It was cold. So cold, and windy. Winry shivered as the fog gradually cleared from her head, leaving her vulnerable. She lifted her head ever so slightly, then sucked in breath of air so cold it hurt to breathe, and she began coughing.
She was staring down at the ground from six stories up, and Winry tried to fling herself away from the ledge. A strong arm around her small waist tightened. She fought the unexpected vertigo to look upward, and she let out a shrill cry of surprise and terror — it was Scar who was holding her.
"Don't move," he warned gruffly, "or I'll drop you."
Her fingers dug into him, desperate for purchase. Far below she could see Kimblee and his men in the street, with Ed and Al alongside them. She didn't know what could've happened for her to end up in this position, but she'd never been more genuinely fearful for her safety. Scar had his scruples about killing her, but that could've easily changed. Thick flakes of snow swirled around them in a violent dervish.
Scar bent, and she dug her nails into him through her gloves, trying to balance herself with her legs as he pressed his free hand against the roof they stood on. It was like lightning erupted through the building. Winry watched as the concrete splintered and cracked, crumbling in chunks — dangerously close to hitting the soldiers below.
"This is all your fault, Kimblee! You were supposed to be watching Winry!" she heard Ed's voice echo up.
Scar stepped away from the edge as it crumbled beneath his feet. He retreated back into the building, descending the stairs effortlessly, as though he wasn't hefting a full grown woman along with him.
"Let me go!" she demanded.
"No. Major Miles — Briggs's part-Ishvalan soldier — has entrusted you to me, to take you to Briggs."
"No! Let me go!"
Scar hauled her down flight after flight, before throwing ajar a set of doors that opened into an underground tunnel. He set her on her feet then, but took a handful of the back of her coat to keep her close. Dr. Marcoh, May, Yoki, and two of the soldiers she recognized as Kimblee's were there waiting for them. When she saw the soldiers, her struggling subsided. Kimblee's soldiers were escorting them to Briggs.
"What's going on here?" she demanded, turning as best she could to look at Scar.
"All you need to know is we are going to Briggs. All of us."
Winry was sullen and silent then as Scar gestured down the tunnel. She saw now that there were tracks, almost like for a train — then she realized that they were in the mines.
"A snowstorm has hit Baschool," Dr. Marcoh explained. "This is the safest and quickest way to Briggs under the circumstances."
She wanted to ask what would happen once they reached the fort — whether Scar would be arrested, what Ed and Al were going to do next since they'd fulfilled their mission to capture Scar (sort of), and more questions that she ultimately quashed. Instead she let Yoki and Dr. Marcoh lead the way.
"So it's true then? You're actually the daughter of the Doctors Rockbell?" Marcoh asked after they'd crossed what Winry could only hope were a couple miles.
"Yes. Did you know my parents, Doctor Marcoh?"
He smile. His face disfigured horribly when he did, but she saw the light in his eye that carried its own brand of becoming.
"Of course I did. There isn't a single doctor who worked in Ishval who didn't know your parents' names. They did their duty without any regard to themselves."
She lowered her head. Her parents had always been such a beacon throughout her life, even after they were gone. More and more lately she had felt herself tiring of the expectations placed on her by virtue of her name. And today, somehow, the weight of their legacy weighed more heavily. She could have helped Scar, but she didn't — she chose not to.
He could have been on fire and, if she'd had a glass of water, she'd have drunk it.
Yoki eventually led them to a staff room where he found a map of the tunnels, and she tuned them out to pay attention to Scar as he positioned himself to stand beside her.
"You did something," he murmured, looking at her from the corner of his narrowed eyes. The smooth, silvery skin of his scar gleamed in the dim light of their lanterns. "When you found me fighting the Fullmetal Alchemist, you did something. It was dark, and made my skin crawl. I thought I would be sick. What did you do? What was that terrible thing? Are you an alchemist now, too?"
Winry made herself look up at him with wide, innocent eyes.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
On the inside, however, she was pleased. What she would've given for Hisoka to witness this moment. She could just imagine his smile.
Yoki led them through the mines until they reached an exit. She'd reached to take out her earrings then — she was liable to get frostbite if she left them in — only to discover they were already gone. When had that been done? She couldn't remember. She wondered who had her jewelry as they trudged through the snow, deep past her knees, until a gleaming on the horizon caught her eye.
"Help!" a familiar, though distant, voice called. "Hey! Is someone there? Somebody help me, please!"
Winry turned in its direction, and she touched Dr. Marcoh's arm when she spotted the shine of silver in the distance once more.
"That's Al!" she called over her shoulder, already trampling through the snow in his direction.
The snow came up above her knees though, and Winry fell into it as she struggled to reach him. Kimblee's soldiers overtook her; Jerso pulled her back to her feet while Zampano went ahead to reach Al first.
"Hold on, we'll get you out of there!"
Scar and May reached him then, too, and they dug into the snow. Even through her gloves, the absolute iciness of Al's steel hurt her fingers to touch as they pulled him up. They made short work of pulling the weight of his armor free.
"You saved me! I got stuck in the snow, and then a blizzard buried me!"
"What are you doing out here, Al?"
"I crossed the mountain to warn you guys."
"You crossed over in the middle of that snowstorm? Why would you even risk that?" Dr. Marcoh asked.
"It was the only way to warn you."
"Warn us?" Winry asked. "About what?"
"Briggs has been taken over by troops from Central. General Armstrong is gone, they summoned her to Central headquarters. You'll be walking right into their hands if you go there."
It seemed as though she were missing a vital piece of the puzzle — something that had been discussed while she'd been unconscious. She resented her lack of understanding, and having been kept intentionally out of something. Fort Briggs was Central's anyway — all the soldiers there were under the State, lead by Fuhrer Bradley in Central.
"Someone has entered the radius of my En. They are not a Nen user, but there is something…unusual about them that I cannot place. Be careful of this one. Something is wrong with it," Hisoka had said before Fuhrer Bradley had entered the room.
What was Ed keeping from her?
"Well, then what are we supposed to do? We can't just hide in the mines," Jerso said.
"I don't know," Al said. "We'll have to find someplace else."
Scar had left them to stand on the highest point of the embankment, gazing at their surroundings stoically. She realized before the others what he was doing.
"Just follow me," Scar rumbled.
"Where are you taking us?" Dr. Marcoh asked.
"There's a mountain village called Asbeck nearby. It shouldn't take us long to get there. I've been told that some of my people have taken refuge in the slums there."
That's where she'd leave them then. There would be a road that would lead from Asbeck back to North City, and she could take the train back home from there. She wanted no more part of this — Ed and Al were going to have her marked as a conspirator in whatever they had gotten themselves into now.
"Are you sure about this, Al?" she asked, turning to Al, but he had stopped in his steps. "Al?"
She gasped, barely avoiding being pinned beneath him as he collapsed face-forward into the snow without warning.
"Al? What's wrong? Al!"
"Alphonse!" May cried out.
"Oh no," he murmured. "I'm being pulled back again—"
"Pulled back? What do you mean, Al?" she demanded, struggling to maneuver his armor to look into his helm. The orbs — his eyes — floating in the darkness inside were fading.
"My body — it's pulling my soul—"
"Do you know if anything like this has happened before, Winry?" Dr. Marcoh asked.
"I don't know! Al? Please wake up! What do we do?" Her head snapped from side to side, looking to Scar and Dr. Marcoh — the only alchemists in their group — in desperation. "What do we do!"
"I'm not sure there's anything we can do," Dr. Marcoh wheezed as he knelt in the snow beside Al.
He lifted Al's helm to look inside, and Winry and Scar looked with him. The blood seal inside was still intact.
"Do something!" May shrieked.
Winry pressed her palms against her temples, squeezing her eyes shut. She could barely breath from how hard she was trembling, but she made her body move anyway.
"Ed!" she cried out, wishing he could hear — wondering where he was. What he was doing right now that had left Al so vulnerable. Then she gathered her nerves and brushed Marcoh's hands away. She returned Al's helm to where it belonged. She could feel Scar watching.
That didn't matter now. She had to try.
Winry pressed her hands against his breastplate, closing her eyes. She could feel him fading — she held onto that feeling. He wasn't in a human body, but he was human. It wasn't a physical wound he bore, but there was a wound still.
"It's your hands…They weren't meant to kill. They're meant to give life."
"You're a manipulator."
She let out a cry as she focused her Nen — into Al. To mend what was broken. To seal what was ruptured.
To bind him here.