Authors Note: After mulling it over for quite some time, I've finally got a name for this fic which seems quite fitting. Hope you enjoy; review if you do and I'll keep writing.

This may seem like a weird platform to jump to after the first chapter, but I hope you'll stick with me. It'll get better after this, trust me.

Shout out to Yellow Mask; thanks for actually wanting to read my fic XD Makes me feel respectable.

-Gabunny

Time was a curious little objective; it didn't really exist and was very, very relative. How long is long? And how short is short? Simple questions, with no answers – just something to ponder in the spaces that he wasn't there to fill.

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It was very early morning when he arrived again. Apart from growing some he looked practically the same – and yet, something about him was completely foreign. Dimly, she knew she could find out what had happened to him since she last saw him if she wanted to – but she found herself not caring, and then she knew that she had changed, too.

No time for old promises now. Especially selfish, childlike ones that wouldn't really achieve anything.

The social normalties died before leaving her lips and she just beckoned him inside instead. He dropped his coat at the door, and they stared at each other dumbly as she tried to remember some old joke or secret freaking handshake or anything, but it seems that there are none to recall. What a pity.

"Coffee?" she shrugged. It was too early to get pissed, and she couldn't think of anything else to say. He nodded, and she left the room to make it. It was a useless action, but maybe it was just because she hadn't seen him in so long she had forgotten what to do. It might come back to her. Spooning the bitter powder into cups, she clung onto that hope.

Time. Was boiling water an act that took a long period of time? She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember when she had last been in the kitchen, doing all these normal sorts of things that normal people do.

She handed him the cup and sat in the chair opposite him, the square kitchen table putting some distance between them. From her seat she can see the bench in the foyer he slept on last time he was here. What a long time ago that was. That was a memory of long ago, she was certain.

"So" she said, putting the cup on the table and tucking her hair behind her ears – trying to act normal, whatever that was – "Why are you back?"

He stared at her a while, as though trying to figure out exactly what to say. Like there was a right answer. It was a stupid question.

"Shoulder's hurting. And I can't move a couple of my fingers" He kept looking at her.

Well…as good as answer as any. "You don't say" she said, fiddling with her hair absent-mindedly.

"Ah…so, are you going to look at it?" She looked up, startled. She was used to spending time like that; ignoring the reality by simply switching off and just plain existing for a few moments before drifting back. But he's never done that, I'm sure, she thought wryly. He was too busy saving the world or something to meditate.

"Ok" she answered, getting up. She moved the fingers and waved the arm around a bit. Like she used to.

"So, what's wrong? I thought maybe after a few weeks it would be okay, but it's kinda getting worse…" He trailed off; expectant for some explanation he wouldn't really understand.

Reassurance? Fat chance. He wasn't getting that this time.

"Well, I dunno" she said lamely, shrugging again. Now it was his turn to look surprised.

She got up off the floor. "Shit happens. I'll look at it later. It's too hard to see in this light" She grabbed her cold coffee and marched over to the sink.

He looked stunned. Apparently, she wasn't supposed to have brushed him and his needs off like that. "But…what's…" She tipped the liquid down the sink and turned to face him, expression icy as he tried to think of what to say to this new, indifferent Winry.

"Where's Pinako?" he said finally, looking at her with obvious anger at her disinterest.

"Hm. Where's Al?" she shot back, and he looked a thousand times more devastated than when she had ever hit him with a wrench.

She laughed, quickly and shrill, taking a cruel pleasure in his distress – and then she ran past him, up the stairs and into her room, locking the door and sprinting to the en suite to throw up spectacularly, considering she hadn't eaten anything for the past few days. Or was it weeks? She couldn't tell anymore. There was no time – only haze and blur.

It was obvious, as she curled over to toilet retching, that she had forgotten how to react to him. Over time she had unwittingly erased him from her memories. in a desperate attempt to move on and live her own life.

But no matter how much time passes, some memories are indefinite, and no matter how much you try, some people just don't change.