huh?" She blushed. "Serious boyfriend?"
"In…so many words."
"What does that mean?"
"It means he's a cute guy I equipped with an automail leg, okay?"
"Thigh-high? Did he lose it all the way to the – "
"Edward!" Her face went three shades darker.
"I'm just saying – "
"You know I only like you because you're the only boy I know with two pieces of automail."
"Machine geek," he said fondly as he gained his feet, tentatively tapping the spare on the linoleum.
"Alchemy freak," she responded with a soft smile.
Truce.
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