Chapter Eleven:
Ed walks into the door of his apartment trying to be as quiet as possible and sees that Al is still awake and reading a book. "Hey." Ed whispers.
Al looks up and if he could he'd smile, "Welcome home brother!" Al whispers with excitement.
"How's Kat?" Ed closes the door behind him trying to be as quiet as possible.
"She's…" Remembering the day before Al stalls for a moment; it had already been a day since it happened but still! "She reopened her wounds again."
Ed sighs in anxiety resting his left palm on his forehead. "Man how'd she do that?"
Al looks at his brother and looks the other way trying to remember what his lie was before, "Erm… she… ugh."
Ed glares at his little brother, he wasn't one to really lie about things, more importantly, important things like this. "How did she reopen them Alphonse?" Ed raises his voice a little.
Al flinches, hating when he upsets his brother, "Well it's weird, cause…" Al sees that Ed is waiting for the truth, of what happened. Al sighs, "It started when she had a bad dream…"
After hearing what happened, Ed looks at Kat's room, "That is a little weird. But you said she'd already lost a lot of blood, and most likely she was hallucinating so it's understandable she might have thought you were someone else." Ed scratches his head in worry. 'Still she said his name… this is so weird.'
"Brother I'm worried for her." Al lowers his head confused and unable to make sense of all this.
Ed gets up and pats his brother on the head, "So am I, but you said the doc gave yea something for her bad dreams?"
"Yea." Al holds up the sample medication, "He said it would put her into a dreamless sleep."
"I see, well at least she wont wake up with open wounds." Ed shakes his head, "It must be hard after being used to being hurt for so long with open wounds, it must remind her of what happened when she wakes with them now." Ed looks to Kats room. 'I wonder why she didn't want to stay with her cousin.'
The next morning Ed walks out of his bedroom seeing that Al's already getting food ready for them. He points to Kat's room, "Is she still asleep?" Ed whispers seeing the metallic head slowly nod he walks over to the door and slowly opens it. Seeing the slow rise and fall of her chest, he sighs in relief that she's still ok. He starts to close the door when he hears his name being called out. He looks back seeing that Kat is very much awake. Walking into her room he waits for a response at the foot of her bed.
"When did you get back?" Kat looks up still looking a bit tired.
"Last night, you were asleep already. Winry will be ok she got her medication and Aunty told me she'd be able to take care of everything." Ed looks at her stoically.
Kat looks down at her bed, nodding slowly, "I see… Thank you again for helping me out."
Ed smiles, "Sure thing."
(SC)
Months later both Kat and Winry healed from their wounds and illness. Winry sent Ed a letter saying that she was feeling better and that Pinako told her about how he needed to help Al with Kat, and that she understood. Being spring Ed knew that Colonel Mustang would be acting extra stupid today since it's 'The Season for Lovers.' Ed knew what it meant but he found it idiotic. Kat on the other hand showed lesser of her hallucinations showing that it was more or less the lack of blood, and that she really wasn't thinking strait.
Over time Al has noticed that Kat has been doing a little bit of flirting with Ed, though he seems not to notice her advances. He started see this ever since she'd been fully able to walk around and hang out with them that she's been blushing around him and trying to do cute little things for him to notice her. Her cast had been taken off the month before, and though Colonel Mustang has asked her to see a shrink of some kind, to dismay Kat has refused every time saying that she's ok with what happened and doesn't need to talk to some quack about it.
"Al!" Kat speaks up sounding a bit irritated.
Al cringes slightly, slowly learning not to get on this girls bad side, like Winry her temper was a bit on the short side when it came to certain things. "Gomen!" Al helps her out with making a picnic for what seems to be himself, though he tries insisting that he doesn't need to eat anything she insists that he needs to be quiet about the matter.
Kat looks around seeing that everything's set, "Ok Al thanks so much for keeping this quiet, also, I'm having someone over, that's why I'm packing extra food. She winks at him Al nods in understanding.
"Who is it?" Al looks curiously.
"Winry, but don't tell Ed it's supposed to be a surprise!" Kat giggles excitedly, Al nods again excitedly as well. "I'm going to go get ready!" Kat runs off to get ready, quickly running into the shower she hears the door bell knowing it's Winry. She'd mailed Winry a while ago about having her come by for a visit for a couple weeks and also told her that when she'd get here that they'd be having a secret picnic for them all.
Kat grabs her soap looking at herself, running her fingers across the scars, 'You know it was HIS fault that this happened, their fault.' Kat sighs knowing that she'd been hearing this voice for too long. "It's not Roy's fault… or Ed's."
'Oh? Well then who's was it?'
"Vincents…"
'Good girl, I'm glad you have it right. Now you have everything all planed out, Ed will see the both of you and will finally chose who he wants. Such a nice thing of that Mustang person to tell us where some good picnic grounds are.'
Kat smiles, washing herself, "Yea…"
'Ed will choose you I promise.'
"I hope so…" Kat looks up to the sealing, closing her eyes to let the water wash over her face.
'He will.'
"Thanks again."
'For what my dear?'
"Helping me out with… Vincent, to endure him, when he… you know…" Kat whispers, feeling dirty every time she thinks about it.
'Of course, what are friends for?'
Kat turns off the water and walks into her room changing into a lovely summer dress long and lovely, white with big roses on it, sleeveless, with a square neckline. Putting on some bamboo sandals she lets her black hair loose, which had grown to the middle of her neck, as she walks into the living room greeting Winry and Ed. "Hello Ed!"
Ed looks around he'd obviously just walked into the door, "What's going on?"
"We're having Winry over for a little while, I asked Al to be quiet about it so we could surprise you!" Kat smiles at Ed who's trying to look upset. "Also we're going to have a fun picnic today. Roy-Roy should be over in just a little bit."
Ed grumbles thinking that Roy's going to invite some girl he doesn't even know to this picnic. Another question comes to mind, where are they going to go to for this picnic?
As if reading his mind Kat speaks up, "I asked Roy not to bring any girls and to come sober, and the location is going to be close to were I train with plants with my alchemy." She smiles at him seeing that he wants to be mad at her but can't at the moment.
Hearing a knock on the door Kat grabs the picnic basket seeing Winry open the door for Roy. "Hey Roy-Roy! Ready?"
"Yea."
Kat points at him pretending to be strict with him, pointing a finger at him, "You're going to be nice right?"
Roy smiles and rolls his eyes, "Yes."
"Good lets go!" Kat speaks up walking up to Roy walking with him to his car, the others following behind.
After a semi long drive they'd finally made it to the city limits and more importantly to the spot were Kat was planning on taking them to. She points to Roy where she would train every now and then after she'd gotten better. Roy parks the car on the road and more importantly close to a tree where they could have their picnic, close to the car and far enough form work for no one to bug him.
Kat starts telling Al where he can put the blanket for the picnic and tells Winry which glasses belong to whom. Kat bumps into Ed by accident only once though blushes madly when she looks into his eyes. Bowing she gives out a small 'gomen.'
Having everything set Kat lets everyone sit down Ed mysteriously ends up between the two girls of the group. Ignoring this little factor he looks at all the food that's been made for this picnic. "Oh wow Kat did you make all this yourself?"
"Well I had some help from Al-" Kat looks to Al with a smile though finds that he's pointing to Ed who's no longer paying attention and is stuffing his face. Kat sighs in irritation and hopelessness.
Winry smacks Ed upside the head, causing the seventeen year old to choke slightly, "Listen to the woman at least! She wasn't finished!"
Kat puts up her hands not wanting to bother with the matter. "It's ok, he's probably just hungry."
Ed nods and points to Kat turning to Winry, "See she understands me!"
"No she lets you walk all over her." Winry argues back.
Kat looks at the two argue from what seems great legions away, seeing the two together, she could tell that both liked one another very much. More than Ed could love her in return, he'd always be thinking about Winry instead of herself. Kat smiles at the other two offering Roy some food and slowly eating her own food trying not to look too terribly distant. How could that girl be wrong, the sweet voice in her head, she'd always told her the truth before that Ed would love her no matter what, what is she doing wrong? Finally hearing her name being called and a hand being waved in her face by Edward, Kat jerks her head up looking to everyone. "Wha?"
Ed smiles at Kat, "You spaced out there. What are you thinking about?"
Kat smiles and tries to tell something other than her ultimate hope that Ed would love her more than Winry. "I was thinking about how hard it used to be for me to train here and how funny it seemed. You know just trying to do the little things were hard but with some help I'm all better now like nothing ever happened."
Roy smiles at his little cousin patting her on the back, "Well I'm grateful that you're better now, are you sure you don't want to move in with me? I hear that Ed can be pretty messy."
"HEY!" Ed squeaks out.
"What its true!" Winry points out, grinning at Ed's anger heading in her direction.
"Brother isn't that messy! He's just a little forgetful about where he puts his laundry… and a few other things…" Al tries to defend his oh so guilty brother in the making a mess department. Everyone starts to laugh as Ed fumes on mumbling under his breath.
After their meal Ed, Al and Roy go off playing with a Frisbee, Kat smiles at the boys and turns to Winry, "Do you wanna see where I went for my training?"
Winry looks to Kat and nods with a kind smile, "Sure!"
Both get up and walk into the woods, not really being noticed by the boys, since well Ed seemed to be tackled by Roy and Al quickly on his way to finished the dog pile. Kat puts her hand into the pocket of her dress feeling her cotton gloves with plant materials sown into the fabric. Thinking about Ed and Winry Kat slowly fads into darkness.
Winry grabs a hold of Kat seeing that she's fallen forward and holding onto a tree for support. "Kat are you ok?"
Kat's eyes open slowly, her eyes showing coldness, and little mercy. A twisted smile on her face as she grabs Winry's hand, "Hold on tight it gets a little rough when we get a little more a head." Kat pulls hard on Winry's hand almost making her scream though she quickly suppresses it trying not to look like some scared little girl. Stopping in the middle of the forest a great opening with little bugs flying in the air above them and moss on their feet.
Winry looks around in pure amazement, she'd never really gone deep into forest areas much less large ones like this one. A small riverbank showed the source of constant water for the moss. "Kat… This is… Beautiful."
"Who says I'm Kat?"
Winry turns to Kat her eyes wide and fearful, "What?"
Quickly for Winry everything turns to darkness, the last thing she sees being the cold heartless eyes of a woman that couldn't be the sweet and kind Kat she knew.
(TBC)
Ed: Wait a minute! This is starting to get weird v !
Trom: ; mew…
Roy::Pats Trom's shoulder: I'm sure it'll turn out alright. Right::glare:
Trom::Scratches the back of her head nervously: You'll see ;.