Since this story is as much for you as it is for me, I need to know how far do you want me to go? Should I stop the moment Ed comes home, should we have a few weeks after he comes back? Do you want to know what has happened years after he comes back? Please tell me and I will work to the popular choice. FMA isn't minem such a shame.
Another year passed and baby Grace was quickly developing her character. Her frown could intimidate a full grown adult but her smile could bring delight to anyone who saw it. The village loved Grace dearly and saw her as a little beacon of hope. They knew little about the events leading up to the disappearance of Edward but wanted him back all the same.
Den, although aging was the best bodyguard around as well as a great nanny. When Winry and Pinako were working hard on their auto-mail it was he would keep an eye on the child. She had found her feet and her voice all at the same time. With a hand to steady herself her and Den would explore the house and sometimes the garden.
The one day Winry was having trouble finding them. She followed the sound of her daughters high pitched giggles to a room she had avoided for a long time. It was the room the brothers used when they had lived with them many years ago. Grace had tangled herself up in a black vest that had remained under the covers of the one bed for some time now.
'Oh Grace, look at you,' Winry laughed walking over to her. Den barked and wagged his tale as if getting her in there had been his goal all along. Winry unravelled Grace and held the vest in her hands. She wanted nothing more then to bury her face within the cloth and breath in his smell but the inquisitive look on her child's face but a halt to that.
'This is daddies,' Winry explained.
Grace had heard about daddy and seen his picture many times. Too young to understand the significance of it all she pointed to the vest.
'D…d…da…dada,' she mumbled. She raised her eyebrows as if expecting praise for managing to say it.
Winry wrapped the child up in her arms and fought to hold back the tears. Grace was nothing but pure innocence but she often made her mother cry. All it would take was the right look in her eye or the way she got frustrated with things. She was living proof that the memory once existed and lived among them. That's why people loved Grace so much even if she was temperamental. In fact it was because she was temperamental that she was so loved. She was indeed her fathers daughter.
Pinako had watched Jack grow and now she was her great-granddaughter. Not only that, Winry had changed a great deal with the pressure of a life to care for. The sorrow as well as the joy had shaped her into an adult who knew about the sanctity of life more than others.
Yet she knew Winry had a burden. Pinako knew she held onto the hope Edward would come back and take on his role. She did not hold such hope and believed Winry would need to find a husband. However it would be difficult to find someone willing to take someone who was already a mother. She knew of one man who had lost his young bride and felt they would be perfect for each other. The time was approaching when she would introduce them and hopefully save her granddaughter from a lonely life. She and Den would not be around much longer.
She dreaded telling her the plain truth for she knew how much it would hurt Wiry. But the foolish girl could not waste her life. Pinako could do little about Al for the moment but he would too soon have to face the truth. Edward was gone from their lives.
He had cracked it. After two years of searching for an answer he had finally cracked it. He knew a way of getting back through the gate, back to his world. He began to cry with delight at the thought of all those waiting for him. He would finally be able to see his brother again as flesh and blood. The surges of emotion had stopped recently as all his energy went into his work. Now it had finally paid off and he was heading home. He would tie up loose ends, say a quick farewell, and then be shot of Munich and that world forever.
'I shall say goodbye then.'
'This sounds very final Ed.'
'It is final; you will not be seeing me again.'
The girl in front of him began to cry. He had been grateful for her company and being as clueless as he was he had not noticed she had fallen in love with him. Her dark eyes clouded over but it only stirred anger in him.
'What will I do without you?'
He pulled himself from her grip and turned his back to her.
'There is someone who needs me more. Carry on with your life, someone will come along and replace me.'
'No!'
'Winry it won't hurt you to meet him.'
'I will not have anything to do with this!'
'Winry he will take good care of you.'
'I can take care of myself well enough Grandma and you know I can!'
'Baby Grace will need a father…'
'She has a father Grandma. I will not bring her up on a lie. We should be proud of Edward.'
'I am Winry, but you must accept that he isn't…'
'He will come back! Wherever he is I know he is trying to come back. He would never desert Al or me for that matter.'
'Are you entirely sure of that Winry?'
Winry began to choke back the tears of anger. She could not believe what her grandmother was saying to her.
'Of…of course I am. He loves us even if he could never say it!'
'Hohenheim loved his sons and his wife but he left them,' Pinako sighed, her voice calming as she watched Winry slowly crumble in front if her.
'He…he came back didn't he? It was his choice to leave.'
'Are you so sure Ed didn't choose to leave as well?'
'Grandma…he…he has to come back…for Grace,' she coughed tears creeping down her face.
'He doesn't know about Grace. Winry I have no doubt he loved you but he could easily have found someone wherever he is. He was only young after all and…'
She stopped where she was. Winry was hugging herself and shaking her head. The message had got through and there was no need to speak of such things ever again.
Still shaking with tears into the evening Winry left Grace to Pinako. She needed to be entirely alone for an hour or so. She walked a path she had taken so many times as a child until she came to stop by the stream. Kneeling next to the edge to looked deeply into the dark waters surface. Her sorrowful face, eyes puffy from crying, looked back up at her. Memories flooded her weary heart until she cried them into the water and watched them flow away.
These gentle waters carried on down through the country, becoming a mighty river. It cut through villages and fields, a symbol of power and life. Nobody noticed the significance of the river until the day a miracle occurred.
A young girl, sent out to fetch food from the local store, often took the walk along the river to get to her destination. The morning sun sparkled on the surface, dancing little flecks of light. She loved to see the waters like that, calming and delicate, a wonder of Mother Nature.
Yet when she had burst into town eyes full of fear the people knew something was wrong. She claimed to have seen a man emerge from the water out of now-where. She had not seen him fall in and she had stood in the same spot for too long a time for him to have been under the water holding breath. He was clothed in nothing but his trousers and had collapsed at the waters edge. His hair, so she told them, was that of buttercups. A strong golden blonde held loosely in what remained of his pony tail. When asked why she had not seen if he was alright, the young girl cried that it all seemed inhuman, that he was not of this world.
One of the men of the town brushed it off as nonsense and called for everyone to carry on with their lives. They didn't answer back for this man was a giant, a bulk of silent muscle. He checked where the girl had claimed to see the man emerge but found nothing but a hair band. Around this hair band was a strand of brightly coloured golden hair.
He would need to find his wife. This was something Izumi needed to know about. She had taken Al out for about an hour or two to train his fighting skills while the weather held. Calm as could be he walked across town, hair band safely hidden away in his pocket. For a brief moment he had considered the band being Als. But the colour of the blonde was too golden to be Al who had more of a mousy blonde. Sig had always been a calm man but underneath his heavy chest his heart was pounding. Had Edward really returned all of his own accord? After all the pain they had suffered could it be he had just turned up? He was aware the band and the hair could belong to anyone, or it could be Ed's that was lost a long time ago.
What did give him hope was the young girls description of things. He had long hair; he had emerged from the water without plunging in in the first place. She had not mentioned however anything about metal limbs. This meant one of two things. A. Ed had managed to gain his own limbs or B. it simply was not Edward Elric.
Thanks for your reviews in advance.
