KristalChan: #hopes your ankle is feeling better# Al is used to asking a lot of questions about everything since he lost his memories of being in armor, its like he's formed a habit of trying to reconstruct situations he can't really remember, so that he can continue on. And Al H is being so honest because come on, can you lie to yourself? I imagine it might feel pretty weird :P
Yuugiamythest: Like he says in this chapter, Ed doesn't know who he loves how. When you're in a situation, as opposed to just observing it, I think it would be pretty hard to tell, you know they say hindsight is 20/20, or something like that. As for Al loving Winry, he does, he loves her very much, but if you think about it, he's been harboring romantic feelings for her since before he was even old enough to understand what romantic feelings really were. As he got older, I think he just sort of assumed he was in love with her. Whether or not he really is is yet to be revealed…
All those who asked for an update: it is here! Sorry it took a few extra days, but it is extra long, so does that make up for it:P
Finding the Catch
She gasped when she saw him. He stood grinning on the platform, his blonde ponytail blowing off to the side behind him. His hair looked lighter, and his face was tanned, like he had spent many days on end out in the sun. Well, he was in the desert, she told herself, smiling inwardly. He was wearing a maroon button down shirt and black pants, and carrying his old brown suitcase. She raised her hand in a wave above her head as she climbed the stairs into the small station, and closed the distance between them with several long steps. Winry stood in front of him for a moment, hesitating, then threw her arms awkwardly around him, her swollen stomach pressing into him. "What are you wearing?" she asked, poking him in the side.
He laughed. "Yes, Winry, it is very nice to see you too," he said, his eyes dancing, and she let go of him. "What kind of greeting is that?"
"Hi Ed, welcome back," she said then, and glanced over at his companion. "Hello General, thanks for bringing him back safe," she said.
He nodded. "Anything for you, Miss Rockbell," he said, charm emanating from his being.
She took Ed's metal arm in her own as they began to walk away from the platform. "Are you coming back with us?" she asked Roy, glancing over at him.
He shook his head "No, I've got a car waiting for me," he said, gesturing to the black military issue automobile parked outside the station. "I've got to get back to the office in Central before it falls apart without me."
"You sound like Hawkeye," Winry teased, and he winked (blinked?) at her. He waved to them as he opened the car door, and Ed pulled away from her and turned, raising his metal hand stiffly and touching it to his forehead in a mock-salute, grinning. The General smirked and saluted back before ducking into the car and pulling away.
"How are you doing?" Edward asked her softly as they made their way through the town streets.
She shrugged. "I feel very fat," she admitted.
He clamped his mouth shut, you look very fat was something Roy had warned him not to say out loud.
"Did you find what you were looking for?"
He nodded excitedly. "Yes, I really did. Everything-" he was about to launch into a detailed explanation about the differences between the alchemy he had studied and the Forbidden Art of Ishbal, but she interrupted him.
"Where did you get those clothes?" she asked.
He looked down at himself. "What's wrong with my clothes?" he demanded. "Are you saying I look stupid?"
She laughed, shaking her head. "No, I think you look nice," she told him, and she thought she saw him blush.
"Roy said I needed clothes that fit," he mumbled, looking at the ground. "He made me go shopping with him in East City before we came back here."
She giggled. "Sounds terrible," she teased.
He groaned. "Well, the thing is, we had to be so cautious in Ishbal, and around all those military people, because Roy's afraid someone will recognize me and it will get back to the president- apparently being dead does not excuse my crimes of desertion and insubordination, towards a military that isn't even in power any more," he complained, "But then he insisted on dragging me all over East City, where anyone could have seen me." He frowned. "But no one seemed to recognize me; I don't really look that different, do I?" he asked her.
She laughed again. "Well I knew who you were the minute I saw you, so I guess not," she told him.
She followed him around the side of her house to the stairs that went up the back, over the workshop, and huffed impatiently when he seemed to be taking each step one at a time, deliberately going slow. "Geez, Ed, hurry up," she said, giving him a poke in the small of his back. He stopped, turning around to glare at her, but said nothing. Winry rolled her eyes when she realized why he was moving so slowly: he was carrying his suitcase in his human hand, and the metal hand was not able to grab onto the railing for the balance he sorely needed on the steep outside steps, which were nothing more than wooden slats evenly placed on an incline, with a space between each one. "Oh for god's sake, gimme the freakin suitcase," she said, grabbing for it, but he jerked it away.
"No way," he insisted, holding it out of her reach. "You're pregnant, you don't get to carry anything!"
"Quit being so stubborn," she grumbled, taking a hold of his metal arm, offering him the balance he needed.
"Quit treating me like a cripple," he grumbled back. "You're so impatient. I'm fine."
"Well how am I supposed to treat you when you take an hour to get up the stairs?"
"I am not taking an hour! You're the one who looks like you're about to burst, I'm supposed to be helping you- OW!" he dropped the suitcase to clutch his throbbing forehead.
"ARE YOU CALLING ME FAT, EDWARD ELRIC?" She stood, towering over him, two steps up, and shaking her wrench in the air.
"I WASN'T BUT NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT YOU HAVE NEARLY DOUBLED IN SIZE!" he retorted, hands on his hips, staring up at her from the lower step.
They stood like that, gazes locked, trying their hardest to keep those deathly glares on their faces, but Winry broke first, the corners of her mouth twitching up in what threatened to be a smile.
Edward bent to pick up his suitcase, trying to hide his snickers behind his fringe of hair, but when he could hear the giggles escaping the woman above him he stood, letting a full grin spread across his face. Winry extended her hand, and Ed let her take his and help him the rest of the way up the stairs, and held the door open for her so she could go inside first.
They passed through the kitchen and Winry sat stiffly down on the couch, groaning. "I'm so tired," she said, rubbing her lower back with her hand. "I was going to make us dinner, but I think I'm going to take a nap instead. Maybe we could order in." She sighed. "I was all ready to cook you something, too, but I just don't have the energy."
Ed had set his suitcase down beside the couch, and now stood in front of her, rubbing the back of his head. Yeah, you used it all up yelling at me, he thought to himself. "Ah, you don't have to cook for me, Win, its not like you're my wife or something," he said hesitantly, watching the glare return to her face. "Go take a nap, I'll fix dinner," he offered.
She looked up at him through narrowed eyes. "Are you implying that it's the wife's job to cook every night?" she snapped.
He rolled his eyes. "No," he said patiently, "I'm trying to be nice, because you're tired, so you and the baby should rest."
"You know how to cook?" she asked suspiciously.
He laughed. "I swear, I won't burn down the kitchen," he told her.
She glared at him a moment longer, then pressed her hands on her thighs, standing up with an effort. "I'm glad you're back," she said, more to herself than to him.
"Are you really ready to go back to that place?" Roy asked him softly, staring out the window of the train at the passing scenery.
"I'm not going to go back," Ed said stubbornly.
Roy turned his single eye on the younger man, regarding him seriously. "Did it ever occur to you," he said slowly, "That you already came the closest you'll ever come to righting your wrongs? You can't take back a sin that was already committed, and there will always be a price. Maybe you and Alphonse aren't meant to be together again."
Edward just stared at him.
"For all your temper has quieted down, you haven't lost your arrogance, Fullmetal. You're an adult now, maybe it's time to face the fact that no matter how badly you want something, there are things that will always be impossible."
His eyes widened in shock. "Why are you saying this?" he demanded, sitting forward on the train's hard seat..
"Because it's equivalent trade," Roy continued evenly, and what was with calling him Fullmetal? How many times did he have to remind the man that he was no longer military? "You traded your own life for your brother's, and he traded his for yours-"
Ed was shaking his head fiercely. "No, no, no!" he interrupted. "He didn't. I thought I was giving my life for his, I wanted to give my life for his, but that's not how it works! I performed a human transmutation, a real human transmutation, and I was completely successful, and I crossed to the other side of the gate. One was not a direct result of the other. There was no equivalent exchange," he insisted.
"You're an alchemist," Roy protested. "you know the laws, you quote them all the time, how can you ignore them like that?"
Ed snorted. "Because equivalent trade is a bunch of bullshit, that's why," he said sharply, rolling his eyes.
Roy gaped. "Ed! How can you say that? You, of all people? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"
He nodded solemnly. "I know it's dangerous, but it's not impossible. If equivalent trade was real, I would have been dead, Roy, but I wasn't."
Roy swallowed. "You said you were in a place where there was no alchemy. The place that fuels alchemic reactions." He looked away. "How do you know you weren't in some kind of after life?" he asked quietly.
"Because I was alive!" Ed sputtered. "I was very much alive, I felt pain, I felt love, I felt loss, and I felt happiness. My soul wasn't floating around in some mythical afterlife; I was trapped in a whole other world." He glared at the older man. "Do you doubt me?" he snapped. "Do you think I don't know where I was? Do you think I don't know what I'm talking about?"
Roy opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted almost immediately.
"I've been places no one in this world has ever seen. I've had knowledge crammed into my brain that no one human should ever possess. I've seen the gates of Truth, Roy," he said, leaning forward, his eyes burning with the fire that had fueled him through his loneliness in that other place, and his loneliness in this one. "I know things no other alchemist could ever conceive of." He stood in the swaying train compartment, his eyes darkening and his expression frightening. "Don't you dare tell me what is and is not possible!" he raged, a terrifying sight to behold. Then, as quickly as he stood he slumped back down. "Don't you tell me it can't be done," he muttered, not looking at him. "Don't you tell me we can't be together. I couldn't live with myself-" his words caught in his throat, and he dropped his head onto his hand. "I'm not going back there," he whispered, and there was no comfort Roy could offer that would seem sincere enough, so he simply sat, across from the man who had been a stubborn boy who stormed into his office so long ago, and watched.
Edward was leaning back in the corner of the couch, his right leg bent with his knee leaning against the back cushions and his left one hanging over the edge. He looked up when he saw her enter the room, and tipped his head, looking at her through warm gold eyes. "Hey," he said softly, taking in the sight of her. He patted the space between his legs. "Come sit here," he directed.
Wordlessly, she crossed the room and sat down in front of him, leaning back hesitantly against his chest. Cautiously, she took his left hand in hers, and whispered, "Do you want to feel the baby?" She didn't see him nod, but she could feel the motion against her shoulder, and she placed his warm hand on her stomach, moving it around under her own until she found what she wanted him to feel. "There," she said quietly, pressing his hand into her skin. "Feel that?"
Something inside her moved, and he whispered, "Wow." He kept his flesh hand on her belly, imagining what the creature inside must look like. Did it have a human shape yet, or did it still have that odd sea-creature look he had seen in biology texts? "Winry," he said softly, his voice almost plaintive. "What are we going to tell Al? Do you think he'll ever forgive us?"
She was silent for several minutes, simply breathing in and out, and feeling his own breathing against her back. "Was there someone else in that place you were? In Germany?" she asked finally.
She felt him stiffen, and sit up a little straighter against the arm of the couch. "What?" came the response.
"That's why you felt bad about what we did, isn't it?"
"I guess so," he admitted cautiously. But Winry, why didn't you feel bad, he asked in his mind, for the thousandth time.
"Did you love her?" was her next question, and the words hung in the air around them.
Ed rubbed at his face with his flesh hand. "Him," he said quietly, feeling his face flush and his stomach seize up, suddenly anxious about her response. His heart flooded with gratitude when she did show even an inkling of an outward reaction, be it surprise or disgust or jealousy, or whatever he had been expecting. "And yes. I did love him."
"Do you miss him?"
He sighed. "Of course I miss him. I wish I could have said good bye."
"Do you want to go back there?"
"No," he said, a little too quickly. "No," he repeated. "I want to be here, in the world I was born in, with Al. And I'm going to be. I'm going to do it, Winry, I'm going to get him back."
"Did you think about me when you were gone?"
"Yeah. I thought about you a lot," he said honestly. I thought about you the whole time I was being fitted for a wooden arm and leg, being told I was lucky and that they were the most advanced prostheses available, he almost said, but she was more to him than just the person who made his automail. He couldn't see her face, because her back was to him, and perhaps it made it easier to talk that way. "I thought about you when I was lonely, and missing my home, when it hurt too much to think about Al. It never hurt me to think about you, to miss you," he admitted, pressing his chin into the place where her neck met her shoulder.
"Al knows," she said, her voice wistful, "how much I missed you. He could always tell when I was thinking about you. He always knew when I was looking at him and seeing you. But it would break his heart if he knew I was in love with you all along."
He gave her a push, harder than he meant to, holding her away from him. "What?" he sputtered, wide eyed. She turned around to face him, her expression hurt, and he felt his stomach twist. "Winry, you couldn't have been in love with me," he protested. "You hardly saw me! I was hardly ever around!"
"I know," she said quietly, looking down at her lap. "That's what made it so terrible."
"But you didn't even know me! You knew me as a little kid! After Al and I left to find the Philosopher's Stone-"
"I still knew who you were, Edward," she said sternly. "I haven't seen you for six years and I still know who you are now." Her voice sounded pained, and he felt the guilt well up inside him. "I know things about you few people can rival," she pressed on. "I know what you did, attempting forbidden alchemy, and still, I loved you. I know your body better than anyone else, in any world, even your lover in that place, who ever he may have been. I know you love your brother more than anything under the sun, including yourself, which is a pretty high place because you're the most self centered person I know, and still, I loved you. Don't you talk to me like I don't know my own heart."
He was afraid she would start crying, but she didn't, she simply sat on the couch, facing him but not looking at him.
"Winry," he began uncertainly, "You know you can love someone without being in love with them…" he faltered when he saw her raise her eyes witheringly.
"I don't want this baby," she said, her voice cold.
He stared at her. "What do you mean, you don't want it?"
"Every time I see it I'll be reminded of how much we hurt Alphonse," how much you hurt Al, he thought darkly, "and of how much of my life I wasted loving you," she said, a bitter edge creeping into her voice. "That's the last thing I want."
"But- it's a life," he said, his brows creasing. "It's like… a fresh start, a second chance-"
"No it's not," she said sharply. "This baby is going to come into the world to one parent who doesn't want it and one parent who won't stick around, and one very clueless boy who won't even think to ask whether or not he's the father."
His eyes widened. "You still believe that?" he said incredulously. "You really think I won't stick around? Don't say you don't want this baby, Winry, you don't mean that, you're just angry with me-" he turned away "-and I guess you have every right to be, I'm sure you think I've been a jerk, but I want it, or him, or her, or whatever it turns out to be. Besides," he added, forever the untactful, "you're huge. I don't think you can get out of having it now."
She glared at him. "Edward, you are the most unromantic, unsympathetic-"
"I know," he interrupted dryly, before he could be subjected to the rest of her list. "Sorry about that. But don't say I won't stick around, 'cause I will," he insisted. He put his hand on her shoulder, slowly coaxing her back to the space between his legs, where she sat stiffly, not facing him. "Let's stop fighting. Maybe the baby can hear us or something," he pleaded.
She let herself lean back against him, suddenly exhausted again. Life had somehow taken all daydreams and jumbled them all together with a worlds worth of guilt and thrown them out into reality, and it was about to tackle another one.
"Don't think I don't love you," he mumbled behind her, his arms resting on her hips. "I do, I always have. Just don't ask me in what way, because I don't know any more. I don't know anything anymore."