Dancing in the Rain
Chapter Three
As soon as Winry got home she raced upstairs, dropping her backpack, jacket and shoes by the door. Her parents asked her about her day as she zoomed up the stairs, and she said some mumbled reply before she zipped into her room. She dodged a few boxes, making it over to her closet. They had just finished moving into the new house a few days ago, and so there were still boxes everywhere. She pulled out a skirt and a comfy top and quickly changed. She had no idea why she was in such a hurry, and decided it was probably because Edward was coming over at about six.
With a sigh, she pulled her hair from it's ponytail, and let her long blonde hair sit on her shoulders. She then turned, heading back down stairs to work on the math sheets Mr. Meadows had given her. Her mother had commented at some point that she looked nervous, and Winry had replied merely with a casual smile.
She wondered why Edward put her in such a anxious state, and finally decided it was because she was simply not used to having boys in her house. Besides her dad of course.
By the time Six o'clock rolled around, Winry had long since finished her math homework, and made herself comfy in front of the television. She wasn't exactly sure what she was watching, considering she was paying little to no attention to it.
When the doorbell rang, Winry jumped up from surprise, but ended up tripping over her own legs and falling flat on her face. "I've got it!" she heard her mother say, and soon after heard the door open. "Oh Winry," her mother said in her sing-song voice. Winry knew she was grinning. "A boy's here to see you."
"Okay!" Winry called as she got to her feet, and headed towards the door.
"Boy?" her father asked as he glanced out of the kitchen.
"Oh relax," her mother said, pushing the man back in the kitchen and sending Winry a wink.
The blonde shuddered at her parents and turned back to Edward, who was standing awkwardly at the door, admiring the white walls in Winry's house which were presently bare. "So..." he said, turning his golden eyes over to her. "Are you ready to start?" he asked.
She nodded and moved back to let him in. "We can work up in my room, as long as you don't have a problem with boxes."
Edward merely shrugged, and took off his jacket, as he turned and followed Winry upstairs towards her room. A faint, "keep the door open!" was heard from Winry's father, but the blonde merely brushed it aside.
Winry opened the door to her room, and stepped inside, jumping over a box and heading towards her bed, where a large black and white dog sat, snoozing away without a care in the world. Edward set his bag down on the ground, slowly opening it to reveal a large amount of spare parts and a half finished clock radio. He handed it to her, before taking a seat on a nearby box.
Winry took the radio and started inspecting it. "Hey.." she said after a minute. "You're not bad. Is this what they teach you in shop class?" she asked, diverting her attention from the radio to look up at him.
Edward shrugged. "I wouldn't know, I never listen."
For someone who didn't seem to pay attention in class, he wasn't an idiot.
"Well," she said, setting the radio down on the edge of her bed. "Let's get started."
---
Building the radio seemed easy enough, but it seemed that Edward had been missing a few parts. So the two went on a perils search through several boxes trying to find the right parts. Edward said it would be easier to pick them up from school the next day, but Winry was determined to find the parts. So the two spent at least a good hour going through several different boxes, only to come up empty handed.
The two had been through the house, and Edward was pretty sure he knew the floor plan like the back of his hand by the end of the night.
Winry bit into a cookie that her mother had provided. After searching for so long, her mother had made them a snack while her father shot Edward dirty looks. "Well that was a total waste of time," she said, staring up at the ceiling.
"I agree with you there," Edward remarked. It got amazingly silent amazingly fast. That was one thing she had discovered with Edward, conversations around him could die very quickly if not cared for. But Winry found it didn't matter, considering most conversations she had with Edward weren't exactly stimulating.
She sat up, looking over at the blonde who was looking over one of his parts. It seemed to be part of some sort of engine. From the size, Winry guessed it was a car's. Although she didn't even want to begin to imagine where he would get a car's engine. "You should take off your gloves," she said, noting he was still wearing those white gloves, which were not presently covered in engine oil. "They're getting stained."
Edward merely grunted in reply.
"It's hot outside. Don't your hands get hot?"
He grunted again.
She gave a weary sigh, too tired to argue with him. Instead, she slumped back into the pillows, closing her eyes for a moment of peace. Of course, it didn't last long.
"Crap!" Edward suddenly bolted upright, looking down at his watch. "It's already eight-thirty!" He cried, stuffing parts back into his bag, while continually cursing.
Winry sat up on her elbows. "You gotta be somewhere or something?"
"I promised my brother I'd-" he suddenly cut himself off, and stopped his insane collecting of his parts, to shoot her a nasty glare. "None of your business."
She raised an eyebrow. "You have a brother?" she asked, her tone clearly amused. "Is he older or younger?"
"None of your business!" Edward snapped, as he collected the last of his parts. "Look, I'll see you at school," he then turned and disappeared out the door with the same damn speed he demonstrated in school. She instantly got to her feet and followed him out the door.
"My dad can drive you home if no one's coming to pick you up," Winry offered, as she spotted the boy at the door, pulling on his shoes.
"No!" he called, as he tried desperately to pull his other on. "That's okay! I can walk!"
"Really it's no-" Winry cut herself off as the door slammed loudly behind Edward as he raced out of the house.
---
Winry barely saw Edward after that. Sure, she saw him at school, but it was as though he wasn't really there. She would have to call him twice before he'd realize she was standing in front of him. He seemed a little more on edge, a bit more jumpy, and Winry found that strange. Although she merely brushed it aside.
Winry seemed to be fitting in nicely. Every day she, Riza, Roy and Maes would eat lunch by the rocks, and talk about various topics that seemed to interest them. She very much enjoyed Maes' obsession with his new baby sister, and seemed to attack Roy with pictures of her whenever he had the chance. She also loved to hear about Riza's trips to the rifelry range, and the odd things she would wind up doing. She often shared stories of her own, talking about various times in her life.
She would often glance over at Edward, who like them, ate his lunch by the fence every day. She had been correct about one thing though; he didn't seem like he had any friends at all. He was always off by himself, as though lost in his own sadness. Winry felt guilty often just by looking at him. She had offered to let him eat lunch with them, he merely stared at her, made some rude comment, and stalked of. After her third try, she just gave up on the boy, and enjoyed her lunches with her new friends.
The week seemed to go by all too fast, and already the weekend had set itself in place. Winry was planning to go to a small mechanic's shop down town that Roy had told her about. When he told her about it, she thought that he too might be interested in all things metal, he merely replied saying that his father was an engineer and that was the only reason he knew about it.
Winry sighed, adjusting the strap on her purse. It was supposed to be a really good shop, so of course, Winry did not pass up the chance to look it over herself. She pulled a small slip of paper from her pocket, with the address written on it. She frowned. The directions were so confusing.
Go straight until you see a large purple store with a dome, then go left, then right as soon as you turn left, then go straight for a while until you see a big grey building, then go left again, then go down the street for a little while, then go right, then left, then straight then right and you're there!
He certainly could not write directions. She glanced back over her shoulder, not remembering where she had gone. She flipped back around, she just had to retrace her steps, follow the directions backwards. Yeah. That should work.
After another hour of mindlessly trying to backstep the instructions, Winry found herself more lost then before.
"Ah! How am I gonna get home!" She cried out mentally, swerving around, desperately trying to find something remotely familiar.
With a click, the street lights went on, lighting the already dark streets. Winry jumped, giving a shriek of surprise. She then forced herself to calm. All she had to do was call her parents from a payphone, and they could come pick her up.
"Well, well, well, what might you be doing out here so late?"
Winry flipped around, finding herself clutching her jacket in a death grip. She found, standing behind her, five large men, all with the same sly grins on their faces.
"Are you lost?" a tall dark haired man asked, the enjoyment evidently written on his face.
"No! I'm alright!" Winry squeaked out, finding herself surprisingly scared. She wasn't used to big town thugs, considering she had moved from the peaceful countryside.
"Don't worry," he said with a chuckle. "We'll help you find your way home..." he started to close in on her, and Winry backed up. When her back made contact with a wall she paled. What was she supposed to do in this kind of situation? Kick and scream? Cry for help? Her mind went blank, she was too scared to even think.
"Hey!"
The tall, dark hairedman flipped around at the sound, before he started laughing. "Well, well, if it isn't the Crybaby Elric. Why are you out so late, are you looking for your bottle?" the other men laughed at the apparent joke.
Winry opened her eyes from their tightly squeezed position, trying to see if indeed the blonde haired boy was here. Oh how much she prayed for him to be here! She wanted to go home so badly! She tried to see ifit wasEdward, but couldn't see past the men that were surrounding her.
The blonde teenager pushed the dark hairedman aside. "Leave her alone Erick," he said. "Go rob your grandma's if you want something to do."
The relief was clearly written across her face when she realized it was indeed Edward.
"Hey pipsqueak!"Erick suddenly shouted, grabbing Edward by the arm. "Who do you think you are, coming in here and bossing us around?"
"You've got three seconds to let go of me," Edward said in a dark tone.
Ericklooked slightly shocked by the dark look in his eyes, and let the shorter boy go. Edward then grabbed Winry by the wrist, and started dragging her the other way. She glanced over her shoulder at the five men watching them go, wondering momentarily how Edward knew them, and why they had simply let them go.
"Edward.." she whispered, afraid if she spoke too loud the men would decide that it would be easy to take them down. "Where are we going..?"
"My house," he said. "You can probably call a ride from there."
Winry found herself so thankful that Edward had shown up. If he hadn't... who knew what they might have done to her. Her eyes started to mist over, and before she knew it, the girl was crying.
A/N: I like this chapter, but the problem is I don't think I brought on the mugging on strong enough. Maybe someone whould've gotten hit. xD Anyway, as always, I'll leave it up to the reviwers on what they thought of the chapter.