On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Eleven Pipers Piping
Winry passed a red glass ornament down to Al, who was sitting cross-legged at the base of the tree with the box in his lap. He carefully wrapped the ball in tissue and set it neatly in its section, holding a hand up for the next ornament. When one did not appear in his hand, he glanced up at Winry, raising his eyebrows.
She was resting her chin on her hands over the top step of the ladder, her long hair hanging down over the rungs, and staring out the window.
"Earth to Winry," Al said softly.
"There's no snow," she said, her expression becoming no more focused than before she spoke, continuing to stare blankly.
Al just shrugged, leaning back on his hands. "Doesn't snow in Dublith," he told her. "Too far south."
"Should be snow on Christmas."
Al set the box aside and stood up, climbing onto the second step of the ladder with one foot between hers and one foot beside. "Should be a lot of things for Christmas," he murmured from behind her, resting his forehead briefly between her shoulder blades, then sighing and reaching around her for another glass ornament. "Come on," he said, trying a smile. "I hardly ever get to see you anymore, Christmas seems to be the only time we get to be together. You can't mope like this every year."
She turned her head, her bangs covering most of her narrowed eyes. "I don't mope," she snapped indignantly.
Al just shrugged again, stepping back down the ladder and picking up the ornament box, wrapping this one as carefully as the previous and setting it in its place. "If you say so," he said noncommittally.
She straightened and reached for another decoration, handing it down to him. "I don't mope, Al," she repeated firmly. "I just wish it could have snowed."
"Next year I'll meet you in Rizembool for Christmas," he offered, looking up at her. "There's always snow there, this time of year."
"Next year I'll be in Rizembool anyway, so you'd better meet me there for Christmas," she said playfully. "This is my last year apprenticing in Rush Valley, you know. Here's the star," she added, plucking it from the top of the tree and climbing backwards down the ladder, hopping off the last rung and brushing her hands off on the front of her pants. "I think that's all of it," she told him, and together they lifted the heavy box and hauled it off to the closet for the next year.
"Be careful with that box!" Izumi called to them from the other room.
Al tightened his grip on it. "Yes Sensei!"
"Winry your things are all over the guest room, I thought your suitcase was already packed!" Pinako added.
Winry looked back over her shoulder. "Yes Granny, all right, I'll finish packing now. I was just helping Al!"
They hefted the box up, setting it on the top shelf of the closet. Winry hurried to the guest room to collect her things, and Al paused in the doorway of the living room, where Izumi sat, Sig's arm draped heavily over her shoulders, across from Pinako, who was contentedly puffing at her pipe. "Alphonse," the old woman commanded. "Come here."
Al crouched down in front of her and she placed her wrinkled hands on his cheeks, and he looked into her twinkling eyes. Granny had not changed on him the way Winry had, she was the same as she ever was, impossibly old, impossibly short, and as wise and kind as he could ever wish for. Sometimes, even now, it still startled him how grown up Winry was and it still made him feel out of sorts, out of place, like he had landed himself in a world that was almost real but not quite. Yet even at ten years old, (three years ago already, wasn't it?) he could see how he had hurt her, turning to his Aunty and Sensei for comfort and avoiding her, his best friend, because she was not what he remembered.
Granny released him. "Your face is different," she proclaimed.
"My face?" Al echoed, startled.
The old woman nodded, putting the stem of her pipe back between her wrinkled lips. "You're growing up," she said firmly.
"Oh," was all he could say, still crouched in front of her, looking up. He stood. "Good," he added, and frowned when Izumi chuckled at him.
"Al," she said kindly, patting the chair next to her, "Come sit here a minute." She reached for an orange from the basket in the center of the table and handed it to him, and he began to peel it. She gave a light cough, hiding it behind her hand, and Al watched Sig's face cloud with worry. Izumi looked up at him, her eyes insisting she was fine, and then smiled back at Al. "Don't grow up too fast, okay?"
There was nothing Alphonse Elric wanted more than to grow up. He didn't want his childhood if he couldn't spend it with his brother. He only wanted what could bring himself closer to his goals, but he looked around the table and saw the faces of the people who had picked up his world when it had been shattered, who had loved him and protected him and done everything the could have to shelter him from the harm that could come to him by prying into the forbidden. Left with no father, no mother, and no brother, this was his family, and he could not out rightly argue with them. "I won't," he assured the adults, popping a section of orange into his mouth and smiling for them.
"Al," Pinako instructed him, nearly a half hour later, "Go see what's delaying my granddaughter," and Al sprung up from his seat, leaving the orange peel in front of his place at the table.
"Winry," he called down the hall, coming to stop right outside the guest room. He sighed, marching into the room and switching the radio off. "You said you weren't moping," he accused.
She turned to face him from where she had been sitting on the bed. "I'm not," she insisted, "I was packing."
He looked at her suitcase at the foot of the bed, clasped shut and the room returned to the state it was in before she had arrived. "You're already packed," he pointed out.
"Al, I wasn't-"
He flopped down on the bed next to her, laying back and letting his head drop into the space between the bed and the wall. "That was the Ed song," he said to the ceiling. "I know you. I know you and that song." He sat up, looking intently into her eyes and taking her hand in his. "Look, he isn't gone, all right? I'll get him back. Next Christmas, it'll be all three of us, at home, in Rizembool, with snow, even, okay? I promise."
She looked sad, and he frowned. He hadn't meant to make her sad. "Don't promise me that, Al," she whispered.
He shrugged. "Why not? What if I do? Don't you want things to be back to the way they were?"
"I'm just happy you're alive, I'm thankful we have you, and I don't want to lose you too," she said seriously. "If you're going to promise me something, promise me you'll stay safe."
"Promise me you'll quit listening to that song," he countered.
"Al!" she protested.
"I don't like to see you sad!"
She stood up, grabbing her suitcase off the bed, and he stepped in front of her, trying to grab it out of her hand.
"I'll get that," he offered.
"I got it!" she insisted, side stepping him and slipping out the doorway.
He was in front of her in an instant, blocking her path down the hall. "Lemme carry it for you," he pressed, his eyes playful.
"Al," she warned, a mock-glare crossing her features.
He stepped back one step, looking up. "Wait," he said, stepping back one more step. "Wait," he said again. "All right, right here," he said firmly, snatching the suitcase from her hand while she was distracted and setting it on the ground.
"Whoops, we forgot a decoration," she said.
Al grinned. "Nuh uh," he said, grey eyes sparkling. "We didn't forget anything."
"Al," she said again.
"It's a tradition," he said. "It's Christmas."
"Christmas is over."
"No it's not."
So she kissed him, under the mistletoe, in the Curtis's hallway, eleven days after Christmas. She meant to kiss him quickly on the cheek, but he had turned at the last minute and pressed his lips into hers, startling her enough that it took her a few moments to realize what had happened.
Alphonse Elric had just stolen her first kiss.
He was still grinning, bright eyed, when they broke apart, and she noticed his hands on her waist. It was an innocent enough kiss, lasting no more than a few seconds and… it had been so sweet, and… lovely, she admitted.
She put her hands over his. "Al," she said gently.
"Merry Christmas!" he said, his voice a little high, and a touch nervous.
She looked at him for a moment. "You're too young for me," she said finally.
He looked down. "It was just a kiss, no big deal," he mumbled to the floor, and immediately she felt cruel. When he looked up, his eyes were serious again. "But I'm not too young," he told her. "I'm only one year younger than you, I always have been, and I always will be. One year isn't that big of a deal, is it?"
She kissed him lightly once more, on the forehead, and didn't argue. "No, I suppose it isn't," she said.
"Winry!" Pinako called, and Al picked up her suitcase, heading out to the font of the house. "Come on girl, we don't want to miss our train!"
Al and Winry hugged goodbye, with Al promising to try for some time off in March to visit her in Rush Valley and Winry promising to write him more often than she had been. Al crouched down to hug his Aunty, and she smelled of tobacco, as always. "You be good to my granddaughter," she warned him, "and take care of yourself," she added, and he assured her he would.
As the three of them, Al, Izumi, and Sig, stood on the porch waving to the Rockbells, Al could feel his Sensei's eyes on him, and the vague sense of terror she had always instilled in him stirred, but she said nothing, instead wrapping one arm around his shoulders and the other around her husband's waist.
Al could hear faint strains of music coming from inside the house, and although he knew it couldn't be the same song, it was still the one he heard in his head. Don't look back, he thought, echoing the song. You can't move forward if you keep looking back, he thought, echoing the echoes of his brother.
Ten lords a-leapingNine ladies dancing
Eight maids a-milking
Seven swans a-swimming
Six geese a-Laying
Five golden rings
Four calling birds
Three French hens
Two turtledoves
And a partridge in a pear tree