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-Itsumo-chan

"Dandelion Summer"

She sat precariously on the edge of her bed, twirling a lock of long blonde hair between her fingers. Smooth protein nails brushed the strands, pried at them to raise a faint sound like of strangled wire—a substitute for fleshy tendons that wrapped so carefully around automail gears and pulleys. She longed to toy with Ed's mechanical body again, longed to pour her frustrations into the complex little things that could be fixed without question, mended more easily than his heart every could be.

Her grandmother always said that working with the hands solved the problems of a troubling thought. Winry had taken that advice, delved into machines, dirtied herself up with the brown grease and the yellow oil so that she didn't have to worry. Solve one problem and you're halfway to solving the rest, she thought. It was a doctor's saying, one her father had used all the time.

Dad… she could still see his face so easily, on that day when he and her mother had boarded the train to Ishbal. They never came back, and maybe that's why the half-fabricated image still stayed with her—him with his short fluffy hair and thick glasses, hugging her tightly and teasing her about being too skinny, and mother with her armloads of books and her quiet, gentle farewell. Steam had billowed from the black, soot-covered train and over the summer-hot platform. The wind it stirred had carried dust from the tracks into her eyes and made them water.

If only she'd cried then, instead of waiting and needing to do it all the time now. In a few days she'd been back out in the fields with Ed and Al, getting cut up and bruised and developing grass stains on her knees. Just like a boy, her grandmother had exclaimed exasperatedly—but in reality she'd been cheered by her granddaughter's strength, and in that way Winry had tried hard not to let the stark realities of life push through the smaller ones.

She'd revisited her memories so much since returning to Central, since she'd found out about Maes' Hughes' death. His family's narrow, two-story house seemed to carry a certain weight now, an orange-colored aura of loss and loneliness. Winry imagined that she might have understood Gracia's feelings to an extent, though not in quite the same way. If her favorite tinker-toys—her best friends—weren't dead, they were constantly making her fret.

Winry looked up from tugging split ends into her hair. A sound drifted through the window of tires grinding to a halt against the rough cobbles. She went to look curiously, distracted from her musings and the remembered bitter taste of summer dandelions under her tongue.

She could see a uniform through the window of the black steel car. She knew that stout arm, the inscribed white glove—the right hand that had held up a gun to her parents' chests all those years ago. After a moment's hesitation it moved and tugged at the car door's handle. The rest of his blue-and-silver form emerged slowly, unfolding with great care and reluctance onto the road. He winced in the sunlight, being so pale. The whole of him looked unnatural, expressionless, fabricated from another man frozen to death in the winter snow.

Ed said he hated the Colonel. Though Winry thought sometimes that it might have been easier just to agree, she couldn't. Perhaps it was something in his narrow black eyes, the determination on his broad, handsome features, the way he always seemed on the edge of a nervous breakdown. She pitied him at the same time that she despised him. What kind of man revised his vision of "reasonable orders" after the blasphemy had been committed?

He raised a hand, lowered it, lifted it again before Winry heard the knock, as if he was too frightened to face again the remnants of this life in Hughes' house. Memories of their friendship lay scattered all around, in wooden frames and drawers and above the redbrick fireplace. Perhaps like Ed and Al he wanted to abandon the tinges of sadness those memories now contained for him, to push out of his mind what he could not change and continue on to his goal. Even from the cold loam of his grave, Hughes would not have wanted to distract from his friend's plans for change. Perhaps, in a way, Mustang paid his friend more respect by not coming to visit.

He glanced up at the moment and locked eyes with her, expecting her to be looking out the window at him again with that anger burned onto her face. Yet, as if he knew her sun-worshipped features held little heat on his behalf, his own expression was soft…almost pleading. Like a parent who'd had a fight with his beloved child.

Winry surrendered the win, pulled back from the window not so much of her own will as because of her shameful realization. The way he constantly chided Ed, teased Al for his childish innocence, yelled at them both for not asking his advice…the Colonel thought of them as the children he would probably never have. She remembered him standing in the Rockbell home that late night, dripping lakes onto the wooden floor, gazing at her with the oddest sadness. He'd not been able to say why he'd really came, to beg her forgiveness…he'd never been able to do that, being a man of so much pride. In that moment, though, Winry had felt a new bond, knew she would be seeing him again. Did he wish, secretly in that small part of him that had knocked on the Hughes' door, that he'd been required to shoulder the burden of raising the daughter he'd stolen?

From the hallway she heard his voice, speaking to Gracia in soft, distant tones. Alysia sat behind them on the stairs, too young to see the subtleties of the exchange, too young to understand the knots tied into the man in blue…but still sensing something amiss and regressing into shyness. What was there to say to him, as his character slowly unraveled on the doorstep? Winry knew no words.

"I wish you would come in for tea this time," Gracia said. Her voice was gentile but uncompromising. She always offered him tea. When Hughes had been alive, she'd said, he'd always come in for tea even when he was on business. But of course, the Colonel glanced back at the car, up at Winry, and politely turned the invitation down. Gracia shook her head, sending her curly, slightly unkempt hair in more extreme directions, and closed the door.

Winry went to the front window and watched him descend the front steps, wondered why he felt such a pressing urge to return to the car. Lieutenant Hawkeye was just slipping back into the drivers' seat, having gotten out briefly to stretch her long legs. She seemed to always be with him these days, and Winry noticed it because of the older woman's testimony to her on the train to Central. Winry had come to think that she was admirable for her devotion—but understood that she was not blind in her faith. She'd brought the Colonel here to protect Hughes' memory, took him away again to guard his dignity.

Winry wondered briefly if they were lovers…but it was so hard to tell just by looking. Did they joke together about Ed and Al being their sons? About Winry looking so much like the Lieutenant's daughter? Somehow she couldn't just see that business always stayed business in the small office they shared.

Mustang stooped for a moment on the garden path, white-gloved hand soldiering through the sun-dried grass and retreating with three or four dandelions clutched inside. He put the head of one between his teeth, stripped it from its stem in a strangely impulsive manner. He crouched low on the sidewalk for a moment, chewing, pushing the bitter flavor under his tongue. The Lieutenant watched him from the black steel car, her expression strangely soft. It hardened again as the Colonel stood and went back to the car, but he'd seen—Mustang's shoulders shook briefly with laugher as he folded back into his seat, and boyishly he threaded the remaining flowers into her golden hair.

She immediately reached up...but retrieved only one of the buds. She shifted her gaze from it to him, opened her mouth to speak. Her face disappeared as the colonel kissed her—whether on the cheek or the lips Winry was unsure—and appeared again a brief second later. She smiled a little at some comment unheard, turned, and started the car.

Winry backed slowly away from the window, for a moment the image framed in her mind. How wonderful it must have felt, she thought, to have the one you love acknowledge you so sweetly. She thought briefly of Ed, of the way he never seemed to think about those sorts of things, and a small pinch of jealousy found her.

Then again, she reminded herself, kisses could taste a bit acrid, too.