Moving Forward

author: carla, aka cali-chan
rating: PG-13, because of some swearing... Can't be helped, since there will be people calling Ed "short" once in a while. Rating might go up to R, though, depending on my mood when writing later chapters.
genre: AU, romance, a bit drama, really cheap humor...
canon: manga ONLY!
pairings: EdoWin, RoyAi. Hughes will definitely be gushing about his wife a lot...
summary: AU, chaptered, high-school themed, but not your usual sweet-valley high school fanfic. Edward Elric has to become the best track runner there is, for his mother, for his brother, and for everyone else in his life. But will triumph come at a high cost?

in this chapter: winry helps mr. hughes babysit elysia. yeah, i'm a sap at heart...

Chapter 3: Not until you're 30

"I still don't get why you have to come to the school. It's a Saturday," Ed grumbled, as they made their way towards said building, one sunny May weekend. He still wasn't comfortable with their change of schedule, as now the track team was practicing all day during Saturdays. The change happened because many of the senior students complained that practicing during he week left them no time to study (and boy did they need to!). Ed wasn't happy with it, but he had to admit there was a bright side-- now he could practice more. Pinako-baasan had forbidden him from staying after school to practice anymore. But since Saturday wasn't a schoolday...

"Oh, he'll be here," Winry replied, rolling her eyes.

"But it's a Saturday," Ed reminded her for the eighth time. "He doesn't have to work on Saturdays."

Now Al joined in the eye-rolling, too. "He'll BE here," both Al and Winry snapped back at him. Ed raised his hands in the universal surrender sign.

"Besides, anyone would think you don't want me to be here, Edo," Winry shook her head at him.

Ed glared at her. "Of course I don't! You're always so loud, it's distracting. And then you're always nagging at me not to overexert my knee and shit..."

He was rudely interrupted when Winry's fist collided with his thick head. She glared daggers directly at his eyes. "When I get a boyfriend and ditch you, you'll miss me, Edward Elric."

Ed snorted, gently nursing the newest bump on his head. "As if that would happen! What guy would like an un-cute, tomboyish, health and machine freak..."

Al tried to stop her from pouncing on his older brother, but he'd much rather not end up a paraplegic, too. So he just sweatdropped and kept himself out of the conversation.

When they finally got to the school, they took their separate ways. The boys headed towards the track while Winry entered the building, looking for the Counselor's office. As she walked down the correct hallway, she heard voices talking.

"Roy, I assure you that he has a lot of potential. He IS the son of Hohenheim Elric, after all. He could be the next best thing."

Winry's ears perked up when she heard the name. They were talking about Edward! Carefully, she moved closer to the door to try and hear more.

"I wouldn't expect genetics to come into play, Maes, if the kid hasn't seen his father since he was six."

"Yes, but I'm telling you, he's really good. Look, I have to go out in a little while but they'll be practicing until late. Perhaps after I come back we can spare a minute and go down to the track to take a look."

There was silence for a couple of heartbeats. Then, "Perhaps. I'm not making any promises."

Winry figured he would've said more, but then the door started to open. Startled, she took a few steps back. Out came a blond, serious-looking woman, and she closed the door behind her. It was only when she'd made sure that it was properly locked, that she noticed Winry standing there. "Oh, hello. Are you waiting to talk to Mr. Hughes?" the woman asked her.

Winry stuttered a bit, still embarassed at being almost caught eavesdropping. "Uh, yes. Yes, but I can wait, don't worry."

The woman nodded at her. "Very well. It should not take too long."

The blond woman stood against the wall of Mr. Hughes' office, seemingly contemplative. She looked at Winry sometimes. It seemed the girl was finding the dirt specs on her Mary Janes very interesting. Finally, Winry spoke again: "Excuse me, Miss... is that... inside... Is that Roy Mustang, the track runners talent scout?"

The woman blinked at her, obviously not expecting the question. "Why... yes, he is. I'm his personal assistant, Liza Hawkeye. May I ask why you inquire about him?"

Winry flushed, a little embarassed, yet again. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy. It's just... that's my best friend he's talking about. Edward Elric?"

Miss Hawkeye's eyes flashed with recognition. Of course, the girl had been with the Elric brothers that day in the cemetery. "Yes. Mr. Hughes' protege. We've heard nothing but praise about him."

"Oh, and he deserves all of it!" Winry assured her, excitedly. "He's a great runner! Is Mr. Mustang going to give him a chance?"

Miss Hawkeye smiled at her excitement. "I don't know that yet. But I can tell you that he is very curious about him, even if he doesn't act like he is."

Winry clasped her hands in front of her, almost pleadingly. "Oh, you don't know how important running is for Ed. If he gets picked for the county's team it would be the greatest thing for him! I bet he'd even make the national team! He really wants to be the best, and he really puts his all into practice."

"If he really is as good as everyone says," Miss Hawkeye replied carefully, "I'm sure Mr. Mustang will recognize his talent."

Winry brought a hand up to her cheek and sighed. "I hope so." Miss Hawkeye smiled at her again. It was obvious that the girl cared very much about Mr. Elric's future.

Before they could say anything else, the door to Mr. Hughes' office opened again and they could hear the Advisor's voice. "You only say that, Roy you dog, because people don't recognize you in this godforsaken town and your ego is crushed!"

"Hah! More like I'm terribly bored," Mr. Mustang replied, moving half his body across the treshold. "There's nothing to do in this 'godforsaken town' as you called it, and I've been to enough governmental meetings to last a lifetime."

"It's because your name can't get you a date around here!" Mr. Hughes laughed and Mr. Mustang looked a bit peeved. So saying nothing but "I'll see you later," he walked out of the office and, barely sparing a glance for Winry, for he recognized her, turned to leave.

"Let's go, Miss Hawkeye."

"Yes, Sir." The woman smiled at Winry one last time, and started walking two steps behind her boss. Winry, keeping her eyes on their backs as they left, let out a hopeful sigh. Ed's future was in their hands. She hoped this visit would have a positive outcome.

She knocked on Mr. Hughes' door. She waited to receive the permission to enter, and then peeked in. As expected, she found Mr. Hughes talking on the phone. What she didn't expect was to see little Elysia sitting on the floor, doodling on a sheet of paper with her bright-colored crayons. The girl's eyes lit up when she saw Winry at the door. "Winry-Sis!" she exclaimed, and got up to go hug her. Winry hugged her back. Elysia pulled her inside to show her all the drawings she had finished in her daddy's office that day.

Mr. Hughes finally got off the phone (after much cooing and kissy sounds, Winry noticed. It must've been his wife he was talking to), and turned to look at the two girls. "Hello, Winry. Nice to see you could make it. So, are we ready to go?"

Winry looked up at him in surprise. "Aren't you going somewhere? I thought that's why I was going to babysit Elysia..."

"Well, not technically. I was going to stay here for a while, since Gracia is visiting her parents this weekend-- and isn't she the most amazing person ever for it?-- and take care of Elysia myself, but since she's missed you so much these last few weeks I thought maybe we could go out and have some fun. What do you say?" He said all of this very fast and since his face was alternating between the serious and the googly-eyed expressions, she wasn't sure that she'd understood half of it. So she nodded her head rather dumbly. "Great! So what did you have planned?"

"Uh... I was going to take her to the mall?"

Elysia expressed her agreement at Winry's plans and her father smiled at them both. "That's a great idea. The mall it is, then!"

They got there without much trouble. There was only one mall in town, Leizenburg being so small and all. Their first stop was the ice cream parlor, as per Elysia's request. Mr. Hughes, being the ever-doting father he was, didn't mind one bit that they hadn't had lunch and proceded to buy chocolate ice cream for his beloved daughter and her babysitter. Winry figured Mrs. Hughes would be pretty ticked if she found out her husband was feeding junk food to their daughter, but thought no more of it.

Over the ice cream, they discussed the evening's plans. Winry had wanted to come to the mall because she had to buy a present for Al, whose birthday was coming up soon, and she wanted Elysia to help her pick it out. The gift was from both her and Ed anyway; if she bought it herself he'd probably just grumble about her making a lousy choice-- but if she told him Elysia had chosen it, he wouldn't be such a jerk as to complain about it. Mr. Hughes agreed with her reasoning.

"Is the gift for the one that's your boyfriend, Winry-Sis?" Elysia asked her, completely out of the blue.

Winry turned as red as a tomato. She knew the question had been innocent, but she just wanted the ground to swallow her whole. Of course she'd be so unlucky that Elysia had to ask such a thing in front of her father, the Student Advisor... oh, she was so embarrassed...

"He-he's not my boyfriend!" she screeched, covering her heated face with her hands. "And no, Elysia. It's not Ed's birthday, it's Al's. Ed has the same birthday as you, remember?"

The little girl nodded. She did know Ed and Al, but she'd met them when she was very little and hadn't seen them much these last couple of years. So of course she got a little confused between them from time to time. She did know all about them from hearing Winry speak of them, of course, so she had come to her own conclusions in the best way that an almost-five-years-old can. "So you mean it's for the tall one?"

Winry nodded, trying her best to forget about the boyfriend comment. Mr. Hughes' laughed at his daughter's description of the two Elric boys. His laughter was short-lived, though, for then his daughter turned to him with an angelic glint in her eyes. "Papa, can I have a boyfriend?"

His expression changed so suddenly that Winry had to wonder if it hurt. First he seemed to choke on his own breathing; then he frowned heavily. A second later he cleared his throat and then he smiled down at his daughter. Winry could've sworn she saw a dangerous glint in his eyes; but no, it must've been the sunlight reflecting on his glasses. Yeah.

"Not until you're 30, sweetie."

Though... maybe Elysia should stay away from boys for a while, for her father's sanity. And they should probably keep Mr. Hughes' away from firearms, too...

So they walked around the mall one, two, and three times trying to look for something to buy for Al. They'd thought of everything-- from clothes, to new sneakers, to CDs, even going as low as gift certificates. None of these Elysia accepted; she seemed to have very high standards when it came to gift-giving. It made Winry feel a little guilty because she was counting every cent. She only made so much money from babysitting and even though Ed had money, it was technically Al's money, too, so she didn't want to buy something too expensive if it was going to come out of Al's own pocket anyway.

Elysia had been rather enthusiastic about some things, too: there was a book with a very colorful cover she'd liked. She didn't much know what the book was about, but she could read the title and the whole package just attracted her attention. Winry passed a few pages while Mr. Hughes gushed on and on about what a smart daughter he had, learning to read even before starting school. Winry didn't think Al would be much interested in the book, though. It was a rather intense novel, full of action and dangerous plots. And while Al would never outright tell someone that he didn't like their gift, for he was much too polite for that, she thought intense reading was more of an Ed thing.

Another thing the little girl had liked was a new racing videogame they'd seen over at a toy store. Apparently she had seen its ad on tv and it stated the game was "all the rage." Winry thought it was a great idea; Al did like videogames a lot. However, after asking the sales clerk she found out the game didn't come out until two weeks later and the waiting list was so long that even if they signed up to buy one now, they probably wouldn't get it before Al's birthday.

Feeling rather down, they walked towards the parking lot. Elysia had grown tired of walking so much, and so her father was carrying her on his shoulders now. Winry felt a little dejected. She had stopped at a jewelry store to buy a new earring, for one of hers was broken ("Can I get my ears pierced like Winry-Sis, Papa?"-- "Not until you're 30, honey."-- "How much time left do I have until I'm 30?"), but they just hadn't found anything for Al. She was beginning to think they'd have to (and she gulped at the word, for she knew Ed was going to kill her for it) make something for him. And Ed and her making something together was just a disaster waiting to happen.

"Papa! Look! Kitties and puppies!"

Winry broke out of her thoughts to look at what Elysia was pointing to. The little girl had an advantage in that she was sitting on her father's shoulders, yet Winry could see, barely, a bright-colored sign with the words "Animal Shelter." They rushed in and stayed there quite a while, looking at all the animals. Winry had almost forgotten about Al's gift, distracted as she was by a rather hyperactive Jack Russell Terrier, but was reminded of it when Elysia called out to her.

She turned to pay attention to the girl and found her kneeling in front of a cage. Winry asked her to stand up; she was going to get her pants dirty. The girl complied, of course, but instead of saying something, she just pointed towards the inside of the cage, rather wide-eyed. Winry turned to look, and gasped in surprise.

Inside was a little kitten, sitting in the middle of the cage and looking up at them with a rather curious expression. Its hair was somewhat longish, dark brown colored and seemed silky. The little animal didn't hold himself with a practiced poise; it was obvious it was not a purebred cat, after all this was an Animal Shelter, but at least it didn't seem malnourished or sick. It might've been a Burmese, or maybe a Chantilly. What drew Winry to it though, was its eyes: they were such a vibrant gold color.

Yes, the kitty would be right at home with the Elrics. Elysia had just found Al's perfect gift.

Feeling in much better spirits as they had all the arrangements done, they went back to the school, grateful for a day of fun and interesting twists of fate.

author's notes!--

what's with al and cats, anyway?

please forgive me if there are typos and stuff. it's a quarter to 4 am and it's a miracle i'm managing to even make sense. i will come back and edit later.

this chapter was pretty... pointless, i know. but i just can't work with drama inside me and the one from last chapter hadn't left me yet, so i decided to do something light. this chappie is a direct product of four things: 1) the scene in the manga when winry goes to the hughes' house and elysia opens the door yelling "PAPA!"-- omg it has to be the saddest thing i've EVER read. 2) "undo" by cool joke repeating over and over in my music list. 3) that funky FMA pairing generator thingy-- i clicked it once, and it told me to write a hughes/winry fic, PG to PG-13 and involving ice cream and some other things i forgot. since hughes is my favorite character i figured i could do something... along those lines. and 4) reading one too many RoyAi fics. don't ask, i don't know how reading RoyAi makes me write hughes+elysia+winry fluff. i'm weird like that.

for those who are wondering about the whole birthday thing, this is my poor attempt at figuring out the character's birthdays. based on the anime because the manga doesn't really pay much attention to those things. and i'm not all that great at math (some engineer i'm gonna be) so i could be screwing this up. please tell me if you find anything wrong. first, elysia was born on ed's birthday, right? that day it was snowing heavily, so ed must've been born in winter so i decided to make his birthday around december. now, i decided that al should be 18 months younger than ed, thus giving him a june birthday. so there's six months in the year where their ages are one digit apart (from june to december, when al's 16, ed would be 17 and such). winry, then, i put smack in the middle of the two boys, giving her a september birthday. from june to september, she's al's age, and then from september to december, she's ed's. i hope that's not too complicated, but i just like to write it down or else i'll forget about it in the future (which shouldn't happen since that would mean giving up some ideas for future chapters).

just as a little trivia thing: fräulein (that's the name of the cat-- yeah, it's female) is probably the only OC i will use in this fanfic. hah. that's pretty nifty, if i do say so myself.

and if you're still with me and i didn't bore you to death with this chapter, let me tell you that things will pick up in the next one. just so you can get somewhat excited, i'll tell you the title: "not against envy." ominous, isn't it?

and thanks for your reviews, guys! i'm glad you're liking it so far. i know AUs aren't your usual cup of tea, and i'm grateful to you for giving this one a chance. i'll try my hardest to give it the feel of the original series.