Authors note: This is my musings on what Winry might have felt like if she had wanted to be someting other than a mechanic before Ed's need for a personal automailist. Did I make that word up? oh well! Anyways enjoi the oneshot.
Fiore
What would have been
Setting: at Winry's in the middle of a big fight between Ed and Winry.
"You'll never understand, okay!" "You'll never know what it feels like to give up your whole life, to sacrifice yourself, for something that at times, feels like just a myth or a faerie tale." Edward screamed at Winry, his eyes stung with tears or frustration.
Ed and Winry were once again discussing why he and Al couldn't stay "one more day." Edward was trying his hardest to explain just how important his goal of restoring Al's body is without giving away too much information on his plan involving the Philosopher's stone. Not that Winry would even recognize that as a major taboo in the Military.
"…." Winry simply stared at Ed. Her eyes had suddenly lost their delicate shimmer so all that was left was rock solid emotion. She swiftly turned on her heal and stomped into her room behind her.
After about five minutes of awkward silence, Edward turned to look at his younger brother, Al, who was trying to blend in with the wall in order to escape the wrath of his brother OR Winry. "What the hell is she doing?" He said, sounding a little more than ticked off. But before Alphonse could even mutter a word Winry reappeared. She had her arms filed with mechanic lagniappe and a pair of old Pointe shoes that looked very well worn. She threw all of this at Ed's feet. Ed was so clueless at this point he didn't now what to do so he simply stared at the pile of junk.
"Edward Elric, how dare you!" "How dare you tell me I don't know what its like to sacrifice my life for someone, when I did it for you?" "Did you think I just woke up one day and suddenly KNEW how to make your automail?" She stopped her yelling to gesture to the nuts and bolts mixed into the clump. "Before you started training so hard (causing you to break your automail) and joined the military (causing you to break MORE automail) and before you needed the most durable and top of the line automail, I had a life." She got quieter when she said the last words because she felt that if she said that more to herself; it would reassure her it was true.
She took few deep breaths to calm herself. She lifted her head from her feet that she had suddenly found interesting, to face Edward square in the eyes. "Tell me, Ed, do you know what that building next to mustang's office building is?" She demanded. "Err…yes, um no...Maybe…,"He was totally confused on what that random place had to do with this at all. "Well, I'll tell you," she said. "That is the best dance studio in all of Central." "It was where I was to go to apprentice for ballet training." Her voice crackled with the force of the tears that she desperately wanted to hold in." I was going to be the best, no, I was the best." She tenderly lifted the Pointe shoes from the mess in front of Ed's feet and hugged them tightly to her chest.
" I gave it all up for you, because I wanted to be able to help you in a way that no one else could." "I wanted to help you get as back to normal as possible; that's all I could do." "But now you are always gone and sometimes you seem like just a faerie tale to me; like you exist only in my memory." She sent her face down trying to hide her escaping tears from Edward and Alphonse as best as she could. She hastily wiped them away with the hankie that Alphonse had offered her. One again she lifted her head to meet Edward's penetrating gaze. "So you see, Ed, I do know a thing or two about personal sacrifices." "Goodnight Al." With a slight nod to the young boy she stiffly retreated to her room, the ragged shoes dangling from her limp fingers.
She curled up and attempted to sleep and tried as best as she could to forget that Al and Ed would still leave for Central in the morning. She did understand why it was so important for Ed to restore al back to his original body, but every time she thought of that, her mind would wander to what might have happened if she had kept dancing. She would think about what could have been.
