Chapter 15

November 7th – November 9th

November 7th – Military Headquarters, Central

Winry was so involved in her memories, she almost didn't hear Ed join her on the balcony. At first, she just kept staring ahead, not sure if she was quite ready to deal with all this. Not now...if she could just put it off for a little longer...

There was a slightly uncomfortable silence, and Winry wondered about the social etiquette for this kind of situation. She couldn't come up with anything to say, so she let her actions speak for her.

Ed blinked in surprise as Winry reached over and hugged him tightly. He had expected...he didn't know what he had expected. Anger, maybe, for not rescuing her. But she was hugging him.

He held her tightly, feeling the metal beneath her shirt where her wings were concealed. A reminder of the lab that she would carry for the rest of her life. His arms tightened unconsciously.

And to his surprise, his felt his eyes beginning to grow moist. Everything had happened so quickly – learning Winry was alive, searching for her, seeing her, realising her memory wasn't coming back, getting her memory back...it had never truly hit him. But it did now. Winry was back. Her memories were restored, and she was out of the lab...Winry was back!

"You're back," he murmured, hardly able to believe it, his body quivering as he remembered his despair at the idea, so many months ago, that he would never see Winry again.

"Yeah, I'm back," Winry's voice was muffled by his neck, and there was a suspiciously wet sniffle at the end of her sentence.

"I thought...Winry, when he took you...I thought I'd never see you again."

"Ed, when I was in the lab...I thought I'd never see you again..."

"You mean before..."

"Yeah...before he..."

"Winry...what happened to you?" Ed wasn't aware he'd voiced the question aloud until he saw her eyebrows lift.

"Do you really want to know?"

Ed swallowed, and nodded. For a moment, Winry was tempted to say nothing. To not tell him what had happened to her, to see how he liked being kept in the dark...but her petty anger passed quickly.

She cleared her throat, and began her story.

oooooooo

November 7th – Military Headquarters, Central

Winry didn't tell Ed everything. She glossed over the nastier details, and she didn't mention her bargain with Truth. Something told her he just wouldn't handle it well. She didn't talk about her emotional response to her confinement – she just didn't feel comfortable discussing the level of despair she'd reached there, though she did mention briefly the confusion, frustration and sorrow of waking in a strange place with no memory of who you were.

"But...you're back to normal, now...right?" Ed asked warily. His heart twisted at the thought of what she'd gone through. Her descriptions had been so bland and matter-of-fact it was almost as though she was reciting a report...but he hadn't been fooled.

"I'm not 'back to normal', Ed," Winry shrugged. "I'll never be 'normal' again. And it's not just the wings, or the powers, or any of that...it's who I am."

"What do you mean?"

"Back there...I wasn't myself. Not really. I wasn't Winry, the automail mechanic...I was Angel, and I was...what did Joseph call it?" she sighed. "I think he said...cado angelus."

"What?"

"It mean 'fallen angel'. It comes from the saying, 'permissum angelus cado caelitus operor magis bonus hic'. 'Let the angels fall from heaven, they can do more good down here'. And that's what I'm saying – I was everything to those people. I saved them from the labs, I led them on their crusade, I fought with them, I protected them...I became so much more than what I'd been. Do you understand?"

Thr truly terrifying thing was, Ed did understand. She had truly been Angel, and some part of her would always be Angel. Angel had led scores of people with confidence and easy leadership. Angel had been a pillar of strength in hard, unstable times.

But...hadn't Winry been like that, too? Before her capture? Had that kind of strength always dwelt within her, just waiting to be awoken?

"I was being tempered," Winry said suddenly, jolting Ed from his reverie.

"Huh?"

"It's a certain way of making swords," Winry explained. "The metal is folded, and beaten, and heated, then folded and beaten again. It's done over and over. Eventually, the end result is a blade strong enough to withstand almost anything. And that's what was happening...I was being tempered."

"That's a...very philosophical way of looking at it," Ed said cautiously. He couldn't determine her mood, and the uncertainty made him want to tread carefully.

"Yeah, well, it's that, or spend the rest of my life ranting about the lunatic who gave me these." Her wings snapped out so quickly Ed jumped.

"It's interesting, you know," she mused, her wings curving in front of her so she could study them. "When I was Angel, I never questioned these – couldn't remember ever being without them, I guess. But now...I just feel like a freak because I remember what I used to be like."

"Can I...can I look?" Ed asked, his voice almost a whisper.

Winry pulled back, giving him a funny look. But she understood – Ed had seen her wings, but he wanted to really look at them, to examine them, the same way she did with his automail. So she turned her back to him, pulling her hair over her shoulder to give him an unobstructed view.

Ed stared at her back, almost mesmerised. Her wingspan would have easily reached ten or twelve feet across, but it wasn't the size of the wings that drew his attention.

He'd seen plenty of chimeras, but never something like this. Tucker's attempts had been monstrous, looking nothing like a human. The transmutations of Greed cohort's had been far better...almost elegant. But Winry's...

Winry's was beautiful.

In all the chimeras he'd ever seen, human and animal were tangled up in each other...indefinable, inextricable. With Winry, the transition from human to bird was as clearly defined as that from horse to man in the mythological centaurs. Her skin melded smoothly into feathers, small at first, then growing in size. Her feathers were pure, dove-white, and the variations in shape and size were exactly like a real bird's wing.

Beautiful.

He reached out and brushed lightly over the near-perfect seam between feathers and flesh, unable to stop himself. Winry shivered slightly, and he stopped immediately.

"Hurt?"

"No, it tickles."

"Winry..."

"It's not that bad, is it?"

"No, Winry...it's beautiful." His voice was almost reverent, and it startled her.

"Wha-?"

"I need to show you something," he said abruptly, pulling back from her.

When Winry was gone, he'd made himself a promise. One way or another, for good or ill, she was going to know how he felt about her. He wasn't exactly sure how to bring it up, but he figured this was a good start.

Winry blinked when Ed opened his watch, holding it in front of her face. She stared, astonished. Just below the scrawl of 'Don't forget 3.Oct.11', he'd carved another.

'21.Mar.16'

"That's my birthday," she realised. "You carved my birthday into your watch."

"Yeah," Ed confirmed, feeling the beginning stages of panic. "That was the day...that was the day you were taken, and I...I..."

Whatever Ed was going to say was lost as the door behind them opened. Both teenagers jumped, turning to see Jade in the doorway.

"Angel...Winry..." Jade moistened her lips, seemingly deeply nervous. "What...what's going to happen now?"

Winry smiled, "Don't worry, Jade. We'll go back inside – I have to thank Clara – and then we'll go back to the cellar-"

"Huh?" Ed made a small sound of disbelief.

Winry turned to him, her eyes sad. "Ed...I may have my memories back, but that doesn't change what I did, what I am. To those people...I'm their leader, and that means I'm responsible for them. That doesn't change just because I got my memories back."

And as Ed watched Winry and Jade walk back into the building, a pang of...something...pierced his chest. And he began to realise...

Winry was moving beyond him.

In the past, he and Al had always been the ones to leave her behind – learning alchemy, going with Izumi to train, trying human transmutation, then leaving for the military. But now, it was Winry moving forward on her own.

Was this how Winry felt when he and Al had left? As though she were losing them, not to anything dangerous or frightening, but to themselves? That she would look at them one day and see nothing she recognised?

For that was how Ed felt now. As though Winry was suddenly, abruptly...beyond him.

oooooooo

November 7th – Hidden Cellar, Central

Winry lay in her bed, on her side, her wings spread out behind her. She told her people what had happened, who she was, and the like...and then she'd simply climbed into bed.

She needed to think.

The most prominent problem was what to do now with regards to her little group. Should she disband them? Stay with them? She didn't want to turn them away, but it felt weird to be staying with these people and not Ed and Al as well.

The next problem was herself – or her powers, to be more specific. Now that she knew the knowledge was in her head, it didn't take much to unlock them.

Most of her powers had already been discovered by experimentation. But she – 'learned' wasn't the right word, it was like she was now aware – that she had more, just waiting to be put to use.

She now knew that the dark shadow hovering over Riza was the essence of a Gate Daemon, but she wasn't quite sure what to do about it. She could always remove it – she now knew how to do that, too – but she wasn't sure if whoever implanted it in the first place would notice, or what they would do about it.

Winry had also been made aware of the ability to sense those with the Daemon's essence, or the Daemon itself within them. She'd tried it out before they left military headquarters, and been gratified to be able to sense Riza, even from all the way outside.

Something had felt odd, though. As though there was someone in military headquarters who, while they didn't have the Daemon essence, seemed...to have part of someone who carried a Daemon. It made no sense to Winry – how could someone be carrying around part of someone else?

And the last problem...what about her friends? Not those from Risembool – they had died in the laboratories – but what of Paninya? Garfiel? Granny? They'd thought her dead...what would they say when they discovered she'd survived...but had changed in the process?

With a slightly mournful sigh, Winry closed her eyes and tried to get some sleep.

oooooooo

November 8th – Garfiel's Automail, Rush Valley

"I'll get it!" Paninya called as a knock sounded on the door. She pulled it open...and nearly choked.

Winry was standing on the doorstep.

She looked just as she had when she'd left Rush Valley so many months ago...but there was still something different about her. Something in her eyes, in her face, in her bearing...all different.

"W-Winry...?"

Winry smiled, stepped forward, and hugged Paninya tightly. The darker girl returned the embrace fiercely, trying to blink away tears. Her mind hazy with relief and utter joy, some part still wondered at the texture beneath Winry's shirt – it was as though her back was made of...metal?

"Miss me, Pan?" Winry teased.

"You idiot!" Paninya muttered, thumping Winry's arms fiercely. "To make us worry like that..."

"Who was it?" Garfiel called, ambling into the front room.

His eyes landed on Winry, and teared up almost instantly. "Winry!"

Winry found herself swept into a bone-cracking hug that left her feet dangling off the ground.

oooooooo

November 8th – Garfiel's Automail, Rush Valley

Winry was beginning to get desperate. Her wings had been concealed for almost five hours now, and her back was beginning to throb.

"Uh, guys..." she said, wondering how Paninya and Garfiel would take this particular revelation. "Something happened to me while I was...well, you guys should see this."

A few quick flicks of her wrist and the back of her shirt fell away as her wings shot out, spreading wide, stretching gleefully.

Jaws didn't drop. Eyes didn't widen. In fact, both Garfiel and Paninya just seemed...frozen. If it wasn't for the steady ticking of the clock, Winry would've sworn that time had stopped.

The eerie silence prevailed, and Winry was just starting to wonder when she should start assuming they'd gone into shock, when Paninya spoke.

"Are...are those wings?"

"Yeah," Winry nodded.

"Do they...can you...?"

Winry flapped her wings, allowing them to lift her several feet off the ground before she slowly drifted back to the floor.

"Wow," Paninya said, before breaking into a huge grin.

Finding an identical shocked-astonished-pleased smile on Garfiel's face, Winry finally let herself relax.

They accepted it.

oooooooo

November 9th – Rockbell Automail, Risembool

Winry took a deep breath, and rapped her knuckles against the hard wood door. A chorus of barking came from inside, as Den alerted Pinako to her presence.

The woman who answered the door shocked Winry. For the first time she could remember, Pinako looked truly old.

"Granny?"

Pinako stared. Blinked, and still stared. She took several faltering steps towards Winry, one hand coming up to grasp her granddaughter's wrist.

"Granny?" Winry tried again. This was really starting to scare her...

"Winry?" Pinako breathed, tugging the girl down to her level and enveloping her in a hug. "Oh, Winry..."

And when Winry felt the dampness on her neck, she had to sniff back her own tears.

oooooooo

November 9th – Rockbell Automail, Risembool

Upon Winry revealing her wings, Pinako didn't freeze like Paninya and Garfiel had. True to their joint heritage – a long line of curious mechanics who just have to know how everything works – she immediately began examining the wings.

Pinako had been fascinated with the appendages, apparently surprised that they actually gifted Winry with flight and at the variations in feather patterns – just like a real bird's. Winry might have been offended at such apparently callous disregard for her feelings about them, but she knew this was just the way her grandmother was.

Curios. Just like her.

"What is this?" Pinako asked, fiddling with the elastic strap over her wings and the identical one below. Both were white, and ran straight across her back.

"That's my bra," Winry giggled. "One of my...friends...is a seamstress, and she made some for me."

"Of course," Pinako mused, "In a normal bra, the elastic strap runs across the middle of the back. But with your wings in the way, you'd need it specially made to anchor above and below the wings-"

Winry blushed. She was discussing bras with her grandmother! She made an effort to tune out the rest of Pinako's speaking, settled back, and let her grandmother fuss over her flight-feathers.

oooooooo

November 9th – Train Station, Risembool

Winry sat on the bench, waiting for her train to pull in. She had refused to let any of her people come with her on these journeys – this was...private.

And now she sat alone on the bench, having refused her grandmother's offer of seeing her off. Winry had to concentrate – she was working on sensing those with the Gate Daemons within them.

She could almost feel her consciousness expanding, spreading out like an enveloping blanket. All she was aware of was emptiness, until...a spark! A single spark in the blackness. Winry allowed herself to follow it, to approach it, to feel out its identity...

A piercing whistle jerked Winry out of the state she had fallen into, and she boarded the train with a grim smile.

She was going to find Hohenheim.