Friends and Lovers
Underneath It All
Al only spent maybe a week out of every month in Altenburg, and he heard the whispers. He wondered if Winry heard them too. She must, he realized, although she never said anything to him. She remembered how she had introduced him to her next door neighbor, the first time he visited, when he was twelve and she was eighteen. "This is Alphonse," she had said, smiling proudly. "He's like my little brother," and the woman had smiled and shook his hand. Neither he nor Winry had a home in Rizembool any longer, and she had opened up her automail shop here in Altenburg. So when Al came home from missions, home was where Winry was.
Most of the country knew by now that his brother was gone. Not gone, just missing, he told himself. Now that he was fourteen people had, for the most part, stopped mistaking him for Edward. And the people of this small town had begun to pry into his personal life. "She's your sister, did you say?" in response to his holding her hand in the marketplace.
"She's like my sister," he would correct politely, and they would both smile politely and move on.
"Don't waste your intentions on Miss Rockbell," the old women would tell the young men. "Her affections are elsewhere."
She was the best automail mechanic for miles. People would come from as far away as Dublith for her superior work. Most of them didn't know, or didn't care, about her and Alphonse. But every so often, a customer would catch a whisper on the street, and look at her a little differently the next time.
Beneath all the friendliness and caring of the people of Altenburg, there lurked a certain suspiciousness about the newcomers. What kind of healthy, talented, twenty year old woman with a successful business be doing with a fourteen year old kid? Even if the kid was the famous Soul Alchemist. It just didn't sit right with some.