Chapter 5
Hideout
Pride swore – viciously and repeatedly – under his breath in the empty car. Winry had stopped to relieve herself, and had taken Pretty with her in case the chimera needed a toilet break, too.
This plan was not off to a good start.
When days had passed with no way of contacting the Elric brothers, Father had decided upon another use for Winry.
"Get her out. Let her think you are helping her escape, and see where she goes to ground. She will lead us to the Elric brothers."
Except it seemed Winry had no idea where Edward and Alphonse were. Her main plan seemed to be to get herself away, somewhere Father couldn't find her and try to use her against the Elric brothers again...but exactly where that 'somewhere' would be, she was still working out.
"I went to Liore, once," Winry's voice drifted to him, along with some rustling noises that told Pride she was making her way back to him. "Maybe we could go there? They're kind of re-building their city at the moment, so we probably wouldn't be noticed...at least as long as you stayed out of sight-"
"Hey!"
"I'm not trying to be mean," she insisted as she came into view. "But someone who looks like the famous Fullmetal Alchemist with red tattoos all over his body is hardly inconspicuous."
"Well what about her?" The homunculus said accusingly, pointing at Pretty.
"...okay, maybe Liore isn't the best idea," Winry conceded. "But it's either that or up north, and I can tell you right now we don't have the supplies needed to survive up there."
And she wasn't about to go home – she had a feeling they'd be checking there first. 'They' being whoever Father was going to use to pursue her now that Pride had defected. She'd shot down Ed's suggestion of hiding in another country all those weeks ago, but now she was seriously considering it. After all, Ed telling her to hide in case he failed to save Amestris was one thing, getting out of range because she was going to be used as a hostage against them was quite different.
Of course, that left the question of how to get out of Amestris. Papers were checked at all borders, except the one that led the the desert, and frankly, Winry thought even less of their chances of surviving there than of surviving in the north.
"Maybe we could just hide out in the wilderness somewhere," she offered weakly. "You know, just get far away from Central and keep our heads down until..."
"Until what?"
"Until we think of something better!"
Ignoring Pride's dark and bitter mutterings – honestly, anyone would think he had some kind of deadline to be keeping or something – Winry took one of the containers of water from the trunk and poured a small amount into one of the helmets, letting Pretty lap the liquid from the impromptu bowl as she tried to work out a plan.
Dawn was breaking – a thin sliver of sun was already cresting the horizon. While Winry welcomed the fact that she could now see what she was doing, she knew that their strange group would be more easily seen in daylight. By now, the soldiers had surely reported the car stolen, to say nothing of the people who might already be looking for Ed (who Pride was physically identical to)...or herself.
"We need to keep moving," she muttered, half to herself, as she urged the now hydrated chimera back into the car. "Find somewhere we won't be found easily...might have to dump the car as well..."
"This plan sucks..." Pride growled, feeling frustration sting his gut. It looked like it would be some time before Winry had any contact with the Elric brothers. If that was the case, why was he here? If she had no clearer ideas on Ed and Al's location than they did, why couldn't he just drag her back? At least that way, they'd have a hostage when the Elrics finally turned up.
Winry was under the hood (again), and Pride soon heard the growl that signalled the engine turning over.
She practically jumped into the driver's seat – at least, jumped as much as someone with a twisted ankle could. "Get in if you're going to."
-xxx-
"This is just perfect!" Pride drawled as Winry tipped the last tin of fuel upside down, futilely trying to wring a few more drops from it.
"Oh, shut up!" the mechanic grumbled, tossing the empty container to the ground in a fit of pique. "We knew this was going to happen eventually."
"Well, yeah, but I kinda thought we'd have gotten a little further than this!"
"This is actually a pretty good place," Winry commented, trying to be optimistic.
"We're in the middle of the freaking wilderness on a freaking dirt track through a forest!" Pride bellowed. "How is this a 'good place'?"
A soft growl began to rumble in Pretty's throat, the chimera obviously interpreting the homunculus' furious tone as a threat against Winry.
"Oh, pipe down, you stupid mutt!" Pride spat. The growling only got louder, and Pretty's long tail began to sweep back and forth aggressively.
"Down, girl," Winry told her, placing a soothing hand on Pretty's back.
It seemed Pretty had never really forgotten the time she'd taken a chunk out of Pride's leg. But the chimera's change in behaviour was strange; barely four days ago, she'd been so petrified of Pride she'd only intervened when it was clear Winry was in considerable distress. Now, the chimera bristled and growled at any behaviour she interpreted as threatening Winry.
"This forest is a good place," Winry addressed Pride, picking up their previous conversation as if it had never been interrupted. "Because it's a long distance out of anyone's way, which means that we could comfortably set up shop here for a while and not be discovered."
"And exactly how will we 'set up shop' here?" Pride sneered. "Wait, let me guess – 'we'll figure it out'. Is that your answer to everything? Do you usually fly by the seat of your pants like this?"
"Not usually," Winry admitted grudgingly. "Believe me, I like well-thought out, detailed plans as much as the next person – this is sort of a new experience for me, too. But we've got a tent and stuff, so we could probably hide out somewhere in the forest – we just need to wander around for a bit and find a good spot."
"Well, I think we should hold off on the exploring until it's daylight," Pride commented. "Humans have such shitty vision, you'd probably step on a snake and die or fall down a cliff and break your leg or something."
"But what else are we going to do?" Winry pointed out. "Just sit around and wait for the sun to come up? You've got good night vision, right? So you can give me a piggy-back again."
"What?"
"Come on, my internal clock won't let me sleep for hours yet!"
Pride knew that was true. Days locked in a cell without no outside source of light and intermittent food (when Pride or Father remembered she needed to be fed) had ensured that Winry's internal clock had been well off what normal humans' were. And she had only encouraged it since, driving all through the night and sleeping curled up on the backseat of the car during the day.
"And it's just us and Pretty," Winry went on. "You won't be ruining your macho image."
"I do not have a 'macho image'!" Pride barked, incensed. "That's a human thing!"
"Well, you can prattle on about human sensibilities all you like, but you've been acting awfully human during this little trip," Winry pointed out.
"I have not!"
"Then why did you help me escape?"
Pride snapped his mouth shut and glared. He may be angry, but there was no way he'd betray his mission.
Winry beamed triumphantly when he didn't say anything. "See? You are a good guy, no matter how much you try to hide it."
Pride tried not to shift uncomfortably. While this was certainly not the first time he'd lied to Winry, it was beginning to feel...wrong...to be planning to betray her when she seemed so convinced he was helping her, when she had such faith in him.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he grumbled, rolling the remaining supplies up in the tent and binding it with the coils of rope, hoping that would be enough to serve as a backpack. "Put this on."
Winry did so, wrapping Pretty's chain around her wrist before Pride scooped her onto his back and set off through the darkness.
"So...what exactly constitutes a 'good place'?" he asked.
"A source of water," Winry told him. "Beyond that...we'll know it when we find it."
-xxx-
"This is perfect!" Winry declared.
"This place has no electricity, no food, looks it's been abandoned for about ten years, and the only human life nearby is at least twenty minutes walk through the forest, so we can't exactly fetch aid in a hurry," Pride pointed out dryly, his eyes scanning the tiny cabin Winry had found.
There were gaps between the planks that made up the walls, and a brick fireplace looked like it was the only thing that could survive a strong breeze. There was a rotten-looking bedframe in one corner, with a moulding mattress and some droppings scattered over it that looked suspiciously like some animal had been using it as a nest.
Creepers had slithered in through the door and windows, and as the one-room cabin had nothing resembling a bathing area, he thought it was a good bet that they'd find some old, abandoned outhouse nearby.
"But that means we're also a twenty-minute walk through thick forest away from being discovered," Winry explained, setting down the supplies that she'd been carrying. "This place will at least keep the worst of the weather out, and the dense forest means we could light a fire at night and we wouldn't be spotted-"
"It also means we have no phone, no toilet..."
"Oh, like we were going to have those things hiding out in the wilderness anyway!" Winry snapped.
After being caught in a small rainstorm just as the sun started to rise, Winry was more than willing to take whatever shelter they got.
"I think I even saw a well back there, so we have a supply of water, at least," the blonde mechanic muttered as she set the depleted containers of water down.
"Assuming it's drinkable and not infested with algae. And what about food?" Pride pointed out.
"We'll figure something out," Winry muttered darkly. "If nothing else, I'm sure you could catch some rabbits or something..."
The homunculus laughed sarcastically. "And you know how to skin and prepare them, right?"
"I could figure it out – it's really just basic anatomy."
Pride set down what he'd been carrying – significantly more than Winry – and glanced about the cabin once more. Pretty sniffed curiously at the fireplace, whining and scrabbling at the bricks with her claws.
"Could you use your shadows to...get this stuff out?" Winry asked, gesturing to the debris that littered the cabin floor. "Or don't they work that way?"
"They can work that way," Pride said smugly, and the shadows along the walls swept themselves across the floor like hyper-efficient brooms, making Pretty yelp in surprise. Winry had to jump over them as they swept leaves, droppings and weeds out the door.
"Neat," she smiled. "Can you get rid of the bed, too? I looks like I couldn't sleep on it without risking some kind of disease."
"What am I, a glorified housekeeper?" the homunculus grumbled. "You do it."
"But I've got a twisted ankle!" Winry bleated, trying to sound pitiful. "And you're so much stronger than me..."
"Okay, okay, I'll do it if you'll stop whining," Pride spat, uncomfortable at just how quickly her plea had worked.
"Thank you!"
And just as uncomfortable at how much her honest gratitude meant to him.
-xxx-
As night was beginning to fall, Winry piled the wood Pride had retrieved for her into the fireplace, ready to start a blaze. She couldn't actually light it until it was dark – rising smoke was too easy to see during the day, and too much of give away – but she wanted to be ready.
Tonight, she planned to have her baked beans cooked, as opposed to stone cold.
Pretty was standing beside her, her tail whipping back and forth in the tight wriggles Winry had come to interpret as expressing either happiness or excitement. She'd found that when the chimera was aggressive, the sweeps tended to be much longer and wider, as though Pretty were preparing to trip someone with the appendage.
She'd taken off Pretty's collar as soon as they'd settled in the cabin, her gut instinct telling her that the chimera wouldn't wander far. And she'd been right – she didn't think Pretty had gone more than a few paces outside the cabin.
The mechanic waited for night to fall, her injured leg stretched out in front of her as she gently flexed the joint, moving her foot in small, tight circles in an effort to encourage mobility in the ankle, and thus, swifter healing. She smiled softly to herself as she stroked the thin fur on Pretty's back.
"What are you smirking about?" Pride asked as he strode through the door, his arms loaded with wood.
"The fact that I'm going to eat hot food tonight!" Winry proclaimed, her grin widening.
"And that's something to celebrate?"
"If you had to eat, you'd understand."
Pride rolled his eyes. "Ha ha, very amusing. But you might want to know, that civilisation we're about twenty minutes away from? Turns out it's a farming hamlet, so we might want to watch out."
"How so?" Winry frowned.
"Well, it's the farmers who are going to be wandering into the forest looking for grazing areas or water or whatever the hell farmers concern themselves with – so there's a risk we might be discovered."
Winry shrugged. "Well, if we are, I doubt they have good lines of communication to the military, so even if they are slapping wanted posters of me all over Amestris, we should be able to get away in time. We just need to make sure we don't attract attention."
-xxx-
Ed grimaced, chewing the stone cold baked beans as little as possible before swallowing hastily. As long as he didn't let himself think about it, the food was almost tolerable.
He wanted something hot – stew, preferably, though he'd take anything really at this point. But they couldn't risk lighting a fire; by necessity, their conversations had to take place far from the tiny hamlet they were occupying, far from any curious eyes.
Ed has dragged enough people into his mess already.
He spooned up another mouthful, and tried to take comfort in the fact that at least Winry was comfortable, and warm, and far away from there.
-xxx-
AN: Thanks to justcallmefaye for beating this!