:::
Alphonse had been staring at the starlit sky for at least three hours now.
After taking advantage of the late hour to visit his mother, he decided that looking at the constellations would be enough of a distraction until it was time to head back to the Rockbell's. He had forgotten how easy it was to spot them all in the countryside; the pollution and city lights of Central created a thick film in the sky's appearance, making it harder to see the moon and stars. Not here though, in quiet little Resembool. Every star smiled down brightly upon the shining suit of armor, and it made him think of better times in the years past; nights spent studying the names of the stars with Edward, making up his own constellations with Winry, and making quiet little wishes with his mother. The boy wished he could smile as brightly back to the stars as they were to him, but he had to wait a little longer before such a task could be done.
Beginning to feel the numbing of sadness, Alphonse creaked to his metal feet and started back to the little yellow house. As he approached the front porch, he noticed that a light on the second floor was still emitting its yellow glow. He let out a small sigh and paused to see if there was any movement. Sure enough, he saw a familiar silhouette stretching her arms high above her head in what looked like an attempt to fight fatigue.
"She's going to make herself sick pulling so many all-nighters, just to get that arm finished." He thought. "She's just as stubborn as Brother."
With that, Alphonse continued to the front door, and decided he needed to make his friend take a short break.
:
Winry chewed on the eraser of her pencil lightly, eyeing the freshly sketched blue prints of her newest creation. Her blue eyes scanned the lead markings, trying to contemplate exactly what was wrong with the model.
"Ugh" She groaned, and in her agitation crumbled the blueprint into a tiny ball. "This is hopeless. I need to just start from scratch."
She pulled out a weathered looking, old sketchbook and placed it on her work table, and flipped to a sketched out diagram of a male figure. "I need to look at these new scales and adjustments, maybe that's the problem."
She grabbed another, much newer looking drawing pad, and began to doodle a quick outline. About a minute after she finished the shoulder, a knock at her door pulled her out of her drawing.
"Who is it?" Winry questioned, her voice just barely over a whisper, and the door opened to reveal a rather large suit of armor holding a mug of coffee and an obscure looking sandwich.
"Just me." The soft, hollow voice chimed, lifting the plate and mug as if it were a peace offering. "I saw that you were awake and thought you might need a snack."
At that exact moment, Winry's stomach growled with ferocity, and she smiled kindly at the gesture. "Thanks, Al. I need to take a break, anyways. The blueprint for Ed's arm isn't coming along too great." Al placed the items on a small spot of the workbench, and glanced down at the papers in curiosity.
"Whoa." He exhaled, and raised a gauntlet at the intricate drawing in the old sketch pad. "That… That's Brother!"
"Yeah." Winry yawned, and grabbed the steaming mug, blowing lightly at the piping hot liquid before taking a small sip. "I drew it as a reference while I plot out his arm. His dimensions and scale play a big part in the making of it, you know." Al listened intently to his friend's words, but still stared at the picture in front of him. He knew Winry could build just about anything, and knew she had to sketch out blueprints before she could build anything, but he didn't know how amazing she could draw. "It looks just like him." He gushed.
Winry glanced at her work and smirked slightly. "Eh. That's not saying much. The twerp is so small there isn't much to draw." Alphonse gasped out of force of habit, but then realized Ed was asleep in the other room, and allowed himself to chuckle. "Do you draw all your clients as references?"
"Mhmm." Winry responded, and took a bite of the strange sandwich. "It helps me understand the composition of their body, so I can make their automail as close to their old appendage as possible." She swallowed the bite and smiled. "Did you put chocolate in this?"
"Yep." Alphonse stated in a rather confident sounding voice. "It's peanut butter and a chocolate hazelnut spread. I figured it'd go well with the coffee."
"Caffeine and sugar high it is," She laughed. "Thanks again, Al. You know me too well." She took another bite as Al bent down to just above her level.
"Umm. Is it okay if I.." He stammered, tapping his index fingers together in a timid fashion. "If I look at your drawings?"
Winry looked at him, mouth full of the sweet tasting sandwich, and shrugged her shoulders in unison with a quick nod. "Go for it" She mumbled.
He eagerly picked up the thick tome of Winry's works of art and sat down on the floor beside her. He flipped to the beginning of the book, and gazed at a rough sketch of Ed that looked two or three years younger.
"Right after you guys left for Central" Winry stated, and took a drink of coffee.
Al nodded in understanding and flipped through the pages; images of neighbors and acquaintances, and people he had never seen intricately drawn covered every page. As the pages turned, the images seemed to grow and age as the people did, and as he dived deeper into the images, some began to turn into the people in action, and not the diagrams of their anatomy. Winry watched as Al flipped the pages, imagining the expressions his face might have read if he had a face to show them. "I wanted to capture their everyday lives, so I could remember if I needed to do something different with their automail, you know, to fit with their needs."
Al continued through the images and saw that many of them contained his brother; some sparring, some reading or clapping his hands together before transmuting, and some were just him standing in his slouched, unenthused manner.
"There sure are a lot of Ed." Al said slyly, as he lifted the book to her, revealing a picture of Ed sleeping beside the old oak tree in her yard.
Winry let out an annoyed grunt at the mention of his brother, picked up her pencil and began to sketch. "Well, he's my best paying customer. Plus the idiot always breaks my automail— I have to really understand how he uses it so I can stop him from doing that—" she paused, then softly added, "or at least make it better for him."
If Al could roll his eyes, he definitely would, but before he could make another jabbing comment, he turned to a new page and gasped.
"What?" Winry asked, and her eyes grew as she recognized the picture he was staring at. It wasn't a diagram of anyone, nor was it a sketch of the faces from the pages before. It was a man, a young man, looking like he could be anywhere in his mid to late teens. He had a taller stature, and he had a strong-looking physique, despite the fact that he looked more like a scholar. His hair was clean cut and his face.. His face was mature, but still held a look of childhood innocence. His smile was bright, and his eyes were lively. It was the smile he wanted to shine, the eyes he wanted to see the world with, what he should be seeing the world with..
"This is me." He whispered. "At least… What I should be."
Winry wished she could read Al the way she could read Ed. Unfortunately the glowing red orbs that made his eyes weren't as expressive as his older brother's. She needed to tell him why she drew the picture, but her words were lost as Al brought his gaze up to her.
"I… I…" She started. She shook her head and cleared her throat, locking her eyes onto the armored boy. "I wanted to be able to see what your face looked like, so I can see your expressions when I hear your voice."
Al looked down at the picture, and back at Winry. "Is this what you see when you look at me?" He asked. Winry seemed to freeze for a moment, then looked down at the drawing herself.
"Yeah." She smiled. "I don't know if it's weird or not, but I never look at you and see the armor." She rested her head on the back of her chair, and reached down to brush a hand on the paper. "But I don't see the little boy anymore either. I see a smiling, growing, happy Al." She looked back to the expressionless helmet and wished again that she could read him in the silence. " I.. I hope that doesn't offend you."
Almost abruptly, Alphonse stood up, letting the book of drawings crash on the floor. For a second, Winry was terrified that he would run out of the room and go somewhere she couldn't find him, but she quickly remembered that Al would never handle things like that. He stood there, almost shaking, looking down at the wooden floor.
"Th-thank you." He stammered. His voice was shaking as if his soul were crying. "Thank you, Winry. For seeing me as a person."
Winry's mouth fell open at Alphonse's words. Merely thinking about what that statement could imply was enough to make her heart grow heavy. Just as quickly and abruptly as Al had, she stood up and engulfed the waist of his armor in a warm and loving hug.
"Don't thank me, Al." She whispered, trying to make her voice as soothing as possible in an attempt to stop his trembling. "You are, and always have been a person. That's all you've ever been and what you'll always be." He slowly, cautiously wrapped his arms around her tiny frame. "Sometimes…" He started. "Sometimes I forget. I forget what it's like to feel, to do things people do."
"That doesn't mean anything." She said, tightening her grip around his hard frame. He let out a a single chuckle in desperation to ease himself. "I don't think anyone sees me as a person anymore. Sometimes, I think Brother forgets, too. I think he can only see me being ripped away."
Winry rubbed her cheek against his cool chest plate. "No. No, that's not it. Ed's an idiot, but he's not that stupid." She lifted her head and smiled brightly at the glowing orbs of red light. "I think he sees you the way I do, but he's so caught up in blaming himself for everything that happened, that he doesn't want to see that face until it's really staring back at him."
Her words buzzed in his thoughts as he let out the smallest of gasps. "You know. I think you're right. Thank you, Winry. Again. For everything."
"Hey. That's what best friends do, right?" She untangled an arm from his waist and gave his chest plate a light punch.
Alphonse laughed, and looked down at the sketchbook once more; the picture of his real face still beaming back at him.
When he finally got that face back, he would smile so brightly the stars would be jealous.
:::
A/N: this was the first fic I ever wrote for FMA, and the first piece of writing I did in a very, very long time. I took it down to revise it, but honestly... I kind of like having my first raw attempt at fic left the way it is. Enjoy the verboseness.