Built For Sin - Too Much, Not Enough

by Phenobarbital

There'd been so many feelings, thoughts and emotions Edward had had to learn to associate with Alphonse, old and new, but the one that seized his chest painfully right then, that made his top lip twitch and curl up in barely restrained anger, was the virile, sharp, stabbing realization of betrayal.

8. Seven

Thank you again to all those who are still sticking around! Love it or hate it, I accept all opinions, so feel free to leave your thoughts.
- I apologize for any mistakes, this is not beta-read, please report any major errors
- As per the usual, sensitive readers please tread lightly, there is triggering content within this story
- Song lyrics in this chapter belong to Our Lady Peace (this actually got me through writing this chapter during writer's block)

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Have you seen what I saw
The sky came down from afar...

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Edward held a distraught Winry in the doorway of the Rockbell house for less than a minute, before a guy came into view at the end of the corridor toward the back of the house. Ed watched him approach from over Winry's shaking shoulder, he was walking quickly and as he came nearer, Ed realized that he recognized the guy. It was the same one from Gracia's party; Winry's boyfriend, whose name Ed could not recall now for the life of him. He wasn't sure he'd ever learned the guy's name in the first place.

The guy had a look of tense worry on his face, probably his reaction at having heard Winry start crying so loudly, but then he also had a moment of recognition, and when he realized it was Ed holding her, he seemed to relax and his expression changed to something...sad. He slowed his approached then, coming closer with calmer, more measured steps, and once he was close enough, he exchanged a brief look with Ed before reaching his hands out in a gesture to take Winry from where she was wrapped in his arms. Her face was still buried against the front of Ed's shoulder as she trembled and cried and clung to the flanks of his coat with her clenched hands.

Ed, having no idea what was going on, at first hesitated to let her go, wondering if the guy was the reason she was crying. But his instincts weren't triggered at all; the guy genuinely didn't give off any bad vibes, and so Ed nodded stiffly at the guy before he slowly took his arms away from around Winry's back. He kept his hands lightly on her shoulders as they separated, and then her boyfriend placed a hand on her elbow, gently tugging to get her attention.

"Winry." the guy said quietly, and when she withdrew from Ed, he watched closely, looking for any signs that he needed to knock the guy's teeth out. But when she looked at him, she had no adverse reaction, and let herself be tugged closer to him as she continued to sob. He smiled sadly as he spoke to her, "Sweetheart, Edward doesn't know what's going on, why don't we invite him in?" he suggested quietly.

Ed had been watching as the guy behaved all boyfriend-like, comforting Winry with boyfriend-like touches to her hands and face, but at his words, Ed blinked rapidly and frowned,

"Going on? What's going on?" he asked with open concern in his voice, looking from the name-unknown boyfriend to Winry. The boyfriend was holding Winry close against his side now, his arm around her shaking shoulders and he sighed softly, before he turned to go toward the living room doorway, gesturing with his head for Edward to enter as if he had the right to decide whether Edward came inside or not.

Edward clenched his jaw at the nerve, but it was hardly something worth getting offended over, so he just shrugged his irritation off. Finding out the source of Winry's tears, still damp on his jacket, was more important anyway. Ed picked up the luggage he'd dropped when Winry had fallen into arms crying and he stepped inside, setting everything down just inside before he shut the door and followed Winry and her guy to where they'd gone into the living room.

Winry and her boyfriend were on the three-seat sofa, sitting side by side. Winry was sniffing and wiping at her nose with a tissue, her hands trembling as her boyfriend rubbed her back in gentle circles. Ed looked her over as he walked toward them, taking note of her creased jeans and rumpled jersey, the half-laced boots on her feet. Her hair was pulled back in an untidy, haphazard bun at the back of her head. Her eyelids were red, glossy and the skin around her eyes and nose was puffy from what Ed suspected was a lot of crying. Worse still, she looked like she'd lost some weight.

Ed's chest felt tight at seeing the state she was in, and his anxiety started to build up as he wondered what the hell had happened to make Winry break down, she was such a strong woman. He sat down on the other side of Winry on the sofa, but he kept a courteous distance between them and tamped down his urges to comfort her himself. Somehow, with all that had happened, he didn't feel like he had the right to comfort her.

Not after he'd caused her so much pain himself.

Now, something else was hurting her.

"Winry, what happened?" he asked as he leaned slightly forward to try and see her face better. He was speaking in an automatically hushed tone, the kind you used when you felt like someone had died but you weren't sure.

And then it hit him.

His eyes widened in realization and his stomach flipped over, fine eyebrows drawing together sadly as it dawned on him,

"Winry...is it, i-is it Granny?" he was staring at the side of her tired, sorrowful face as he asked and when he saw her face crease up and crumple into a pained and heartbroken expression, more sobs immediately forthcoming, he felt his own throat tighten around a large lump as the weighted ache of loss dropped into his stomach.

He averted his gaze to the floor, his bangs falling forward as he leaned his elbows on his knees and took in a long, deep breath, sadness and shock manifesting as hot and cold prickly sensations inside his chest and all over his skin. And the lump in his throat was sore and stuck, but he knew he wouldn't cry. It always took a hell of a lot to make him cry...except, except where Alphonse was concerned-...

Ed clenched his jaw and pressed his face into his hands as he quietly took even breaths, in and out, to calm himself. He would not allow his anger at the thought of Alphonse to come to the surface in that moment, because right then Winry was the primary concern, because she'd just lost her only living relative and...

He frowned again, realizing that neither Winry or name-unknown boyfriend had explicitly said yet, exactly what had happened, and while it seemed death was the likely answer, he still wanted to know for sure. So, he dropped his hands from his face and started to ask,

"Is, is Granny d-..." but he found the words quite difficult to say, sticking in his throat along with the lump. He had to shut his eyes tightly and swallow through the strain in his throat before he reopened them and turned to look at Winry again. She was facing away from him, crying into her boyfriend's chest now, her shoulders continually shaking, sobs muffled and broken, likely hoarse from all the crying, her fists clenching around tissues.

Ed could only watch her, sad and concerned, before he let his gaze drift to look at her boyfriend, and for all that he had been irritated about the guy's presence a little while ago, he looked at him now and saw just how sad he was; how much Winry's pain was hurting him. He looked like he might have cried at some point as well. Hell, maybe he was even hurting about Pinako, too, Ed had no way of knowing how close the guy was to the Rockbell's. He could tell by the look on the guy's face though, that he wanted to take Winry's pain away, and for that reason, in that moment, Ed decided that Winry hadn't made a bad judgement call about this guy; he seemed to be the genuine article.

A good man, just like she deserved.

Name-unknown boyfriend met Ed's eyes just then, his brown eyes sad and concerned as he gently petted her hair with one hand and held her close with his other arm. Ed held back a sigh, and needing to understand exactly what had happened, he asked.

"Is she gone?" quietly enough it was almost a whisper, his throat aching as he dropped his gaze to his hands. It had been a fair while since he'd felt the emotions he was experiencing right then. For the past year and a bit, he'd certainly been put through the emotional ringer by everything that had gone on with Alphonse, but those feelings were different; raw and strange and deep rooted, sometimes too intense and often exhausting right down to the bone. But this pain, this was the pain that came on in that way that made sense, like it was the only way you could react to learning that someone you love had died.

The pain was natural, normal...and somehow foreign.

It felt foreign.

And Ed couldn't help but hate that, the fact that he felt so emotionally used up from the last year, that the natural pain felt so distant and muted. What had been happening to him that he felt so numb? How didn't he notice how much he'd changed? How didn't he notice that after feeling so much at the start of...-

...how didn't he noticed that he'd begun to feel almost nothing? His last real burst of unchecked emotion had come in the form or rage over the horrible betrayal of his trus-...

"No, she isn't," the answer came delayed, yet just in time to derail Ed's careening thoughts, and the answer also made Ed take in a surprised breath as hope bloomed in his chest. He looked at Winry's boyfriend as the man went on, "but the doctor came to see her today, earlier this evening, and he said that...he said it won't be long now." name-unknown boyfriend spoke in hushed tones as well. He was speaking to Ed but focused on consoling Winry, who sobbed more loudly again at his words.

The burst of hope was snuffed out instantly, and Ed just blinked and looked away from the couple, looked away from Winry's distraught, huddled, crying figure, feeling bad for her, but also guilty about his wandering mind. He was feeling really mentally fucked up all of a sudden, and he was trying to bring his thoughts and focus back to where they should be. He'd asked that question of Winry's boyfriend only a few seconds ago, and then he'd lost focus right after. His bitter self-reflection had begun to spiral so badly and suddenly that he'd felt almost like he'd missed something...and, like he was missing something.

He knew then, in that moment as Winry's sobs filled the silence of the large living room and where the ache in his chest was present but far too subdued when it should have been more, when he should at least be shedding tears, should feel the need to cry, in that moment, he realized that what Roy had said once was true.

He was broken. In more ways than one.

He'd always thought he was pretty messed up, but given his history he'd accepted that he couldn't change that fact, and then when he'd gone and fallen in love with his own brother, he'd decided he was super fucked up and he'd strived to accept that too, and then...and then what? Now what?

He'd been fine, though, right?

He'd been with Alphonse and he'd been happy, and they'd been fine, for a while, they'd been fine...

But even as he thought of it, it seemed like more of an idea, trying to remember feeling fine before just a few nights ago...when so much anger had rushed through him, easier than any time he'd felt anger in the past year. It had been anger like he'd experienced in his past, during his military years, fighting to survive. That anger that had made his blood rush with life and heat and action, and he'd felt it everywhere, and it wasn't just going away either. Just like he was feeling the sadness right then, despite it being muted and his mind being distracted, it was everywhere, slowly filling him...

Not ramping up suddenly and then fading fast, leaving him confused and anxious and contradictorily jaded, like all of his emotions, the good and the bad, had been for what felt like ages. So, what was it then, that he'd been feeling in the last year or so, and what hadn't he been feeling?

Edward found himself blinking rapidly, staring unseeing at the wood panels of the floor. His breathing had sped up as something, something he hadn't known about, something that had been happening to him, or had already happened to him...something was dawning on him, coming to the murky surface.

He'd rushed out of Xing on a flight instinct. He'd run away, from Alphonse, but also from Ling, out of anger and from shame. But where had the panic and disgrace over that shame been before that burst of anger had rushed through him? He hadn't panicked after Alphonse had stolen Gracia's pills, and he hadn't panicked after Winry had started suspecting Alphonse of something dubious. He hadn't even panicked after Roy's perceptive notice had caught on to something just weeks earlier at HQ. He should have, he should have wanted to run away all those times, too, but he hadn't.

The shame of what he was doing with Alphonse, it had obviously been present, it always was, all the way back from the beginning...but it had become very stifled, subdued, dull. Yet, when he'd felt real anger at Alphonse's careless, selfish betrayal, everything in him had felt like it caught fire, like it had been lit up, so bright and his mind had been so clear.

He'd wanted to leave and that's exactly what he'd don-

"She's b-been ill for a while." the hoarse, hiccupped words wrenched Edward back again, his eyes snapping up from the floor, wide and reflecting the quiet shock of his own racing thoughts. Winry was looking at him, and he met her strained, wet blue eyes. She looked exhausted and distraught and very much like she wanted to cry all over again at whatever she was seeing in his face. Her soft skin was so pale, and her pretty face noticeably thinner, and her fine blonde eyebrows were drawn together; she was looking at him and seeing what she obviously thought was grief for Pinako showing in his expression.

Edward didn't even have a moment to mentally berate himself for losing focus before Winry spoke again,

"Since long before I moved to Cen-Central." she continued despite more tears slipping over her cheeks with every wet-lashed blink, "But it wasn't the kind of illness that was going to take her quickly, you know..." another hiccupped sob, a look of pained guilt crossing her distraught features, "The doctor said it would be gradual, manageable and that Granny wouldn't experience much pain, that she could live normally for a few years still, before she'd need to be cared for. He said she needed to stop smoking and that she needed to rest, eat healthy," another sniff and sob, her voice a quiet croak, "so I took over the business completely and moved it to Central where it'd be more profitable. I'd planned to send her money, to pay for a nurse to visit twice a week to check on her, and to pay for someone from town to bring groceries and firewood. We'd even talked about hiring a maid to maintain the house...she was going to be fine, Ed, she said...s-she insisted..." she broke down again then, severing eye contact as she buried her face in her hands. And Ed could guess that the guilt was due to the fact that she'd moved to Central based on what the Doctor's had told her and Pinako, and because Pinako had insisted.

And maybe, partly...probably, also because of him.

Ed had his full attention on her now, letting her audible and plainly visible pain seep into him, because he wanted to feel it. He wanted to feel something that wasn't just the idea of an emotion; like a picture clearly outlined but ultimately colourless. He wanted to hurt like she was hurting with every sob and hiccup and pained word, and especially where some of the blame had to do with him, he wanted to feel the ache of it in his chest. He wanted to feel pain, hurt and anger about something normal, something he was meant, and even expected, to be feeling.

The feelings were there, he knew they were, but the peaks of them were still very blunted, still restrained somehow, back to being trapped beneath that murky surface. It wasn't like the anger had been a few days ago in Xing. But now that he'd become aware that something had been missing for so long, he knew to try to reach for it.

And so, he reached, he reached to make a connection to what was buried beneath some unseen barrier between the feelings he'd accepted and which he'd repressed, but also, he took the initiative and reached out to try to make a connection with Winry. Or rather, to reconnect.

Edward, somewhat hesitantly due to the falling out he'd had with Winry the last time they'd seen one another, raised a gloved hand and placed it lightly and stationary on the side of her back, just below where her boyfriend's hand was settled. He wasn't sure he was welcomed to offer her a comforting hand, despite the fact that her tears were still drying on his shoulder. He knew there was a difference between her touching him and him touching her. It was instinctive, so he was cautious.

She didn't even so much as flinch when he touched her though, and while Ed knew it was possible she just hadn't noticed, he still felt like it was some small progress made. She continued to cry though, leaning towards her boyfriend, who briefly met Ed's gaze again after a while of silence. Ed didn't know what his expression looked like to the guy, but it seemed to prompt him to fill in for Winry being unable to go on talking,

"Winry used to call her once a week," he started quietly, "she wanted to call more often but Mrs. Rockbell didn't want that, she said it would irritate her." Winry cried a bit more and Ed watched as her boyfriend squeezed her comfortingly and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. His actions were so natural and comfortable Ed could only watch it all with a small ache in his chest and a lump in his throat. There was some odd bitterness he felt, that he couldn't even place, but mostly he felt relieved that Winry had someone she could not only love, but also that she could trust. "Up until two weeks ago Mrs. Rockbell had been fine when Winry talked to her," the boyfriend went on once Winry's sobs had quieted a bit, "but then, just a few days before the next scheduled call, one of the town's people who were helping out, came here and found Mrs. Rockbell unconscious."

Suddenly Winry sat up, hair a mess, face blotchy and damp and her expression both sad and angry when she looked at Ed,

"It was Mr. Gruger." she said in a strained voice, using the name because she knew Ed would recognize it, "He came by to bring some groceries and he found h-her-..." she had to swallow around a choked sob, her blue eyes boring into Ed's gold, "he said her pipe had been lit, burning away, filled with tobacco." she clenched her teeth and Ed frowned deeply at realizing what Winry was angry about, "She was still smoking! She has emphysema and she was st-still..." she stood up abruptly then, some of her trademark Rockbell temper breaking through as she grabbed the nearest object -an empty coffee cup- and chucked it clear across the room.

Name-unknown boyfriend had stood up too, saying her name quietly and then he looked momentarily panicked at the act of angry violence. Winry proceeded to breathe deeply and loudly as she trembled, trading in her tears for frustrated pacing. She was holding her head as she paced, clearly furious as well as terribly hurt and scared all at once. Ed felt the pain for her, and some of his own as he pictured Pinako lying unconscious and alone in the big house. It twinged painfully in his chest and he welcomed it.

He let his gaze drift away from Winry and he absently looked at her boyfriend, who in turn looked at Ed helplessly and seemingly still a bit startled. For Ed -who knew Winry's temper very well- he wasn't surprised by her outburst, but he couldn't offer the boyfriend any kind of cue on what to do because he'd never, ever tried to calm Winry down when she'd been angry in the past. When it came to her anger, he'd usually just let her tire herself out while he steered clear, or sometimes he'd meet her anger head on. Their dynamic was completely different.

Her boyfriend though, seemed to think it was a good idea to try and physically comfort her right then, and Ed could only cock an eyebrow and watch curiously as the guy went to place his hands on her shoulders. The moment he touched her, predictably, she turned on him, smacking his hands away harshly before continuing to pace and huff. Ed had expected something like that to happen, but what happened next really surprised him; Winry stopped pacing and turned to her boyfriend with a guilty frown before she apologized quietly and walked straight into his embrace, hugging him tightly.

Ed could only stare at the couple as her boyfriend held her while she made excuses about being angry and saying she was sorry for directing it at him, both of them hugging one another tightly. And Edward was amazed, because he could not remember a single time in his life when Winry had apologized for her temper, at least not where he was concerned.

He blinked and looked away from them when he realized he was staring, and then he started to feel decidedly awkward just sitting there while the girl he'd grown up, but who felt like something of a stranger to him now, was comforted by a man Ed didn't even know the name of, but whose presence was somehow more important right then than his own.

And wasn't that just the cold cut version of things; he'd been stuck in an isolated bubble with Alphonse for so long, for the better part of a year; all of his focus and dedication, all of his love and his soul, his pain, his weaknesses and strengths, and just everything that he was, in ways that he could and could not even spare to share with another, all given to his brother. A brother who had just kept taking, the more Ed was giving. A brother who'd taken Ed's only comfort, a comfort he'd found in secrecy, and he'd just ripped it apart.

And all the while, all that time stuck in a bubble, everyone else had been moving on with their lives. Moving forward, moving with the flow of life. Winry had been falling in love, Pinako had been growing old and taking ill, Gracia had been healing enough to love again, Paninya had been making strides in helping people, Ling was leading his country, Mei had grown up so much and Roy...Roy would be officially the Fuhrer in just under three weeks.

Ed felt a more prominent and harsher pain tug in his chest as his thoughts of all of these things, his bitter thoughts of Alphonse, collided with his complicated thoughts of Roy. Thoughts that he'd been so adamant to ignore all this time, especially since for some inexplicable reason his thoughts of Roy had started to have feelings attached to them at some point.

Ed didn't even realize he'd stood up and left Winry and her boyfriend alone in the living room until he was opening the front door and the cool evening air was washing over him. He took in a deep breath as he walked out and across the wide porch, finding that when he released his breath again, it was shaken. The feelings that he wanted to reach for still weren't completely accessible to him, but it seemed like something was different. Something had shifted in the last half hour of arriving at the Rockbell house.

When he'd left Xing he'd been furious and hurt and stressed, but his fury at least, had fortified him. At the time he'd been thinking only of putting distance between himself and Alphonse. And the truth was, he hadn't had distance from Alphonse in over a year, because distance wasn't something he'd ever thought he might want, and yet...and yet now...

His incestuous relationship, before and after he'd given into it, before and after he'd fallen in love with Alphonse had been surrounding him completely. He went to sleep with it present, woke up with it, always thinking of it, living it, breathing it, feeling the weight of it, dark and heavy and complicated and beautiful in a very ugly way. And no matter what he was doing, where or how or why or whatever, it had been his concern and focus, only that, always that, single mindedly, his focus; protect Alphonse, love Alphonse, keep Alphonse, value Alphonse.

Not even the quest to get their bodies back had consumed him so thoroughly, had made him so very agonizingly aware of his every move, every thought, every breath. His thoughts had still been clear enough then to take it all in, to take life in, to be himself and live and love and exist in an ever-changing world.

There'd been no bubble, there'd been no walls closing him in, no metaphorical borders he'd had to stay within, no lines he had to carefully walk. There had been nothing to keep him away from the people around him, people who he loved and who loved him in return. There'd been no isolation, no biting his tongue so that he didn't say the wrong thing...no biting his tongue so that he didn't scream.

But...but he hadn't even wanted to scream all that time. He hadn't even noticed he'd felt like screaming then, only that he felt like screaming now. He hadn't realized that he'd become so numb and so empty that for months, even the act of having sex with Alphonse in their shared home had been done almost on autopilot. And yet, there had been moments when it got to him or when he'd worry about it, and he was sure there'd been desire to have sex with Alphonse, too.

He'd realized he was in love with Alphonse, he'd wanted Alphonse, he'd wanted...

Edward was breathing deeply and leaning tensely against the wooden railing of the porch under the dark night sky, emotions chaotic yet indiscernible, all running amuck inside him. And he still couldn't cry, wasn't even sure he wanted to, but his eyes burned right then, and his throat and chest were painfully constricting as he gripped the white railing so tightly the bones in his fingers hurt. His jaw was clenched, too, facial muscles twitching in confusion to express the convoluted feelings he was having as he stared out into the dark landscape of the open countryside.

He didn't know why he suddenly didn't understand what his feelings were telling him. But since that bright flash of anger back in Xing, and the connection it had with his feelings about Pinako's state of health, he'd realized that there was something holding his emotions back, or in check, or whatever. And now he felt confused and unsettled because he didn't understand what it was that he didn't understand. He had to wonder, had to try to reason, that perhaps it was just because he was so angry at Alphonse's blatant disregard for him, angry at Alphonse's callous thoughtlessness where his own feelings were concerned, and maybe that was why he was suddenly feeling confused. Was he just trying to find fuel for his anger?

But then...why had he felt so relieved when Lan Fan had said Alphonse would be taken care of? Why had he felt so relieved to be alone? Was this feeling just temporary? And why, why were his emotions to everything else so subdued? Why was the distance he'd put between himself and Alphonse now leading to him feeling something, or rather, noticing a lack thereof. But then...

But then, there was something familiar about it.

It was like something he'd forgotten about previously. The feeling, it was similar to something he'd felt before, he just couldn't rem-…

'I…I think I traumatized you.' it was Alphonse's voice that filtered into his mind, nervous and hopeful all at once, from so many, many months ago, 'You started to shut down whenever I did something sexual and now that you're actually feeling something for me, you can't get passed the mental block.'

Back then, Alphonse had sounded so nervous and yet, that entire evening had been so well planned. And Ed was able to recall it quite clearly now, the feeling he'd been living with at the time. That was it. That was the feeling.

So, had he just put it out of his mind forcefully all this time, and now it was surfacing again? Was that possible? He'd lived with that feeling before the Sildenafil, when everything he'd been feeling had been repressed, and nothing had really broken through the surface, neither emotion nor action. But he'd gotten past that, hadn't he?

Al had used the words traumatized and mental block. But that had happened so long ago, surely it couldn't still be affecting him. And, so much had happened since then anyway; having sex with Alphonse again and again, Elizabeth entering their lives, k-kissing Roy, his alchemy secret coming to ligh-...

Edward had to squeeze his eyes shut suddenly and stop his train of thought, because there it was, like a new sharp stitch in his chest, a level of emotion he hadn't felt in so long, rapidly building; hitching his breath, like pressure trapped between his ribs, pulses of blood to his temples. He had his teeth clenched so tightly it hurt as he felt a wash of new pain and anger that hadn't been before when thinking of how Alphonse had used alchemy to restrain him in North Central Park, like Edward was someone who'd needed to be taught a fucking lesson and treated like he'd betrayed Alphonse.

And at the same time, there was an odd and pronounced hollow ache, a sort of unacknowledged desire, like a twinge of wanting something, when thinking of how Roy had kissed him.

Edward leaned his elbows on the railing and placed his head in his hands as he took a deep breath. He thought he'd remembered that kiss clearly all along, and yet as he stood right then and allowed himself to think of it, in a way he hadn't even once since it happened, suddenly the memory was so much more vivid, crisp even. Ed could now recall scent and warmth and taste and sensation of that moment in a way he hadn't before.

Because before, in his memory, it'd just been him and Roy on their knees in a quiet room, and he remembered how at the time he'd felt a purely physical reaction to it, only just that and not much else. And he'd been so sure it was because he hadn't really felt anything else, he'd been so sure he'd only wanted Alphonse and so he'd thought his lack of reaction to Roy's kiss was based on that, because again, Alphonse had been all he'd been able to think about, all he'd been able to focus on.

But now...now, after that flash of anger had lit up his limbic system like a fucking signal fire back in Xing, and after noticing something was off about his feelings when learning about Pinako, things were starting to bleed through and affect him a bit more each time. And if those affecting feelings weren't bad enough for dredging up pain and desire he didn't even fucking know he'd been suppressing, Edward was also having to deal with the realization that something was wrong with him. Really wrong.

Something had been wrong with him all along.

Something had happened to him...

'I think I traumatized you.'

He breathed out heavily and pushed his hands up off his face, eyes still tightly shut as he pushed his bangs back, holding his head and huffing out shaken, unamused laugher.

"Or maybe, it just never stopped happening.' he thought, feeling more than a little terrified at the idea of it.

It was a scary possibility, but maybe what had begun before the Sildenafil; that block, that disconnected acceptance, maybe it hadn't actually ever ceased. Maybe it had just been...evolving?Could it do that? Could psychological trauma evolve if it was ongoing? Had he developed some kind of complex which had been keeping him grounded, keeping him centered, sane...to keep him from suffocating and from hating himself for the fact that he'd been fucking his own brother.

But then, he'd really developed some kind of feelings for Alphonse after a while, and he'd even been caught up in the sex despite the internal conflicts he'd always experienced over it, and that, that was even more fucked up!

Edward was not all that read up on the topic of psychology as a study, but he wasn't fucking clueless either. He was mess, he'd known it before, he just hadn't known to what extent, but now he was seeing it in a more glaring light, and it was so, so ugly.

He slowly opened his previously dry eyes, and abruptly he felt tears slip over his cheeks. He blinked rapidly, his breath hitching in throat as he frowned deeply and dropped his hands from his head. He reached up to touch his face as the tears continued to fall, the wetness soaking into the cotton of his white gloves as he took in a shaken breath - the beginning of a breathy sob.

Immediately he clenched his eyes shut again and hung his head down between his arms, clenching his hands into fists, breathing loudly and shakily as he tried to force away the need to cry, even as it hurt his chest and throat and his head started to spin with the overwhelming build up. He knew he shouldn't stop it though, he knew that he needed to let himself cry, because all the crying that he had been doing in the past months was not the same as the natural volley of emotions that were presently trying to be released. But at the same time, he felt like he couldn't, he had to stop thinking about all of it, he couldn't process it right then, he couldn't break down because-...

"Ed?"

Because of Winry. She needed him now. She was the most important one to focus on now. And he was not going to be the selfish prick that he'd been in the past year, he was done thinking of only one thing, he was done isolating himself. He was done with slowly suffocating on self-hatred and denial he hadn't even known he was drowning in.

He raised his head and stood up straight as he turned around to look at the girl he'd always loved, romantically or not didn't matter, she was family, and she deserved far more than he'd given her. And while he couldn't take back what he'd done, or take away the pain he'd caused her or keep saying sorry for it uselessly, he could wake the fuck up and really look at her and really see her and really be there for her, like she needed right then.

She was a picture of sadness and worry as she met his wet eyes with her own. She also looked smaller and so withdrawn in fear for the impending and inevitable loss of her last family member. And as she stood silhouetted by the artificial light from inside, all cried out and totally open and vulnerable, staring at him with puffy blue eyes and trembling lightly, she still managed to look beautiful and so lovely in the way only she could, and Ed hated that he'd ever hurt her like he had; he hated that he'd ever made her cry.

"Winry." he said quietly, his voice a tense rasp, more tears slipping unbidden from his eyes.

She took in a shuddering breath then, her shoulders raising slightly, face scrunching up with a fresh wave of pain and grief and Edward stepped forward to her with open arms right when she came toward him with a shaken sob. And while earlier when she'd fallen into his arms he'd felt a muted sense of shock and confusion, right then, he felt her grief mix with his own; their shared grief for their ill grandmother who would leave them soon, and without even realizing it was coming, he started to cry in earnest. He hunched over a bit as he held her close in his arms and he buried his face in the crook of her neck and cried quietly, just as she was crying into his chest, her arms wrapped around his middle and holding him as tightly as she could.

And while it hurt, the knowledge of the loss that would come, it also felt good to feel again, to have colour in the previous outline of emotions. And it felt good to hold her, to love her and be able to express it, to need her comfort just as much as she needed his and to not feel guilty for it. To not feel like he shouldn't.

Because it was right, it was right to hold her, to cry with her, it was right to feel, to really feel something natural.

It was right.

And subconsciously, painfully, mournfully, Ed was aware of how the past year and some months of his life, in stark contrast, had been terribly wrong.

---

...have you been there before
that place where hearts reborn.

I'm looking for a place to go
I'm looking for a safety zone
I'm waiting on another hiding place for hearts

---

Ed wasn't sure exactly how long he and Winry had cried outside on the porch, just standing there, wrapped around one another, but after a fair amount of time had passed, Winry's boyfriend had quietly suggested that they come back inside. Edward didn't know if he'd been standing there watching them for very long, but whether he had or not, he earned himself more of Ed's respect for the fact that he was tactful and gentle about interrupting them.

He'd had a good reason to tell them to go inside, too, as Ed realized it had just started to drizzle when they finally separated from their hug and shuffled back inside. Winry's boyfriend quietly asked if she was okay as Edward closed the door behind them, and even though she wasn't really, the question was more specific to her trembling and tired appearance at that moment, and she shrugged as her boyfriend rubbed her arms lightly through her sweater.

"I'm just cold..." she sounded like she was whispering for how quietly she spoke, "...and tired." she added, glancing from her boyfriend to Ed, and back.

Ed wanted to suggest that she lie down, but he didn't have to, because her boyfriend suggested it first and when Winry glanced at him, perhaps wondering if it'd be okay to just go to sleep when he had mostly just arrived there, Ed just nodded his agreement,

"I'll get myself settled." he said equally quiet, answering her unasked question as she hugged her middle and frowned at him. And his chest hurt in the best possible way as he felt affection for her, seeing her worry about him in the way she always had. He'd thought his affection for her was lost, but it wasn't, and he smiled just so, just slightly. "You need to rest, okay." he added, his voice watery even to his own ears. And his heart thudded when Winry, reacting to whatever she saw in his face right then, smiled at him too, and there was affection in her gaze as well, right along with her sad tears. It came naturally to hug her a final time, tightly and lovingly, and it came naturally in a way he'd also thought lost, when he pressed a kiss to her hair and whispered, "It's so good to see you." his eyes closed, voice choked and fond and filled with various emotions welling up in various degrees all churning, all building, awakening inside him.

He felt wrecked. But not necessarily in a bad way and he wanted to feel all these real natural things until he was exhausted with it, but also until he was glaringly wide awake.

Winry started crying again at his words, more of her tears wetting the leather of his brown jacket and he whispered comforting words, telling her she'd be okay, telling her that she that he would be there for her and meaning it from his very core. The truth of it hurt him too, but he welcomed it. He would not leave her side until he knew she was okay. Not this time, he wouldn't abandon her again.

He'd fucked up enough.

He hated that she cried even harder then, but he understood why she was suddenly more emotional, he understood because his own fresh tears were dampening her untidy hair. That moment was more than just grief between them, it was...it was a bridge mending, there was forgiveness in her soft sobbing and her small but strong hands clenching into his jacket.

After a few more comforting whispers and sniffing between them, she drew back and he followed suit...and followed his natural inclination to reach up and try to smooth down the damp hair he'd further untidied as he looked into her reddened eyes, standing what was maybe a little inappropriately close all things considered. All the same he nodded to her and said,

"Okay?" and after a moment, with a very slight but watery smile, she nodded,

"Okay." and Ed stroked his hand over her hair and ear a final time before he stepped back and she did as well.

She turned to her boyfriend, who had been standing quietly by, and Ed looked away to give them some sort of privacy as he roughly rubbed his gloved hand over his mouth and his knuckles under his eyes as he sniffed and tried to recompose himself. It was a lot to be feeling so much, and knowing it was only the tip of the iceberg, but Ed knew he had to let it come to him. He had to stop repressing. It was time to claw his way out of the pit he'd been swallowed up in. It was time to start breathing again.

He was vaguely aware of Winry and her boyfriend exchanging words before she was walking away to the stairs, and then ascending. He turned back to watch her disappear up the stairs, and once she was out of sight, Ed let his eyes slide to her boyfriend, who looked at him at the same time. Edward was about to look away, but then he saw lines of tense concern on the guy's face when he averted his eyes first. And sure, Ed wasn't great at reading people and usually he didn't care to, but something about the defeated slump of the guy's shoulders gave Ed pause.

And that pause was just enough for him to consider that maybe the guy had felt the shift in tone between himself and Winry as well, and maybe now he was feeling insecure. After all, there was no way he didn't know at least the basics of Ed's history with Winry. And after what had happened at Gracia's party...

"Would you, uh, like some coffee, or...uh..." the guy asked flatly, a distinct sense of sadness about him as he avoided Ed's eyes and glanced back in the general direction of the kitchen. And while Ed knew he could have brushed the guy off, told him he could make his own coffee since this was his house, he took a further moment to apply some understanding, tact and acceptance. Because he'd been an absolute asshole about this guy being in Winry's life before, but yet here he was, still with her, standing beside her when she needed him most. It was everything that Edward hadn't managed to do, and the guy deserved acknowledgment, he deserved to know that Edward wasn't there to dismiss him, or to take Winry from him. He needed to know that Edward was happy Winry had found love.

So, before name-unknown boyfriend could try to fill the silence awkwardly again, Ed spoke up,

"We never actually, properly met before." and he stepped forward and extended his hand to shake as he met the slightly taller man's wide, surprised blue-eyed gaze, "That was my bad. I have a reputation for being a dick though, so, no surprise there." he admitted with a shrug and slight smirk. And when the surprised man quickly reached out and shook his hand, Ed was pleased to find his grip firm but not overcompensating, "I'm Ed." he introduced himself directly.

"I'm Patrick." name-unknown boyfriend was finally named, and he seemed continually surprised that Ed was being civil with him. It made Ed wonder just what Winry had told Patrick about him. Yeesh. Time to change that opinion at least somewhat,

"Alright, Patrick, how about some whiskey?" he offered in place of having been offered coffee and as he walked past Patrick, fleetingly patting the guy's shoulder. Patrick turned and followed him saying,

"Uh, I don't know if there is any."

And Ed could only smirk to himself, albeit sadly, but not because Patrick was clueless, rather because if Pinako hadn't stopped smoking her tobacco pipe, she sure as shit hadn't cleared out her liquor stock.

He walked through the house, through the kitchen and then into the dining room area that was off the side of the kitchen. The fireplace in the room was dead and cold and the room was void of the warmth Ed recalled it holding before, when Pinako would be sat at the table with her pipe and a drink while Winry was busy cooking and the pair would be discussing some automail part or something of the like. Now it was quiet but for the rain falling a little louder outside, and Ed's boots sounded loud against the wooden floors as he approached the low sliding-door counter cupboard along the wall.

He crouched down and slid the right door open, glancing inside and pushing aside some random tools, blueprint paper rolls and other knick-knacks to reach into the back. He felt the few wine bottles there and reached past them until he felt the distinct shape of a whiskey bottle,

"Gotcha." he muttered to himself as he brought the bottle out, closing the cupboard as he stood up and turned to Patrick who stood just inside the doorway looking somewhat amused. "Pinako likes her nightcaps just as much as her pipe..." he trailed off then, sighing sadly as he realized that all that pipe liking was the reason Pinako's Emphysema had been exacerbated so quickly. He stared down at the two-thirds full bottle of Amestrian Whiskey and frowned slightly, "...stubborn old bat." he muttered to himself, that feeling of sadness and impending loss settling a little heavier in chest, his throat hurting with a new lump.

He soaked up the feeling. Sniffed a little.

"Uh, what was that?" Patrick asked after Ed's muttered last words. He looked awkwardly alarmed; no doubt having heard what Ed said. Ed raised an eyebrow and glanced at Patrick before he pointed to the cupboard across the room,

"Can you grab two glasses?" he said in answer and watched as Patrick glanced in the direction he'd pointed, before nodding and quickly walking across the room to get to the cupboard. He looked a bit uncertain of his movements and as Ed walked to the dining table and pulled out one of the chairs for himself, he decided to ask, "You been here before?" setting the bottle down on the table before reaching up and unbuttoning the collar of his leather jacket.

Patrick had just taken out two glasses, and they clinked together where he held them in one hand as he closed the cupboard and turned to look at Ed,

"Oh, uh, yes, just once before with Winry when she was visiting Mrs. Rockbell," he walked over to the table, "and only for a few days before we left again." he set the glasses down. The sound of the zipper of Ed's jacket coming down filled the room for a moment, before he grabbed the bottle and unscrewed the cap, pouring out two double shots for them in quick succession.

Patrick nodded his thanks as he picked up one of the glasses, taking only a sip before he asked,

"You used to live he-, uh, here?" he faltered in asking as he watched with an owlish blink as Ed knocked back his double shot easily in one go. Ed ignored his round-eyed expression as he poured himself another double and then proceeded to seal the bottle cap as he nodded,

"Yep, for a long time." he answered quietly, and that time only took a sip of his drink as he sat down.

Patrick pulled out the chair on his side of the table and took a seat as well, sitting forward with his elbows on the table and his hands clasped around the square stout glass, while Ed was leaned back in his chair, legs crossed ankle over knee and one arm extended to hold his glass on the table top.

They sat in silence for a few long seconds, Edward staring sadly at the photo of Winry, Pinako and Den on the cabinet in the corner of room while Patrick took another small sip of his drink, which seemed to give him the courage to say,

"I'm sorry about Mrs. Rockbell, I know she's family to you and your brother."

Edward blinked once, gaze shifting to the glass he was absently turning round and round on the table. Of all the things Ed was feeling right then, some things muted, others not so much, he noted that the mention of Alphonse, even vaguely, made the muscle in his jaw twitch as anger sparked inside him.

But Ed frowned slightly after a moment, wondering sadly whether Al would care very much about Pinako and Winry at that point, considering he hadn't seemed to give a shit about Winry since they'd moved to Central. But as it were, he found he didn't want to think about Alphonse too much, not about what he'd done, or which parts of the things he did and said and felt were sincere or faked.

By this point, though, Ed knew Al was a good liar, and that he could pretend with the best of them. He remembered thinking recently that Al was almost pathological in some aspects of his behavior, as if there was some kind of disconnection in his ability to feel, understand and experience empathy. Perhaps all those years in the armor being so empathetic while not really feeling it had somehow trained the motions of the feeling into Alphonse, but the actual feeling of it didn't really resonate? After all, Alphonse didn't seem to exhibit much actual empathy most of the time.

Shit, he didn't want to think about that. Edward blinked hard to try to stop thinking about how psychologically messed up Al probably was, too. It was all becoming so much clearer now that his repressed feelings and formerly purposely overlooked observations on the subject were surfacing. All those ugly things he'd been worried about at the start and which had been buried deep in the recesses of his mind, were bleeding through along with the buried emotions and thoughts and it wasn't time to focus on that yet; he had to keep his head clear enough to be there for Winry.

He opened his eyes again and smoothly brought the glass to his lips,

"Is Pinako in town?" he asked before finishing his drink in one swallow.

He wasn't looking at the other man, but he could feel Partrick's eyes on him,

"Yes, she's at the local hospital." Local hospital? Okay, well, Ed didn't really think it could be called a hospital, more like a clinic, but it made sense she was there. "We actually had only just arrived here at the house about twenty minutes before you did. We've been spending long stretches of time in town to be close to the hospital, but Winry was so exhausted, I knew she needed to rest for more than an hour at a time, especially in that hard chair beside Mrs. Rockbell's bed. I managed to convince her to come back here..." he trailed off for some reason, but Ed didn't say anything. He did look at Patrick sidelong, since the man seemed to be heading somewhere with his explanation judging by the quiet tenseness entering his voice, "...but, uh, just before you arrived," he sighed, "she was arguing with me, saying she was just going to take a shower, change clothes and then go back to the hospital." he finished, looking sad again, sounding stressed.

Ed just reached for the whiskey bottle, unsurprised at hearing a tale of Winry being stubborn; just like Pinako. And himself mind you. He was just pouring more whiskey into his glass when Patrick quietly said,

"She seemed to settle after you arrived..."

Ed stilled at hearing that, the sound of liquid pouring cutting off and the bottle held suspended over his glass as he met Patrick's eyes directly across the table, seeing that same insecurity from earlier shining through a little clearer now as the man fiddled with his almost untouched drink.

He didn't wait for Patrick to break eye contact, even though he could tell the man was struggling not to look away as Ed stared right at him. So, he lowered his gaze first, not seeking a confrontation or any kind of rivalry over Winry, since that's what Patrick was likely concerned about. Because aside from the fact that Ed was not interested in Winry that way anymore, in reality, there was no contest for who deserved her.

He sighed quietly as he finished pouring his drink and sealed the bottle again, and after Patrick took a slightly larger sip of his own, Edward waited until he hesitantly met his gaze before he said,

"Winry can be stubborn." quietly and fondly as he leaned back again, setting the bottle down, fingers tapping against it as he went on, "She's a force of fucking nature." Patrick sat up a little straighter, "She's never just gonna' listen to you, she's not gonna' let you be right if she thinks you're wrong or she disagrees with you." he smiled softly, "She's not gonna' tell you what you wanna' hear or pander to your masculinity or ego. She's gonna' give you a hard time, she's gonna' test you, stress you out, make you want to pull your hair out and scream. She's always going to make it crystal clear how she feels and she'll expect a lot from you." he snorted softly, "She can be downright fucking terrifying, too." Patrick was looking confused and worried and sad but he was maintaining eye contact, which was good because it meant he was paying attention, and he needed to hear what Ed was going to say next.

Edward uncrossed his legs and sat forward like Patrick was, setting his elbows on the table and continuing to hold eye contact as he leaned forward, his face serious,

"She is honestly exhausting sometimes, but even though she can be infuriating," he narrowed his eyes, "she is an amazing fucking woman. A one-of-a-kind girl. The kind of girl who loves with her whole heart and will never let you down. The kind of girl who will be at your side through thick and thin and through all the bullshit, a girl who doesn't even know how beautiful and wonderful she is because she had an asshole like me in her life who let her down over and over again." he said very seriously and watched as Patrick's eyes widened. Ed picked up his glass then, still looking at Patrick, "But you know her worth, you know you're lucky to have her." his voice was low and rough now, sharpened with the feelings shifting through him as he stared Patrick down, "You love her, don't you?" he asked solemnly, and Patrick nodded slowly at first and then more firmly, insecurity slipping away to be replaced by confidence. Ed nodded at him once, "And you'll treat her right? Better than I did?" he tilted his head, voice a little threatening, and he watched Patrick's adam's apple bob. He hesitated a bit that time, before finding his balls and nodding the affirmative. Ed grinned then, in the dangerous, too sharp way he knew tended to make people nervous, and sure enough Patrick stilled and blinked nervously, quite possibly stopped breathing, and while once Ed would have added a direct threat to all that, he no longer felt like it was his place, so all he said was, "Good."

And if he said it in a tight, harsh way that implied he'd beat the ever-loving shit out of Patrick if he stepped out of line, well, no one was there to witness it.

He knocked his drink back then and as he set the glass down he stood up, his chair scraping back a bit loudly,

"What time will Winry want to head into town in the morning?" he asked as he stretched, arms up over his head and all of his muscles tensing. He was aware of Patrick watching him closely, giving him a nervous once over and then swallowing audibly before answering,

"I can't say," he had to clear his throat before he went on, "uh, because she was so exhausted, but it won't be long after whatever time she wakes up."

Finished stretching, Ed relaxed and reached back to run a hand over his braid as he walked toward the door,

"Alright. Do me a favour would ya', and wake me up when she gets up. I want to go into town to see Pinako." he didn't wait for an answer and didn't even glance back at Patrick as he left the room.

His overall state of feeling was still confused and muddled, some feelings firing off random peaks in his nervous system, making him feel a little on edge, but most were still subdued and the alcohol he'd drank so quickly on an empty stomach was quickly making everything further dulled. With all of that on top of being tired and stressed about his state of mind, he knew he needed to lie down and get some sleep. Because in the days to come he'd have to wade through that tar-like pit he'd been submerged in little by little to try to find that edge, to pull himself out of the dark place.

With a deep sigh he grabbed his duffle and valise up off from the floor in the hall and made his way upstairs, taking a chance and heading straight to his old room, and Edward felt a bright feeling of gratefulness and warm relief at finding that his former room was still his own, barely a thing out of place and even a little dusty.

He closed the door once he was inside and dropped his bags heavily onto the floor, leaning back against the door with a watery smile and burning eyes as he processed the fact that while he'd been gone, submerged in darkness and slowly drowning without realizing it, Pinako and Winry hadn't forgotten him.

This was still home.

He was still welcome, whether he deserved to be or not.

---

Patrick turned out to be reliable. In the morning he knocked on the door to Ed's room in the Rockbell house politely loud, and announced audibly that Winry was awake and that she wanted to leave for town as soon as possible.

Edward managed to get up without letting his tired eyes close again and pull him back to sleep, and while the alcohol he'd had was too little to have any after effects, he still felt exhausted and drained and sandy-eyed. Also, his mind felt jumbled and as he sat up in the single bed and shoved the covers off himself, he felt uncoordinated when swinging his legs off the bed and getting to his feet.

He pushed through it though, even though he barely remembered to pull on some jeans over his boxers before leaving the room to go to the bathroom. He didn't bother to fasten his jeans as he left the room and walked quickly down and across the hall to the bathroom, glad to see the door open so he knew it wasn't occupied.

Once inside he shut the door and turned the key to lock it and then he went over to the toilet and lifted the lid and seat. He proceeded to relieve himself, while with his free hand he tiredly rubbed at his face and his sandy eyes.

"What the hell..." he muttered, hating that felt so groggy. He hadn't slept poorly per se, but there'd been restlessness in his subconscious that made him dream vividly and even though he couldn't recall anything he'd dreamt about, whatever it was had exhausted him. It had been a long time since he'd honestly had trouble sleeping, or that he could recall having any kind of dreams. Usually, he just woke up to the routine of another day that would include...and revolve, around Alphonse. Of course, noting that, it brought about the realization again that his lack of trouble sleeping and his passivity in that routine had been because he hadn't been troubled by anything.

Hadn't been feeling anything.

Now he felt tired because the previous night had taken an emotional toll on him, and yet he just knew,

"There's more where that came from." he sighed as he shook himself off and tucked himself back into his jeans and boxers, absently flushing the toilet before he walked over to the basin. He fastened his jeans as he looked into the mirror over the counter, taking in his slightly reddened eyelids and untidy hair, but while he looked tired, he noted that he didn't look too worse for wear. He felt it though.

'Whatever's happened to me, whenever it happened, I can feel it now.' he blinked at his reflection in the day lit bathroom, his eyes shifting and expression becoming bitter as flashes of Alphonse's quiet and disconnected voice and words from the other night played through his mind. The recollection was so clear, of how Alphonse hadn't even had the fucking decency to look at him as he ripped into the last vestiges of Ed's solace, by exposing what was supposed to have been their secret.

But in doing so, it had exposed and awakened anger and shame and fear that Ed had intentionally stopped acknowledging in order to give into the part of him that had become attracted to Alphonse. He'd pushed it all down because after the crying and resentment and drugs and fights and pain, he'd given in. He'd been pushed. He'd been conditioned. He'd been guilted and broken. He'd been manipulated, he'd been punished, he'd cut off almost everyone in his life, he'd been at his wits end and he'd thought...he'd honestly thought that after all that, he'd reached clarity. Why else had he felt like he was in love with Alphonse?

And why...why did he just feel like he had a knife in his back at the end of it all?

And why did he feel so confused about this shit that he'd thought he'd made sense of.

From the kitchen downstairs, Ed registered the faint sound of dishes and cutlery and he snapped out of his wandering thoughts with a shaken inhale and exhale, rubbing at his face again and roughly pushing his loose and untidy bangs behind his ears and he shook those thoughts from his head.

'Not now, stay focused. Keep steady.' he reminded himself, knowing that if he was going to work it all out, he had to do so gradually, he couldn't let it overwhelm him. As it was, he'd gone to sleep slightly intoxicated the last two nights and he somewhat feared slipping into some kind of alcohol dependence since in the past year he'd been drinking more than he ever had before.

He shook his head again and opened the cold-water faucet, leaning over the basin as he washed his hands and then splashed and rubbed water over his face before taking in a mouthful of water and rinsing his mouth out. He knew he needed a shower and to clean up properly, it'd been two days since he'd had a shower and he could still smell the traveling scents and sweat on his skin, but he didn't know if he'd have time since Winry was probably in a hurry.

He did need coffee though, since he was having trouble kicking the grogginess of fresh emotional tax.

He took a moment to smell himself and yeah, there was definitely some B.O, but honestly, he'd had worse. He decided then that he'd just grab his shirt, a cup of coffee and retie his hair, and then later when they returned from seeing Pinako he'd sort himself out properly. Maybe he'd shave too, since he could feel faint stubble on his chin as he wiped water from his face.

He closed the faucet and then dried his hands and face off before unlocking the bathroom door and walking back down the hall to his room. As he walked, he pulled the elastic off his hair to let his braid out, running his fingers through the loosened hair before he began to pull it into a low ponytail at the back of his head. He took only a moment to step into his room to grab his dark blue shirt he'd been wearing the day before from where he'd thrown it over the footboard of the bed, and to pull on his boots over his socks, which he hadn't taken off before falling asleep.

He then left the room, pulling his button-down shirt onto his shoulders to complete a far from put together look; hair poorly neatened and tied, jeans and shirt wrinkled, shirt left open and his combat boots unlaced, the aglets tapping noisily against the leather as he walked down the hall, down the stairs, through the hall and into the kitchen on autopilot, mind attuned to the strengthening scent of coffee the closer he got.

He was aware of Patrick and Winry being in the kitchen as he entered, Patrick sitting at the table and Winry standing beside the fridge. He glanced at her tired but freshly dressed appearance as he passed her to get to the stove kettle and condiment filled cupboards.

"Morning." he mumbled as he reached the kettle, lifting it up and finding it still had enough water in it and was hot enough for him to make coffee. "Sorry if I'm holding you up, let me just get coffee and we can go..." he explained in a quiet, tired voice as he moved around, gathering a mug, a spoon, the coffee and sugar together before he started putting together his coffee.

And as he finished adding the condiments and poured in the hot water, Ed fleetingly thought of soy milk, something he'd done many times whenever making coffee since that day in Roy's office when the man had had it available so Ed would have the option. It's not like he hadn't been able to buy soy milk for himself at literally any point in time, it was something else, something about the fact that Roy, who Ed couldn't even really recall having ever mentioned his aversion to milk to more than maybe once, knowing about it and being thoughtful about it, that stayed in his mind. He set the kettle down once his mug was filled with the steaming liquid and he started stirring it all together automatically, but his eyes were unseeing of the liquid and his mind was wandering again; this time to thoughts of Roy. And unlike previous times when he'd thought of that silly, minor gesture made toward him by the older man, this time when Ed felt that strange crawling along his skin that he often had before when thinking of Roy, something about it was different.

It had never been unpleasant, the feeling, he'd always noted that, it was always just strange and inexplicable...but right then, as the feeling moved through him, coursed along his nervous system, it merged with that unfamiliar feeling of wanting he'd experienced only just the night before. And for the first time when thinking of Mustang with his emotions having started trying to break through, now Ed could only stare wide eyed at the black coffee, absently stirring the liquid as the feeling; the strange skin crawling, was suddenly very obviously not crawling, but was rather a buzz along his skin. It was a sort of stimulatingly charged sensation that had previously confused him but now made him feel...things. Feelings. He was feeling feelings. His brain, his recently mis-functioning fucking limbic system, was now very abruptly putting out uninhibited doses of dopamine and oxytocin, which honestly, just fucked with him even more.

His brain had been mostly starving him of those chemicals it seemed, perhaps keeping him going on a mixture of serotonin and stress related endorphins all this time, because now his heart rate had increased like he'd been running and his fingertips were tingling and he was thinking of soy milk and affectionate smiles, months of flirting and the scent of expensive cologne and...

...feelings for...for Roy? He had feelings for Roy!? What the fuck!

It was actual feeling feelings. Like attraction, like affection, like want...and he'd been denying the fuck out of it all this time? That wasn't right? How could he...could he really have just buried that in his subconscious as well?

He hadn't felt feelings like this in so long; feelings that weren't lined with desperation and guilt or distorted possessiveness like when he felt them for Alphonse.

'Holy fuck, I haven't felt this way since Winr-...' very abruptly he remembered where he was and he stopped aimlessly stirring his coffee to stand up straight and turn to face the other two occupants of the kitchen, blinking a bit dazedly. He felt fucking drunk with how much was suddenly going on in his head. He noticed Winry had her head down, eyes on the floor as she fiddled with her hair and Patrick glanced at him and then away again quickly.

Ed didn't think much of their avoiding gazes as he picked up his coffee and chugged it, burning his tongue more than a little but needing to hurry so they could get out and be somewhere else. He needed a break from being inside his head. He'd previously been welcoming being able to feel properly again, but now it was starting to pile up and he needed a distraction, a breather. After all, he still had to get through seeing Pinako on what was likely her death bed. The ache of sadness that came with that last thought was considerably more than the night before, but it was certainly better than thinking about...anything else right then, and it sobered him.

He finished his coffee in four swallows, the last swallow going down particularly hard and then he set his mug in the sink and turned to look at Winry and Patrick again. He tucked some of his loosened bangs behind his ear as he cleared his throat, his breath hot and mouth tinglingly raw from the hot coffee,

"Right, sorry, I'm done." he said just audibly, clearing his throat afterwards.

Winry glanced at him and then away again quickly as she nodded before she stood away from the counter and walked toward the doorway, her sandals squeaking softly on the polished wooden floors as she disappeared from view. Patrick stood up as she walked out and he once again glanced at Ed and then away again, before following her. Ed finally took a moment to parse out their hesitant looks and he glanced down at himself, at which point he shut his eyes and sighed out in frustration.

His shirt was open, jeans beltless and hanging very low on his hips, leaving his bare torso rather plainly on display. An eyeful of tight muscle and ugly scars, visible in broad daylight. Considering his history with Winry and the fact that she'd seen him near naked plenty of times during automail fittings in the past, he knew that her avoiding looking at him was based on the sexual shift in their adult relationship and views of one another. But with Patrick, Ed could only assume he'd been trying not stare at all the scars littering his chest and abdomen. He supposed that it was decent of Patrick to not have just stared, Patrick who probably had an unblemished torso, no marks or scars...

...like Alphonse.

Or used to be. Now Alphonse had an ugly scar on his back, and Ed surprised and horrified himself when he felt equal parts anger and righteousness at Alphonse no longer being perfect. Feeling angry made sense, but the latter feeling? Ugh, what the fuck was that about? Ed had never wanted to feel such a horrible thing toward his brother, and he hadn't seemed able to all this time, but now...now he felt it. And it seemed so easy to feel it, too. Because of the lies and manipulation and deception all coming to a head due to a final betrayal.

"Fuck..." he cussed harshly to himself and then took in a deep, loud breath, doing up his shirt buttons with shaking fingers and a hot ache gnawing away at his equally shaking stomach as he walked out of the kitchen. He was angry again, and he was confused again, and his mind was still racing.

As he met Winry and Patrick at the door, torso now covered and feeling as ready as he could be to go out, he just knew it was going to be a long, long day.

---

Down the long path from the Rockbell house, at the end beside the road, there was a parked car that Ed hadn't noticed the night before when he'd arrived and had probably walked right by it. Turns out it was Patrick's car, and glad to not have to walk while feeling so disoriented, he jumped in the backseat and took quiet deep breaths all the way into town. Neither Patrick or Winry seemed in the mood to talk and that was fine with Ed, who was also happy not to make conversation.

It was almost 10.30 when they arrived in town and Winry seemed anxious because she'd slept later than she'd probably wanted to and she was worried about Pinako. So, they rushed inside the large clinic that served as Risembool's medical care center and from the moment Ed laid eyes on Pinako; strong, stubborn, mean and tough Pinako, looking smaller than usual, pale and frail inside a mechanical respirator, Ed could not get rid of the lump in his throat and the weight of sadness in his stomach.

All he could do was go to her bedside and sit there solemnly while on the opposite side Winry sat doing the same.

---

The time passed that way.

The three of them sitting or standing in the room, barely speaking aside from when Winry thought of a story she wanted to tell about her and Pinako, most of which ended with fresh tears on her tired face or just trailed off incomplete. Sometimes Winry would speak to Pinako, despite the fact that she wasn't conscious. Patrick interrupted once to ask about getting something for lunch, his concern for eating directed at Winry who apparently, according to Patrick's insistence for her to eat, hadn't bothered to that morning.

Edward understood how it felt to be too sick with stress and worry and misery to want to eat, but he knew it was important to stay strong, so he agreed with Patrick and opted to be the one to go to the medical center's cafeteria and get some lunch for all of them, giving Patrick and Winry some time alone, and also getting some alone time for himself.

After getting some fresh air outside and greeting a few people from town who recognized him as they passed by, giving him sad smiles and well wishes for Pinako's health, eventually he went to the cafeteria and then back to the room with some chicken and mayo sandwiches and bottles of water for all three of them.

Winry managed to eat her sandwich despite taking a long time to do so, and eventually after they'd all eaten they settled in silence again, the doctor coming by once and nurses a few times on their rounds was about the only thing breaking the silence. And it was terrible, because even though Pinako was in the room, breathing with a mechanical contraption, it felt like she was already gone.

Edward found himself asking, when it got late enough that it was dark outside, whether Pinako had woken up since she collapsed. Winry answered that yes, she had, but that she hadn't stayed awake for long and hadn't managed to speak, but that she had at least recognized that Winry had been there. Ed found himself hoping then that she would wake up for a moment, just long enough that she could see him there too and he could maybe tell her that he loved her, and that she was a great, mean old Granny.

Previously he'd only wanted to avoid her, but not now, now he wanted to see her.

But she didn't wake up that day or night, and when it was getting much later Patrick suggested going back to the house to rest. And when Winry was making stubborn excuses, Patrick had looked at him to help and because he agreed that Winry needed rest, he agreed with Patrick and reassured Winry they'd be back first thing in the morning.

And Ed didn't know why, but Winry seemed to listen to him, and so they went back to the house.

---

They still didn't speak in the car, and once back at the house Winry stubbornly insisted on being the one to make some sandwiches for them to eat, and since she wanted to keep herself busy Ed didn't argue, although Patrick tried to, but only for a while before he took a cue from Ed and let her be.

While she sliced bread and tomatoes, peeled lettuce and layered ham and cheese onto the slices at the counter, she talked about everything the doctors had been saying in the past weeks about Pinako's deteriorating lung function, getting Ed up to speed. She talked about how she was angry that Granny had been lying to her about not smoking, and about resting, too, apparently, since Winry had found some automail items in various stages of completion when she'd arrived after Pinako's collapse, which meant the stubborn old bird had been smoking, drinking and working all the while she was ill.

Edward felt annoyed at hearing that too, but not surprised and he knew it was pointless being mad about it. Pinako would not have wanted to just lie around and wait to die, she was a fighter and she would have wanted to persevere until the very end...even if the very end would leave her granddaughter behind, furious, hurt and without any family. But Pinako was over sixty years old and she'd lived a pretty rugged life in her early days, but not a bad life, it wasn't the worst way to go, because Winry had mentioned the doctor's assured her that Pinako was not in any pain and would likely pass away in her sleep.

When Winry was almost done with the sandwiches, Ed decided to keep himself busy too by getting up and asking who wanted tea, coffee or juice. He had to keep his mind away from where it was headed, because Pinako's impending death was making him think of Hohenheim, which made him think of Trisha, which made him think of Alphonse and family and inces- and, yeah, no, he had to stay away from that slippery slope for the time being. Without his feelings being subdued as they had been before, thinking of the facts of what the last year or so of his life had involved between himself and Alphonse made Ed feel guilty with rushes of very intense self-disgust and self-loathing.

It made the question of 'how could I do that to my brother?' bounce around his skull painfully.

So, he avoided thinking of it, instead making two coffees and tea, for himself, Winry and Patrick respectively.

They ate in silence for a long while, and only after they had finished eating and were finishing off the last of their drinks, while Edward was contemplating having a few shots of whiskey, a hot shower and a deep sleep, did Winry break the silence.

"Where's Alphonse?" she asked quietly, looking at him with a tired frown, no real inflection in her voice.

More silence followed that question as Ed sat slumped in his chair with his arms folded across his chest, Patrick sitting quietly beside Winry, not saying a word.

Anger, that very vibrant anger that was unprompted and made his stomach turn over and his jaw clench, made Edward force himself to take in a deep quiet breath before letting it out again. Only then, when he felt more in control of the burn of betrayal and anger, did he meet Winry's half-lidded, blue eyes and say,

"Xing." and that was it, that was all he was going to say.

He did not want to talk about Alphonse, not with anyone, but least of all with Winry. She'd seen things, suspected things, and Ed was too emotionally unstable right then to be sure he wouldn't become transparent if he talked about Alphonse...

He looked away from her after he answered, and maybe it was his firm and final tone that he answered in, or maybe it was because her and Alphonse's relationship had been so damaged, but she didn't enquire any further.

Ed was grateful for that.

Not long after that they all said goodnight, Winry and Patrick leaving the kitchen to go upstairs to sleep while Edward went to the dining room for some whiskey. Three shots later he went upstairs and took a shower, shaved and brushed his teeth and then he finally went to sleep, and though he dreamed restlessly and with no recall of it the following morning, his subconscious wreaking havoc with him when he wasn't in a position to process it, he still managed to sleep.

---

The next three days that followed went more or less the same way, except that on the second day Pinako did wake up for about ten minutes and she did see Ed, who gave her a watery smile and told her that he loved her, just like he'd planned, regardless of how awkward it felt to say and despite how Winry cried at hearing him say it.

Edward cried too when he noticed Pinako was trying to smile at him, and he cried a little more when he noticed how she glanced around with a pinch between her wrinkled brows...probably looking for Alphonse.

Ed couldn't even call Xing, but the truth was...he knew he wouldn't make that call even if he could.

Maybe Winry would have.

Maybe Patrick would have.

But not him.

But it didn't matter, because there were no phone lines to Xing.

But there were phone lines to Dublith.

---

"Edward?" Sig's voice was as deep and rough as ever, and he sounded happily surprised to be hearing from Ed

That made Ed smile, and it made him feel that relieved joy again, to be making contact and reaching out to people after so long of cutting himself off, and finding that they were still happy to hear from him.

"Hey, Sig." he cleared his throat around the reoccurring lump, "How are you doing?"

Sig chuckled quietly, Ed noticed him keeping his voice down,

"I'm alright, Ed, doing as well as I can." he said, and there was a sadness in his voice.

Ed knew what that sadness was for and he frowned, swallowed around the stubborn lump in his throat as he leaned a hand on the wall of the phonebooth beside the phone itself,

"How's teacher?" and yeah, despite being 'equals' he doubted he'd ever actually call her Izumi, it'd be too weird.

Sig sighed now, sounding weary but his voice was positive when he spoke,

"She's well enough, could be better, but she's stubborn about not resting, so she never gets enough if it." he chuckled again, quiet and fond, "You know how she is."

Ed smiled too, nodded even though Sig couldn't see him,

"Yeah, I do." he hung his head, holding the phone to his ear and staring sadly at his scuffed boots, "So, she hasn't changed; can't say I'm surprised." he sighed and Sig laughed softly again,

"That woman will never change." he admitted and Ed found he agreed, and it made him think of Pinako, because while Izumi and Pinako were nothing alike personality-wise, they were so similar in other ways.

"I'm glad to hear she's okay." he said after a moment, and then he hesitated to ask, nervous and guiltily walking around with the burden of an ugly secret that Alphonse was apparently a threat to keeping, but clutching the phone desperately tight, he forced himself to ask, "Could I speak to her?" and he held his breath after.

"Oh, sorry, Ed, but she's asleep." Sig said quietly, probably speaking that way because she was asleep, and he let out the breath he'd been holding as he closed his eyes and swallowed tensely, nodding to himself as Sig explained, "She struggles to sleep sometimes, so I'd rather not wake her up. You understand, right?"

"Absolutely." Ed said without hesitation, standing up straight again and glancing outside the phone booth to the dark evening sky, "I did call kind of late." although it was only about 8 PM, "My bad." he shifted on his feet, feeling relieved and disappointed that he wouldn't get to speak to her right then.

Sig sighed and admitted,

"Not really, but anytime I can get her to sleep early I do my best to keep her resting."

"Yeah, that's good, she needs to rest." he agreed, figuring the conversation was about to end, but then Sig said,

"You should call tomorrow morning, Ed, then you and Alphonse can speak to her for a while."

And of course, Ed wasn't surprised by Alphonse being mentioned. He hadn't been surprised when Paninya had asked, or Winry, or when Pinako looked around for the younger blonde. Sig's comment didn't surprise him, and nor would anyone else who asked about Alphonse whenever he ran into someone. It was just the way it'd always been, Ed and Al together. The Elric Brothers.

It sounded and felt dirty to him now, which saddened him, but not in any way he wasn't overly used to. His emotions where Alphonse was concerned seemed to range from angry to hurt, to resigned lately, although perhaps the resignation was not so new either.

"Yeah." he said noncommittally, "I'll call tomorrow." and he meant that part, but the lack of Alphonse being around was something he would rather avoid mentioning, "Thanks, Sig." he added with a smile.

"Sure, Ed, and thanks for calling. She'll be happy to know you called." the older man said with the same smiling tone of voice, "Have a good night."

"You too, bye." Ed said pleasantly, but his smile faded as he hung up with a loud 'ching'. He was already nervous about speaking to Izumi, but now he had to worry about her bringing Alphonse up too, because she definitely would. All the stress of wanting to hide away reminded him of why he'd been doing so the past year, but it also made him annoyed and aggravated enough to want to move past it.

Because he couldn't know if Alphonse would be stupid and cruel enough to confess to their incest in Amestris, but if he was, if he ever did do that, Ed wanted to have at least showed the people he cares about how he feels, and he wanted to hopefully feel their care for him in return.

He stepped out of the phonebooth then, into the late summer-cool air, such a pleasant difference when compared to Xing's crazy weather, and he began the walk along the road back to the clinic. He didn't know the time since he hadn't bothered to carry his pocket watch, but he knew it was around the time when Patrick would be trying to urge Winry to go home and rest and he might be in need of Ed's assisted urging, so with his hands deep in his jean's pockets, he made his way back to the medical center.

---

Later that night, once he and Patrick had convinced Winry to go home, and as he lay in bed after having eaten a small supper and had imbibed a few whiskey shots, Edward fortified his resolve to call Izumi tomorrow and talk to her, no matter how nervous he was. He needed her to know she mattered to him.

And again, he slept restlessly and somewhat intoxicated, but he still slept, knowing he was pushing forward.

---

But he didn't call Izumi the next day, because an hour and a half after the three of them had arrived at the medical center that morning, just before 10 AM, as they sat around Pinako's respirator chamber, she passed away in her sleep. Just as the doctor had told Winry she would.

Of course, Winry completely broke down, and later when he thought about it, Ed would feel bad for the fact that it was him that Winry clung to as she cried, devastated and hurting, and not Patrick. But in the moment when it was happening, the only thing that had mattered was holding her close while she cried, being there for her, not even caring about his own tears and pain, because it was nothing compared to her grief.

She'd needed him and for once, he hadn't let her down. He was there, right there to help her get through it.

---

Have you dreamed of a world
where armor shields your bones?

---

The hours that followed at the medical center passed both quickly and slowly that day. Ed had been asked to remove Winry from the room when the nurses were unable to do so. She was basically grief-stricken deadweight in Ed's arms and Ed knew the nurses needed to see to Pinako's body, he knew enough about life and death and the human form to know that rigor mortis wouldn't wait long and the nurses didn't want Winry seeing more than she had to.

So, Ed did the only thing he could; he whispered words of comfort as he picked Winry up, arms under her knees and around her back, and he carried her from the room as she continued to hold on to him.

In the hall, where the three of them sat and waited while the medical staff sorted out the body, Winry cried for a long time beside Ed where he'd sat her in a chair next to the one he was in. Patrick sat on the other side and kept a steady hand on her back as she continued to hold onto Ed. It was all Patrick could do, since she was too far gone at that point to notice, but Ed gave him a few encouraging looks, because the fact that he stayed and stayed and didn't consider leaving despite Winry clinging to Ed, meant he was dedicated to her in the best way possible.

Eventually they were allowed back in the room. The body had been removed from the machines and drips, and Pinako had been posed peacefully, eyes closed and her face restful. It was at that point, when they were let back into the room, that Winry finally let go of him and she instead sat on the bed beside Pinako and cried.

Ed and Patrick both knew they couldn't stay there long either, and Ed worried they'd have to insist Winry leave so the body could be moved to the town's funeral home morgue, but luckily after a while she was so exhausted her eyes were almost closing where she sat staring puffy eyed at her dead grandmother. Edward stayed back then and let Patrick be the one to coax Winry away, and she was exhausted enough that she didn't even make a token protest.

By the time they were leaving the medical center it was late afternoon, and Ed felt pretty exhausted himself. But as they were leaving one of the nurses approached and Ed told Patrick to go ahead to the car. He stayed back and answered the nurse's questions, which led to going to the medical reception and filling out forms for the body's release. A half hour later he finally left the medical center, counting himself lucky that Risembool was small, so getting Pinako's death registered would be fairly easy and wouldn't require too much running around, since he didn't want to leave Winry's side too often, but he didn't want her having to take care of the registration and funeral preparations on top of everything else.

As he walked into the warm afternoon's low sunshine, feeling sad and drained and off kilter, Ed found himself really glad he'd decided to come to Risembool, not only because he got to see Pinako before she passed away, but because if he hadn't been there Winry would have had to go through this without any family.

'What if I'd still been in Xing, and she'd tried to call Central?' he felt his chest constrict at the idea that both he and Alphonse would have been none the wiser, a family member dying, while they'd been on vacation, unreachable and wrapped up in their sin.

He approached Patrick's car with heavy steps, boots scraping along the dusty tar road, eyes burning and stomach turning over as he realized he was happy that he'd ended up leaving Xing. The circumstances had been a completely horrible fuck up, there was no two ways about it, but even with Pinako dying, he felt happy that he was somewhere right, that he was where he was needed and should be.

It had definitely been a long fucking year and then some, and Ed was starting to see glimpses of all the damage on the road traveled and left behind him. It had been a long and destructive year, self-destructive. Mutually destructive between him and Alphonse. He'd always told himself they weren't hurting anyone except themselves and that it was fine, but it wasn't fine because they'd hurt other people anyway, and the hurt they'd been emotionally doling out to one another in varying doses was so far from fine. It was irreparable and unconscionable and reprehensible and depraved.

Breathing as steadily as he could through the ache in his chest, he arrived at the car, and he paused with his hand on the back passenger door when he saw that Winry was lying down and asleep on the backseat. With another sharper ache in his chest at the sight of her, he moved to walk around the car to get to the front passenger door, opening it and getting in, and just as he closed the door, Patrick - who appeared to have been crying a bit too- started the car and pulled out of the small medical center parking.

The drive was totally silent aside from the rumble of the engine as they drove from tarred roads onto dirt the further away from the town they got, and Ed just slumped low in the seat and let his eyes glaze over as his thoughts of so many - too many- things overlapped one another and gave him a headache. He came around to the present again when the car came to a stop and the engine went silent, glancing out of the window to see the orange sunset washed landscape of the countryside and the long stone path leading up to the Rockbell house in the distance.

He and Patrick got out of the car at more or less the same time, closing their doors as quietly as possible, but after moving around the car to Patrick's side, Ed took note of how defeated Patrick looked. He was standing with a hand on the back passenger window, looking at Winry sadly, like he was hurting for her, and while he wasn't a big or overly built guy, he somehow looked even leaner as he stood with his shoulders slumped, his previously well put together cardigan, shirt, khaki pants and sensible shoes, appearing quite ill-fitting.

"Uh." Ed managed flatly, not really knowing what was going on with Patrick suddenly looking defeated, but he hoped it wasn't that the guy was about to bail on Winry, because he wouldn't be leaving with all of his teeth in his mouth if that was the case.

Patrick sighed then, and after rubbing a hand over his cheek, he finally looked away from Winry and Ed met his gaze head on and expectantly. He wasn't sure what he was expecting but Patrick telling him,

"I don't want to wake her up. She hasn't slept almost at all these past few nights." in a quiet, strained voice, was not it, "Not for more than a restless half hour at a time. She's just been tossing and turning in bed," Ed glanced away, looking out at the green hills, "and I tried making her chamomile tea, or holding her when she cries, but...but...nothing's helped." he sighed again, "Now she's asleep, finally, really asleep, and I don't want to wake her up." another sigh, " She's lost so much weight these past weeks." Ed hadn't noticed that much because Winry had been wearing layers and baggy clothes, "I'm just so worried about her."

Ed blinked a few times, his bangs blowing into his face as the wind picked up, and he found himself thinking of how he'd felt when they'd buried Trisha. He'd only been a boy, and the memory wasn't as vivid as all that, but Ed remembered that knowing she was dead had been bad, but it hadn't been as bad as when she'd been alive and in the process of dying. No, that latter part had been the worst part, seeing her everyday lying in bed, getting gradually sicker and sicker and weaker. Once she'd been gone it'd been horrible, sure, but there'd also been a sense of peace knowing she was finally at rest, no more pain, no more sadness for her, no more waiting to die.

"The hardest part is over." he heard himself say and his own voice made him snap back to the present. He met Patrick's confused gaze, "The state that Gran- uh, that Pinako was in all this time, that was the hardest part." he didn't think he'd be very good at explaining, but he'd try, "Seeing her like that, Winry wasn't used to it, neither was I," he added the last part more quietly, and then he sighed himself and shook his head, "because even though Pinako wasn't hurting, she was weak and vulnerable and when someone you know has always been the opposite of that, and you see them so, so..." he trailed off and then looked at the passenger door Patrick was standing by, "That was the hardest part, seeing Pinako like that...knowing and, and waiting for..." he cleared his throat, "But now that she's gone, she's at peace and Winry," Edward felt that recently stubborn lump return to his throat, "she knows that. She'll just need some time to process it, to see through the pain, but in the end, she'll be okay, she'll bounce back, she always does. She's a strong woman. She's a fighter." he was mumbling toward the end, and he didn't think he sounded particularly encouraging or inspiring, but it was the best he could do.

Patrick sniffed and Ed glanced at him, seeing his eyes shining wetly in the low brightness as he nodded,

"Yeah, she is strong. She's amazing..." he mumbled and then apropos of nothing he frowned and added, "She's lucky you were here, though." Ed cocked an eyebrow at hearing that insecure waver in Patrick's voice again, "Because if you weren't, I, I mean I don't know if I could have helped her the way you di-..."

"Considering that you guys haven't been together all that long," Ed cut his pointless speech off, ignoring the man's slight frown at his candid words, "and that I've known her almost literally our entire lives, the fact that she turned to me back at the hospital shouldn't be surprising. We're family." he said honestly, because it was true, although it wasn't the point, "But if I hadn't coincidentally showed up here, would you have been there for her when she inevitably broke down?" he asked seriously.

"Yes, of course." Patrick answered instantly and Ed didn't miss a beat,

"Then that's all that fucking matters." he nodded once, with finality and he once again saw some confidence seep back into Patrick's demeanor. Apparently, Ed being around was testing the guy, but so far he was doing really well. "Now, let's get her into the house so she can sleep in a bed and be comfortable." he added as he gestured up the path, needing to break the awkward, emotionally charged silence.

Another sigh and a shrug,

"Guess I have to wake her up." Patrick said, glancing from the car door window to the long path leading up to the house. Ed cocked an eyebrow and absently pushed up the folded back sleeves of his black button down to above his elbows before slipping his hands into his pockets.

"You could carry her." he suggested.

Patrick blinked a bit rapidly, glancing from Ed to the car window and then up the long pathway hill, his mouth opening and closing as a red fluster crawled up his neck rather visibly. Ed had to stop himself snorting in amusement at the fact that Patrick clearly didn't think he could manage that.

But he didn't want to fuck with the guy's fragile confidence any more than his presence alone had been doing, so he sniffed to keep his snort of amusement at bay and said in his least amused or judgmental tone,

"I'll carry her." and Patrick got even redder, clenching his jaw in frustration, but now was not the time to flex his ego and Ed was sure he knew that, so he stepped forward and said, "Open the door." because Patrick was standing with his hand on the door handle.

Despite his personal embarrassment, Patrick did so, pulling the door open and Ed didn't hesitate, reaching in to gently rouse Winry in a soft tone, getting her just awake enough so he could help her get out of the car. She slurred his name, eyes barely opening as he helped her stand up outside the car with an arm around her middle. He answered her absently, confirming it was him, and before her legs could give, he leaned her weight into him and scooped her up easily. She was very light, even more than he'd expected - probably due to weight loss- and she was barely conscious enough to do more than lean her head on his shoulder with a loll, one arm folded over her stomach and the other flopped out.

Ed muttered for Patrick to fold her arm in once he was holding her in the stable cradle of both of his arms, and after Patrick had settled her arm and hand over her stomach with the other one, Ed didn't wait to turn and start walking up the path. He heard Patrick shut the door and then there were footsteps catching up and then falling into step just behind him, car keys jingling quietly as they walked.

Ed felt more concerned now about Winry's weight loss at feeling how light she was in his arms, and it reminded him of how worried he'd used to be about Alphonse's weight. Unsettlingly though, his recall of that memory now came with bitterness as Ed remembered how even though Al had been so ill, it hadn't stopped him from running his fucking mind games on Ed.

He swallowed the bitterness down forcefully, pushing down the harsh feelings so he could focus on getting Winry inside to rest.

"Can you cook?" he asked quietly as they walked, in order to distract himself from his racing thoughts and aggravatingly contradicting feelings; the old no longer aligning with the new.

"Uh, yeah." Patrick answered just as quietly, their voices as soft as the calm wind, blending in so as not to startle Winry from sleep.

"You should make her something to eat, because whenever she wakes up, she'll be really hungry and she'll need the energy...and the calories." he added with a worried frown.

"Oh, yeah, I can, uh, she likes my root vegetable and beef stew." he said with a hint of surety and pride. which Ed found amusing but didn't comment on as they walked nearer and nearer to the house, "I could make that for her." he added, sounding uncertain again.

"Yeah, sure." Ed responded, figuring Patrick might be expecting him to say something.

They walked the rest of the way in silence, and soon enough they were inside and Ed was setting Winry down on the bed in her usual room. He left after that, leaving Patrick do his boyfriend-thing, such as removing her shoes and tucking a blanket over her, making sure she was settled and comfortable and all that.

He was glad to find he could adeptly practice such boundaries with her, especially when he felt like he'd been living without any for so long. Ed hadn't even known he'd had many boundaries, not until after they'd been taken from him. His head was spinning though, and even though carrying Winry hadn't been difficult, exhaustion washed over him the moment he was inside his room and closing the door.

He let out a shaky breath and noticed a tremor in his hand as he reached down to turn the key in the lock. The tremble started to move further through him as he considered how being able to lock a door seemed so oddly pleasing. Ed had never particularly cared for locked doors...but now the action seemed like so much, like a luxury. He could lock a door and give himself space.

Not that it helped with how his head was spinning with thoughts of Alphonse's pale face confessing that he'd told Ling their most shameful secret, guilty of betrayal but still having carried it out thoughtlessly, slyly like a practiced liar. And then there was the thought of Pinako's pale, frail face as she suddenly, easily just ceased to breathe and was no longer alive. His hands were shaking now, but at the time they'd been steady while his stomach had been in knots, when signing those forms which released her lifeless body to be sent to a cold, cold morgue. Then there were the heart wrenching sounds of Winry's crying as she clenched handfuls of his shirt so tightly her knuckles had been bleach-white. All of this was playing over and over in his head.

Ed didn't sob, but tears tracked over his cheeks all the same with each sore, slow blink. With his legs feeling heavy, he dragged his feet over to his bed, turning to fall on to his back. He took a moment to toe his unlaced boots off before he brought his legs up onto the bed, rolled onto his side facing the wall and curled up into a fetal position.

He cried silently until he fell asleep, his dreams just flashes of coldness and distance and flashes of faces that he wouldn't recall in waking.

---

Have you ransomed your soul
to pay for all that you've got wrong?

---

Pinako's funeral took place two days later. Her body was buried alongside Winry's mother and father, which was only a short walk from Trisha and Hohenheim's graves, and a lot of people from town were present. It hadn't been an overly sad affair though, because while Pinako's death was sad, it hadn't been a violent, unnatural or tragic death. She'd been well liked and loved and a feisty old woman, full of wit and snark and attitude, a woman who had always been well regarded and respected, and so the people who came to pay their respects did so with sad but fond sobs and smiles.

And it turned out Ed had been right about Winry, mostly to his own surprise.

At first, she'd been dazed and hadn't spoken much since waking and for a day after Pinako had died, as he'd expected. So, while Patrick had stayed with her and been there for her in whatever way she might need help or comforting support, Ed had borrowed Patrick's car and he'd taken on the responsibility of going into town to handle and sort out Pinako's funeral, all the while collecting flowers and letters and wishes of condolences from the towns people, some of who were very helpful when it came to guiding him in the process of putting together a tasteful funeral for Pinako.

Ed didn't really trust his own taste, and he wanted everything to be beautiful and respectable for Winry and for Pinako's memory. With the help of a few select people in town, Ed had sorted out the ceremony and actual burial and it was decided that one of the town's respected members, also a friend of Pinako's, would lead the funeral since Ed had no experience with that.

After all that, though, by the second day and before the funeral could be finalized, Ed had had to ask Winry to choose clothes for Pinako's burial, and also about whether she wanted to hold a wake. And even though she was still being quiet and had been occasionally crying on the second day, as she'd sat looking at the flowers, condolence cards and food dishes –brought personally by some town's people-, she'd managed to make eye contact with him and give him a straight affirmative answer about the wake, smiling sadly as she'd joked that Granny would have complained about all the fuss in her house, but would have still welcomed people there.

Ed had smiled at her truthful mumblings, but he'd mostly smiled because Winry had, and that was a good sign.

Patrick had smiled too, and the look he'd exchanged with Ed conveyed his optimism that Winry would be okay.

So, after Winry had packed a rarely -if ever worn- dark blue dress of Pinako's, along with some equally new looking matching sandals, in a small bag, Ed had headed back out on day two to take the clothes to the funeral parlor and organize a wake at the Rockbell house, which required food catering mostly. And again the towns folk were helpful, most of them commenting at some point or another that it was nice to see him back home. Ed had felt good about their comments, because yeah, he was pretty spoiled for the city life, but Risembool would kind of always be home in some way, and feeling welcomed there made his steps feel a little lighter. They'd also asked where Alphonse was, of course, to which Ed had answered that he was in Xing and was therefore uncontactable.

This had made many people feel even sorrier about the situation, and Ed just went through the motions while trying to keep his mind off thoughts of Alphonse.

On the evening before the morning of the funeral, with everything sorted out, Winry had eaten with a better appetite and seemed more responsive to everything around her, including Patrick's closeness and loving cheek kisses. And although she cried as she chose some clothes to wear for the funeral, she still found it in herself to insist of approving on what he and Patrick would wear to the funeral; which was so much like herself it made Ed smile as he deferred to her judgement the same as Patrick did.

Winry had also asked about Alphonse again on the morning of the funeral, as they walked in the fresh morning air down the road to the cemetery in their black clothing, the colour broken only by Patrick's white shirt and Winry's pale pink flat pumps. She'd asked if there was any way to contact him, and Ed had told her the truth, which was that aside from a letter, which would take weeks to get to the palace, there was no way to contact Alphonse.

And again, his feelings were contradicting, since he was both saddened and relieved by the fact that Alphonse couldn't be there. Especially since he felt like he couldn't trust Alphonse's words or actions. After how Alphonse had outed them to Ling carelessly -thoughtlessly, selfishly- he didn't know if there wasn't something that had pushed Alphonse to revealing their ugliest truth to others. After all, Ed doubted that Alphonse's confessing to Ling was only because he felt safe enough within Xing and its lack of laws against incest...no, there had to be more.

Alphonse's actions had been cruel, they hadn't come just from feeling safe. For whatever reason he'd chosen to tell Ling, there was more to it. Ed recalled thinking that some ugly collision was coming between them...

He continued to put those thoughts from his mind though, as he'd been doing in the past week in Risembool.

In so doing, he was able to focus only on the funeral, on holding Winry's hand a few times during the service, like when she went forward to say a few quiet words and place flowers on the closed coffin, and again when the coffin was being lowered into the ground. She'd squeezed his hand so tightly, her nails digging into his skin, but he hadn't considered for even a second separating their hands, not until she decided to let go.

And she had eventually, when other funeral guests came forward to talk to her, friends of Pinako and other familiar towns people, all wanting to offer their condolences. There was soft crying and hugs and sad smiles, tissues offered, comforting words and light reassuring touches. Winry had been briefly swept up in it, at the gravesite and on the walk to Rockbell house for the wake, and Ed had stayed back, walking behind the small crowd, Patrick only a few steps ahead of him.

And as they'd neared the house and began to walk up the path, Ed's gaze had drifted to the burnt barely-there remnants of what had used to be his home, far away and high on a green hill, it was like an ugly black spot.

With unshed tears in his eyes, Edward realized that it was pretty close to how he felt inside.

Like something ruined, sticking out like an ugly eyesore while surrounded by the beauty of the everchanging world. And for the first time since arriving Ed felt like he needed to leave soon. He had a long way to go mentally and emotionally, and he couldn't allow himself to break down, not yet, not where he presently was.

That break down would happen eventually though, he could feel it coming, the weight of it in his stomach, knotted up, but twisting, slowly unraveling. And he knew he'd probably be alone when it hit him, completely alone, there was no other way.

---

The wake dragged on a bit, people only starting to leave when the sun was beginning to set. And after the last person had left, Patrick and Winry having showed them out, once the door had closed, he'd suggested to Winry that she take a relaxing bath and get some sleep. Edward hadn't interfered with their quiet conversation, instead he'd began tidying up to keep his hands and mind busy.

The living room was a mess of cake and tea dishes, open photo albums and scattered loose pictures on the table. The sofa cushions were skewed and the place overall looked untidy. So as Patrick ushered Winry upstairs to get some sleep, he cleared all the dishes to the kitchen before going back to the living room to put away the photos and the straighten up. As he put the photos away, he ignored the nauseous ache in his stomach of every picture he saw of himself and Alphonse, young and innocent as little children, and also the few with them grown up in that time during Al's recovery.

Seeing those pictures made him feel sick, he was so far removed from that, he was so far from being the boy and man he'd been in those pictures.

The time passed as he cleaned up, and a while later when he was elbow deep in suds and halfway through washing the dishes Patrick reappeared. Ed glanced over his shoulder as the other man came nearer with a half-smile,

"She's asleep, she could barely keep her eyes open after her bath."

Ed smiled too, eyes back on the sink and the dish he was soaping up,

"That's good." he responded quietly, feeling relief wash over him for knowing that she was sleeping peacefully.

"Yeah." Patrick agreed pointlessly, and then Ed was surprised when he stepped up to the side of him a few feet away, "Hey, uh, let me take over here, Ed." he gestured to the dishes and Ed paused in rinsing the cup, taking a blinking moment to register that Patrick was apparently on a shortened-name basis with him, "You've already cleaned up so much, and after everything you've done these past couple of days and the funeral today, you must be beat." he explained himself, while Ed found himself not uncomfortable with the idea of being friendly -if not quite friends- with Patrick, "You can leave the rest to me, let me help out." he gestured again to the dishes, and Ed realized he hadn't moved and that the water was running idly over the cup and his hands as he stared down into the sink.

He shook off the daze then and nodded, his eyes suddenly feeling terribly heavy,

"Uh, yeah, thanks. Thanks, Patrick." he half mumbled as he set the rinsed cup down with the other wet dishes on the draining board and then turned off the faucet, picking up the hand towel on the counter to dry his hands as he stepped away from the sink.

Patrick stepped up then and immediately took over where Ed left off, and Ed noted that Patrick's clothes were changed and his hair was damp, meaning he'd probably also taken a shower or bath after Winry...or maybe with Winry. He had to shut his eyes tightly and swallow thickly as images and words suddenly raced through his tired, wrung out mind. Memories and imaginings all at once; himself in the shower with Alphonse, sinning. Winry's old letters detailing how she touched herself in the shower thinking of him, yearning. Patrick and Winry in the shower together as a couple, intimate. Himself standing in Roy's bedroom after a hot shower as those dark blue eyes affectionately watched him, comfortable.

"Hey, Ed, you look like your about to pass out." Ed startled when Patrick's voice tore him from his dazed overlapping thoughts, "You okay?" he asked, and Ed blinked and frowned back to the present to find Patrick was closer than before, and his hand was on Ed's shoulder, and Ed realized he'd been dizzy enough that he'd stumbled back to lean against the counter, the dish towel that had been in his hands now held by Patrick. Perhaps he'd dropped it?

He also realized that while he was okay with being friendly and called Ed by Patrick, they weren't quite friendly or familiar enough for touching. Clenching his jaw and forcing himself not to shove Patrick away from him, he just nodded stiffly and shrugged Patrick's hand off somewhat roughly before he turned and walked away and left the kitchen.

The confusing jumble of guilt, nostalgia, pre-destiny and quiet desire moving through his mind from his associative yet disconnected thoughts left him feeling disquieted and very, very sad as he climbed the stairs and made his way to his bedroom. He resolved that a hot shower and some sleep would do some good in putting him back together at least somewhat. He needed some rest; he needed a break from functioning. He also hadn't been sleeping well in the past week.

So, he grabbed a change of clothes, and as he did so he absently noticed for the first time a sealed package wrapped in Xingese fabric tucked into the bottom of his valise. But he chose to ignore it for right then as he left the room to go and take a shower. He really needed to sleep, he was so tired.

---

Ed woke up with a start from one of his restless dreams, breath shaking as he exhaled and inhaled into the dark quiet of his room, flashes of blue lingering in his mind as he frowned up at the ceiling of his old room. He tried to, but failed to remember anything besides the blue crackling light in his dreams, and then as he gradually became more awake and aware he took note of the fact that he was overly warm under the bed covers, sweat making his sleeping shirt cling to him and his face felt a bit damp, too.

His hair was open and likely a mess, and after he'd lethargically dragged his arm up from under the covers, he reached a sleep warm hand up to push his messy bangs out of his face and felt his hair was also damp, confirming that either he hadn't been sleeping for very long, or that he'd been sweating quite a lot in his sleep. He pushed the warm duvet down from where it was over his shoulders with his freed hand and then further down to his waist with both bands and he sighed out, long and tired.

He blinked sleepily up at the light that cut across the ceiling from the small unclosed gap in the curtains and between one blink and the next, Ed's frowned only deepened when he recalled the last time, before his present visit, when he'd slept in that bed, also unable to sleep and staring up at the ceiling back then. It had been over a year ago, not long after Alphonse's incestuous confession.

Ed recalled that back then he had felt so differently as he'd laid awake. He'd felt guilty and responsible, he'd been questioning his role in Alphonse's corrupted feelings, he'd wondered if the transmutation had gone wrong somehow, wondered if he'd been too close to Alphonse during his recovery, when his body had still been so new. He'd felt worried and sad and scared and afraid...all for Alphonse, all for wanting to protect him.

Now, so much time later, Ed didn't feel any of that. The guilt he'd felt in the past year had taken many shapes and varied in strengths depending on whatever phase of behavior he and Alphonse had been exhibiting toward one another. The same could be said for the concern, for the sadness and the need to protect. The feeling had changed and warped and shifted and now it felt so worn through, so out of reach, just like all of Ed's other feelings. Now, as Ed lay thinking about everything that had happened, thinking about how Al had been purposely running mind-games on him from almost the very first moment they'd moved to Central, how he'd been insinuating ideas of what he wanted through manipulation, using guilt and his heart and their brotherhood almost like a weapon to cut into Ed's already weak resolve. Thinking of how Alphonse had taken careful steps to get him to where the younger blonde had wanted him. Right up until the moment he'd offered Ed that drug.

Ed blinked when his eyes felt too dry from staring up at the ceiling, hands clenching into fists as he shook his head, but not at Alphonse's actions, no...at himself...because he'd known all along what Al had been doing, from the guilt trips, to the manipulations, to the influencing and the conditioning, he'd known, and he'd let it happen.

In the end Alphonse had successfully mentally conditioned him, and then Alphonse had pushed that mental conditioning to the physical. It was scary though, how now, as he recalled the first time Alphonse had given him failed oral sex in his dark, silent bedroom, that he felt practically nothing. There was a vague sense of disquiet and passive discomfort, and also the logical awareness of knowing how fucked up it had been, but it didn't dredge up any real visceral feeling. And Ed remembered now that that was the night when things had changed for him, and for their relationship by extension, the night when there'd been some kind of switch flipped in his mind, or rather, as Alphonse had called it, some kind of mental block. The night he'd been traumatized.

Despite that switch though, what had happened recently in Xing, that had overridden the switch, or block or whatever. Just thinking about the last time he'd seen Alphonse, thinking of how Alphonse had basically stuck a knife in his back, thinking of how Alphonse hadn't cared about his feelings at all, those thoughts didn't fail to dredge up that anger, anger that was vivid with colour and turned over his stomach.

Ed huffed out a breath as he sat up and threw the covers off himself, swinging his legs off the side of the single bed and leaning his elbows on his knees and head in his hands. Since the block had been overridden there'd been more feeling for sure, but there was still a lot that wasn't coming through, and Ed didn't know what he'd do when it finally did break through. He was once again reminded of the fact that he had to be alone when it all finally came crashing down on him, because he worried it'd put him in a bad place.

Right then though, he decided he could use a drink. For the time being alcohol would serve as medication, making everything slowly descending on him manageable. Enabling him to sleep, even if his mind didn't completely settle.

Ed had the presence of mind to pull on a black T-shirt before he left the room, but didn't bother with pants, instead just heading downstairs in his boxers. He absently undid his sleep mussed braid and ran his fingers through it a few times before re-braiding it, all the while quietly, on socked feet, making his way to the dining room off the kitchen.

But as he walked by the dark living room, something caught Ed's eye, just there in his periphery, and he stopped walking and turned around to go back to the open doorway of the living room. He stopped in the doorway though when he saw that it was Winry, standing by the window in the dark room, the curtains opened and moonlight washing her out and making her look ghostly and pale. She was dressed in a loose T-shirt that was probably Patrick's for how large it was, along with pajama pants and she had her arms hugged around her middle, the lack of expression on her face a clear sign that she was far off in thought.

She wasn't crying though, and aside from seeming distant in thought, she looked okay. So, having realized recently how valuable those quiet moments alone could be, Ed didn't want to disturb her. As quietly as he'd been moving, he backed away to continue down the dark hall, but barely five steps away he heard a soft questioning,

"Ed?"

'Shit.' he mentally cursed, annoyed at himself for interrupting her, but ignoring her didn't even cross his mind and immediately he turned around and stepped back into the doorway to where she could see him,

"Hey, sorry for disturbing you." he said as softly as she'd spoken his name.

He was surprised to see her smile, the shadows created by the moonlight on her face showing a dark curved line at the corner of her pale lips,

"You aren't disturbing me. I almost didn't even notice anyone was there." she explained, turning more to face him so more of her face was shadowed. Ed noticed her long hair, which ever since she'd turned fifteen she'd obstinately refused to shorten the length of, was open and pulled all together over one shoulder.

He watched as she unfolded one arm and absently ran a hand over the length of it before twirling the end over and over with her fingers, "You couldn't sleep?" she asked, and it was her words that snapped him out of staring at her fidgeting.

"Uh, no..." he blinked and shook his head, "...I was asleep, but then I woke up and decided to get some, uh, water. W-what about you?" he fought the urge to fidget as well, placing his hands on his hips to quell the need. He was well aware that this was first time he and Winry had been talking alone since he'd arrived, and it made him nervous about what topic might come up. With all the emotional stress Winry had been through, he really didn't want to be the reason more emotional shit was brought up between them.

Winry stared at him for a moment, her blue eyes looking pale, one more so than the other at the angle she was standing, and despite feeling anxious he didn't turn away from the eye contact; he felt like he couldn't, because he knew she deserved to be looked at, to be seen, to be acknowledged.

God, he'd been such an asshole to her.

"I feel weird," she shrugged, her shoulders bobbing just so, "like I've slept too much, but also like I haven't." she admitted quietly, and then she was approaching, taking slow silent, barefooted steps toward him from across the living room, "Want some cocoa instead of water?" she asked, smiling a bit more now, soft and sincere on her tired face. Tired, but unfailingly pretty. Ed felt his chest warm with affection just looking at her.

Having seen distress and sadness on her face over the last week or so had been so painful and had made him feel helpless, unable to take away her pain. But she seemed okay, and that made him feel okay, too.

He smiled right back,

"Yeah, cocoa sounds good." waiting until she was near the doorway before he stepped back and let her pass to walk ahead of him into the hall, "You hungry maybe? I could make you a sandwich, too." he offered, indirectly letting her know that he would be making the cocoa. He just wanted her to relax.

"I don't know, maybe I'll just have a snack from all the leftovers." she shrugged again, Ed able to see it since his eyes had more or less adjusted to the dark. They walked quietly down the hall together, Ed just two steps behind her and when they walked into the kitchen, Winry reached out to the side of the doorway and switched the light on.

They were both silent for a long moment as they moved around the kitchen, Ed going over to gather the ingredients for the hot cocoa and Winry to the fridge to look through the leftovers. It was almost as if now that they were cast into the light, all alone, they didn't want to look at one another; at least that's how Ed felt. It seemed it was just him though because eventually Winry broke the silence easily,

"There's a lot of cold meat cuts and potato salad left." she said quietly but pleasantly and Ed glanced over from where he was putting a saucepan on the burner, to see Winry pulling out a plastic wrapped plate and large glass bowl from the fridge.

"Ugh, gross, Winry." was his automatic response, "That's too weird, meat sandwiches and cold salad with hot cocoa." he turned back to what he was doing as he made a grossed-out face. But his expression quickly turned wide eyed and his chest warmed when he heard Winry laugh behind him, immediately making him smile too, "What's so funny, huh?" he asked good naturedly as he added the ingredients into the saucepan.

"You, Ed." she answered, still snickering, "I can't believe after all these years you still have that no-mixing-savory-with-sweet pet peeve." he could just tell she was shaking her head as her laughter tapered off, but there was still a smile in her voice and it made him feel light and warm to know he'd made her happy, even if just briefly.

"Why would it change? It'll always be nasty." he quipped, still smiling himself.

He could also assume she rolled her eyes when she said,

"Well, what would you like then? There's some poppy seed muffins and - oh, I know, brownies!" she announced a little louder than they'd previously been speaking and Ed turned to be able to see her as he stirred the heating mixture slowly.

"Hell yeah, brownies." he agreed with an easy grin, and when she looked at him, now holding a plastic container with leftover brownies, she smiled too, a smile that said 'yeah, I knew you'd like that idea'. "They probably aren't as good as yours though." he added honestly. And it was a great moment, but it faded when her smile did and Ed immediately frowned and stopped stirring, "Winry, what's wrong?" he asked worriedly, wondering if he'd said the wrong thing. But before he could drop what he was doing to go to her side, she was smiling again, but this time it was sad,

"I feel bad...that I'm smiling, after what's happened. After..." she trailed off, clutching the brownie container tightly.

Ed quickly tapped the spoon off and set it on the counter top before moving the heated cocoa off the burner so he could go to Winry. He placed his hands on her hunched shoulders, ducking his head slightly to try and meet her watery blue eyes,

"Hey, you know damn well Granny would not want you to be unhappy, not under any circumstances." he said softly but seriously, "Sad, yeah, that's a given. But not unhappy, she'd never want that." he told her surely and when she sniffled he place a crooked index finger under her chin and gently urged her to look up and meet his eyes, and when she did he smiled slowly, "So, don't feel bad, okay?"

Her smile slowly returned to her face and then they looked at each other properly for the first time in days, and probably months even, up close and real and without avoidance. Ed was about to wonder whether they should be standing so close, he was aware that there were a lot of unresolved issues between them, and also of the fact that Patrick and Winry were together and he didn't feel that way about Winry anymore. He didn't want to trigger anything out of place.

But it turned out he was just flattering himself, because it didn't get awkward, it only felt right next when Winry threw her arms around his shoulders and sobbed quietly as she hugged him tightly, her face buried in the side of his neck.

She sobbed out a muffled,

"I missed you." Squeezing him tighter as he in turn wrapped his arms around her torso, settling a hand on the back of her head as he held her, "I'm so glad you're here." And Ed couldn't say exactly how, but he just knew that the moment was entirely familial, entirely platonic, Winry wasn't feeling anything for him that he couldn't return, because as family he loved her so much, he always would. So, he wasn't concerned about a misunderstanding when he whispered,

"I missed you, too." against the side of her head, the smell of her hair familiar and comforting.

He didn't think he'd have ended up crying again so soon, but as he held Winry and she cried softly while holding onto him, he felt tears leave his eyes...and a distinctly sharp pain lanced through his chest when, for the first time in a long time, the reality settled that he would never be this platonically close to Alphonse again. Ever.

---

Never give up

---

They'd both stopped crying after about ten minutes, laughing softly and still smiling as they dried their cheeks with their clothes; Winry with her sleeves and Ed with the collar of his T-shirt.

Ed turned and went back to making cocoa while Winry took out some side plates, and after she asked how many brownies he wanted, the sad moment dissipated and the atmosphere was somehow more comfortable. Ed had been wondering about the hurdles that would be standing in the way of mending his damaged relationship with Winry, but apparently, Winry being as incredible as she was, she made even that seem so easy.

"I'll have however many are left." he answered, watching the dark liquid begin to bubble.

"You're kidding. There's like, twelve here, Ed." she sounded fondly exasperated.

He grinned, feeling oddly weird about it, like he hadn't smiled like that in a while,

"Okay, fine, fine. I'll leave one behind in case anyone wants it." he joked, because honestly, eleven brownies would make him feel sick if he actually ate them all, so he wasn't being serious.

"How thoughtful of you." she joked along.

There was silence for a while, Ed glancing over to see Winry set a side plate with four brownies aside before she started to make a sandwich for herself.

"Uh, hey, I could do that for you if you wanted." he offered, wanting to do things to be useful to her. She deserved that. She deserved more than that from him. She absently pushed some of her behind her ear and he leaned against the counter facing her so he could look at her as she smiled softly and shook her head,

"Thanks, Ed, but I can make a sandwich. Just don't burn the cocoa." she gave him a sarcastic look.

It delighted Ed to see that expression on her face and he played along easily,

"Oh, come on. I did that once. One time." he pretended to be offended and she laughed.

He did too after a moment.

The cocoa was done soon, just about when Winry had finished making her sandwich with a side of potato salad, and Ed poured the liquid into two mugs, setting them down on the table before he sat down adjacent to her, in the chair where she'd placed his side plate of brownies. They snacked and sipped for a while, the silence not uncomfortable, but certainly with plenty of unsaid things taking up some of the air.

He ignored the subtle intangible pressure in the room and took note instead of the fact that Winry seemed to have her appetite back. Not thinking anything of it, he tipped his mug to her after sipping from it and said,

"Glad to see you eating. You haven't had much of an appetite lately."

She had just spooned up the last of her salad and she raised her eyebrows, glancing from the spoonful to him before she slowly set her spoon down again.

"Yeah, I, I just felt so..." she frowned and seemed to not want to look at him when she said, "I felt guilty, Ed. Like it was my fault because I left when she was sick. I shouldn't have-..." her voice broke off into a pained choke. She was trying not cry.

Ed slowly lowered his mug and set it down as well, watching her sadly as his stomach turned over because he couldn't help but think of how he'd done the opposite with Alphonse's sickness...and look how awful that had turned out. Honestly, perhaps too carelessly, Ed said,

"It would have taken something from you to stay with her, Winry." he practically whispered, eyes averting to the side the moment she tried to meet his gaze, "To be there, as it just got worse." he swallowed sorely, eyes burning, but he knew he wouldn't be crying this time, "And she would have been different, too. Knowing...knowing what was wrong, where it would inevitably lead." he blinked a few times and cleared his throat before forcing himself to look into her sad, slightly wide blue eyes. He smiled and shook his head to clear his mixing thoughts of the vastly different, yet slightly similar, parallels of Alphonse and Pinako's illnesses. "Granny knew that," he continued, "she knew and she didn't want you to have to see her like that. I think...I think it's the same reason she used to only let Alphonse and I see our mother on good days, after she got sick." he had been determined not to pause on Alphonse's name and he was glad he managed, "She knew that it would stay with us to have seen our mother breaking down. Granny was trying to protect you from that."

Winry blinked and a few fresh tears slipped over her cheeks,

"But Ed, she was so...s-so alone here, when she..."

Ed reached out and placed his hand lightly on top of Winry's tightly clenched fist, and he stroked his thumb over her knuckles,

"Yeah, she was alone, working on some parts, having a drink and a smoke." Winry frowned, "Probably had the radio turned up ungodly loud on one of those awful country music stations she liked to sing along to." Winry was still frowning, but she seemed contemplative now, so Ed went ahead and made his point, "Exactly how she liked it, Winry."

Winry nodded then,

"Yeah, I guess, I mean...if I'd been here, it wouldn't have been like that. I would have, I would have-..."

"You would have monitored everything she did, fussed and made sure she was doing everything the doctors told her to, to stay healthier." he filled in quietly and Winry snorted, more tears slipping out of her eyes,

"She would have hated that." she said, getting what he was trying to say. She unclenched her fist under his hand then and turned her hand palm up so she could squeeze his own, "Thank you, Ed. At least I know," she sighed, "at least I know she was probably as happy as she could be, without all my nagging." she used her free hand to wipe the tears from her eyes.

Ed smirked,

"And we both know how good you are at nagging." he teased, snickering when she picked up the ball of cling wrap lying beside the brownie container with her free hand and threw it at him.

They both laughed after that, quietly, since they both seemed to not want to wake Patrick up.

They both sipped on their cocoa for a while, Ed finishing his off and Winry still nursing hers, and the silence was less charged now; a sign that their relationship was mending a little more.

Then, out of nowhere, or maybe not really considering everything had settled down, Winry asked,

"What made you come here, Ed?" and she didn't sound accusing, but her tone was more serious now when she looked at him. Ed took a quiet breath, folded his arms over his chest, and figured he could be mostly honest,

"I was on my way back from Xing, and Risembool is a stop option on the way to Central." he raised an eyebrow, half focused on keeping the tension of thinking about Xing and why he left out of his expression and demeanor, "It's the closest I've been to Risembool since moving, and it made sense to visit, to see Pinako. I didn't know you'd be here." he added the last part quietly and then he added even quieter, "I'm so glad I did, because I got to see her one last time." his voice was a bit strained, some slightly colourful emotions making that ache real again.

Winry nodded, sniffing quietly before she frowned deeply,

"Al doesn't even know." she leaned an elbow on the table and leaned her face in her hand as she shook her head, "He's going to be devastated when he finds out." she sounded like the idea hurt her, her voice a bit strained as well.

Ed, curiously, didn't feel anything like what she seemed to feel, and he found he couldn't think of anything to say in response, so he just lowered his gaze to the table as Winry sniffed and held back a few more sobs. It was different for him, having witnessed how Alphonse had grown cold to outsiders, he'd seen no affection in Alphonse's face on the rare occasion when Winry was mentioned, as so he felt doubt that Alphonse would care. That was unreasonable though. Right? Surely Alphonse would care, he would cry and be hurt and sad, because Pinako had practically raised them, she was family and now she was dead.

Yes, Alphonse seemed to be disconnected on some emotional level, and Ed had found himself on more than one occasion wondering with great fear and concern about how Al seemed to lack empathy more and more. But surely the death of a loved one would make it real for him. Just like it was making it real for Ed after so long.

"You said he's still in Xing?" Winry asked quietly, the purely good person she was still caring and thinking lovingly of Al even after how terrible their last interaction had been. Ed looked at her, noticing that she was frowning slightly as she regarded him, and he had no idea what she saw in his face when she looked at him right then. Was she surprised because he wasn't as sad as she was about Alphonse not knowing? He couldn't really help that, because between Alphonse's betrayal, thinking his younger brother was behaving like some kind of sociopath and recalling the coldness in Alphonse's eyes when talking about Winry, he really couldn't muster the feeling of sadness.

It was mostly just anger. Not even hurt anymore, not even disappointment, just anger and awareness. Just reality.

"Yeah." was all he said, and he knew he needed to play his role of older brother, he knew consciously that it was important because people, Winry especially, would notice, but Ed just couldn't. It was like his emotional capacity where Alphonse was concerned was stuck on anger. There had been so much feeling for the younger blonde for so long, but now? Now there was just...anger.

He wondered idly if the impassivity would lift when he eventually saw Alphonse again, and more disturbing than his disturbing lack of feeling, was that he didn't know if he even wanted the impassivity to be gone. Did he want to feel again where Alphonse was concerned? And what would he feel?

He'd been hurt so fucking bad by Alphonse after everything, now he just felt empty. He knew he'd been in the wrong a lot, too, he was far from blameless; whether it was from the foundation of ever allowing incest between them in the first place, or having given in to it and then beginning to want it, and then not following through on what he'd promised Alphonse. What a mess. He'd hurt Alphonse too...but not in the same intentional ways Alphonse had done to him. Not once, not ever, had it been to intentionally hurt Alphonse.

Everything he'd done since the inception of the whole mess was try to protect Alphonse, but after Xing, and even thinking back on a few other instances over past year and some, Alphonse had not shown him the same consideration. Alphonse's emotions for everything not including what he specifically wanted were shallow and superficial, he behaved pathologically when it came to manipulation, saying exactly what he needed to, to get his way, regardless of whether his words or actions were harmful. And he felt no real guilt, because it seemed as fleeting as his other feelings for how quickly it morphed or passed. He was impulsive too, in small and specific ways. And anyone he'd claimed to care about or love had taken a backseat very easily when it came to getting what he wanted. Especially Mei and Winry, Elizabeth...himself. And Alphonse seemed so hung up on sex, aside from Ed he'd not even waited for very long before sleeping with Elizabeth, likely out of spite and nothing else. He'd gone from Mei, to Ed, to Elizabeth and back to Ed with seemingly few compunctions about the act of sleeping with someone for the wrong or right reasons.

Ed had previously thought Al's sexual behavior had to be down to the newness of his body. But then, perhaps that was just a part of Ed's previous willful blindness, because Al had been in his body for the last seven years, that was plenty of adjustment time, wasn't it? And while his behavior was a far cry from promiscuity, it was the disregard he seemed to have about his actions. It was like Al didn't care about the consequences to sex, to his actions. And there always were consequences when you slept with someone for the wrong or shady reasons, sometimes there were consequences even when the reasons were right.

Edward didn't know exactly what was wrong with Alphonse, but so many boxes were checking themselves easily, and aside from some kind of psychological disorder, what else could it be? Those years Alphonse spent disconnected from his body had to have something to do with it. He'd been so full of feeling, so full of love and concern and good intentions when he'd been in that armor, but in that armor, he'd only been connected to his body via memory. His brain stored information, but Alphonse hadn't felt a fucking thing and-...

"…-dward?" he startled slightly when he felt Winry's hand settle on his forearm at the same as her voice filtered through, "Are you okay?" and he took in a deep breath, swallowed thickly and looked at her owlishly. He had no idea how long he'd been spaced out and mentally spiraling, but Winry sounded like she'd been saying his name after a few softer tries and she looked confused and concerned.

'Shit, I was supposed to stay away from thinking about that. I don't want her worrying about me.' he mentally scolded himself, and then he huffed out a laugh and smiled at her as convincingly as he could manage,

"Yeah, yeah, I am." he rubbed roughly at his face, "Shit, I think not sleeping is just catching up." he made the best excuse he could think of and then he placed his hands down flat on the table top and focused his attention back on her, "Were you saying something?"

She raised her eyebrows and folded her arms on the table top as she leaned forward,

"I was just saying that it's odd that he's not with you, that you left him behind. In the last year, since you moved, you guys have been even more inseparable than usual." she said this while staring straight at him, and Ed felt like his stomach hollowed out as he stared right back. Tension settled into his muscles then when he recalled that Winry had said she told Pinako about Alphonse. He still had no idea what she could have told Pinako, what she thought she knew, but...but it didn't matter, because Ed was putting it all behind him.

He sighed slowly, audibly and blinked once as he looked away, before nodding a few times in agreement,

"Yeah, it's been a long year. And not a great year either." he admitted quietly, and it was true, because even when he thought about the odd bright highlight here or there, they were quickly overwhelmed by all the black filling in the rest of the space, "Alphonse and I needed time to work through some shit, and we went about it the wrong way." which was so, so true, "It caused a lot of problems, misunderstanding and ugliness." he gave her a pointedly apologetic look, "But it's over now." and that was as true as the rest. It was over. And the strain he felt was equal to the relief, which was difficult to manage, but he'd do it. He would manage. He found himself grinning weakly, but it wasn't fake when he said, "We've just gotta' keep moving forward."

She blinked slowly, almost sleepily, but Ed was glad to see the wary concern and questioning look she'd been giving him ease away to just concern with a hint of affection,

"I don't know what it was all about, but I know it was serious, because you changed, you were different. It was like you weren't you, it was even in your face." she admitted softly, and so seriously, and it cut Edward easily, all those colourful feelings, at hearing it said by someone else. He felt winded by her words, having what he'd been thinking about himself confirmed. He forced himself not to react any more than he already had by his face twitching into a sad frown, and his open hands clenching into fists on the table. Winry obviously noticed, but she didn't comment on it, instead she added, "And Al was the same. I felt like I didn't even know you guys. It felt like you both were strangers to me." She looked then, glancing down at his white knuckles before she reached out like he had, placing both her hands over his and stroking his knuckles just as he'd done to her earlier, "But you seem good now, you seem like you again, and I'm so happy, because I missed you." she sniffed, smiling slightly.

He really didn't want to make her cry, so he forced his fists to unclench before he shifted his hands so he was holding hers and squeezing softly. He sniffed too, dammit, he couldn't help how the charged emotions made him feel, like it was so foreign yet familiar to hurt but be happy at the same time.

"I need you guys, you know. You're my family." she was crying now, more tears tracking over her cheeks, "Now more than ever before, you and Al are all the family I have." she sobbed and Ed felt a sob get stuck in his own throat as he leaned more forward, their hands squeezing tightly between them,

"I'm here now, for as long as you need me to be here. And whenever else you need me, I'm gonna' be better, Winry. We both know I'm a fuck up, but I'm gonna' be better." he whispered.

She shook her head,

"You're not a fuck up, Ed. You're just an idiot." she said jokingly while still crying and they both smiled watery smiles and laughed softly. Then Ed felt something else break through the dam of his emotions, making his breath hitch, and he looked into her eyes and sincerely said,

"At the risk of getting brained by you," and she snorted, teary eyed and confused but smiling, "you need to know I am sorry for hurting you," he breathed out audibly, and then through his tightening throat he added, "for anything and everything I said or did, because you're amazing and you deserve to happy and Patrick is fucking great." he nodded in approval even as more tears slipped out of Winry's eyes, sliding into the curve of her watery smile, "He loves you. You were so right; he loves you and he's not gonna' be an idiot like I am." he let go of one her hands to cradle her face, his thumb stroking her ear as he leaned forward to press their foreheads together, his eyes closed tightly, "You deserve to be so fucking happy, you deserve that a hundred times over."

"You too." she breathed out before he'd even finished speaking, "You too, Ed." she repeated, bringing her own hands up to grab his face, which made him open his eyes and look at her as they drew back slightly, "You have sacrificed so much, you've been through so much, you also deserve to be happy." she smiled then and rolled her eyes, "Even if it's not with me like everyone thought it'd be." she actually laughed about it.

And Ed found himself laughing softly, too as he mumbled,

"They really did. Everyone did." he shook his head and then they separated further and Ed wiped his damp eyes and brushed his untidy bangs back from his face as he grunted, "Shit, we have to stop crying like this, what the hell."

"It's good to let it out. you dummy, there's nothing wrong with having feelings and needing comfort." she scolded gently.

At those words, which cut him so deeply, Ed did sob and it made Winry sob too, and then they were laughing softly again, leaning on the table, wiping their faces and filling the kitchen with their sniffles.

After a moment of composing themselves, Winry inhaled loudly and smiled,

"So, what's Xing like?"

Ed, feeling exhausted, sleepy and less stressed than he had in a while, smiled as well and shrugged as he sat back in the chair,

"It's fucking hot." he ran a hand over his loose braid and through his bangs, rubbed at his eyes; didn't want to talk about Xing but couldn't say so without being obvious, especially after he'd basically shut down the topic of Alphonse.

"Oh, come on, that can't be all you have to say." she rolled her eyes, folding her arms over on the tabletop and resting her chin on them. Ed made a show of thinking hard about it, scrunching up his face and staring at the far wall and he was rewarded with Winry's giggling, which made him grin and he looked at her happy face, which made him feel better, stronger.

"It was kinda' cool, once you get past all the stuff that sucks." he sighed, "Interesting history and the palace and city are beautiful." he admitted, "In a really overkill kind of way." he amended, making a face.

"Wow, an actual palace." Winry made a dreamy face, but she just looked mostly sleepy and Ed raised his hands, palms up,

"Who the heck needs a whole palace? Being there was the same as if someone lived in Central's Military Command Center and the entire city of Central only had a few thousand residents to serve the person living in the Command Center." he griped, still thinking it was ridiculous. Of course, he was exaggerating, Central city was far, far bigger than Ling's royal city, but still, the idea alone was crazy.

Winry was gaping,

"Is that really how it is?"

Ed nodded, but gestured 'so-so' with his hand,

"On a slightly smaller scale, but yeah."

"That's crazy." she said, but still sounded dreamy about it. Ed really didn't get the appeal, "So Ling got everything he set out to in the end." she smiled, "How is he?" then a bit sadder, "How is Mei, did you see her?"

Edward's stomach was starting to feel tense again, anxiety rising at the topics Winry was bringing up. But she wasn't talking about Alphonse, and really, her questions weren't so bad, they were kind of neutral actually.

"Ling is Ling, obnoxious and sneaky, but also older and more dressed up," he spoke with fondness in his tone, but he could hear the sadness underlying it, too, so he said, "and shorter than me." To break the sadness he was feeling over how his relationship with Ling would never be the same again.

Winry narrowed her eyes at him,

"Really?" she asked skeptically. Ed playfully glared back, knowing she was teasing.

"And yeah, I saw Mei. She is older too, taller. She looks so different. But she looked well and she seemed good, too. Happy." she really had, she'd been laughing and smiling, occasionally in Alphonse's direction with a very different look in her eyes. Ed put that thought aside, thinking instead of the fact that Mei really wasn't okay, not according to what Ling had told him.

"That's good to hear." Winry was smiling again.

Ed fell silent for a moment, feeling bad because he'd wanted to bring Mei to Central so that she could have a decent life. He could still maybe offer her that. He didn't know if Alphonse would bother now, even though they'd discussed it. Honestly, he felt like he no longer knew what the younger blonde would do at all.

Once again he stared at the table top, zoning out, considering maybe writing to Ling, just to let him know that Mei was welcome to come to Amestris anytime, that Ed would foot the bill, put her up, that he'd help her get sorted out. But the idea of writing to Ling and pretending as though his friend didn't know he'd been fucking his brother just made Ed's stomach turn over. He had to take another deep breath in order not to show his feelings on his face right then.

"Oh!" Winry said suddenly, and Ed looked at her when she sat up straight, wide awake all of a sudden, "You had to travel through the desert, right?" he didn't even have a chance to nod before she pushed her chair back and asked, "How's your automail doing? Is it okay?"

Ed gave her a 'wow, really' look, because seriously, she was such a hopeless gearhead,

"It's fine, geez. I traveled by train and horseback, Winry, it's not like I was walking through the desert."

"You never know with you."

"Ah, come on," he half rolled his eyes, "back when I was in the military it was different. I don't get into random fights with super dangerous people who are trying to kill me anymore. Your precious automail is fine."

Her expression softened,

"Don't play dumb, we both know it wasn't only the automail I was worried about."

It was a relatively somber comment, but Ed lightened it up,

"Okay, so you were ten percent worried about me." he said smiling and she laughed softly,

"No one ever wrecked my automail quite like you did, Ed." he made a lazy face and waved a dismissive hand and Winry continued, "You're due for an upgrade you know, the last one you had was before you left for Creta." she informed.

There was a beat of silence after mentioning that timeframe, and Ed braced himself for discomfort between them, but Winry surprisingly saved him from being swallowed up in the guilt and anxiety ever-threatening to envelop him when she said,

"I can't do it here, though. The workshop is out of date. But you can come see me in Central soon. There's a new model that fits the aesthetic you prefer, and for an extra fee, it now comes with a silicon artificial skin cover." she had that light in her eyes she always got when talking about her work.

Ed watched fondly, but he frowned at the mention of the skin cover,

"Seriously? Fake skin?"

"It's really popular actually, and sure, it doesn't feel like skin obviously, but it's soft and smooth and looks nice enough. It can be made to match skin tone too." she explained, sitting back and folding her arms over her chest.

Ed tried to picture it for a moment, looking down at his automail leg and trying to picture it appearing to be a regular leg. He found he didn't like the idea much. Maybe it'd grow on him in time, but for now he was fine with his solid metal look.

The Fullmetal look.

"Nah, I think I'm good without the fake skin."

Winry shrugged,

"I figured." he wondered how she figured, but didn't ask, "You should still get an upgrade though."

Ed hummed, a non-committal sound, since the future was still too uncertain for him,

"Maybe. Honestly, this one is just fine. No danger these days, so I don't think it needs an upgrade."

"Well, it is up to you." she didn't insist and Ed appreciated that, Winry had always been so pushy in the past about his automail, "So, what are you doing for work in Central, are your reconsidering the military?" she asked then and it was so out of left field that Ed did a partial doubletake,

"Uh...huh? Why would you ask me that?" and why did he feel like he'd been caught out. It's not like he was considering it, not actively anyway. Sometimes it crossed his mind but he hadn't...he wasn't...

She seemed confused by his surprise,

"Just because you seemed to be spending more time with Roy Mustang than I remember. I mean, you arrived at Gracia's party with him. And then you were sneaking drinks with him in the kitchen," Ed looked away from her, feeling a treacherous warmth creeping up his neck, "Oh, unless-..." Ed felt himself panic and flush even more at the smirk in her tone, "-...are you actually friends with him now?"

Ed swore that if it were possible, steam might have come out of his ears for how quickly the heat reached his ears, and there was no way Winry wouldn't notice that he was blushing, right?

"It's nothing to be embarrassed about." she laughed, amused, "I'm not judging you for being friends with a guy you once swore up and down that you couldn't stand." Ed felt his face cooling down, so he made sure his expression looked exasperated when he looked at her, and she was still smiling, apparently not suspecting a thing as she went on, "I'm not surprised actually." Ed wondered why she wasn't surprised, but again, he didn't ask. "Wow. Ed, friends with a Fuhrer of one country and an Emperor of another." she said this in a very deadpan manner and Ed couldn't help snorting before he tiredly rubbed his hands over his face again and responded,

"When you say it like that, you make it sound cool. But they're both idiots." he could hear the fondness in his voice that time, no sadness, just fondness. Mustang and Ling, what a couple of annoying asses.

Winry laughed softly,

"Only you could be friends with two country leaders and call them idiots." she sounded fond too, and it was directed at him, and wasn't that just one hell of silver lining to all the darkness in the clouds of doubt and questions still hanging over him.

All he could do was shrug, dropping his hands from his face and offering her a sleepy smile, which she returned, and then she raised her eyebrows,

"So, when are you leaving for Central?"

Ed's eyebrows shot up,

"Trying to get rid of me already?" he joked, but he felt a little worried that she actually was.

Winry bobbed her eyebrows, grinning, but then she shrugged,

"I just know you well enough to know you won't stay here very long."

Ed looked at her seriously then and when she met his eyes he said,

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me to get out of your hair." he smiled, "I'm not leaving you until I know you're okay, I mean it."

Winry teared up one more time, her smile watery too, but she didn't cry, she just nodded and then she stood up,

"Come on, let me do some basic maintenance on your automail. It's probably pretty grimy from traveling in the desert and who knows whenever the last time was that you cleaned it properly inside." she sounded exasperated and scolding, such a familiar tone, as she pushed her chair in and gathered up the dishes to put them in the sink.

Edward frowned,

"What, now? Aren't you tired?" not that he thought he'd be able to sleep if he tried, but he was used to complaining when she bossed him around so he followed through, "And hey, I do actually clean my automail," she gave him a sarcastic look as she walked by him toward the doorway and Ed faltered, "uh, sort of often. I clean it sort of regularly, okay?"

"Oh, shut up and come on. Quit your complaining. It's almost morning anyway." she walked out of the kitchen and Ed just stared at the doorway, but despite her bossiness having returned, he had to smile, because that was the pushy Winry he remembered and loved.

With a sigh and weary smile, he got up from the table and followed the way Winry had gone, switching the kitchen light off as he left.

---

I'm looking for a place to go
I'm looking for a safety zone
I'm waiting on another hiding place for hearts
A hiding place for hearts