Declaimer: Fine… I don't own the second FMA movie. But then… what happens to this if another movie is made!

Fifth Bit.

Winry moaned herself awake, only to find that she was once again in a startling white room with beeping in the background. She turned her head slightly so she could see the familiar machine that measured the beats of her heart. It was going slow… like it had been the first time she had woken up in this hospital.

She reached a weak hand out to the small table on her other side so she could pick up the phone and ring for Molly.

There was a click and a soothing "yes?"

"Molly?"

There was a sharp intake of breath.

"Winry! Oh dear. I'll be there in a second."

The line went dead.

A few minutes later Molly burst into the room looking worried and thankful at the same time.

"So what happened this time?" Winry wasn't hopeful.

Molly sighed, wondering if she should be the one to tell her, "We found you in your room just a little while ago, it looked like you must have fainted getting out of bed or something. We did a check on your head though; just to make sure everything was okay…" she paused.

"And…?" Winry coxed

Molly rubbed her fingers together; "We found a blood clot where your skull had been fractured. If we don't perform surgery it may become fatal. But the surgery is difficult, and new to us; your body might not be able to handle it either." She looked sad, sadder than Winry had ever seen her before, "You have to make a decision though. We can perform the surgery in two days to give you a chance, it's a risk, but it's also a chance. Or… we don't perform the surgery at all, and you live as long as your body lets you, which may be longer if the surgery doesn't work."

Winry looked down, basically she had a 1 in 3 chance of living… and all she had to decide was if she wanted to maybe live or die in two days, or live a few more months happily.

She swallowed, "I need to think for a while… could you tell the doctor to come back and see me in an hour?"

Molly tried to smile encouragingly before she left the room.

How had it come to this? Why couldn't she leave things well enough alone? She had had a life in Rush Valley, and now she was about to die?

She let her head fall into her hands, and for the first time in a long time, she let herself cry.

Ed found himself sitting in the cemetery they had staid at their first night in this town. He thought it was a befitting place for his thoughts; he was all but dead anyways. So what was he going to do? Leave Al and Noah here to live with each other as he went off in search of nothing?

He skulked down and starred at Antonio Gevili's gravestone. 1614-1658, he had died young. At this point, dying young didn't really sound all that bad.

He scowled… what he needed… what he needed was a bad guy. They always seemed to uncomplicated things. He could deal with bad guys, it was easy, you just had to go up against them, and know that the person left standing won. All you had to do was believe that what they were doing was wrong, and after that, everything just kind of slid into place. His life seemed to be full of bad guys, every time he tried to look back at a memory; they were usually the first thing he found. He had old memories of his mom, memories of Izumi, and of course, memories of Winry. But all those happy memories were even more painful than all the fighting. Mother: lost, Izumi: lost, Winry…lost. He never really wanted to have a relationship of any kind with anyone again; even friends came and went painfully.

Ed stood up. And now he wanted to leave the only relationships he had, especially the one he had fought nearly his whole life for, just because of a Reflection? He couldn't do that to himself… he couldn't do that to Al.

He walked out of the cemetery in much the same mood that he had walked into it. How was it, that there being no one to fight, only made things worse? He wondered what he might have done with his life if it hadn't gone down the path it had. Would he and Al still be living in Resembool or would they have gone to live in different towns from each other?

Ed walked miserably down the cobbled central street, it seemed like his whole life had been a complete waste, considering they were now back where they had started, or at least parallel to where they had started. They hadn't gained anything, but they lost a world.

Al popped up out of nowhere.

"Ed!" He ran up to his brother.

Blast, what voice was that again? It sounded like the 'I'm irritated but worried… probably a little angry too!' "What?" if it was some problem of some sort, he wasn't in the mood to hear it.

"I've been looking all over town for you!"

"If this is about work, I just didn't feel like—"

"Noah's missing."

Ed's lips were still opened from his unfinished sentence, but they stuck with confusion, "What are you talking about?"

Al rubbed his neck restlessly, "I can't find her anywhere, and she isn't at the Inn."

Ed shrugged, "If she doesn't come back by tonight we'll go look for her." Geeze, you would think she had been missing for a few days or something.

"I've already waited! The last time I saw her was the day before yesterday! I didn't want to tell you earlier because I thought you would worry…"

Slowly, Ed's attention grabbed hold of the words, chewed on them for bit, and smiled maliciously… there's always a bad guy. Had it really been a day since he had seen Noah? He hadn't even noticed, "Where did you last see her?"

Al blushed too lightly for Ed to notice, "We bumped into each other in the hall of the Inn, late at night."

"Did she say anything?"

"No." Nothing relevant to the situation at least. Unless she decided to run off because she felt unloved, but she seemed like the type that would stick around and work for it.

Well… time to get to work. Ed put his mind in the right place, "You start talking to people on the west side of town, I'll question some people around the east. We'll meet up in the square at--" He flicked open his pocket watch, 1:30pm, "--8:00 tonight"

Al nodded determinedly, and jogged off past Ed.

Tomorrow… it seemed so close. Winry ringed the already tangled sheets around her. She had decided that if she was going to die anyways, she might as well get it over with. Waiting for death would take away the will to live happily, knowing it didn't really matter that much. And if the surgery worked, she wouldn't have to worry… or wait.

For something to do, Winry picked up one of the scattered books around her bed, and started reading from the middle; something about gardening with Alchemy. The pages were yellow and old; in fact… it seemed like one of the oldest books in the bunch. Its oddness always made Winry happy; this was a book that could laugh at the rest. They were all so important and complicated, and yet this little book on gardening could hold over the rest of them that not only was it not as serious, but it had probably lived longer because of it. Winry liked that this book wasn't quite as offensive and arrogant as the rest. The others always seemed to make fun of the fact that they were smarter than her, while this book just wanted to teach her a kind lesson.

She sighed… this is what happens when you don't have other people to talk with, you start giving your books a personality, and getting offended when they tell you something you don't know, as if they were doing it just to piss you off.

:Note: Do not perform on tulips… they prefer to try on their own.:

She would have to remember that. (Sarcasm)

The pages crinkled as she turned them.

:Note: In dying, these plants will only give energy to the others in the garden. Test with other Alchemy.

She would have to find the outcome of those tests.

She fumbled around the bed for Innovative Uses for Alchemy, found it, and flicked through the pages reading each note carefully. Towards the back she found what she was looking for.

:Note: Killing a goldenseal flower before reconstructive Alchemy enhances power and cuts time in half. Substitute ivy for deconstructive purposes.

Huh. There was something important in that. A lot of good it would do her though… she couldn't even perform Alchemy. She would just have to survive and learn it. Or die and learn it then. She sighed and threw the book to the ground, she didn't like her options.

Ed was nearly doubled over with the exhaustion of getting nowhere. It seemed every person he asked about Noah, knew less than the last. He wondered vaguely if Al was doing any better, but doubted even the idea. How was it that someone could just vanish so completely?

When Ed met up with Al in the square that night, Al looked like he was about to explode with worry. His hands twisted around each other restlessly, his eyes were stern and directed straight at Ed.

"What did you find?" Ed asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

Al's tension washed over Ed like a flood, "Someone said they saw her being helped onto a train yesterday. They were heading north." He was talking like there was a bomb involved or something.

"That could have been anyone…"

"It wasn't!" Al yelled, his emotions getting the better of him.

Ed sighed and rubbed the back of his head, "Guess we have a train to catch then."

Al's face fell into relief, and he smiled gratefully at his brother. He had been worried that Ed might not want to chase this lead.

"I'll get some money," Al turned towards their Inn.

"You want to leave tonight?"

Al nodded as if it wasn't even a question.

Ed blanched and slumped all the way over, "just checking…" he wasn't going to argue.

The train was quiet and nearly empty. Everything was dark except for one lonely lantern in every cabin.

Al sat watching out of his window, as if hoping to see Noah walking over the pitch-black landscape.

Ed was basking in the glow of his morbid luck. Did he really always want to be fighting and chasing something? Or was he just so used to it that it was the only thing that felt right anymore?

"So are we just going to stop at every town heading north and search it until we find Noah?" That sounded like a lifetime of work.

It took Al a moment to realize that that comment was directed at him, he shrugged, "I guess so. We just have to ask around until we find someone who's seen her."

"But we don't have a picture or anything," Ed was having conflicting emotions; he was almost glade for the extra challenge, but worried for what it meant.

"Well just have to work with what we have."

Ed shook his head, "Going further north will help her stand out more... her skin is so dark people should be able to pick her out of the crowd. But so many gypsies travel that way, it may be harder to tell."

Al looked back out the window, "Well just have to be specific."

There was a long pause before Ed spoke again, after giving his thoughts some time to wrap themselves around a depressing possibility, "Do you think…" He stopped himself, he didn't want to mention it to Al, but he felt he should anyways, "Do you think she may have left on her own?"

Al's head shot around to look at Ed, "What do you mean?"

Ed closed his eyes and let out a breath, "She may have wanted to keep traveling."

"She would have told us if she wanted to go."

"You never know…"

Al looked down, "she wouldn't have left."

"How can you be sure?"

Al looked up and gave Ed a venomous stare, "She wouldn't have left you."

Ed pulled back and felt more confused than he had been in a while, "What?"

Al shook his head exhaustedly, "Never mind…"

Ed didn't like being dismissed like that, "You're not saying that Noah—"

"I'm saying that Noah loved you, and you were too distracted by your own problems to notice."

Ed's lips thinned. Why would Noah be in love with him? He was always so far off in another world to be anything loveable! His eyes wandered to Al and he understood now, everything made just a little more sense, "I'm sorry."

Al went back to his previous sightseeing without replying.

The train rumbled on… somehow even quieter than it had been when they had boarded.

A/N hate me? love me? I NEED TO KNOW!