Sorry for the wait. Again. Lately I've been drawing a lot, not to mention watching me some Tsubasa~ ^.^ And that's not including my normal school work, marching band, dance, etc…
Aaanyways, onto the story! If I'm going to end this chapter where I think I am, the story's going to start getting interesting~ I love the swirlies~ ^.^
"Where are you going?" Ed asked irritably, raising his eyes questioningly as Winry started toward the door.
"The Dublins'," Winry answered shortly, her tool case slung over her shoulder and her hand on the doorknob of their apartment. Ed sat at the living room table, a mess of books, notes, and various papers strewn around him. He and Winry had just gotten into a fight about the research. Again. It was always something stupid, too, like whether this one small detail was important or not; misinformation in the books; forgetting to write something down. She just couldn't stand having Ed breathing down her neck and reproaching her for everything she did for another second longer.
"We're not done here yet," Ed reminded her, his voice clearly showing his impatience.
"Yeah? Well, I am," Winry replied. "If you're so perfect, then do it yourself! At least now I won't get in your way." Opening the door, Winry stepped out into the cool air and let the door slam shut behind her. "Geez, why can't he just leave me alone?" she muttered, pulling her coat tighter about her as a chilly wind passed her by.
Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she walked on until she reached the Dublins' door, then knocked. "Coming!" came the muffled reply from the other side. The voice was high-pitched, so Winry assumed it was Mrs. Dublin. She proved to be correct; a moment later, the woman was ushering Winry in through the door, talking about how cold it was outside or something.
Though Winry wasn't paying much attention. Her fight with Ed that had at first left her furious was now making her feel guilty. It wasn't his fault that they were all stuck here; he was only trying to do his job to the best of his ability. And she hadn't exactly helped, yelling at him like that and leaving all of the work for him to do alone.
Maybe I should go back…Winry thought.
"Ah, Elli, you're here," Mr. Dublin greeted. He had just emerged from his workshop, his faded old jeans already stained with oil and grease and one of his scarred hands holding a wrench. "Good, I was just about to see if you could come over. I need your help on something."
"Sure thing," Winry replied, a sinking feeling in her stomach. She couldn't just leave after coming here; Ed would have to wait for now. She followed Mr. Dublin back into his workshop, carefully closing the door behind her. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light, but she had grown accustomed to it over the past few weeks working in here.
Following Mr. Dublin to one of the tables, Winry looked over what was laid out, mainly the plans. "What is it you need me to do?" she asked.
"Here," Mr. Dublin replied, pointing at one of the plans. "I can't quite get this part right. I wonder if I wrote something wrong in the schematics…?"
Winry looked over the specified plan more carefully, noting each of the details and measurements. "Oh, right here," Winry suddenly said, indicating a small section apart from the rest. "If you adjust this here, then…"
Winry was soon lost in a world of automail and mechanics, just like she always was when she came here. Thoughts of Ed still lingered on the edge of her mind, but not enough to drag her away from her work. Surely Ed could wait for just a little while longer…
"Elli, I need to go do something," Mr. Dublin announced a few hours later, looking down at his watch. "Would you mind if I left you for a bit, or do you want to go home?"
"Oh, no, that's all right," Winry told him. "I'll wait up for you."
"Alright then," Mr. Dublin said, already halfway out the workshop door. "I'll be back in about an hour."
"Got it," Winry replied absently, already completely focused what she had been working on a minute before.
She barely heard the door close behind her with a sharp click, nor the ticking of the clock as nearly a half hour passed before she finally set down her completed part. It was one of the most important pieces of the prototype that she and Mr. Dublin were creating, and also one of the weakest points. It allowed the entire upper body to move, also controlling the strength in that area.
Wiping the back of her hand across her forehead, Winry smiled as she looked over the tables around the room. Most of the pieces were already finished; all that was left was to assemble them. Even that would take a little while though, maybe another day or two. She couldn't wait to see the results of all their hard work, no matter what she thought of the idea of automail for someone who didn't need it.
As she was gazing around the room, Winry's eye caught on something. On one of the messy stacks of paper had fallen over, though it was tucked so far back behind one of the filing cabinets pushed back up against the wall that she had never noticed it before. She stood and walked over to them, wondering if she should try to straighten the room up since she was done.
However, when she bent over the papers, she nearly gasped. Looking back at the door in case Mr. Dublin came back, she started shifting through the papers, looking at all of them carefully, but hurriedly in case he arrived sooner than he had said. All of them were profile sheets on the missing officers. She had read the list of names so many times that she recognized them immediately.
Winry only had to flick through the first few sheets before she realized what they all had in common. Under a section titled Previous Commanders, the same name was listed: Colonel Avalier. The name rang a bell, but it took a moment for her to remember that he was the officer she had accidentally looked up instead of another. But what was more interesting was the fact that his name hadn't come up when she and Ed had looked up these profiles countless times before.
Pulling her tool bag over to her, Winry shuffled through it until she picked out her notebook. It had been worn around the edges and was nearly full, but she soon found the section where she had recorded the information on Colonel Avalier. She reread the part about him wanting to change the military before abruptly disappearing, then peered at the picture; closely. Even more than before, his picture looked familiar to her. Where had she seen him before…?
Then it hit her: he looked just like Mr. Dublin. Looking back at the profiles of the missing officers, she quickly scanned the summaries, finding exactly what she had dreaded. All of them had been loyal supporters of Colonel Avalier's ideas, participating in his campaigns before he had disappeared and even continuing on with his ideals after he was gone.
Was Mr. Dublin actually Colonel Avalier? Was he gathering his supporters around him and getting ready to attack the military out of revenge, or perhaps for reform? Glancing back at the nearly completed automail, Winry had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She had to tell Ed.
Grabbing some of the profiles and the plan of what she had been working on earlier, she stuffed them in her notebook on the page with Colonel Avalier before jamming it into her bag. Practically running out of the door, she wondered if Mrs. Dublin knew about all of this. Better safe than sorry.
"Sorry, Mrs. Dublin, I forgot it was my turn to cook dinner tonight," Winry said as she hurried towards the front door. "My friends will get mad if I don't get home soon. Please give Mr. Dublin my apologies."
"Alright dear," Mrs. Dublin called after her. "I'll be sure to pass on the message."
"Thank you," Winry replied as she shut the door behind her and ran to the door of her own apartment. She fumbled as she tried to get the key to turn in the lock, not even conscious if this would look suspicious to anyone watching them or not.
As soon as the lock clicked open, she burst through the door, shutting and locking it behind her, still aware that she couldn't just leave it open for someone dangerous to come walking right in. "Ed!" she called, racing to the living room.
It was empty. The books that had earlier littered the table had been cleaned up, though there were still traces that someone had just been working there recently in the pens that were set on the table along with a few scraps of paper. Grabbing up one of the pens, Winry quickly jotted down something.
"Ed, are you here?" she asked loudly, still scribbling on the piece of paper. Setting it down, she hid her tool case under the couch, then quickly went down the hall to the boys' room. "Ed?" she asked, knocking on the door.
"Winry, what is it?" Ed grumbled groggily from the other side. "Do you know what time it is?"
"It's only nine, Ed," Winry responded, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, but since you left me to do all that work, I'm exhausted," Ed retorted. Winry felt a tinge of guilt in her stomach, but she pushed it down. If she hadn't left Ed, she wouldn't have found out about Colonel Avalier and Mr. Dublin.
"I found something really important," Winry said, her voice insistent. "Come here, you have to see it."
"Winry, this isn't another one of your automail stories, is it?" Ed sighed in exasperation. "I just want to get some sleep; can't it wait?"
"No, it isn't one of my 'automail stories!'" Winry exclaimed. "And no, it can't wait! Ed, it has to do with the missing officers! They were all–Mmff!"
Winry was jerked back as a hand clamped tightly around her mouth, pulling her back at the same time that a sharp pain hit her shoulder. She tried to scream, but the hand around her mouth was too strong; she couldn't even whimper from the flaring burst of agony in her shoulder. Trying to make some sort of sound, she kicked out at the wall, only managing to make a small thud before being pulled back again.
"Winry!" Ed exclaimed. She hadn't noticed when, but the door to Ed's room had been opened and he stood there now. His face was a mask of contorted rage as he ran forward, prepared to kick Winry's assaulter, whoever he or she was. Before he could do anything, however, another person had come up behind him.
Winry screamed, trying to warn him, but too late. The person struck Ed down, hitting him over the head with something that Winry couldn't see in the dimness of the hall. She couldn't stop the tears that started streaming down her face as she saw him lying on the floor there, motionless.
She wanted to run over to him and have him say to her that it was okay, that everything was okay. Instead, she was being dragged away by someone she couldn't see as she tried to dig in her heels. The last thing she thought was that she wished she hadn't been fighting with Ed. That if she had known that could've possibly been their last conversation they ever had together, she would have changed it.
Then, everything went dark.
How cliché of an ending line is that? I think it's very much so, but that's how I'm going to end it, so oh well. ^.^
How'd you like it? Sorry it wasn't very long, I ran out of inspiration at the end. I finally got to something interesting, though! Hooray! 8D
I still haven't decided how I want to end this yet. You know me and my depressing writing; I've been debating whether or not to kill a character. Shocker, isn't it? :P Guess we'll see, then. Don't worry, at least one of the pairings will survive to see the end…Maybe. :P
Please review and leave me some concrit~