Chapter 11

White Star

"Home, sweet home!" Paninya laughed, jumping out of the truck before it had even stopped moving.

Winry disembarked in a more moderate fashion – stepping instead of jumping, and waiting until the vehicle was completely stationary. But before Ed and Al's feet had so much as touched the ground, she had already started shouting orders at the people around them, ordering Envy and Scar to oversee the unloading of the supplies, giving Paninya the responsibility of seeing to an even distribution among the people.

"Where are you going?" Envy asked.

His voice wasn't snide or mocking or implying that she wasn't doing her share of the work. It was honestly curious, the way someone would ask a friend where they were going so they could seek them out later. Envy's genuine attachment to Winry never failed to surprise Ed.

"I'm going to check on Travis, Christa and Kyle," Winry tossed over her shoulder, already starting up the street. Ed and Al had to jog to keep up.

"Sorry about dragging you guys around like this before I even take you to the room," Winry said, knocking on the door of the huge concrete building. "But I really need to know how these guys held up..."

The door opened, and Winry was suddenly swept up into an enthusiastic hug by Travis – they could see the moment when she stifled the urge to strike out at him – the man crushing her to his chest as he babbled wildly.

"She had the baby, she had the baby, she had the baby!"

"Christa?" Winry gasped, and Ed and Al didn't even see how she managed to free herself from Travis's arms so quickly. "Really? Is she okay? Is the baby okay? Is it a boy or a girl? What name did she and Kyle decide on? What-?"

"Easy, Commander," came a voice from the corridor behind them.

Kyle stepped from the corridor, coming to stand beside his brother-in-law. "Yes, she really had the baby, she's fine, the baby's fine, the baby's a girl, and the name...well, we wanted to talk to you about that."

There was a slightly dopey grin on Kyle's face that reminded Winry strongly of Maes Hughes. She couldn't help wondering if a camera would be a suitable birthday present for him next year...

"You remember Ed and Al, right?" she added, hastily presenting the Elric brothers.

Kyle and Travis both nodded, and the four men shook hands automatically, with Al (being the more vocal of the two blondes) offering his congratulations.

"Did I hear someone say 'Winry'?" came a voice from inside the building, and Kyle and Travis parted like the Red Sea to let the new mother through.

Winry's first thought was that motherhood agreed with Christa. The young woman was walking with an extra spring in her step, and radiated the quiet sense of calm dignity that some mothers did. The small, blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms squirmed slightly, making gurgling noises.

"Good to see you, Winry," Christa beamed. "Meet our new addition to the Resistance."

And she placed the baby in Winry's arms. Winry yelped, clutching the tiny burden to her chest, adjusting her hold she could look into the little girl's face.

"Oh..." Winry sighed, taking in the small mop of red hair and bright green eyes. "She's beautiful."

The baby squinted her eyes at Winry, then made a soft, almost giggling noise of approval.

"What's her name?" Winry asked again.

Christa smiled and leaned into her husband's embrace. "We wanted to talk to you about that, Winry."

"Yeah?" Winry's eyes were slightly puzzled, obviously wondering why they would need to talk to her about naming their child.

"We'd like to name her Winry."

Winry froze. "Really? Winry Seren...that sounds nice..."

She was smiling broadly, and Ed thought everyone around them could see that Winry was honestly touched. She probably considered it a real honour, having her friends name their child after her...

"We thought it fit," Christa said softly. "Winry...you're the reason this child is here. You saved our lives; without you we wouldn't be here, the entire Resistance wouldn't be here...and our beautiful daughter wouldn't be here either. It seemed fitting, to give her your name."

"Winry Seren..." Winry mused, passing the baby back to her mother. Then she blinked, and the delighted woman was gone, with the hardened Commander in her place. "Did anything else happen while I was away?"

"There was an attack," Travis stated, his elation at the birth of his niece vanishing as grim lines appeared around his mouth.

Winry swore. "Bad?"

"Not really. The doc's been running himself ragged, though."

Winry cursed again. "I'll check on him."

Ed and Al could do nothing but follow.

oooooooo

"Miracle-worker?"

Marcoh looked up, his bloodshot eyes and haggard appearance telling Ed just how much pressure the doctor had been under.

"Commander," he acknowledged.

"How are you holding up?"

Marcoh shook his head, and Ed was surprised to see something close to a snarl twisting the older man's face. "I lost two of them before they were even on the beds, another three while I was working on them. If I could only..."

Ed wasn't really listening. He was gazing around at this room that obviously served as the Resistance's infirmary, deeply shocked by this realisation of just how desperately the Resistance needed those supplies.

While Dr. Marcoh obviously did his best, his equipment was limited to only the basics – sutures, bandages, scalpels, tourniquets and the most simplistic of medication were all he had. Tattered material hung from ropes strung across the ceiling, and Ed assumed they served as curtains shielding the patient's beds from view.

He dragged his mind back to the conversation. He wasn't a part of it – in fact, Ed and Al seemed to have been largely ignored since their arrival as everyone focused on Winry – but he wanted to know about Winry's life here, and figured listening in on conversations was as good a method of picking things up as any.

"...and you were contacted by Belladonna," Marcoh continued, pulling a small letter out of his pocket.

"Belladonna?" Al echoed.

"A spy in the H-Faction," Winry explained. "We've recalled most of our people, but Belladonna's base of operations still hasn't fallen to either the Resistance or the Dissidents yet, so she'll be there for a while."

There was no real address on the envelope, simply two words printed neatly in red ink.

"White Star..." Ed read aloud. "What does that mean?"

"That's my codename," Winry answered absently, tucking the letter into her jacket. "I need to get this down to intelligence so they can start decoding it..."

And once again, all Ed and Al could do was trail after her.

oooooooo

They spent most of the day like that, following Winry across Rush Valley as she watched over her people, issued a few orders, and in general made her presence felt again. Ed watched her...and couldn't help but think how everything had turned out so differently to what he'd expected.

He could admit that, before they'd come here for the first time, he'd felt like they were going to ride to Winry's rescue like the proverbial knights in shining armour. But upon their arrival...he'd felt like the knight that just charged into the keep, only to find the princess had slain the dragon herself and gone back home.

It was a strange feeling, and found himself wondering why he'd fought to accompany her to Rush Valley in the first place. It wasn't like Winry really needed them here...

Then Winry dismissed the last of her officials, turned to them, and flashed a brilliant smile, for all that it was weary and exhausted.

And Ed remembered why he had come along. Winry didn't need their company...but she wanted it.

"I'm really sorry about this," Winry said, looking contrite. "Dragging you guys around for the entire day...do you want to go to Last Hope or to the room?"

At the moment, Ed found he honestly didn't care. Al echoed his sentiments when he asked, "Which would you prefer, Winry?"

"Honestly? I want to go to bed, I feel pretty drained. But if you guys want to do something else..."

"No, we're fine with just dropping off to sleep," Ed said honestly. Before today, he wouldn't have thought following Winry around could be exhausting, but it was.

"Extra mattresses have been put down in my room," she was muttering, striding into the concrete building that served as the Resistance's headquarters and leading them down the corridor. "It might be a tight fit, but I think we'll manage."

"Are you posting a guard, Vharla?" a deep voice asked from behind them.

Ed and Al whirled, their hearts leaping in shock, but Winry simply sighed as she turned to Scar.

"Tell me," she addressed the Ishbalan in an acerbic voice. "Did you train to sneak around and pop up at the weirdest times, or does it just come naturally?"

Scar simply raised his eyebrows and repeated his previous question. "Have you posted a guard?"

"No," Winry said, sounding exasperated. But there was a hint of affection in her tone as she added, "Feel free to take the position. Just remember to change every four hours."

Scar nodded curtly, and as Winry led them into the room Ed saw him settling himself in the hallway, leaning against the wall like a hawk hovering over the nest. Menacing, but reassuring in a strange way.

Ed never thought he'd see the day when he thought Scar's presence reassuring. But it had become so...perhaps because the Ishbalan was so obviously intent on protecting Winry, a cause Ed could certainly empathise with.

As he walked inside Winry's room, Ed got a shock. He didn't know what he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.

Winry's room was small and poorly furnished, barely illuminated by the single bare bulb in the ceiling. A rack of knives, guns and other weapons was mounted on the far wall, the metal catching the light. A sagging bookcase sported several thin, tattered volumes – some mechanical reference books, others small novels. On the bottom shelf there rested a toolbox held together with twine, several clockwork toys and bits and pieces of machinery. A large bucket of water stood in the corner, and Ed found himself wondering what it was for. Three mattresses rested on the bare floor, covered by a few ragged blankets.

In that moment, Ed truly realised how little the Resistance had to survive on, and found himself thinking back to Marcoh's medical supplies. Or more precisely, the lack of such supplies.

Winry seemed embarrassed by the lack of basic comforts, but Ed thought it made her all the more amazing – that she managed such sparse resources and still commanded such loyalty from her people.

Al seemed to be thinking along much the same lines. "You must be a good leader, Winry."

Winry stared at him, small wrinkles between her eyebrows showing her confusion.

"To have people who are so loyal to you," Al continued. "I mean, I know that when resources on one side get scarce, some people tend to defect to the other simply because they'll be taken care of. But everyone here is so loyal to you-"

Winry snorted. "I wouldn't put much stock by that. Most of the people in the Resistance have been in H-Faction's prison camps, so I'm just the lesser of the two evils."

"I don't think so," Al said quietly. "Have you seen the way everyone looks at you, Winry? They truly believe you're the best leader to follow, and most of them don't seem to be the type who'd just follow the lesser evil. Scar, for example."

"Scar's a special case," Winry mused, sprawling out on her makeshift bed. "I told you about managing to persuade him to join us – I'm still not sure exactly how I did, by the way – and then he seemed to decide he liked us and he was staying. Plus, I helped him get his revenge on Kimblee, and I think that went a long way to settling his psyche, so to speak..."

"You did what?" Ed yelped. He hadn't heard this part of the story.

"Kimblee was captured during one of the H-Factions attacks," Winry shrugged. "I could have ordered him executed with the others, but by then, Scar had told me a bit about his life and I knew that Kimblee was pretty much single-handedly responsible for most of Scar's misconceptions about State Alchemists and the military in general. So I told him he would decide Kimblee's fate."

"Did Scar kill him?" Al breathed, looking horrified at the concept.

"Of course he killed him," Winry said, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, looking almost regretful. "As ugly as it seems, sometimes that's the only way to bury your demons. And I think it really helped Scar...gave him some of his balance back, you know?"

The truly frightening thing was, Ed did know. He could imagine how destroying the man responsible for your sorrows would be cathartic.

"But I'm beat," Winry said bluntly, standing to turn off the light. "Let's go to sleep, and we can talk more in the morning."

She flicked the switch, and the tiny room was plunged into darkness, silent but for the soft sound of three bodies breathing gently.

oooooooo

Ed was dimly aware of a siren, a howling wail that drifted to him through the mires of sleep. He knew he should wake up, but couldn't seem to summon the energy...

"Wake up!" Winry's voice bellowed. "We're under attack!"

Awareness came in a dizzying rush as Ed's eyes snapped open. Al was rising from the mattress beside him and Winry loomed over them both, a dark shape silhouetted by the dim moonlight filtering in through the window. Ed was surprised at the speed with which she readied herself for battle. Blades, guns, alchemical wrist guards...all were thrown on in the space of three seconds, with the ease of long practice.

He and Al could do nothing but struggle into their boots, stagger to their feet and follow Winry as she charged from the building with Scar, Envy and Paninya at her heels.

The night was utter chaos. People ran in all directions, screams and shouted orders filled the air with the sound of desperation. It wasn't like the raid on the prison camp, it wasn't a calm, planned strategy executed with minimal casualties. This was a battle in the most visceral sense, with their very lives on the line. Survival of the fittest; fight or die.

"Where's the attack?" Winry yelled, trying to make herself heard over the noise.

"In the Fifth Sector!" Paninya shouted back.

Winry nodded, then clapped her wrist guards together, the circles touching and crackling with electricity, her voice rising above the anarchy of the people around them in a desperate scream.

"TO ME!"

Ed didn't know how she did it, what alchemical transmutation precipitated such a reaction, but white lightning burst from Winry's skin, crackling no more than an inch from her flesh. White energy surrounded her until she shone like a lighthouse beacon in the dark.

Ed suddenly understood why her code name was White Star. She looked like a bright star that had fallen to earth in a glow of heavenly light. And people responded, rushing to her call and her light like a swarm of ants.

Commands shot from Winry's lips like bullets, as accurate and effective as a sniper's aim. Some were instructed to keep those unable to fight out of the battle, others were guided in the direction of the attack, and Ed and Al found themselves swept up in the rush of bodies.

For a moment, they lost sight of anyone they knew, the press of people around them like a wall in front of their eyes. But then there was a shift in the crowd around them, and Envy appeared beside them.

"Here's a tip, Fullmetal," he sneered. "Stay away from this."

Ed's equilibrium was already thrown by the sudden rush of adrenaline so soon after awakening, and Envy's words had him thoroughly riled. "We're just as good at fighting as most of the people here."

Envy didn't snort, but the skeptical expression on his face shouted his disbelief. "Oh, yeah? Trained in what? Sparring? That's child's play. This is an adult's battle, Fullmetal. Kill or be killed. No place for children here."

"Winry's the same age as us," Ed retorted, stung. "And we've fought in real battles before – we even took on an Angel of Death!"

"Oh, forgive me," Envy sneered, every syllable dripping sarcasm. "One battle in all these years of war – you're veterans."

Ed gritted his teeth and mentally recited the all reasons he shouldn't punch Envy. "We've been training since we were ten years old!" he spat. "Not even Winry has been training herself for that long!"

Envy laughed. "Compared to Winry, you're newborns. Compared to Winry, everyone here is a child. There's nothing to equal her training – she kills as easily as she breathes."

His words shook Ed, a slight tremor passing through his body at the idea of how much Winry's training must have pained her. Winry, who prized her ability to heal above all others, being forced to learn to kill with the same consummate skill as she had once healed. She had told him, but he hadn't truly known...why was it he never realised these things the first time around?

They hit the battlefield, and Ed saw what Envy meant when he said no one could equal Winry. She had extinguished the light that wrapped her skin – undoubtedly in an attempt not to attract enemy fire – but she still seemed to glow. That was how much she stood out from the others as she fought.

She was so quick, so cold and calculating, so chillingly efficient, and she spent a minimum of energy on each attack. A spray of bullets, a knife drawn across a man's throat, a dagger hurled into a soldier's skull, lightning spearing across the night and roasting a entire line of attackers.

It was brutal, violent, horrifying...and at the same, it was terrifyingly beautiful, each movement possessing the same lethal grace as a cobra's dance. Some part of Ed's mind noted that the Angel of Death he had killed hadn't possessed the same hypnotically fluid way of moving – it seemed unique, something Winry alone was capable of.

Ed couldn't help noticing that some others were fighting like her. None with her level of skill or inherent grace, but he could recognise the same basic style. He supposed they must be the half-trained Angels Winry had escaped from Angel's Nest with.

He lost Envy for a moment in the fray – he and Al were fighting side by side, kicking people down, hurling them aside and transmuting pillars of rock from the ground to drop entire squads of soldiers – but then the man swam into view once more. He was using his inhuman speed and strength against his enemies, with obvious success. A simple elbow jab could snap ribs like toothpicks, and when he smashed a man's head against a wall it shattered like an empty eggshell. He was so fast he could land in the middle of a pack of eight men and have five on the ground before any of them had even managed to swing a punch.

Scar was fighting beside Paninya, seizing random body parts and detonating them whenever any H-Faction soldier was foolish enough to come within reach. The weapons in Paninya's legs were wreaking havoc, and she was spraying her opponents with bullets from another gun hidden in her mechanical hand.

And then it was over. Just over, with every H-Faction soldier dead or dying. There was no gradual slowing of the battle – it just stopped; raging one moment, non-existent the next. Ed's breath rasped in his throat, the air feeling painfully cold in his lungs. He concentrated on breathing deeply, trying to calm the adrenaline that still roared through his veins, and he knew Al was was doing the same beside him.

Paninya approached them, her clothing sticky with sweat and a bruise rising on her cheek.

"How long were we fighting?" Al asked, shaking his hair from his face.

Ed didn't even see where Paninya produced the watch from. "Oh, I'd say about ten minutes or so."

Al choked in astonishment, and Paninya thumped him helpfully on the back.

"Winry?" Ed said quietly, his eyes scanning the area.

Paninya pointed. Winry was in the middle of the battlefield, ordering the wounded ushered to the infirmary and the dead carried to the graveyard. As they watched, she swept her eyes over the carnage as though mentally calculating something.

"Approximation?" she called.

Ed didn't know where the voice came from, but it rang out loud and clear. "Twenty-two dead, thirty injured."

Winry looked around again. "With eighty-odd H-Faction dead I'd say that's a definite win for us. They must be getting desperate to attack like that."

"Stromson!" she yelled.

A small brunette woman gave the Resistance salute. "Commander?"

"Make a report of this attack to the Dissidents – as long as the communication lines are open we might as well make use of them."

Another critical glance at the massacre, at the bodies strewn about like broken dolls. Something in Ed's stomach wrenched at the coldness in her gaze.

"We'll need to take care of the H-Faction dead," Winry finally announced.

A suggestion was thrown from the throng. "Dump them outside the city and leave them to rot!"

Winry shook her head. "No, that's what the H-Faction would do. And we want to be different from our enemies, don't we? Or how will we look in the mirror and say that better people than they were victorious? We'll burn them, as usual."

Winry turned away from the people piling the carcasses on her orders, and approached Ed and Al for the first time since the battle had begun. And the Elric brothers got their first good look at her since they lost sight of her in the crush.

She was covered in blood, the red liquid splattered and sprayed across her clothes like gruesome paint. It clumped strands of her hair together as it congealed, tainting the soft gold with streaks of red-black, like some sort of strange dye. She was so immersed in the substance it was impossible to tell if she had any injuries of her own.

Her eyes looked distant, almost vacant, and she had to blink several times before she seemed to truly see them.

"Well, that was exciting," she deadpanned. "Now I'm going back to bed."

For what seemed like the thousandth time, Ed and Al could do nothing but follow.

oooooooo

Ed and Al sat on their mattresses, completely motionless, as they waited for Winry to return. She had dropped them off at the room and taken her own detour to the showers, saying she needed to clean herself up. Ed and Al hadn't argued; blood practically hung in a cloud over her.

And they hadn't argued because some part of them wanted to be away from her. To be apart from this woman they had never really known.

Ed knew that Winry had killed people, knew that she would be forced to kill more people before this war was truly over...but to see how cold she was about the act of murder, how easily she took it in stride sent a chill down Ed's spine. As calmly as a child might step on an anthill, Winry had organised the massacre of over eighty men and women.

The door creaked open and Winry stepped in, her hair still damp from the shower. She was wearing clean clothes, the bloodied ones folded in her arms. She dropped them into the bucket of water as she passed, the casual action shocking Ed as much as anything. It showed how much killing had become a part of her life, that it would invade her room with weapons of death on the shelves and a bucket of cold water to soak blood out of her clothes.

Winry dropped onto her mattress, pulled the blankets over her thin form and closed her eyes.

"Goodnight, Ed, goodnight, Al," she murmured.

Ed didn't reply. He didn't even look at her. Some part of him wondered if he could ever look at Winry again.

oooooooo

A strange smell hung in the air the next day, like fat frying in a pan. Like meat roasting on an open fire.

"Is someone cooking bacon?" Ed asked, sniffing the air.

Winry gave him a strange look, and something shifted in her eyes. "Ed, we burned the H-Faction corpses last night...that smell is the smell of burnt flesh and melted fat."

That calm, casual, matter-of-fact tone broke something inside of him. Something snapped like a rubber band stretched too tightly, something dark and monstrous and enraged at this woman who had taken his Winry and replaced her with someone who could kill as easily as other people breathed and apparently give it no more thought.

"How can you be so cold?"

Winry's eyes flickered, something unreadable creeping into them. "What do you mean by that?"

The cool tone of her voice should have warned him. But Ed had never been much for warnings, and ploughed ahead regardlessly of what might be in his path or what he might trample underfoot.

"You killed people, Winry!" Ed found himself shrieking. "You killed people and you didn't care!"

Al didn't dare say a word. Some extra sense was telling him this was going nowhere good, and he wanted to step in and stop it...but it was like watching a train wreck. He couldn't think of a thing to halt this inevitable progression, and he couldn't bring himself to turn away and run down the street either.

"It was them or us," Winry said quietly. "It had to be done. That's the way of war, Ed."

"It doesn't have to be!" Ed yelled, vaguely aware he was being bitterly childish but unable to stop himself. "When we raided the prison camp we took prisoners, we knocked them out, we didn't kill-"

He knew that wasn't how a war worked – it was a choice between between your life or your opponent's life every day, and if you wanted to keep living you had to keep killing. He had killed during the war himself – if not on the same scale – so he knew it had to be done.

But...to see Winry so indifferent to it...

"So should we have just tried to knock them out?" Winry asked icily. "Never mind the fact that they're trying to kill us, never mind the fact that our hesitation on the battlefield would cost us hundreds of lives, never mind that we don't have the facilities to hold that many prisoners? They'd starve to death, or catch pneumonia or die from their injuries. We have to kill, we don't have the luxury of mercy. If you stay here, you'll realise that."

Ed's mouth moved before his brain had a chance to catch up. "Maybe we don't want to stay here with a killer!"

Everything went very quiet. Winry's eyes were like blue glass laid over steel – completely blank, impenetrably shuttered, utterly unreadable.

"Well, you're under no obligation to," Winry said, her voice calm, cold...disinterested. "The supply trucks head back to Central today, you can go with them."

Then she was gone. Like smoke in the wind, like a wish in the darkness...just gone.

oooooooo

Even as he threw his bags into the truck, some part of Ed was aware he was being phenomenally stupid. But most of him was still angry, and because anger was an emotion he understood, he clung to it.

"She was so...calm about it," Al repeated for about the hundredth time. "As though it was all part of a day's work..."

Ed didn't answer, mostly because his attention was arrested by the approach of Envy, Paninya and Scar.

"Farewell party?" Ed asked sarcastically.

No one replied. Envy strolled up to them and looked from one to the other for a moment. Then, moving so fast Ed couldn't see the motion, he buried his fist in their stomachs, one in Al's, the other in Ed's.

Ed choked, his lungs seemingly filled with hot cement. He dropped to his knees, barely conscious of Al doing the same, gasping for breath. He was just starting to recover when he was slapped by Paninya, with enough force to leave him running the tip of his tongue over his teeth to check they were still there.

Without any word of explanation, both she and Envy simply turned and walked away. But Ed could guess why they had done it – Winry's inner circle were fiercely protective of her. He slowly regained his feet, half-expecting Scar to knock him into the wall.

But the towering Ishbalan did nothing of the sort. He simply stared at them with something that looked like pity in his eyes, then spoke in a subdued voice that still managed to ring with portent.

"She will not follow you."

Ed blinked.

But Scar didn't seem to require any input on his part, for he continued without breaking his stride, "If you cannot accept her for what she is, if you continue to cling to what you remember her as...she will walk away from you like a snake shedding its skin, without ever looking back and without an ounce of regret. Leave now, and she will not regret it...but you will."

Those heavy words were still ringing in their ears when Ed and Al felt the engine roar to life beneath them as the truck started on its long journey back to Central.

oooooooo

AN: I know, Ed's being a jerk, but I felt he'd have a less-than stellar reaction when confronted by Winry's actual killings, and figured I should show it. The next chapter's better, I promise.

This chapter is free of error by courtesy of LaughingAstarael.