Spoilers: Post series, so yeah. A little bit of an alternate ending. No movie though. Doesn't even exist.

Rating: PG - NC-17 This chapter: PG

FMA does not belong to me and I make no profit from any of these tales. Any further archiving of my fiction is strictly prohibited unless cleared by me.

4. Little Things (A Break in the Sky)

Harsh yellow rays escape through cracks in the curtains. One closed eye twitches, waking Winry fully. The blonde rolls away from the window, and with a groan, notices that Ed has already been up. She puts a hand to her forehead, covering her eyes against the sun as she turns back around. A piece of paper rests on the nightstand and she thinks that at least this time he left a note.

Winry,

I had to run out for a moment. Meet me for lunch at noon. Same place we ate yesterday.

Ed

Winry looks over to the clock on the far wall and quickly scrambles to get dressed.


Not much has really changed in East City, Edward thinks as he strolls down one of the busier side streets. It is still as dry as ever.

Edward turns right at the next intersection and heads for the center of town. Never looking up once, he lets his feet lead the way from memory. They stop him at the gates of Eastern Headquarters. As usual, the base is very busy. Dozens of nameless faces pass behind the gates. Mustang and his subordinates had been transferred to Central long ago.

The last time Ed had talked to The Bastard was when he turned in his resignation two years ago. Mustang had been at the funeral but Ed had barely said two words to anybody then. Briefly, Ed wonders if he is still trying to become Fuhrer.

He decides that this place holds no sway over him anymore and leaves. Two blocks down and three over is a book shop that he and Al used to frequent. He hesitates before going in, but decides that a bit of aching memory is acceptable in exchange for curing the boredom of a long journey. Besides, if his nose is in a book he can avoid the sympathetic looks of his traveling companion.

The bell rings as he enters and a young girl sitting behind the counter looks up. He doesn't recognize her. Habit leads him to the Alchemy section and he listlessly browses the titles for something new, something that will re-light the spark inside him that died when his brother did. The titles are familiar. He has read more than half of these books and the rest are less than intriguing. He really doesn't care about the industrial application of alchemically altered steel.

The self-help section holds no answers, either. No one is writing books on how to cope if your brother suffers a long and painful death after you restore his body and your limbs with a mystical art.

In the biography section he flips through a few memoirs filled with the sentiments of people who led lives with only a minimal amount of melodrama. Sighing, Ed puts down the memoirs of a retired author. The longer he lives, the more he comes to realize that his life is not normal.

Stepping around to the other side of the shelves, he begins browsing the fiction aisle. The titles and authors are so foreign to him they may as well have been in another language. Fairy tales were a pleasure that he'd stopped indulging in when his mother got sick. After that, Flamel took up the place of the Brother's Grimm, and alchemic equations and formulas became his fairy princesses and enchanted swords.

He picks up a ruby colored, hard covered volume and flips to the middle of the book. Intrigued, his eyes scan the page, seeing more than words. He sees a chance to escape from the realities of a harsh world and a cruel science that at times masquerades as magic. He closes the book and notices a clock on the wall to his left. The time to meet Winry is drawing near. He asks the shop-keeper what her favorite fiction story is and purchases it along with the volume he first picked up.

On the way back, his fingers caress the book's spine and he thinks about the nature of dreams. He had spent six years in pursuit of one insurmountable dream after another and each one only ever ended in ruin. 'A dream was never really a dream if it comes true' ; wasn't that what the old soldier had said to him? Ed didn't get it then but he does now.

Dreams don't come true, at least, not how you imagine them. They can't, because it's not the nature of the world to be perfect, and what is a dream but a person's ideal? For a while he had attained at least one of his dreams. He'd restored Al and even himself. But the circle is cruel and Al had been sick even before he'd lost his body.

He thinks of Mustang then, and Ed wants to tell him - i warn him /i - that even if he is crowned King the story doesn't end with a happily ever after. There'd still be wars, unrest, and poverty. Nations would seek to gain what others had and he would always need eyes to watch his back. He wonders if Mustang, long experienced adult that he is, knows this already. Maybe it is a rite of passage to learn these things. Maybe it is an experience gained only by those who wore themselves down to a cynical nub chasing after arduous ideals.

Either way, he feels a pang of pity and camaraderie for his commanding officer's possible future - or past - revelation.


Edward is already waiting at a booth in the back by the time Winry walks in. Two mugs of hot coffee sit on the table in front of him.

"Where'd you go this morning?" She asks as she slides into a seat across from him.

"Out," he says, not looking up from the menu he is holding.

Taking a drink of her coffee, Winry notices that he is dressed in dull brown slacks and a white button down shirt. Come to think of it, that was all his attire really consisted of lately. Winry studies him thoroughly, something she hasn't done in two years.

The first time was almost four years after he had received his certification. Back then, as the years passed on without a visit, she had thought that it would take nothing short of the total annihilation of his mechanical limbs to get him to come home. Turned out she was right. She remembers that he hadn't looked all that different then when he was twelve. He had the same clothes, same hair style, and he looked about the same height. There were little differences though. Granny had noticed that he had indeed grown an inch, his face was a bit thinner, his jaw and shoulders more wide. His voice too, was just a little deeper than she had remembered.

This time though, there were more differences for Winry to notice, and one didn't need to look hard to see them. He was eighteen now, and gone was the black and red coat. She missed it. His new clothes were so drab, unfit for the colorful personality that he once exhibited. Whites and washed out browns combined to create the bulk of his wardrobe. His hair too - often pulled back into ponytails or simply left lying flat - made him look much older. She kind of likes that change.

A waitress comes and takes their order. They both choose the lunch specials and as the woman walks away, Winry watches the play of light upon Ed's face.

His countenance is perpetually down turned, creating deep lines around his mouth and brow. There are deep bags under his eyes from months of little sleep. His skin is much paler and she can see where he had cut himself shaving. He is still a little unsteady with his hands.

She finds it peculiar that he could learn to walk and move in auto-mail in a year, but it had been two since he got his own arm and leg back and he was still having problems with finer motor skills. Though, in a way, it made sense. The second time his body was altered, he hadn't had such a compelling reason to expend so much drive.

The food arrives and their waitress, an old woman with deep brown eyes, refills their coffee cups.

"Do you remember drinking coffee at my house?"

Ed gives her a strange look as he chews on a bite of sandwich, "We drank a lot of coffee at your house." He mumbles through tomato and lettuce.

"No, I mean," Winry sighs. It is so hard to get her thoughts out when she has so many. Ed is right, they did drink a lot of coffee those times when they pulled all-niters working on his auto-mail or researching alchemy to find a cure for Al. "Remember when we were little, your mom would visit Granny and when they went to the sitting room we'd steal cups of coffee."

Ed bows his head and the corners of his lips turn up at the memory. "Yeah, we all thought we were so grown up, asking each other how many sugars we'd like."

Winry giggles, "We had to put so much sugar in just to finish a cup." Both thinking the same thing, they look to their own cups in various stages of emptiness. It was an acquired taste. "You still put in too much sugar."

"I do not. Al puts in way more than I do." The jovial mood falls like a bird from the sky and she can see Ed begin to beat himself up behind his golden eyes.

"Ed, it's not your-"

Before she can finish Ed slams his palm on the table, rattling the dishes, abruptly stands and storms away.

With a napkin she begins to mop up the small drops of coffee that had escaped her cup at Ed's outburst. Well, she had gotten what she wanted, only unintentionally. Ed was pissed now.

Maybe it was best if she didn't try to reminisce with Edward right now, even about something as small as coffee. She understands where his thoughts are. After all, the image of a newly restored Al sitting in bed, holding a mug of coffee and trying to be strong is forever burned into her mind.


Moving on automatic, Ed packs up their suitcases and tries to ignore the stinging behind his eyes. Pajamas and underwear are thrown into bags without him caring if he matches the clothes to their owner's suitcase. Too soon, the bags are packed and he is left standing in the middle of the room, fists clenching, body trembling, needing to move, do anything but just be still and think.

He tenses as a warm hand rests on his back. Winry is standing behind him. The intensity of his blood rushing through his veins had eclipsed the sound of her entrance. Her hands begin to rub circles through his shirt, soothing the muscles from their uptight state. It is a simple touch; the type of which he has found sanctuary in the past few nights, only this one consciously given. The shaking stops and he takes several deep breaths through his nose.

"Are you alright?" She asks softly.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He pinches the bridge of his nose, willing that statement to truth. After few more deep breaths he is ready to go.


Ed is squinting at his book again. Winry's eyes keep leaving the road to confirm this fact and he finally notices. Looking up, he asks her what she is looking at.

"I think you may need reading glasses." She says. "Your eyes keep squinting."

"No. I'm just having trouble reading on this bumpy road." He bends back down, trying to hold the book at a new angle that will minimize the shaking of the pages.

"I don't know how you can read that now." He looks up curiously, his face open like it used to be in his childhood, and she explains, "I can't read in a moving vehicle. It makes me feel nauseous."

"Really?" He blinks before turning back to his story. "I never knew that about you."

Winry is surprised at her reaction to this simple statement. They had been friends for so long, connected on so many levels, that she sometimes forgets about all the little facts that they don't know about each other. An awful weight settles in her chest and that thought suddenly seems extremely important to her. She thinks of Al and Granny and tries to recall the little things she knew about them. She can't remember what their favorite food or color was, or whether or not they could read in a moving vehicle without getting sick.

"Ed, tell me something I don't know about you."

Time had passed and Ed had once again fallen into his story. He looks over to her curiously before closing his book, allowing his finger to bookmark the page. Staring at the red cover, Ed's gaze is thoughtful.

"The smell of pickles makes me sick."

"Huh, I didn't know that."

Ed looks around, finds a scrap of paper in the glove compartment, and uses it to mark his page. "Why the sudden interest?"

Winry runs her words over in her head, thinking of the sight of Ed trembling in the middle of that hotel room, and tries to put her thoughts into words without bringing up Alphonse. "I was just thinking about all the little things we didn't know about each other. I was thinking about it because a person could be gone before you even think about asking them what their favorite color is. Then you are stuck thinking about it for the rest of your life, and it wouldn't seem so important if the person was alive, but they're not so it is important because you will never get the chance to ask."

She had forgotten to breathe during all that and now took several deep breaths through her nose. She feels so silly, especially now that Ed is looking at her with concern. She tries to avoid looking at him, staring into the horizon with a frown, but in her peripheral vision she can still see him. He blinks a few times, and she knows that's what he does when his is beginning to understand, before facing straight ahead as well.

She hazards a look at him and he says, "My favorite color is red."

A small laugh forces out the air she'd been unknowingly holding. "I kind of assumed that."

"Yeah, well now you know for sure." There is a moment then, as they both look at each other with content expressions. It's like the parting of clouds on an overcast day; brief, but enough to chase away the gloom for a while. Ed opens his mouth and Winry can easily guess the question he is about to ask.

"My favorite color is dark blue."

His mouth snaps shut and Winry smiles at him.


That afternoon they cross more barriers than miles; the previous space between them decreasing faster than the distance to their destination. Ed tells her that he can't swim, that steak is his favorite food, and that his favorite animal has to be the starfish. He learns that she's always been afraid of the water, that dogs are her favorite animal, and that she could live forever on a diet of yogurt and pasta. Things get more personal and he tells her that he's never been kissed.

"Why not?" She asks.

Ed fidgets in his seat. "I don't know. I think I could have been if I tried. Other things just seemed more important. Have you, you know, ever kissed anyone?"

It's Winry's turn to look uncomfortable. "Yeah."

It is not the answer Ed expects to hear. It takes a while before expectation meets comprehension and he finds himself staring at her in disbelief. "Who?"

"Nelly dared me to kiss Dean Burns when we were thirteen, so I did."

He waits anxiously for her to continue. When she does not, he asks, "And…what was it like? What happened?"

"It was…kind of sweet. It's not like he became my boyfriend or anything after."

Ed stares at her, and the expression 'paradigm shift' comes to mind. In the years he spent traveling, he can honestly say that he never put much thought into what Winry was doing at any particular moment. If he did, he always imagined her sitting alone in her workshop. Not once had her personal life come into the picture. It was almost as if his subconscious expected her to be just sitting around in Resembool, ready to hop-to at his beck and call. He feels extremely guilty about that.

Of course he didn't expect her to sit around at wait for him. Neither one had ever given the other a reason to. Still…something about her confession chafed at him.

Since he was old enough to know about boys and girls, Ed had always believed that either he or Al would be Winry's first kiss. This belief was so strong and he carried it for so long that at some point in his life, it had become less of a romantic notion and more of a fact. A contest between brothers, even. That tiny dream was dead now, and he felt himself mourning the loss for both himself and his dead brother.

"Oh." It's all he can think to say.


Author's Notes: Who can guess why I choose the starfish as Ed's favorite animal. Bonus points for whoever gets it right. Okay, here's were I start to lay the Ed/Winry on ya. I hope that it will feel natural and not forced.

As always, constructive criticism is extremely appreciated.