Chapter 6
Bitter Winter
Winry stared at the casket as it was lowered into the ground, the clods of dirt slowly obscuring the polished wood from view.
Eddie's face was buried in her skirt as they stood beside the grave, and Winry's arms had been holding him so long they were going numb.
She felt numb herself. As though nothing had registered yet...some part of her expected Wendy to turn up any minute, asking what they were all doing at a funeral.
Eventually, Winry turned away, picked Eddie up in her arms, and started the long walk home.
oooooooo
The house seemed far too quiet. Though Winry knew, logically, that Wendy had never really contributed to the volume of the household, it still felt strange to have a house that had sheltered three people, suddenly sheltering two.
She stared dully at the ceiling, wondering dimly how everything in her life always seemed to go wrong. Why was everyone she loved taken from her at one time or another?
Slowly, she reached out to her bedside table, pulling Ed's journal close to her. She flipped it open, pulling out the pictures that she'd slipped between the pages for safe-keeping. The first was of her and Wendy, smiling brightly at the camera. The next was of all three of them, smiling and waving.
Winry found herself giving a sad, hicupping giggle. She flipped through more, letting herself get lost in the past.
Eddie chased squirrels while Wendy watched and laughed. All three pulled faces at the camera. Wendy sat on a bench by a river, mocking the pose in a famous painting. Eddie held a small beetle he'd caught in the park. Eddie was perched on Winry's shoulders, pointing at a bird overhead. Wendy and Eddie dozed on the sofa, half-listening to the radio. Winry and Wendy, dressed exactly alike, stood side by side, with identical expressions of amusement on their faces.
Winry managed a short laugh. She remembered that day. Wendy had insisted on having that picture taken, the picture in which no one could ever tell them apart.
"Keep it, Winry," she whispered conspiratorially. "You know what they say about identical twins, after all."
"No, I don't," Winry said, a little bewildered.
"That their true love will be able to tell them apart."
"So let me get this straight...if I show this picture to a guy, he'll be able to tell which one is me if he's in love with me?"
"Exactly."
"Wendy, I love you like a sister, but sometimes you're just plain crazy."
"You can say that again!"
A soft sniffle alerted her to another's presence in the room. Her eyes snapped up. Eddie was standing in the doorway, both hands clutching a stuffed teddy, his eyes wet.
"A-Auntie Win?" he stammered, taking a hesitant step into the room.
Winry set the journal aside, and opened her arms. "Come here, kid."
He dove across the room like a champion swimmer into a pool. The force knocked Winry back into the pillows, but she didn't even flinch. Her arms wound around the small body that was shaking against her, and her fingers combed through his hair soothingly. One hand groped for the blankets, pulling the warm layers of fabric over both of them.
Eddie was quiet for several moments,only the occasional shudder rippling through him. Winry didn't move, even when she felt the dampness on her neck where his face was hidden in her hair.
"It's okay," she whispered, feeling tears of her own leaking over her cheeks to leave wet circles on the pillow. "It's okay..."
oooooooo
It had been two months since Wendy's death, and now Winry was the maid of honour at Liza and Roy's wedding. They'd apologized at first, for setting the date so soon after such a tragedy, but Winry understood. Death around you made you treasure your life all the more, and Liza and Roy had apparently decided they didn't want to spend another moment away from each other.
Winry was pleased. At least some people in this world were capable of achieving happiness.
When the priest pronounced them man and wife, Winry's face was stretched into her first genuine smile since the funeral.
oooooooo
Winry sipped the champagne at the reception, smiling softly. Eddie sat on her lap, finishing a thick slice of fruit cake. He was no sooner licking his fingers clean than he was eyeing the half-finished slice on her plate.
"Auntie Win...could I have some of yours?"
"Have the whole thing."
Eddie didn't need to be told twice, and Winry felt another smile pulling at her lips as he devoured his second slice. He was so resilient. Smiling and laughing only months after his mother's death.
And eating like a pig, but Winry figured it might be genetic – Ed had stuffed himself every chance he got, it made sense alternate Ed would have been the same.
But Winry still felt a swell of almost maternal pride for Eddie.
A touch on her shoulder made her turn around. Liza was behind her, clad in her floor-length white dress. Winry didn't think the older woman had stopped smiling once throughout the entire night. Hers was a soft, contented smile, quite different from the broad, 'I cannot believe I am this lucky' grin that Roy had been sporting.
"Well, at least someone likes the cake," she said, gesturing to Eddie.
Winry snorted. "Oh, I like it fine, but it's a tad too rich for me."
"Doesn't seem to bother him."
"Nope. Our own bottomless pit, right here." Winry ruffled Eddie's hair affectionately.
"By the way," she added, turning to half-face Liza. "We're probably going to head home – I have a feeling Eddie will want to sleep off his feast very soon now."
Liza smiled, and even walked outside to wave them off. Winry thought the silver band on her finger looked rather fetching in the light from the street lamp.
oooooooo
Winry had been right – Eddie collapsed into his bed almost instantly, exhausted.
"Get some sleep," Winry whispered to him. "We had a big day."
She was tired herself, but she knew there were chores to be done before she went to sleep. She pulled their clothes from the drying line, checking to make sure every last drop of water was gone, before she folded them away. Plates and cutlery were rinsed and scrubbed – even though they hadn't eaten dinner at home, there was still the breakfast and lunch dishes to deal with. And then she tackled the living room. It was only when the room looked at least fairly organised that she finally fell gratefully into her own bed.
It was then she realised she had gone almost three hours without ever thinking of Wendy.
'We're going to be okay,' she thought to herself, her eyes already beginning to close. 'Me and Eddie. Everything's going to turn out alright.'
Almost unconsciously, her hand stole towards the journal on the bedside table, and Winry fell asleep with her hand resting on the leather cover.
oooooooo
"Can't something go right, for once?" Winry hissed to Liza. "I'm not asking for much, but can't things just be okay and stay like that?"
A bullet whizzed over her head, and Winry crouched down even further, trying to hug the counter.
It had been three months since Liza and Roy's wedding, three months in which life seemed to have meandered back towards normal. Well, it could never be normal again, but better. The grief became a part of her, and she learned to carry it everyday without really knowing it.
But now she and Liza were cowering under the bar top, as they had been since the gun-wielding maniac charged into The Songbird, in what was obviously an attempted robbery.
She heard footsteps, shuffling slightly, and a voice inquired, sounding desperate, "Where's the money?"
"Just over here," James said, in a voice that was trying to be steady but was wavering slightly.
"Well, hurry up!"
Winy could hear the rustling of the bills, and the sound of movement. She wanted to peek out over the bar and see what was happening, but didn't dare. Just one bullet in the right spot was all it would take to end her life.
Suddenly, the gunman started yelling. Winry couldn't make out much – the volume and speed of the speech distorted the words. But she gathered that the amount of money was significantly less than what the gunman was expecting.
James interjected, trying to calm him down...but suddenly, abruptly, a shot ripped through the building.
This one was different, Winry could hear it. A slightly wet 'thunck' sounding as though the bullet had impacted something. James?
Disregarding all thoughts of personal safety, Winry shot to her feet. "James!"
Something seared a white-hot line across her cheek, fireworks of pain exploding in its wake. For a moment, her world narrowed to the starbursts in front of her eyes and the smell of blood. Winry staggered against the counter, and when her sight returned, the gunman had fled.
And James was lying on the floor, his skull cracked open by a bullet.
oooooooo
'I'm cursed,' Winry thought dully, 'Cursed.'
The bullet had missed its target and sliced open her cheek instead. She had needed stitches, and it would certainly leave a scar. James hadn't been so lucky.
His funeral was in two days.
'I'm cursed. First there was my parents, then Ed and Al, then I got zapped here and left everyone in Amestris behind, then Wendy, and now James. Maybe I should just become a hermit.'
The idea of herself as a hermit would have amused her at any other time, but not now. Winry was spent, crushed, emotionally drained.
She was sick and tired of having to say goodbye.
