Foreword: This is a chapter for the world beyond the Gate. Ed's side only. Please make sure you've read the prior chapter before reading this one.

Chapter 84 - Der gute Kamerad

Friday, December 30, 1921. 12:08AM

There was a verbal explosion when Haushofer and Hess arrived. Everyone had heard them coming from up above. An officer, one of many, all who seemed none too comfortable about the location where they were, looked over when the two men had came in. The lanterns provided the only light, the moon was hidden behind the clouds above, and Hess slammed his lantern down at the side of the hall. Like a raging bull, Hess stormed around amongst the uniformed men, his voice crashing. The elder Haushofer stood a little calmer, stiff with his emotions but no less unnerved. When the professor spoke, his voice only came up where he felt it was appropriate. A young man in uniform approached Haushofer and spoke with him. After a surge of sudden anger ripped through the older man's disposition, Haushofer tore a clipboard out of the officer's hands. He looked at the clipboard, read it a few times, not caring how long it took to do so. The officer stood silent next to him, waiting for his documents to be returned to him.

Hess's voice, tangled in an uproar, vanished for a few moments and he walked back to Haushofer. With a hand to the older man's shoulder, Hess passed on a verbal piece of information, and had his companion turn over his shoulder. There was a problem back against the wall. Hess began to walk towards it, his rage sullied – now composed and silent, stopping and crouching down in front of the side wall.

Edward sat on the floor, back pressed up against the wall; he gave a passing acknowledgement of Hess with a disinterested look. His colourless expression was unreadable. His posture was sloppy, he sat lazily, like he'd fallen on his backside there, or someone had dropped him like a raggedy toy. Winry sat next to him, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her right hand had captured Ed's left and pinned it between them.

Where Ed was nothing more than a white sheet, Winry had taken possession of all the flesh colour between the two of them. Her face was flushed, her eyes bloodshot, and Hess thought she looked a little sick. A couple of the ties of hair that she'd pinned up on her head had fallen out.

Hess asked Edward a menial question, and another, and again; useless questions where the answer was obvious, but someone feels the need to ask anyways. The more questions Hess asked, the more concerned he grew, because the majority of replies were given in English. He had to ask Edward to repeat nearly every one of his answers, suspecting that Ed was unaware of what he was doing.

Hess sat down on the floor at Ed's empty right shoulder, brushing his hands off over the knees of his pants before looking out into the hall. He came to the conclusion that perhaps none of them should be sitting at this vantage point. There was a body in this line of sight with a white blanket over it. Hess turned to Ed again with something to say, but stopped and watched Winry stare at him. He wasn't certain which one of the two was harder to focus on, Ed because there was absolutely nothing to see on him, or Winry because there was so much. Every breath she took trembled, in contrast to Edward who was clam and docile. She stared at Hess where he sat. Hess almost considered getting up and rejoining Haushofer. Under any other circumstance, he would have laughed in amusement at how the look in someone's eye, a girl's eyes, had the audacity to so poignantly instruct him to leave.

Haushofer knelt down near Ed's partially outstretched legs, and picked up where the menial questions had left off.

Hess eyed the fingers of two hands woven together and pinned between the two bodies. The furrow in his brow tightened, eyeing how the knuckles on Ed's hand were strained as white as his complexion. Hess wondered if Winry's hand was hurting from his grip.

Friday, December 30, 1921. 3:17AM

The rumble of a car engine went silent, and the click of a door handle snapped open, then the whole thing slammed shut again without much time in between. A tired looking man glanced around at the lingering gathering of people and officers outside this religious facility.

"Are you Hermann Oberth?" a voice called.

"Yes," Hermann answered.

A man with a strong, right arm and thick, brown hair reached out to shake Oberth's hand, "Rudolf Hess." He introduced himself.

Under any other circumstance, there were honestly a million other things Oberth would have wanted to talk to Hess about, the man's name was prominent and familiar, but he couldn't entertain those thoughts, "What in God's name happened here?" he took the firm handshake Hess gave him and proceeded to march towards the open doors of a shoddy, street level church, "what kind of accident? Are Edward and Winry alright?"

"They're inside," Hess stopped the man's movements with a firm hand to his shoulder. His words neither paused for thought nor consideration of remorse; he spoke with fact, "Hohenheim was killed earlier tonight."

Hermann blinked back at Hess, not certain if he'd heard it right, "What?"

"Down in the hall."

"I'm sorry, what?" Hermann repeated, sweeping his winter hat off his head, "Professor Hohenheim?" it was an absurd statement to attempt to confirm someone with a unique name like that, but he did anyways, "What?" his head shook in disbelief, "How? Are you serious?"

"Yes," Hess gave a nod of confirmation, "they took his body away about an hour ago."

"What?" the facts were not sinking in, "By whom? When?"

Hess looked to his watch, running the times through his head. The night was a blur; a little hard for anyone to compose, "Before midnight sometime, I can't recall exactly."

Hermann fluttered the beginning syllables of a few words that he chose not to use, before running his hands over his face, exhaling heavily, "How did he die?"

The question brought an uncomfortable pause to Hess that Oberth had not wanted to see, "Gunshot wound, they think," he cleared his throat, "but there were other injuries though, so his body will be examined."

Unable to force himself to process the outstanding and bewildering information, Hermann's wide eyes drilled around the landscape, "This is Hohenheim Elric, who on earth would even…"

Hess shook his head, "I have no idea."

With another weighted exhale, not certain if the knowledge was honestly setting in, Herman slipped his hat back on, "Who found him?"

There was that unsettling shift again that Hess had, and his eyes moved to the lit entrance ahead, "Edward and Winry did."

"Oh God," Hermann's hands came back to scrape over his face, "they found him like that?"

"Yes," there was an abundance of deep concern that Hess tried to hide in his voice, "Can you take care of them tonight? I don't think they should head home on their own, or at all, for now. I'd ask Karl, but Hohenheim was a good friend, I don't think burdening him with Edward and Winry is particularly fair to him at the moment."

"Absolutely," Oberth gave his response without hesitation.

"Edward has said that Winry's tired and she wants to go. I won't disagree with him, but I suspect the statement applies to both of them," Hess gave a momentary glance to the entrance, "so give them a good bed tonight if you can."

Again, a heavy sigh moved out of Hermann's lungs, creating a momentary white cloud in the chilly air. He turned away from the man he'd conversed with, and returned to approaching the building, "Are they up here or down in the hall?"

"Up here," Hess called, "just inside the doors, in the pews on your left."

Friday December 30, 1921. 8:35PM

Edward couldn't account for Winry, since he hadn't seen her in some time. He had slept for twelve hours, waking up sometime between five and six late that afternoon. He'd since laid on his back on the Oberth's couch for hours, just staring up at the white ceiling – it was in the way of his line of sight and nothing more. He wanted to go back to sleep. That wasn't forthcoming.

Without thought to his actions, Ed stood up. He was stiff, and he stretched a little to try and work that out. The decision was reached that he wanted a shower. He didn't ask if anyone else in the Oberth house wanted to use it or needed the hot water for other things, he just grabbed some towels from the linen closet and gave himself a shower. The faux left leg was discarded in the corner of the room and he took the shower sitting down; he didn't feel like standing on one leg for it. The longer the shower went, the more the tub faucet became an object like the ceiling, and item in the way of his line of sight. Unlike the ceiling, Ed continued to be distracted from it, the soap intermittently slipped from his hand. After the fourth time he'd fumbled it, Ed snatched it back from the drain, and threw it so hard against the tile wall that the ivory bar cracked. It fell back down to the drain catch in two pieces. Sometime later, he took them out, put them in the soap dish, and turned off the shower.

The hot water had been running cold.

He stood in the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and another that wrapped his hair. He'd put the other leg back on, but he wasn't standing, the wall held him up. Once in a while he'd get a thought that involved putting his pants back on and leaving the room, but he always managed to lose the thought. No particular thought stuck around long enough for Ed to remember to act on it. The towel on his head kept sliding, so he re-tied it. Eventually, he threw the towel from around his waist up around his neck and put his pants back on. His hand firmly gripped the door handle, giving the knob a fierce wrench to comply, before finally leaving the room.

Ed returned to the couch where he'd spent the last many hours. The towel shifted on his head again when he sat, and he looked to Hermann who'd taken a seat in the room.

"How're you doing?"

Ed's brow wrinkled a bit, "When Winry's up, have her look at the doorknob upstairs. I think it's buggered."

Hermann nodded, accepting the non-response from Ed, "Did you sleep well?"

"I slept fine," he looked to the couch where he had indeed slept fine, "how's Winry doing?"

"She's alright. Sleeping last I checked."

Ed sighed, again adjusting the stubbornly uncooperative towel on his head.

Hermann's gaze shifted in the room, excessively passive with his forthcoming words, "Do you know what happened to her wrist, though?"

"Her wrist?" Ed looked at the man, "what's wrong with her wrist?"

The man of the house shook his head like the question lacked concern, "I wrapped her wrist this morning when she was up, it seemed to be bothering her. She wasn't very interested in letting me handle it, and Mathilde and I couldn't get enough of a conversation going with Winry to find out more. The languages caused a bit of a problem."

"Oh," Ed paused for a few moments before he shook his head, "I don't know, sorry."

"That's fine," Hermann dismissed the question, watching as Ed again fussed over the towel on his head.

Ed snorted in frustration with the towel that was refusing to sit properly on his head. A heavy seam slashed through his brow for a moment. Ed ripped the towel off his head and threw it harshly to the corner of the couch. He looked at it for a moment, and then looked back to Hermann who stared at him. The two men sat without a word between them for several minutes.

Hermann drew to his feet, "I'll get Tilly to grab you something to eat."

"I'm not hungry, Hermann."

"You haven't had anything to eat since dinner last night, let Tilly get you something."

Ed sighed.

Saturday, December 31, 1921. 09:29AM

Ed stood silently in the entryway of his father's house. The curtains were still pulled from the days before when he'd shut them for the evening. Everything was dark, daylight occasionally filtering in around the window dressings. Ed had been standing at the front door for far too long without the threat of motion. His hand still gripped the doorknob, unable to move through the house and cut a path in the air to start this day. Eventually, Edward's hand fumbled with the doorknob on the front door; he latched it shut to keep the cool air from pooling at his feet. The sealing of the door had made a horrible, hollow sound through the house. Ed hadn't been home in a few days, and the house smelt a little stale and a bit stuffy.

Ed slid out of his boots, stepping out of his right boot, but not managing a clean escape for his left foot. He shook his foot free, and the boot thumped to the mat. He finally cut his path through the core of the silent house, like he was the ghost. He drifted through the living room to get to his father's study. The Christmas tree was still up. Ed eyed it, not sure what to do about it, before deciding there was nothing to do about the tree right now, and he entered the study. The study door was never locked and rarely sealed, so Ed easily made his way in. He didn't busy himself with anything else in the room – he went straight for the filing cabinet. Grabbing the desk chair, Ed swung it over to the cabinet and sat down, pulling out the lowest drawer. He leafed through papers tucked away in folders, extracting sheets of interest and placing them on the desk. A black, wool sweater was still thrown over the back of the chair Ed sat on; his dad always kept a sweater there in the winter. Ed eventually took it off the chair and laid it down on the desk. There was no longer a point in having his father's sweater over the back of the chair.

A collection of papers soon gathered on the desk. Abruptly, Ed left the room like an ordered soldier, making his way through the preserved house to the entry hall closet. Ed took his briefcase from the closet, tucked it under his arm when his hand wouldn't catch the handle properly, and returned to the study. He dumped the briefcase on his father's desk, snapped the latches open with two emphatic clicks, and began stuffing papers inside of it. At the end of the self-appointed order, the latches snapped shut, sealing Hohenheim's records within his son's briefcase louder than any action Ed had taken so far that day. He left his father's study, leaving the door open like it would normally be found.

Ed dropped the briefcase at the bottom of the stairs with an echo and went up to the second floor. The sound of his feet in the stairwell was deafening in the empty house. From the hallway linen closet, Ed extracted a fairly large, but unremarkable fabric shoulder bag from a collection of random things. Edward paused, indecisive on where to go next, before picking the easy option and going to his room, struggling with the door knob as he entered. Ed pulled out drawers to his dresser and opened his closet with a clatter as he began rummaging through his belonging. He grabbed changes of clothes without concern for what he was wearing; it didn't matter to him. With the easy task swiftly completed, Ed took a deep breath and went to Winry's room next. He returned to being a soldier ordered to a task, and Ed repeated the motion of gathering clothes. He forcefully shut out the conflict that existed between consciously thinking about what Winry may or may not want to wear, and the idea he was rummaging through a young woman's wardrobe. Ed left Winry's room once he was satisfied with what he'd collected, fumbling with the doorknob as he shut her door behind himself. The final task directed Ed to the washroom where he collected a handful of toiletries. They were wrapped in a hand towel, and added it to the collection of things in the bag.

Ed looked down the hall as he finished, to the open door of his father's empty bedroom. The room was bright, and the only room with curtains open to let in any light. He dropping the fabric bag in the middle of the floor with a thump and soldiered his way into his father's bedroom. The goal had been to walk straight to the curtains and shut them, but his feet stopped just past the doorway. Ed rarely went into his father's room for any reason; all the man ever did was sleep and dress in this room. Hohenheim lived in his study. Edward instructed his legs to move so he could shut the curtains, and with two swift swings of his arm, he shut the light out. Ed turned around to look at the empty bedroom: bed made, clothes folded, and things put away. Anything that wasn't 'away' was piled carefully where his dad had last left it. The closet door had been left open, like his father had meant to come back for something, but left the house without returning for it. Ed abruptly closed the closet as he made his way out of the room; whatever his dad had forgotten wasn't going to be remembered. Ed clumsily shut the door to his father's room, making too much noise as he did so.

Ed snatched up the bag from the floor, but stopped before taking his first step down the stairs. He turned over his shoulder and pulled himself back to Winry's room. He fumbled with her door handle as he reopened it. Ed stood and looked through Winry's room; to her dresser, to the corners of her room, to her window, and finally to her unmade bed. Nothing he saw interested him. He moved to her bed lifted away the mess of sheets she'd piled on the mattress, his eyes looking around and finding nothing he wanted. Dropping the sheets, Ed moved her pillow aside and uncovered what he'd been looking for. Ed picked up the Christmas doll from beneath her pillow. Maybe Winry would want this: a trinket from home, always made as a gift, created with the knowledge two little boys had gained after they'd gone through their father's books without permission. Ed silently tucked that away in the bag. He left the room without trying to grab the door.

Returning downstairs, there was little else Ed could take with him from this house right now, except for something from the bear jar in the kitchen. Edward shut out the rest of the house and created a tunnel that lead him to the jar on the kitchen counter. He popped the head off the porcelain bear and fished out some of its contents. Coins clattered to the floor when he tried to stuff the handful into an inside pocket of his coat. Ed crouched down and began the task of slowly picking up the fallen pieces. The task became tiresome, and he only retrieved coins that had some kind of significant value; he stuffed those away, and left the rest where they lay. He'd pick them up later. Ed returned the head to the jar, and considered returning the jar to the shelf where it had once sat. He concluded two steady hands were needed for the task. Ed swiftly ended his encounter with the kitchen, and returned to the hall.

With the bag of clothing and random bits still over his shoulder, Ed snatched up his briefcase from the floor, returned his feet to his boots, and moved to the front door. A pause came before he'd actually reached for this doorknob. The son's face twitched. Ed stood facing the front door for a few, long moments before turning and looking back into the house.

The house still looked the same as it had a few days ago. It looked the same as it would when he'd come home in the middle of the day because something had been forgotten. The same as it would when he'd get home from work. The same as it would when he'd come downstairs and his dad was nowhere to be found, because he was in his study grading papers.

Except, that the house now smelt stale because there was nobody around to stir the air.

Ed finally left the house, telling himself he could walk away from this.

Saturday, December 31, 1921. 11:15AM

Winry was quiet, sitting silent and cross-legged on her borrowed bed. She'd stalled there and never recovered. She had no idea how long she'd been there, daydreaming of nothing. She wished she could get out, but seemed unable to break the button that paused her life. Someone thankfully had the audacity to break it for her when her door swung open. Surprised, she looked up at Edward, who'd left unannounced an hour or so before.

"Where did you go?"

"Here," Ed tossed the half-full shoulder bag to her, "change of clothes."

"Thanks…?" she eyeballed the fabric lump suddenly in her arms.

"I'll be downstairs for a bit, there's somebody here I'm supposed to talk to," Ed's tone held perfect and flat.

Winry fought against the weight of her frown, "What's it about?"

"I don't know," a monotone response came out as he spoke, "funeral things. I went home and grabbed papers from the study, they can pick out what they want from it."

It sounded suspiciously like he'd known what documents to fetch, but Winry didn't want to press, "Do you want me to come down with you?"

"No," Ed turned away to leave, "it'll be in German anyways, you won't understand it."

"That's okay. I can still come, if you want," she made sure the offer was known.

Ed shook his head, "No, it's fine."

Again, Winry didn't push, "Okay."

Edward was nearly gone, his hand to the doorknob pulling it shut again, before he stopped, and put his voice back in the room, "Is your wrist alright?"

Winry's lower lip caught in her teeth and she looked down at it sheepishly, "It's fine, just a little sore; I slept on it funny I think. Hermann overreacted; I couldn't tell him he was being silly."

"Alright," Ed pulled the door shut.

Staring at the sealed frame, Winry coaxed herself out of the stall she'd been stuck in, and she dumped the contents of the bag Edward had given her onto the sheets. She crawled off the bed to examine the findings. A decision was reached on what to wear: a skirt and sweater on the top of the pile. Winry stood in front of the little round mirror atop the table in the room, fixed her hair with the brush from the bag, and decided to brave the house.

By the time she stood in the hall, the house was angry. It wasn't red, flaming anger, but it was an angry element within the muffled sound of Edward's German voice that heated the house. Winry slipped down the stairs without a sound. None of the unknown voices he conversed with were raised, in fact, everything was quite calm, but Ed had a skill of projecting anger and annoyance into his voice, similar to how his father projected power. The more she listened to the conversation from the house hallway, the more she was certain the tone he had was unnerving the people with him. She stood outside the room of conversation, listening to the verbal exchanges in a language she'd given up trying to understand. Eventually, things went silent.

Ed suddenly emerged from the room and made a sharp turn for the front door – Winry startled at his exit, but she was out of his line of sight, and he hadn't noticed her. When Hermann appeared, a bundle of papers in hand, Edward's voice began to rise like rage in a volcano, and he spun around to address him. The volcano quelled when Ed caught Winry in his sights beyond Hermann's shoulder. The man of the house turned to her as well. She stared back at them, her eyes asked nothing of Hermann, but she requested to know from Ed what he was doing as he took his coat into his arms.

No answer was given. Ed threw the coat over his shoulders, slammed his feet into his boots, and left.

Winry didn't look at Hermann, she just took herself back up to her room. Her feet made no sound to her ears as she climbed the stairs. The door to the spare room made no sound either when it was closed. With a heaving motion, Winry swept the clothes she'd dumped on the bed to the floor, at which point everything stopped. She stared at the pile of clothes – her doll's head peeked out at her from within the mess. Winry reached down and pulled the poor thing out. She stood in the middle of this spare room and stared at it in her hands, slowly losing track of time. Eventually, Winry laid herself down on the bed, the doll still tucked away in her hands, and curled up into the pillow.

6:03PM

Ed watched from the corner of his eye as Hermann sat down on the coffee table and took Winry's right arm from her. She protested, standing up to leave the room. Hermann caught her and sat her back down again. He unwrapped her wrist while her eyes looked deep into her lap. Ed watched Hermann turn her wrist over, moving it for her a little. Winry winced, though she tried very hard not to. The man of the house said something to her in a quiet voice that Ed did not register, and Winry couldn't understand, as he re-wrapped everything. She sunk into the seat cushion when he was finished, her hand resting in her lap, her eyes cast away elsewhere.

Hermann began to talk about arrangements for Hohenheim – the papers from earlier – and Ed's ears slowly turned him out. He gave some generic and useless answers to questions before shutting Hermann out entirely. The man persisted, and Ed got up and briskly went upstairs without regard to anyone. At the top of the staircase, he looked around; there was nothing upstairs for him, since all his things were in that room downstairs. He stood at the door of the spare room Winry had, and wondered why he'd even bothered to approach the room, or if it made any sense for him to go in.

It didn't. He turned around to go back downstairs, but stopped suddenly. Winry stood behind him.

She smiled sheepishly, "We can switch if you like?"

"No, it's fine, it's your room," Ed moved to walk past her, but she grabbed him at his upper arm to stop him.

"What're the papers all about?"

"Things that can be dealt with on Monday."

Winry looked up at him curiously, "Why Monday?"

"Because it's Saturday," his answers were sharp and quick, "it's the weekend. It's New Years Eve. It can get done on Monday. Business gets done on Monday."

She paused a moment before deciding to voice her next statement, "I'm getting the impression it should be done sooner than that, are you sure you want to leave it until Monday?"

Edward's voice tore out at her, ripping his arm from her grasp, "I said I'll do it on Monday, so it's going to get done on fucking Monday, not before and not after."

There was nothing to see but the cold wall in Ed's eyes, and Winry let him storm past her, turning to follow him and stand at the top of the stairs. Ed got to the bottom and took a few steps away. He paused a moment and seemed to debate his options on where he wanted to go in the house. His conclusion was nowhere, and he turned for the front door again.

"Where are you going?" Winry scrambled down the stairs, alarm in her voice and her heart suddenly racing. He'd left twice already that day: once for an hour, once for three hours.

"Out," he announced once his shoes were on and his hand was in the closet for his coat.

Winry looked around frantically before grabbing her boots, "I'm coming."

"No, you're not," Ed snapped, stopping to glare at her.

"Yes, I am," she had her boots on faster than she'd ever managed before.

Again Ed's voice flared up at her, "Fuck Winry! I'm going for a walk, and you're not invited. STAY home."

"Too bad, you can suck it up," she snarled back at him, snatching her coat from the closet, "you can either walk with me or I can follow you, either way I'm coming. Deal with it."

There was a raw and corrupted flash in Ed's eyes. For a moment, and only for a brief moment, Ed considered slapping her – a reaction common to this world that had poisoned him with suggestion over time. The intent must have been written clearly on his face, because the indignant look he got back from Winry dared him to try. What a disgusting, rotted feeling that left him with. His shoulders fell and Edward told Winry she could come with him.

8:55PM

Two foreign people walked like a blizzard through a city that bubbled warm with life. The dark look in Ed's gold eyes tightened as he gazed around at the people mulling about this excited part of town. This country did not have any reason to be joyous, Ed concluded. There was nothing joyous in Germany right now. The country had lost the war and the consequences were ruining them on a daily scale; the whole of the country was wrought in pain, waiting to be taken advantage of. The people swam in the false hope of a new year to simply feel the joy of something again. January 1, 1922 was a good enough reason as any to celebrate nothing.

At least, it put to bed the disaster that was 1921.

Ed looked to Winry who walked along in her own little world, bundled in her winter wears. She hadn't said a thing to him. Ed's eyes mingled in the crowds again. Shops, stores, restaurants, bars, pubs, taverns, holes – they all had their doors open wide. Festive decorations and German flags hung from poles and windows. The further Ed walked, the more robust the places seemed to be.

"In here." Ed grabbed Winry by the hand suddenly, and took her inside a noisy, lively place. A drunk patron stood on stage with some friends, belting out something that wasn't German or English, singing horribly off-key. Pushing through the laughing mulls of people, Ed pulled a bewildered Winry to the bar counter. She swept the hat from her head and pulled the mitts from her fingers once Ed let go, stuffing them inside the hat. Ed slipped up onto an open barstool, Winry joining next to him.

"Edward Elric!" a voice lurched into their ears, spouting off a strange tongue of German, "what the hell're ya doin' 'ere?"

"Hey, Sam," Ed suddenly grinned, like a switch had been thrown and someone else sat next to Winry, "so you do work here."

"I own this place, you ignorant Brit! What the hell are you doing 'ere?" the middle-aged man with ruffled, mouse-brown hair and a soggy white towel thrown over his shoulder leaned over the bar counter, "I haven't seen you in ages. How ya been and who's yer pretty New Years date?"

"This is Winry," Ed's voice rose to stay above the crowd noise, "she's from Sweden."

"No kidding? My eyes tell me it's no lie: Swedish girls are a might pretty," the man extended a hand to Winry, who gave him an uncertain smile as she shook it, "Hello Winry from Sweden, I'm Samuel from Austria. Can I get'cha somethin' to drink, sweetie?"

Ed rolled his eyes, "Fuck Sam, she's Swedish, don't be stupid. She doesn't understand what you're asking."

"Well, how the hell do you talk to her, boy?" the man at the bar threw the question back to Ed with a laugh, "did ya learn Swedish too?"

"She speaks English," he drawled out, as though Sam should have known.

The barkeep's face burst open with a laugh, "A Swedish doll who speaks English out with a British boy who speaks German, drinkin' in the Austrian man's bar in Munich. Something more to add to my memoirs."

Ed laughed as the companion did, "What's on special for tonight, Sam?"

"What? You're drinking? I couldn't have paid ya to go drinkin' with me last time I saw ya," the bar man grinned, suddenly rushing away at the call of a patron.

Ed grinned, mulling his options over, "Winry, what do you want to drink?"

Winry hesitated, not certain how to answer, "I don't know. I didn't come with any money."

"Doesn't matter," Ed continued to grin, like it had been painted on, "I'll cover you."

"With what?" her expression pinched with confusion.

Ed didn't answer, he just kept up a smile to decorate the cold wall he hadn't taken down. Winry folded her arms on the bar counter and looked to Ed. He grinned back at her without substance. She smiled at him anyways, and asked how he knew the bartender. Apparently, Sam was someone Ed had met on the train when he'd gone from Rome to Munich years ago. He'd spent hours telling Ed his simple life plan of running a bar in the country where his Grandparents had lived. Sam had no plans of either being wealthy or of any note to the world – he simply wanted a tavern to baby. He'd gotten his wish.

Sam flew back to the pair on his barstools at the right side of the rounded bar counter, sliding two glasses that hadn't been ordered along the wooden surface into their hands. Two drinks on the house.

By quarter to eleven that night, Ed and Winry would lose track of how much they'd had to drink.

Sunday January 1, 1922. 3:22AM

"Where the hell are we?" Ed's vision futilely tried to take in the surroundings. He dangled a bottle in his left hand, his thumb in the top like a cork.

"In a park," Winry answered.

It was a quaint little park somewhere in the middle of everything. They'd walked with a parting gift Sam had given Edward to drink at around two that morning, and they continued to walk on through the night, until they'd found the park to stop at. The pair sat on the first bench they'd found.

A very, very blank look hit Edward without warning, and he looked at Winry with so much confusion that she wanted to giggle at how strange it seemed on him, "When did I get to a park?"

"We walked here," she wasn't certain if she should be amused by this, or worried.

"Oh," he sounded so childish. Ed stood up suddenly, bottle still in hand, and he sauntered away from the bench, "Alright then."

Winry watched Ed meander off the park path, existing without living, before stopping when he got to a decorative white railing that kept the park land separated from a pond. Ed turned around and put his backside to the fence. A wrinkle began to crease into his face, and then another. The longer he stood there, the more indignant his expression became. He began bouncing the bottom of the bottle off the wound links of the decorative fence. The reasons crumpling his face vanished as abruptly as they'd shown up, and he returned to hold a sedated, absent look in his eyes.

Winry brushed the palms of her hands together aimlessly, looking down into her lap while she thought. She was a little envious that Ed was existing in some other state, because if she hadn't decided to stop drinking shortly after midnight, she might have been able to enjoy this faulty existence with him. But, Winry'd stopped drinking when she'd come to the conclusion that everything was wrong and nobody was stopping it. The further she moved from the stupor Ed had purchased for her, the harder she thought about what to do, and the quieter she became.

Ed had rambled along randomly amongst her thought-filled silence for the last couple of hours, and as time slowly passed by, his nonsense seemed to grow more coherent. His bottle-buddy was apparently a lot less potent than everything he had been drinking hours earlier. Winry mulled her thoughts over again and considered the time, before she finally rose to her feet, brushed her coat straight, and walked over to him. She plucked off the mittens that tried to keep her hands warm and extended her left hand when she got to Ed, "Can I see that?"

He narrowed an eye at her, handing over the bottle, "Thought you cut yourself off for the night."

Taking it, Winry tuned the bottle around in her hands. She frowned; it was cold, and the label was unreadable to her. She sniffed it and it smelt like raspberries. Curiously, she took a sip. A fruit cocktail? As far as Winry could tell, it was surprisingly alcohol free. Her level of respect for Sam rose a few notches, and it helped her make a decision.

Without indication she was about to do so, Winry casually flung the bottle sideways and tossed it into the stone path, listening to it shatter on the ground.

Ed's jaw dropped, his eyes widening in horror at what she'd done, "WINR—"

With that same left hand that had taken the bottle from him, she slapped him – the palm of her hand cutting across Ed's face. Ed blinked, his eyes widening with his head thrown to his shoulder and cheek tingling. A long, wordless moment occurred before his mind suddenly emerged from the shallow end of the pool it had been drowning in. He shot his head back to her, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Trying to make sure I have your attention," she unravelled the wrap Hermann had done around her right wrist.

Ed gawked at her, his hand coming up to rub his cheek from the sting her hand had left.

Winry looked around – there was nowhere to put the bandage, so she dropped it into the light bit of snow at their feet. She looked at her wrist for a moment, twisting her face, before looking to Ed again, "Are you paying attention?"

"Yes! You fucking slapped me, what the hell is your problem?" Ed yelled at her, his fist slamming down at his side.

"I wanted to make sure you were paying attention."

There was a passive look to her eyes, and Ed glared at it fiercely, "WHAT FOR?"

He was still too burdened with alcohol to react before Winry's right hand cracked into Edward's chilled left cheek. The firm palm of her strong, workman's hand struck so hard on the cold flesh, Ed thought that his cheek had torn. His face may have been frozen, but this stung, and it screamed, and it burned. His jaw hung open from the shock. His ear rang, his left eye watered, and his mind moved impossibly slow to process what she'd just done and how much it hurt.

Winry shook out her right hand, rubbing the sore wrist.

As though he were larger than life, Ed's aura raged up and loomed over Winry, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

She stood before him, expression melancholy and unfazed by his outburst, not at all intimidated by him, and she responded quietly beneath his rage, "This isn't working."

Nothing could have been more efficient to extinguish the raging fire he'd ignited than her quiet words, "What?"

Winry narrowed a thoughtful eye at him, her voice carefully held in control. She'd gone over a million different things in her head since twelve thirty, now she had to find something to say, "I think if it had been anybody else other than your father, things would be different for you. But, because it's your father, dealing with his death is harder for you than you ever thought possible."

Ed looked back at her, the throbbing cheek devouring his face as he spoke, "It was my dad, Winry – the dad that left my mom and abandoned me and Al. He wasn't a father figure in my life, he wasn't anything in my life; he was just there, wishing he was."

"Right." Winry nodded slowly. She stiffened her legs and made herself stand without the tremble in her heart that this world tried to force on her, "It doesn't matter that it's your dad, he was still a person who mattered, someone who was close to you, and if you don't want it to affect you as his son, that's okay. But, as long as you are you, it's going to affect you as a person," her hand reached up, and her palm came to rest flat on his forehead, "That block in your head that's telling you that you shouldn't care at all because he's your father, that you should be able to walk away from this, that you shouldn't be upset, that you weren't family, that's a load of bull and you know it. That's why you're not dealing with it, why you're trying to ignore it… because, if you look at it, the reflection might tell you that you do care," Winry's hand slipped away to join the company of her other hand at her chest, "no matter how much you want to hate him, it doesn't demean you or anyone else because you cared. You'd be less of a person if you could just walk away from his death."

At some point, Winry had expected the golden eyes that looked back at her to fade away, flicker off into the corners of the world, or withdraw. But Edward looked back at her from behind his fallen curtain of hair; she had his attention. He was listening. Winry stood up on her tiptoes, and slid her fingers into the hair that would shield his face, moving it aside so he could open his eyes and see. She gripped his hair tight.

"So, listen to me…"

Winry's voice rose in strength, in tone, and in volume. There was a messy view beyond the cracked stone wall separating Ed and the rest of the world – hurting with a raw, open sore that had been infected by an unwanted world's poison. Winry perched atop the divider and looked in.

"Stop trying to find some way to ignore how it makes you feel; it won't go away. It doesn't fit in the box with everything else you refuse to deal with here. It's too big. You can't ignore it, you can't change it, you can't fix it, you can't walk away from it, and you sure as hell can't drown it. If you don't stop fighting, it's going to break you, and you'll fall apart," like the slow deflation of a blown-up ball, Winry came down off her tiptoes. The firm grasp of her words slowly softened and smoothed as the air in the bubble let out. She let go of the grip in his hair, mind wandering lost in mountainous thoughts as she aimlessly swept the fringes aside. Her eyes came to the deepening onset of colour in the cold, left cheek she'd assaulted, and it was there where her sore right hand finally came to rest. "I can't let you fall apart, because I need you to be stronger than me. I'm terrified of what this world is, but watching you struggle with it is worse, because I don't think I know all the things I need to be yet to help you stay strong, or all the things Al's done in the past to help hold you up. I do know we won't be able to 'leave this behind' when we get home, so I need you to get over how you refuse to exist properly in this world and deal with some of it now. I think you should start with this."

The winter around them waited and watched, withholding its light breeze, careless falls of snow, and icy cold chill. Edward's hand came up and took hold of the damaged right wrist on his cheek. He cradled it loosely through the curl of his fingers, thumb holding it in place, as it was lowered.

"Wh—" Ed realized he shouldn't have bothered opening his mouth; his voice didn't work. His eyes finally broke from Winry, shifting away as he cleared his throat heavily, "Why am I responsible for organizing his funeral?"

Winry made a smile, "Because, you're his son."

Ed scoffed at the statement, sounding like he'd choked, before looking to her again, "Yeah, but I hate him."

Winry wasn't certain why she felt like laughing at the response. She rose up on her tip toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and held his world tight, "Of course you do."

Sunday January 1, 1922. 10:05AM

The waitress leaned over the table and without a word to anyone, filled the cups of coffee for the seventh time.

"The raid just overwhelmed the facilities. People were mangled, bleeding, crying, dying, and laying in cots in halls and all over the wards. You could pick out the dead ones by who had blankets thrown over their heads. Sometimes they didn't take those cots out right away, staff were too busy with other things," Ed rambled on absently, too tired to care where his words went, slouching down in the corner of the booth with his legs fully stretched out, and his feet hanging off the end, "Dad said our immune system isn't entirely 'compatible' for this world, so when I was found in the street without my arm and leg, it was easy for me to get sick."

Winry fussed with her coffee for a moment before happily wrapping her hands around the warm cup and tipping herself up against the wall again, half stretched out along the booth seat of the table they sat at. She'd chosen a facial expression of interest and stitched it on – she was too tired to do much else.

"So, Dad said that he and Charles argued with the administration staff in front of everyone in the middle of the ward," Ed dumped some sugar into his coffee, "they made some huge, noisy scene out of it. Charles wanted me moved into a private room, because he couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with me."

Winry nodded, sipping her coffee.

Ed tilted his head in thought, "I don't remember moving, exactly, I just remember ending up somewhere quieter. Dad, Charles and two of Charles's assistants looked after me," Ed scowled, again sipping the coffee, "Felt like absolute shit for weeks. That stupid cough would not go away no matter what they did. I didn't have the energy to roll over in bed, but I kept coughing," his voice trailed as he detached himself from the memory, "I think I was always coughing." Ed mumbled.

Winry grabbed a piece of toast from the table and smothered it in jam. She stuffed it in her mouth, trying to get coherent words out as she chewed, too tired to care how sloppy her manners had become, "But your dad was still taking care of you, right?"

"Well, yeah, I guess he did. For as much trouble as I caused for him, he kept trying," Ed continued, picking up a new thought, "I swear I tried to get that old man to screw off and he just wouldn't. Persistent old bastard," he spoke like he'd cursed the entire statement, then took another taste of his coffee.

Winry grinned, reaching for another slice of toast, "That's because he's your dad."

Ed's face twisted, concern and confusion crawling into the crunch at his forehead, "Well yeah, but there's only so much a person should take. I was loud, belligerent, rude, disrespectful…"

"Oh, so just like normal."

"Shut up," Ed glared at her, "I was just frustrated, and I took it out on him."

As she had been for the last hour, Winry continued to be amused at how acutely aware Ed seemed to be of his own ill-behaviour while he'd lived in London.

The conversation was ended by the clattering of people who came through this little diner's front door. It was probably the only place in this half of the city that was open, and Tilly and Hermann had finally stumbled upon it.

"OH MY GOD," Tilly screeched, "Where have you two been?" she tore a path through the building in front of her husband, opening her mouth to say something like 'you scared us to death' or 'we've been out looking for you', but she ended up dropping her expression and going with a very blank, "Good lord, you two look horrid…"

Ed grinned, as much as he could manage at this point in time, tipping his coffee cup to Hermann as the man showed up at the foot of the table. He looked up to the ticking clock on the wall of the diner, it took him longer than normal to add up the numbers the clock gave him, but eventually Ed concluded he'd been up for twenty-seven and a half hours; that explained why he felt absolutely horrid.

"I'm glad to see you two are somewhat okay, at least," Hermann reached down, shoved Ed's lazy feet off the chair, and sat down next to him.

Tilly was a little bit more graceful getting Winry to sit up properly before sitting down as well, "Where did you go?"

Ed thought about it for a bit, "… Out."

"That's really helpful, Edward," Hermann's perky words dripped of sarcasm, "if you were out all night, what the hell did you do? Where were you at midnight?"

"I don't remember," Ed winced as he looked up in thought, "midnight happened between a bar and a park." He sipped his coffee again.

"I think you two should come home and sleep," Hermann looked between the two of them.

Ed spoke with protest, "I was in the middle of telling Winry a story when you interrupted."

"A story?" Tilly asked.

"I had pneumonia, she wanted to know about it," Ed nodded.

The husband and wife's expressions fell sharply, and Tilly again chirped, "You had pneumonia? You poor thing. When was that?"

"When I was in England a bunch of years back," Ed turned his eyes into the restaurant, so tired he couldn't focus on anything particular.

Hermann looked Ed over, grabbing his jacket by the shoulder and turning Edward a bit to give an eyeballed assessment, "Well, you survived apparently."

Ed scoffed at the statement, "Yeah, that was my dad's fault. Persistent old bastard. He tried like hell to make sure I hung around in one piece," taking the final swig of his coffee, Ed let the white cup clatter down on the table, "I'm sick of this coffee. Where's the bill?"

To Be Continued…

Author's Note:

"Der gute Kamerad" translates to "The Good Comrade" and is a German military lament. If you Wiki " Ich hatt' einen Kameraden", you'll get more details!

From the very first day I started writing this fic, waaaay back when, these last two chapters were always going to happen, I just didn't know how I would get to it. It's been a target point in every outline I've had. I'm happy to finally cover it.