Disclaimer: I don't own FMA. Honestly, I'm only 16. Do you think I could draw that well when it started? No. On that note, I don't think I can draw all that well now...

Warnings:Some language in this chapter. You are warned. Don't yell at me about it.

Chapter Fourteen

Edward sat silently in his white-sheeted bed, listening to the monotonous ticking of the clock; the dragging by of each single second. His anger had long since faded, replaced by pain, both physical and emotional. Winry had moved on; had married someone else.

His breath still caught at the sight of her, the cold pain of betrayal stabbing deep into his heart every time he heard her new name. It would take a long time to fade, but it eventually would. He knew because he had already dealt with this pain; shoved it away into the Gate's clutches. He must have, for this pain had never struck him quite like this before.

Of course she would have married. Why would she have done otherwise? He wasn't there, after all. Even if he had been there, would he have made a move? He didn't know if he would have. He hadn't before. The alchemist passed a hand over his eyes, pondering the source of his pain. Perhaps it was because she hadn't married while Al was still there, even when he wasn't. Was it because of Al's resemblance to him that she hadn't given herself away sooner? Or was there another reason that she had waited until he was supposedly gone without a way to return?

He didn't know. He probably never would, but couldn't he ask?

The stupidity of such a decision was blatent. The tensions between Winry and he were high enough that his words might make what was already a poor situation worse. The chances that the situation could get better were slim, and yet he couldn't picture the situation as being much worse than it already was.

After a time the door slid silently open, revealing blonde hair about a beautiful face. He forced himself to meet the blue gaze he knew he would find-

-and found it shuttered against him. He looked down at the sheets, his real hand fisting in the white cloth while she walked closer. The words were caught in his throat.

She worked in relative silence, broken only by his harsh breath through clenched teeth while the nerves were aligned to perfection. The tension in the air made it even harder to breath slowly; to prepare himself for the phrasing of his apology and request. Still, it was not until the end of the adjustments, when her tools were packed away and she was standing to leave, that he spoke.

"Why?" The word tore itself from his throat before he could stop it, then hung there in the air, tolling like the final ring of the death bell. The room went still.

"Why?" Her voice was deceptively soft. "You ask why?" Blue eyes, dark with fury, caught him in their stare. He was trapped in a binding of his own unspoken words. Her eyes flashed. "Because he was there!" Edward flinched. "You never thought of that, did you? Do you have any idea what it was like to lose you, and then think I'd gotten you back only to have you rip yourself away again?"

A cold feeling settled in Ed's stomach. He had known that she was angry, but the sheer vehmenence that Winry was showing stunned him. The pain in her eyes, in her voice, in her entire manner spoke of memories that surfaced from shallow graves, haunting her every moment with him. Nausea, brought on by that dreaded combination of horrified shock and anger churned in his stomach. "Winry--" he started, but the blonde mechanic would not be deterred.

"Of course you don't! How could you possibly understand what I felt?"

I can't. He wanted to say. I can't understand what you went through. I didn't consider it. I buried my feelings too deep.

There was a sudden silence, and Ed's head jerked up from where he had been staring at his hands, fearful that he had spoken aloud. His fears were unfounded. Winry stood, her face shadowed, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears.

It took a moment for Ed to realize that she was actually waiting for an answer, but the words he cast for so desperately rang false in his mind. He could only sit there in silence, the words aching to burst free, but catching on some unseen barrier.

Winry's shoulders shook with restrained sobs. "Please," she cried, "Please answer me." Edward felt his lips tremble ever so slightly. Let me speak. Let me tell her everything. He pleaded with whatever curse of his body restrained him, but nothing passed his lips, sealed by an overwhelming torrent of emotion.

And when the tears finally fell from Winry's eyes, leaking from beneath her eyelashes, he felt the trambling of his lips cease as the words fell to become a leaden weight in his stomach, a forboding of the disaster to come. "Nothing?" Her voice trembled as she struggled to restrain herself, "Nothing to say at all?"

Winry, please--

"No apology? No explanation for leaving? No explanation for coming back?" Her voice, once a shout, had dropped to a mere whisper.

I'm sorry--

"Edward Elric you bastard! You don't even have the guts to talk to me?"

The nausea intensified. Why couldn't he speak? Why was he so suddenly speechless in the face of her wrath?

She stood for a moment in the doorway, shaking under the force of her anger and grief, before spinning and fleeing the ward.

Edward clenched his fists, staring at his hands. "Winry..."

He had finally spoken, but she was no longer there to hear.

He was released two days later. After Winry left that day he had heard nothing of "Mrs. Cogar". For some reason, that bugged him more than anything else he had come across thus far. He didn't know if it was because he had yet to make amends with her, or because there no longer seemed to be a place in her life for him anymore, but his stomach twisted everytime the blonde mechanic entered his thoughts. Even now, the rapidly familiarizing nausea gripped him as he remembered their last words to each other.

Standing at the checkout desk, he was mostly silent while the nurse chattered on mindlessly. Really, the people they hired these days. After cutting off her torrent of words he managed to ask after his brother, discovering that Al had left a note for him with the location of the motel they would be staying at for the time being.

A bitter smile crossed his face when he opened the letter. It was coded, the same way that all of their communications in the Machine World had been, especially in Germany. He smiled at the mix of alchemical symbols and seemingly random doodles along with a teenager's bad poetry. To his credit, Al had used an older code, not the one that they had used most recently. After all, the latter had obviously been broken, so it stood to reason that a switch with an unbroken code would have to be made.

His brother was staying in a cheap motel near Old Central. Ed didn't mind so much. If anything, he was surprised by the decision. But it was rooted in practicality, he decided, not sentiment. Not many people would want to stay there, after all. Less people meant less questions. He frowned. It could also mean that what questions there were would be sharper. They would have to keep a low profile.

He strode out into the cool air of late afternoon. The streets were filled with the bustle of people shopping, walking, and generally going about their buisiness. Some things didn't change, no matter what world you were in.

The hospital was a fairly new construction, as things went, meaning that it was a fair distance from Old Central. Ed winced slightly at the calculated distance. He could have walked, but not in his condition. While he had been released from the hospital, he was by no means in peak condition. He would have to hire a taxi.

He only just reached the sidewalk when a dark colored car pulled up to the curb. The driver's window rolled down, revealing an unfamiliar man in an Amestrine military uniform. "Edward Elric? You're going to have to come with me."

Edward frowned. The man was in uniform, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why?"

The soldier passed a hand over his eyes in frustration. "Listen, kid-" Ed twitched, "-you've caused enough trouble already with the brass. If it makes you feel better, my name is Lieutenant Carth Porter. Now get in the car, already. We're late for your debriefing."

Edward hesitated for only a moment longer. The soldier's frustration was real, and even in his current state the alchemist would be a decent opponent. Beyond that,he had forgotten about the debriefing that the military would undoubtably give him, even if his commision had long since run out. He opened the door and slid into the back seat.

The trip wasn't far, but traffic was quite tricky. Carth remained mostly silent for the trip, with the exception of a few muttered curses now and then when traffic turned against him, but Edward had heard far worse in his years with the military. Still, the man kept stealing glances into the rear view mirror at his passenger, and by the time they reached their destination the alchemist was wound tighter than a spring. Finally, he could take it no more.

"What?" He snapped, "Just spit it out, already."

Carth's eyes snapped back onto the road. "It's nothing, sir. I apologise for staring, sir."

"Bullshit. What's going on?" Ed glared at the driver as they came to a stop.

Carth rested his hands on the wheel for a moment. "I'm just glad to see you recovered, sir. I heard that you were in pretty bad shape. It's amazing what the doctors can do these days, isn't it?"

Despite having the distinct impression that he wasn't getting the whole truth from the soldier, the alchemist was forced to let it go. He was already late, and he didn't have the time for an argument right now. With a sigh, he stepped out of the vehicle. "Yeah, it is," he said in response to the soldier's question. He turned and walked up the stone steps to the current military headquarters in Central.

Nothing was familiar. This building was not decorated as the last one had been. There were no stone gargoyles or military heroes standing in immortal guardianship over the current generals and Fuhrer. Rather, it was plain. Bare stone walls gave way to more common materials as he moved out of the guest corridors to his debriefing room. A facade of might over a fallen power, Edward mused. It certainly served its purpose, though, however mislaid that purpose was.

The alchemist made his way into the debriefing room. It was dark. He supposed it was to hide the faces of the officers. He had just returned after a prolonged absence, after all, and the last time that the Amestrine military had dealt with the Machine World was under circumstances of war. Still, he couldn't help but feel a bit snubbed by the reception.

The debriefing itself felt a bit more like an interrogation, but only in the sense that the questions were never ending. The examiners wanted every detail. They wanted to know about military might; who was in power, how large was the army, etcetera. They wanted to know about internal strife, political regimes, and what he had done to hinder their enemies. Their thinly veiled demands for information were disapointed. Edward revealed little.

He refused to tell them anything about the bombs and technological capabilities of the nations in which he had resided, lest they be put to an even fouler use by his own people. He refused to tell them numbers that he did not know. He was forced to admit that he had done his best to stay out of the world's politics, and thus had neither aided nor hindered his country in any way.

But he did tell them about the camps, and he shared many of his experiences as he fled from German law. He tried to keep Al out of it as much as possible, but they wanted to know about him as well, and his younger brother had not been nearly so quiet as he.

Despite his homesickness, or perhaps because of it, Al had changed in the Machine World. His previous interest in Alchemy had blossomed into near obsession. He had pestered Ed constantly for information that he had either never learned or simply hadn't remembered yet, and filled dozens of sketchbooks with alchemic arrays. Ed found himself desperately hoping that the sketches had burned with the house; that the Germans had not found them or, failing that, that whoever did find them dismissed them as a child's fancies.

In a way, that was exactly what they were. Alphonse had been most intrigued with finding a way to use alchemy in the Machine World in the same way that it was used in Amestris. Ed had not actively encouraged the pursuit, but he had not hindered it, either. When Al had asked for input he had given it, though always in a 'keep dreaming' sort of manner. As far as Ed was concerned, Alchemy in the Machine World was an impossibility, but it kept Al from changing too much, and helped to ease both of their homesickness.

All of this he concealed from the council of officers, despite their questions. But it seemed that Al's dreamed must not have been impossible, after all, because he was standing there both answering and dodging questions in a situation far too real to be anything but. These experiences of the last month since he and Al had first appeared here again, from the depths of prison, were like nothing he had ever dared to hope was possible. Never in his wildest dreams-- or nightmares –had he imagined this occuring. And because of that he knew that Alchemy must have worked somehow.

He just didn't know how, and that was the problem.

"How and why did you return here?"

The question was just hanging there, waiting for an answer.

He didn't have one.

His silence must have disturbed the council somewhat, because they repeated the question. Twice.

And finally, he was forced to make the admission. "I don't know." And suddenly he wondered just what it was that Al had done.

AN: Some of you will be pleased to know that this is my longest chapter yet! I'm planning to continue to update on Wednesdays. The goal is to finish this story before school starts again. So... see you June 4th!