OOO
For years she had held on to the one flame of hope she had, that Edward would return to her someday. That he would come back to this little place and stay, because even though he had burnt his own down, Ed would always have a home with her.
But time and time again, whenever he did come back, it wasn't to stay. All he wanted was someone who could repair whatever he had shattered; someone to care for his metal limbs so he could get back to his real life, the one that didn't involve her in the least.
Winry knew it; that's all she was to him, a mechanic, nothing more. It didn't matter that they had grown up together as the closest friends, or that she and her grandma were the ones that kept him alive after he and his brother had attempted that botched human transmutation of their mother; all she was to him was a mechanic.
That word even tasted dirty on Winry's lips now, it disgusted her. "Mechanic," she spat out, "that's it." It was only a few days ago that she had realized how horrid that word really was, and now she was leaving it behind. "Never again," she vowed to herself, "will I fix anything."
"When Ed comes back again," she told the empty air, "I guess he'll have to find someone else to tend to him." Her voice drifted off slowly as she continued to walk away from her hometown and everything she knew, "I won't be there anymore, and I'm done waiting for him..."
Her tone took on a harsh and almost violent quality as she whispered the words, "If he even notices I'm gone."
Winry didn't stop walking for the rest of the day. She followed the river that flowed throughout the country, staying near its right bank and weaving with it along its meandering course.
The river had called to her, it seemed, and brought Winry to it. Instead of walking along the train tracks or the road where people would abound, the river would lead her through the wilderness and, for the most part at least, keep her free of curious eyes. It would still bring her into different towns though, bring her to shelter.
Also, that river was a symbol. In her mind, it showed Winry the path in front of her and strengthened her resolve. A river could not flow backwards, and neither would she. Winry Rockbell would never turn back, she would never return to where she had come from.
This river was going to lead her to a new life, someplace different. I would bring her to a new town and to new people. She could begin again and have a life not of waiting, but a life of happiness with a man who actually loved her for her, not for the mechanical skills he'll never know she had.
Ed didn't bother to remember her, so she wasn't going to waste her time remembering him. It was time to move on, and Winry was ready for it. Edward Elric was no longer a part of her, and he never would be again.
The Full Metal Alchemist was in her past, and that was where he would stay.
When night finally reigned supreme over the land, Winry decided to stop. She hadn't really been paying attention to where the river was taking her; her mind had been focused inward, but when she looked up she found herself surrounded by nothing but trees.
"At least it's quiet," Winry said, "and no one should be able to find me here." Before falling asleep the last words that crossed her lips, "Especially not Ed, he has no understanding of anything normal," were filled with scorn. With that, she curled up next to a bend in the river and let the soft sounds of the water lull her to sleep.
As Winry fell away from her body and into the realm of dreams, she felt something tug at her soul. Unbidden by her, she noticed that a figure seemed to be coming at her, and as it got closer she caught the unmistakable sight of a red coat and two white gloves.
Although Winry wanted to get up and run away from Edward, her legs would not cooperate. As the young man got closer to her, Winry made due with turning her head away from him and hoping he'd get the hint.
He either didn't get it though, or didn't care. Still walking slowly, as though he knew Winry couldn't move, Ed reached her side and then knelt down beside her. Now, he grasped her chin and forced her head up, looking deep into her eyes.
Although she tried, Winry could not tear her gaze from Ed's. She saw as he bit his lower lip in a gesture that looked a lot like thought, and then heard him say, "For some reason, you seem familiar…"
A few moments later, Edward let go of her chin. "I must have been seeing things," he said as he stood up and started to walk away from her, "because I don't know you."
Winry awoke with a start. Wiping her eyes to get the remainders of sleep out of them, she was surprised to find them wet. Pulling her fingers back, she stared in wonder at the tears that covered them; at the moment, she didn't remember her dream.
Rising, she stretched until all the kinks worked their way out of her body. After that, Winry wandered over to the river bank and bent down to get a morning drink and wash her face of the dried tears that covered it.
As she washed them off though, Winry asked herself, "Why did I cry? There has to be a reason." Trying to figure out why, she finished cleaning up and then started to walk again. Winry continued on her journey along the riverbank, and slowly the dream came back to her, one fragment at a time.
By mid-afternoon, Winry remembered the entire dream. "That jerk," she shouted to the air, "I knew he was a callus and horrible person!" She kicked the ground furiously, her anger getting the better of her, "That's why I forgot about him, because he cares for no one but himself!"
In her mind though, a little voice had come to life and decided to ask Winry something. If you hate him so much, it said in a tone of curiosity, why are you crying again? Before she could respond to it though, the voice fled and left her alone with just its question for company.
"I don't know," Winry told the sky as more tears flowed from her eyes, "I really don't know."
"He doesn't care about me," Winry said as she kept walking, as she kept following the constant forward flow of the river, "so why am I crying? I can't stop it though, no matter what I do."
Offhandedly, she flicked more of her tears away before saying, "Something has to be wrong with me."
Evening was starting to fall again, and in the distance Winry thought she saw the river flow into the lights of a small town. Sitting down on the ground, she started to clean her face with a bit of water again before she lay down, "I don't want to meet people tonight."
A slight chill pervaded the air, and Winry wrapped her arms around herself in an effort to stay warm. She couldn't manage to fall asleep right away though, and now all she could do was think; think of everything she'd left behind and, no matter how hard she tried to stop, think of Edward.
Angrily, she jerked her head slightly to stem the flow of her tears. It was without success though, as they flowed just as steady as the river beside her, "If it wasn't for him, if he wasn't so cold, this would all be better!"
"It's his fault, he never thought of how I might have felt!" Now Winry's tears came even harder, "Maybe if he would have paid attention to me as a person, and not just his damn mechanic, everything would be fine!"
This thought made Winry even madder, because she didn't want to be thinking about what might have been. Ever since she left home, she told herself she was going to focus on the future, but right now her past just wouldn't leave her alone.
Clenching her fist, Winry forced herself to stop weeping. Once her tears had finally stopped, she placed one of her arms under her head as a pillow, and then drifted away into sleep. Right before she completely lost her grip on the waking word though, she told the air, "If he really had loved me, I would have died before I stopped waiting for him."
The next morning dawned to greet Winry as she looked into the sun. She had already been awake for an hour, and her mind had been churning steadily for the entire time. Although she tried to shove the notion from her mind, it kept coming back to her; it was the idea of going home.
After another hour of arguing with herself, Winry finally stood up. "Screw home," she screamed, "screw it!" Releasing all her anger, Winry shouted at the top of her lungs, letting every emotion out, "Screw Edward, and screw all the time I wasted waiting for him! Screw everything he ever told me, and forget everything he ever did!"
"Fuck the youngest ever state alchemist, he's no prodigy, he's just a lowdown and sneaky liar! Edward Elric isn't worth anything, not even the midget height he's managed to achieve!"
Winry broke down and started crying again, "I can't believe I was in love with him! I can't believe I was going to waste my life waiting for him!" She stopped talking to draw in a few deep, shuddering breaths, "I don't understand how I could have thought he was in love with me, because now I know all I ever was to him was a mechanic."
This time, Winry didn't even bother to wipe away any of her tears, "Why is this happening to me?" Looking to the river again, she watched it as it followed its path toward the village she had seen the night before and then she asked herself, "Why do I still think about him all the time? He's tearing me apart from the inside…"
Standing up, Winry walked over to the river. Making her way down its bank, she headed out into the water and kept going until it reached the top of her chest. Once she had stabilized herself so she wouldn't fall, she reached down and pulled a small blade from her boot.
Pulling the sodden dagger up out of the water, Winry pressed it to the base of her neck. For some reason all her tears had stopped, and now she told the forest around her, "If I have to bleed to get him out of my head, I will. He won't care, but if pain is what will save me, then that's what I need."
Pressing hard enough to draw blood, but not with enough pressure to cut into anything vital, Winry drew the dagger from its resting place below her neck to the waterline surrounding her body.
Fascinated, she watched her blood trickle into the water and followed it with her eyes as it was swept downstream. Although she didn't know why, Winry was beginning to feel better, and soon there were two more cuts in her flesh parallel to the first one she had made.
With every new stream of blood that made its way down her skin, Winry felt more relief. She had slowly become a masochist, and with every extra ounce of pain she felt, she wanted more.
Soon, the water around her had turned red. Grinning, Winry continued to pour her source of life into the river, letting all her anguish over Edward float away with it. Although she didn't realize it, Winry began to loose her strength and now she couldn't even bring the blade to her skin to cut it again.
Staring at her fingers in wonder, Winry watched as they loosened without her command. Her dagger fell into the water and was swept away with the blood it had helped to bring out. When she reached for it, although she knew it was already way out of reach, Winry lost her footing and fell.
Winry had weakened herself so much, weakened herself to the point of not being able to even swim to save her life. Gradually she sank under the water, the buoyancy of her body and her clothing failing her. Taking in one last desperate breath of air, Winry saw the water close in over her head.
She watched as the sunlight dissipated over her, and although she knew she was about to die, the panic that she though would come didn't. Instead, a rather peaceful feeling stole over her and she contemplated what death would be like with a rather detached grin.
Just as her eyes began to close for the last time, Winry thought she felt a chill run through her body as something touched her, but she was too far gone to be sure.
OOO
"Winry!"
The voice shouting her name was loud, persistent. Although she tried to ignore it, figuring that if she was dead she didn't have to be polite, in the end Winry couldn't. Snapping her eyes up, she opened her mouth to yell at whoever was bothering her and tell them to stop.
Her voice caught in her throat though, when she saw what was right above her face. Winry watched in awe as a bright and pure pair of golden eyes started to fill up and spill over, their tears landing beside her on the cot. After a moment, she saw the tip of a blonde braid fall into view, and then she knew for sure.
It was Edward.
"You're alive," he murmured, "alive." A huge smile crossed his face as he quickly bent down and wrapped Winry in his arms. Hugging her tight to him, Edward Elric kissed the top of her head, "I was so afraid I had gotten to you too late."
Winry stiffened slightly at his contact; she was still immensely angry with him and was sure that the only reason he saved her this time was to keep his mechanic and save himself the trouble of finding someone new.
Just before she started to push out of his hold and start screaming at him, Winry felt something warm and soft touch the back of her neck. She turned her gaze upward to see what it was, and then Winry saw Ed's right arm.
His right arm. Not auto-mail, but his right arm. It was flesh and blood, and she could feel his warm fingers caress the back of her neck. His right arm was whole again, her creation no longer needed. So why did he save me then, she thought, if he doesn't need me to fix him anymore?
It was then it dawned on her. Ed had saved her because he loved her. Now Winry knew it; she had always been loved, loved for her herself, not for her skills with making and repairing fake limbs.
Ed came back for her.
Now the tears started to flow from her own eyes as Winry returned Ed's hug, but for the first time in years they were tears of joy instead of pain. They had each other now, and Winry never wanted to loose that. She was going to hold on to Ed forever.
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Sull