Disclaimer: I do not own FMA.
Stuff: Vivvaaa Las Vegas! Ha, I love this song. And I'm listening to it now. Hm… Anyway, getting things back on track, sorry for the wait. I decided I should give you some time before I updated, haha. Figures.
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Catalyst
Chapter Six:
"Alice?" Alphonse called as he glanced behind the last bench in the car. "She's not here."
"Excuse me, miss?" Winry asked a young woman sitting with a man, smiling apologetically. "I'm sorry, but have you seen a little girl? She's about this tall," Winry indicated with her hand, "And she has blonde hair… No? Okay, thank you." They traversed to the next car, which was for livestock. A cluster of sheep in a corner of the car welcomed them with their enthusiastic baaing as they slid the door open.
"I don't think she's in here," Winry mused, glancing around. Straw littered the floor of the car, and farther off there were a few goats. Piles of the straw huddled up to the cages, creating mounds around them. Sighing, Winry trudged forward through the yellow stalks of dried vegetation and looked inside and around the cages. "Alice?"
Alphonse helped her, looking skeptical as he plowed through the bedding of straw himself, peering into the cage with the sheep.
"Oop, here she is," Winry said in disbelief, laughing. The girl was curled up on a bed of straw, her hand inside a smaller cage with kittens, her finger absently stroking one while she slept. "She sleeps all the time, that can't be healthy," Al walked over and chuckled at the girl who was asleep on the straw.
"I bet it's more comfortable than the benches," He laughed again, leaning down to pick her up. After a second of adjustment, she was on his back, her head lolling against his back. Winry walked ahead of him, opening doors and warding off odd glances with her own icy glares. It took them a while, but they made it back to the bench, getting a curious glance from Edward.
"You found her," He said, raising an eyebrow. "And there's straw in her hair."
Al sat her down on the bench opposite him and his brother, allowing Winry to pull the stray stalks of straw out of her hair. The girl stirred for a moment, yawned, then made an effort to make herself comfortable. Though every few seconds she'd get a frustrated look on her face, fidget, pause, then repeat the cycle. Winry patted her head, smiling apologetically.
"So what happened? Somebody catch her with their stuff so they threw her in with the sheep?" Edward suggested, an amused look on his face. "I could see that happening."
"Edward Elric!" Winry nearly screamed, standing so suddenly, and attacking him so quickly the people sitting around them and passing by had to stop and see what happened. Edward laid, sprawled across his brother with his leg twitching, a large goose egg forming on his head. Winry stood, frowning angrily, a wrench clenched in her hand.
The girl on the bench stirred again, clenched her hand into a fist and hit the nearest thing to it, which was the back of the bench. Sitting up groggily, she rocked, shaking her hand, a frown mirroring Winry's own. "No wonder I'm always sleeping," She speculated, giving Ed a weird look, "He's always accusing me of stuff that I don't do when I'm trying to rest," Her frown deepened and her hand was turning a faint shade of pink.
"I'm sorry about him," Winry smiled lightly as she sat down, examining her hand. "He's just sour that he has to get a new leg."
"So that's what it is?" Alice asked, blinking. Ed had recovered and sat up, rubbing his head and shooting a glare at Winry. "Do you always hit him in the head with wrenches?" She motioned to the wrench in Winry's hand, a slender eyebrow arched in curiosity.
"Oh, heh, only when he's being a jerk," She smiled.
The train pulled up to the small station outside of Resembool, and they switched trains, riding in relative silence for the hour and a half. Their train pulled to an even smaller station, one that was bare and void of human life. Alice sniffed as she got off the train, examining the countryside.
"So you live in the middle of nowhere?" She asked, crossing her arms. "That's… Different."
"There's a town up ahead, silly," She laughed, lugging her suitcase up the hill. The three followed her quietly, Alice examining the rolling hills, green with handfuls of tanning grass, as winter would be coming in a few months. Farmers smiled and waved at them, some of them asking who their friend was, but otherwise things were relatively straightforward. Eventually, over the crest of a hill, a large yellow house appeared, and Alice stared at it.
"Is that your house?" She asked, noting the sign in front of it, something about automail, but she was too far away to make out anything more. "An automail shop?"
"Mmhm," She grinned. "Who else would Ed go to if he was hobbling around on one leg?"
"Hey…" He protested from behind them, but left off there as they made it to the porch. Alphonse smiled at Alice as the boys went inside, trudging up the stairs before waving to an old woman who came glancing out the door for her absent granddaughter.
"Winry," The old woman said sternly, glancing at the small girl who was staring at her, wide-eyed and fretful. "Who's this?"
Winry twitched, pulled the girl out from behind her, and placed a hand tentatively on her shoulder. "Granny, this is Alice," She explained, "She's from Central."
"Hello Alice," The old woman said, bordering roughly on politeness, though Alice wasn't entirely sure. "I'm Pinako Rockbell," The woman turned her attention back to Winry. "You'd better get your stuff upstairs." Though her tone suggested that she wanted to talk to Winry later. The young blonde shrugged it off, motioning for Alice to follow her upstairs.
"You can stay in the guest room for now," She smiled, showing the girl into a room. There was a small bed in the corner, a window in the center of the far wall, and that was about it. "Sorry if it's a little bare," She laughed, "We usually don't have that many guests."
Alice nodded and sat on the bed, staring at the girl in the doorway, "My room is just down the hall, Pinako's is, too. On the other end of the hall is Ed and Al's, and Rose's," Alice blinked. "Rose is a nice woman, you'll meet her soon," She gave a warm smile and left the room, leaving the door open.
After everybody had settled in, Winry had gone into the workshop to start Ed's leg. Alice, growing bored at having nothing to do, decided to watch her shape the metal and work on the complex circuitry.
"So how does it work?" She asked after a moment, observing the thin red and blue wires that Winry was connecting to the ball of the joint and encasing in expertly curved metal. Winry smiled and explained that the limb was connected to the nerves, and the wires she was connecting now acted as artificial nerves, sending the impulses down to the specified joint that needed to be moved.
"That way he'll have full use of the leg," She finished, smiling, "It's the most advanced prosthetic out there." Alice nodded and went about quietly watching the blonde teen work away, abandoning the leg every so often to grab a different tool, or walk across the room to gather more parts.
Alice helped with small things, getting toolboxes for her when she needed something and didn't have it. Though she soon grew bored again, and decided to help clean the room, which was cluttered with bits of metal, wires, and screws of different sizes and widths. Gathering the items, she found different draws and cubbies that were labeled with letters in numbers in sequence. Frowning, she opened each up, measured the screws to the ones in the draws, and started sorting them out.
"You don't have to do that," Winry said from her work, "I've been meaning to clean this place for a while now."
"It's okay," The girl said quietly, "I have nothing else to do anyway. It's kind of fun."
"If you say so," She laughed, finishing up her work on the leg, or at least what she would do that day. Pinako knocked on the door, opened it, and announced that dinner was ready. The two girls found Edward and Alphonse already at the table, accompanied by a woman with fawn-like hair and bangs of a faint pink shade. Alice blinked as she stared at the woman's hair.
"Is your hair naturally that color?" She asked, curious. The woman smiled shyly at her and explained. Pinako had set a large pot at the center of the table. Small glass bottles of milk were also on the table, for them to fill their glasses. Edward's, she noticed, had water instead.
"You should drink your milk, Ed," Winry scolded, "You'll stay that short forever if you don't."
"What are you talking about?" He nearly screamed, "I'm taller than you are!"
"You're still short for a man," Winry mumbled, turning the look on Edward's face from anger to absolute rage.
"Brother, calm down," Alphonse said calmly as his brother turned dejectedly to his food, frowning as he spooned up some stew, muttering things Winry could only hear bits and pieces of, which was composed of language not fit for a dinner table.
Afterwards, Winry suggested that Alice go to bed and she did, trudging up the stairs quietly before closing her door with a faint click. Pinako waited a moment as Edward retreated back up the stairs as well, and Alphonse helped clean the dishes.
"She didn't have a home," Winry said quietly after a moment, staring down at the dish she was scrubbing. "She was all alone… And with those monsters roaming on the streets…"
Pinako made a gruff sound around a pipe in her mouth, "Those stupid dogs of the state can't seem to keep their noses out of trouble," Apparently the woman had heard about the chimeras.
"She had already been attacked by one," She added, motioning to her shoulder, "It cut her up pretty bad… It's amazing that she survived." She remained quiet for a while, working on washing out the large pot that had served the stew, "You have to let her stay, Granny, she said her parents are dead… And she doesn't have anywhere else to go."
The woman made another noise around her pipe and turned the water off, placing the dishes on a rack to drip. "She can stay," The woman nodded, "But she'll have to earn her keep, I've already got enough slackers living under this roof." She motioned up the stairs, her indications toward Edward. After the dishes were finished, Alphonse went back upstairs, Pinako disappeared up them as well, and Winry made her way into the workshop.
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Other: Well, this chapter was kind of short, too. Really just filler. Interesting stuff will start happening soon, I promise! But I figure you need some time to recuperate from last chapter's oddness.