Chapter 12

Reconciliation

'I am an idiot!' Ed thought, staring out the window. 'A complete and total idiot.'

Now why couldn't he have realised that four days earlier? Before he left Rush Valley? Before his mouth ran away with him and said things he couldn't ever take back and that Winry might never forgive him for?

'I. Am. An. Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot, IDIOT.'

It had taken a while – far longer than it should have, as far as Ed was concerned – but his anger had cooled, and Ed had come to a very important realisation.

Winry had to kill. Yes, there was free will in the most literal sense of the word, but since her choices were kill or die, kill or let the people around her die, Ed knew that wasn't really a choice at all.

Winry was as deeply affected by the killing as he and Al were...she was just better at hiding her reaction. Ed had once thought he was the authority on repressing emotions and unpleasant memories, but a chance encounter involving Scar, Winry and a gun had shown him Winry wrote the book on repression, and as far as she was concerned, he was still in preschool.

Now, as he remembered Winry's confession that night she broke down with he and Al, remembered his own words to her, he felt like a hypocrite.

'What was I thinking? "Oh, yes, it's all fine and dandy for you to be telling me about killing, but as soon as I actually see you do it, I'll rant and rave and turn my back on you and forget about this whole discussion"? Idiot!'

Ed had seen how much killing hurt her when she cried in his arms, and he remembered the flicker in her eyes after the battle and when he hurled his accusations at her – as though she were masking her emotions. Because she had to force herself to be distant from those lives, had to force the cold calculation that allowed her to think of people as numbers and percentages.

Winry had to force herself not to care.

He remembered his own nightmares of the man he had killed. They weren't frequent, but they were definitely haunting. And it had to be worse for Winry – when she'd first killed, it had been without even the semblance of choice she killed with later. It had been with no control of her actions, her body...no control of anything. To go through something like that and make a true, conscious decision to kill again...he doubted words could describe it.

His nightmares might be bad, but something told him Winry's were a thousand times worse. In the end, there was nothing Ed could say to her that she hadn't thought herself. And that just made him feel worse.

Ed sighed gustily, silently calling himself an idiot several times over, the litany interspersed with curses and far worse names.

He glanced into the room behind him, at Al lying listlessly on the bed, staring at picture of both brothers and Winry when they were children. Ironically, it was the same picture Ed had found him staring at when he burst into their room with the news that Winry was alive.

It seemed so long ago that they had thought Winry dead. He remembered the chilling emptiness that came with that thought as a sliver of ice down his spine. They had found her alive, alive and unbroken, and then...

Then they'd become angry because she had changed, because she had done what was demanded of her to stay alive.

'I'm an idiot.'

Al took one look at his brother's face and knew where his thoughts were. "We've been pretty stupid, haven't we?"

"No argument there," Ed muttered, slumping on his own bed. "And now...now I think we need to do some apologising. Mostly me."

"I didn't stop you," Al said in the interest of fairness. "And you weren't saying anything I hadn't already thought..."

Ed made a small, unintelligible noise, shame pricking at him like a poisoned spur.

"Do you think..do you think Winry will forgive us?" Al asked in a small voice.

Ed didn't answer. He hoped she would, but...Scar's words were bouncing around his mind.

'She will walk away from you like a snake shedding its skin...'

Had she walked away? In all honesty, Ed wouldn't blame her – his stomach cringed when he remembered some of the things he'd said to her. And as much as Al tried to share the blame, he knew that the fault in this rested squarely on his shoulders. Al, Winry could and probably would forgive. But him?

"What do we do now?" Al asked when his brother remained silent.

"Now?" Ed sighed, running a hand through his bangs. "Now...I think we...I...do some serious crawling."

oooooooo

Roy had allowed them the use of a car (but not a driver), and sent them to Rush Valley with the strict instructions that they 'not screw it up this time!' What was worse, Ed could think of no snappy retort that didn't make him look a hypocrite. Everyone in Central probably knew how miserable they were – he and Al hadn't exactly been making any effort to hide it.

They'd growled at co-workers, snapped at subordinates, eaten their meals in stony, hostile silence, glaring at everyone around them. Frankly, Ed had the feeling the Major General would be glad to have them out of his hair. They'd been so distracted they could barely do any work.

But not so distracted that Ed hadn't noticed the way Mustang and Hawkeye were behaving. He thought he'd seen Winry talk to them before they left, and since he and Al's return they seemed...closer, somehow. When he asked Breda about it, the man just tapped his nose in the universal code for keeping a secret and refused to say anything more.

As he started the car and guided it along the road, Ed reflected it really wasn't any of his business. At least, that's what he was going to keep telling himself.

oooooooo

Rush Valley was very subdued when they finally arrived. The enormous gates creaked open, and almost immediately Ed was hit with the air of despondent activity, of people doing things they didn't really want to be doing, of subtle, permeating worry.

At first, Ed didn't know what was happening, but then a sickeningly familiar smell drifted to his nose. A smell like burning bacon...

"Another attack?" Al whispered, feeling ill.

"I...I guess so..." Ed muttered.

The people milling around them seemed to be cleaning up – carting rubble away, scrubbing at bloodstained walls, dragging bodies in the direction Ed assumed the graveyard was.

"What are you doing here?"

The sharp voice made Ed jump and spin around. Paninya and Kyle were behind them, shovels and picks slung over their shoulders. Kyle looked downright miserable, but Paninya's expression was pure hostility, and it had been she who had spoken.

"We want to see Winry?" Al said, his statement slowly degenerating to a squeaky question as Paninya glared at him.

"Does she want to see you?" Paninya spat. Ed could practically feel the waves of fury rolling off her.

And suddenly, he decided he just didn't have time for this. He needed to see Winry, apologise, take whatever she dished out in return, and then...then Paninya could do whatever she deemed necessary.

"Look, Paninya," he began, and could tell by the look she turned on him that his tone was entirely too authoritative for someone who'd hurt her best friend. "I know I was an idiot, I know I hurt Winry, and I know I really don't have any right to be here. Believe me, I know. But we need to see Winry to try to apologise. I won't be particularly surprised if she doesn't accept it, but we have to try. And then you can hit me again."

Paninya shrugged, as though the grudge was not dispelled, merely delayed. She spoke brusquely, but the deep worry in her voice betrayed her. "She's in the infirmary."

"The infirmary?" Al yelped. "Was she-?"

"She saved me," Kyle said dully, speaking for the first time. "An alchemist had managed to break through our lines, was wreaking havoc...Winry told us to leave him to her, but I...I got too close. She shoved me out of the way, and..."

To Ed's horror, the man looked like he was about to cry. That could only mean one thing...it was bad.

Kyle took a deep, shuddering breath. "She's strong, and the doc's never failed to fix her up before...but there was so much blood...I don't know if she's going to make it this time...I don't know if..."

Ed didn't wait to hear the rest of the man's words. He was sprinting down the road, his heart racing like a hare an inch away from the hound's jaws. He was dimly aware of Al running beside him, of the terror he felt rising in his own throat to choke him...but what he was truly aware of was the long distance to the infirmary, and the heavy words still ringing in his ears.

'Don't know if she's going to make it...don't know if she's going to make it...don't know if she's going to make it...'

The infirmary looming in front of him, the doors crashing open, the world coming into dizzying focus in a whirl of colours and bodies and the smell of disinfectant...

And blood. There was so much blood Ed thought he would vomit, the sharp, metallic taste filling the room like a cloud of despair. For a moment, what he was seeing didn't quite register with Ed – the picture came in trickles, in slow, tiny increments of realisation as though his mind couldn't accept this all at once and instead had to take it in slow, measured mouthfuls so he didn't choke on it.

A jagged piece of wood had impaled Winry, sticking out on either side of her body like a medieval lance had run her through. She was sitting bonelessly in Envy's lap, the once-homunculus supporting her against him, his arms hooked over her shoulders and holding her upper body immobile. Her head rested on his shoulder, her eyes staring at the ceiling, the pupils wide and muddy with pain.

Ed made a noise, he wasn't sure if it was a moan of dismay or a shout of horror, but Winry's head rolled on her neck to look at him.

"Hey..." she wheezed, blood bubbling from her nose and mouth. Each shaky rise of her chest was accompanied by a wet, whistling noise that told Ed her lung had been punctured at least once.

Her clothes were so saturated with blood they were dribbling sticky streams into the puddle below the chair she and Envy were sitting on, and the red liquid had soaked into the wood impaling her so that it seemed more black than brown. Of course, there had been just as much blood on the night Rush Valley was attacked, but that was different. Knowing that this was Winry's blood, evidence of Winry's injury...made it so much more horrific.

"Couldn't you...have arrived a...little earlier?" Winry quipped, her breathing laboured and pain-filled. "Like...before I started...dying?"

She coughed wetly, retched, and spat a little blood onto the floor.

"Dying?" Ed's vocal chords were so dry the word was like the rasp of sandpaper over gravel.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch! The doc will take care of her!" Envy snapped, though Ed had the feeling the statement was more to alleviate Envy's own worry than help Ed with his.

A ragged curtain swept aside and Marcoh and Scar entered. Marcoh's face was grim, and he was wearing gloves with a transmutation circle inked on the palms. He moved to stand in front of Winry as Scar grabbed the blonde woman's hips and rested his arms on her legs, keeping her lower body still.

"We have to pull it out," Marcoh said, barely glancing at Ed or Al. "Scar, Envy...make sure you hold her still, I don't want the wood splintering and rupturing her heart."

The men nodded.

"Ready?" Marcoh asked.

Winry made something akin to an affirmative blink – she seemed to have used all her energy on her previous morbid joke. She parted her lips to accept the cloth the doctor pushed into her mouth, to stop her biting through her tongue in pain.

Marcoh seized the wood and pulled, hard.

Winry screamed, muscles knotting and tendons standing out like pipes as her body fought to arch reflexively away from the pain. Scar and Envy's grip tightened; pale, blood-streaked flesh bruising beneath their ruthless fingers as they fought to hold her in place. Winry's head whipped from side to side, her feet kicked wildly, her flailing limbs striking out left and right. Scar and Envy gritted their teeth and silently bore the punishment of her agony.

Finally, horribly, the wood ripped free with a wet, tearing sound. Winry slumped like a puppet with the strings cut, her body shaking and quivering wildly as she went into shock. Ed felt like throwing up as he realised that the bloody wound was wide enough to glimpse Envy's blood-soaked clothes and the wood of the chair through her body.

Severed arteries sprayed red fluid, shattered bones gleamed for a sickening heartbeat before Marcoh went to work. Pressing his palms flat against her body, making sure the transmutation circles contacted the ravaged flesh at the edges of the injury, he concentrated and the glow of alchemical light filled the room.

Ed watched, half in horrified repulsion, half in utter fascination, as Marcoh healed Winry with alchemy. Bones shifted, knitting together and aligning once more. Organs slowly ballooned to their original shape, ruptures and tears disappearing as though they had never been. Muscles, tendons and ligaments knotted across them, and skin slowly spread from the edges, pink and new and healthy.

Some part of Ed was a little disgusted – watching someone being repaired layer by layer was not a pleasant experience. But most of him was simply relieved that Winry wasn't about to bleed to death in front of him.

Winry shivered as the wound finally closed, shuddered, and Marcoh only just managed to grab a bucket in time for her to expel a stream of bile and blood.

"I've never quite...gotten used to that..." Winry gasped out, collapsing back against Envy with a moan of pain. "That part where everything sort of knits back together..."

"Easy, Pidgeon," Envy murmured in a low, soothing voice, brushing her hair, damp with sweat and blood, out of her face. "Easy...all over now..."

That bewildered Ed as much as anything. He would never have thought Envy capable of genuine tenderness, but there was no other word to describe the way he was behaving. One of his arms was positioned around Winry's stomach, supporting her, and the other stroked the back of her neck in slow, soothing caresses.

"I'm exhausted," Winry mumbled, half-turning into Envy's chest.

"Get some sleep," Marcoh sighed, his voice a hoarse rasp. He seemed almost as exhausted as Winry, but Ed supposed a transmutation like that would have taken a lot of the man's energy. "Envy, put her in one of the beds so I can keep an eye on her."

Envy obediently carried Winry to one of the mattresses on the floor, settling her down with all the care a mother would show her child. Winry's eyes were already closed, and she barely stirred when Envy's arms finally slipped from around her, depositing her on the makeshift bed.

It was a contradicting image. Winry's face was so peaceful in sleep, but her torn and bloodied clothes spoke eloquently of war and chaos.

"Healing always wipes her out," Envy mused.

"Does she always drop off like that?" Ed couldn't help asking.

"Of course," Marcoh said, pulling the gloves off and beginning to clean the blood from the floor, his movements as slow as if his limbs were made of lead. "Healing with alchemy pulls from a person's natural strength, so it leaves the subject very drained. She'll sleep for a while, but the Commander will be back on her feet before we know it. In the meantime, I'll get someone to put mattresses on the floor of her room for you."

Marcoh pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "And then maybe I'll be able to get some sleep, too," he muttered tiredly. "It's not exactly easy to pull someone together like that."

oooooooo

The first time they came, being squeezed into Winry's room felt comfortable, like puppies tumbling over each other; warm, intimate and companionable. Now, after what had happened, it felt like an intrusion.

Ed and Al didn't talk, just stared at the sparse furnishings – the glittering, well-maintained weapons, the nostalgic mechanical tools and the tattered books. He looked through them almost idly, desperate for something, anything, to pass the time.

Tucked behind the others, flat against the back of the bookshelf and out of sight, was a small paperback with yellowed edges and turned-up corners. It looked like it had been well-thumbed, and Ed's heart twisted as he flipped it over and read the cover.

'Never Broken – Dealing With Rape.'

It only seemed to emphasise the fact that they had no idea what Winry had been through and thus, no right to judge her actions. That scene in the infirmary had driven home a very ugly truth – what Winry did was incredibly dangerous. She could be killed at any moment, at any time. All it took was the slightest slip, the slightest mistake...and she could die.

And...that argument...could have been the last thing he ever said to her.

Ed heard footsteps along the corridor and shoved the book back into its previous hiding place – there was only one person those footsteps could belong to, and he had a feeling it wouldn't start their reconciliation off well if Winry thought he and Al had been snooping.

The door opened and the blonde woman staggered in, her hair damp from a shower, her eyes showing her weariness. When she showed no surprise at finding them in her room, Ed assumed Marcoh had told her.

She flopped onto her mattress with a sigh. "God, I'll never get used to how tired that makes me."

"You're healed now, right?" Al had to ask.

"I'm fine," Winry said, lifting her shirt in demonstration. Ed noticed that while the wound was undoubtedly healed, it had left a scar. But it was a very odd mark – a circle of thickened flesh as though only the edges of the injury had scarred, leaving the flesh in the middle unmarked.

Winry noticed his gaze. "Wounds healed by alchemy have to be pretty big to leave scars, and when they do, the scars are usually pretty weird. Like this one – I look like I've been attacked by a giant cookie-cutter."

"Kyle said you saved him," Al murmured, his voice sounding slightly awed.

Winry nodded. "In retrospect, it was kind of a stupid thing to do – jumping in front of the attack and all. But I wasn't really thinking at the time. I mean, I was, those thoughts just weren't concerned with my safety."

"But you're the Commander!" Al protested. "You shouldn't do things like that!"

Winry shrugged. "Maybe so. But...he had a kid..."

She seemed like she was perfectly at ease with them. But Ed wasn't fooled – her eyes were shadowed when she looked at them, and something rang false in her voice.

Ed took a deep breath, steeled himself for rejection, and spoke. "Winry...we're...I'm...sorry about...about what I said..."

Winry's eyes went as dark as burnt sapphire. Al, sensing the fast rising tension, attempted to make his own apologies.

"I'm sorry, too, Winry-"

"It's okay," Winry cut him off, her eyes still locked on Ed with all the intensity of a sniper's scope. "You didn't say anything."

Al fell silent, swallowing hard as Winry continued to stare at his brother.

Ed, feeling ever-more awkward and despairing, still struggled valiantly to scramble out of the grave he'd dug himself into. "I know I was an-" he hesitated, biting off the rather more adult word that first came to mind "-an idiot – I said things I had no right to – and for that I'm sorry..."

Winry made no response – her eyes hadn't even softened.

"...is there anything I can do to get you to forgive me?" Ed finished in a small, pained voice.

Winry looked at him, still not saying a word. She could admit she was still hurt over what he had said to her – she had thought that Ed and Al, at least, would be able to understand her position. But nursing a grudge never helped anyone, and while she knew apologies were not Edward Elric's strong point, he was genuinely contrite.

So Winry sighed, combed a hand through her hair, and decided to ask the one thing that could help her put the argument behind her.

"Close your eyes and grit your teeth," Winry instructed.

Ed gaped, completely lost. Why would she want him to...?

But when she raised an eyebrow impatiently, he did as she asked. For a moment, nothing happened, then something hit him across the face, so hard his head was snapped to the side. If his jaw hadn't already been tensed, he probably would have bitten his tongue.

Ed's eyes popped open in shock, one hand coming up to cradle his throbbing cheek. At first, he didn't know what had happened, but then he saw Winry, her fingers curling into her reddened palm, and knew. She had slapped him.

"I feel much better now," Winry practically chirped.

"T-that's it?" Ed stammered. He'd been half-expecting her to kick him out of Rush Valley.

"That's it," Winry nodded. "You hurt me, now I've hurt you – let's call it even."

Somehow, her forgiveness made Ed feel worse – like a child who'd shouted at an adult, and now the adult was being nice and understanding and mature about it. It was a bit of a blow to his ego, to feel so immature compared to Winry. But then, it was no less then what he deserved – he'd exploded at her, acting like a hurt ten year-old, so if he was feeling a little immature now...it was justly deserved.

"So...no hard feelings?" Al reiterated, as if he didn't quite believe it.

"No hard feelings," Winry yawned. "Now I'm going straight back to sleep, okay?"

"Okay," Ed said, still feeling slightly numb.

Winry smiled softly at him, her blue eyes shining with warmth and caring once again – that gentle light in her eyes something Ed had never truly known he'd needed until it wasn't there. The hard lines of her face had smoothed out into quiet serenity, her smile not born of amusement but something closer to fondness, and the knowledge that he could put such an expression on her face was rich warm glow in Ed's chest.

And that was when it hit him.

He loved her.

He was in love with Winry Rockbell. The truly funny thing was that this realisation wasn't a triumphant burst of song of a bolt of lightning or anything of the sort. Just a sudden click, as though a light had been flicked on in his brain and he was suddenly truly aware of something he'd known all along.

'I'm in love with Winry.'

'Well...duh.'

oooooooo

AN: Thanks, as per usual, to LaughingAstarael, for beta-ing this chapter and in general making it a smoother read.