Disclaimers: Don't own FMA.

A/N: Edward's POV. (Any typos, please excuse. I feel really horrible for taking so long. Sorry. Oh, and © Dir en Grey for the title?)

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Spilled Milk

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It was irrational and unrealistic, but somehow I did manage to do it. My whole day, people were asking me, "Are you alright?" Maybe my eyes were screaming out to people, because I barely said a word.

Or maybe, that was why people questioned my sanity, my health, my all-around okay-ness.

I was getting sick of it. Whenever a friend – even a teacher – looked me in the eyes and asked, "Edward…are you feeling okay?", my thoughts bolted directly back to what was, seriously, wrong with me. It was pissing me off. I just wanted to forget about it.

"Yeah," I kept snapping at them all. "Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry."

Alphonse had looked guilty and Winry had looked terrified. Honestly, I had felt sick. My stomach was uneasy throughout the day and I had no lunch. I prodded at the tray that I had retrieved from the lunch line and Winry drank my apple juice; Alphonse ate my sandwich. My head was hurting, but not enough to slow me down – it was this weird aching, that stayed in the back of my cranium constantly, like it was my thoughts that were throbbing and not my sinuses. It was as if I was remembering that I had a headache, not really having one. I was listless, and I knew that, and I knew that that stirred up concern in everyone who knew me.

So I resolved that I would box it all up, and neglect it, and shove it into the aching tornado of thoughts in the very back of my brain; and I was really surprised and actually a little accomplished when I realized that I was successful.

I could force myself to forget what I had done.

And it worked. But I'm not stupid; I know that when sleep was slinking towards me, my guilt and my worries and my distress, and everything else that accompanied those, would beat exhaustion and eat away at me until daylight where I would shove it back into that box for twelve hours.

But it worked. A little.

On the way home I lagged behind a bit and slumped, my hands in my pockets. I watched Al as he walked, striding along with a bounce that escorts every kid – for a moment I wondered if I still had that flounce or not. I shrugged it off.

Watching him, I could feel the bottom of my stomach slowly unlatching, sending everything down into my lower abdomen, my leg muscles turning to water and sliding on my bones like jell-o. My heart started to beat the inside of my chest and my throat clenched up, dry, raspy; I attempted to swallow and instead succeeded in choking and hacking on my tongue.

Al spun around and peered at me, puzzled and worried. "Brother, what - …?"

"Nothing, nothing," I coughed. "Just choked on my breath. I'm that stupid."

He offered me a shadow of a smile and waited for me to start walking again. We were less than ten minutes away from home.

"How about…" Alphonse started, touching his lip with the tip of his finger, rolling his eyes out to the side, looking down the steep ditch of the road that eventually swelled into hills, covered in flocks of sheep. I glanced down the hill and noted the lack of sun's sparks floating in the pond. There was a dog running around, supposed to be watching the flocks, but instead playing with them. Up the hill a few chickens were pecking in the road.

"How about what?" I mumbled.

"How about dinner at Winry's?"

"Sounds good. Not like I was going to make anything anyway."

Alphonse flicked a hurt gaze towards me for just a second, and turned his face forward again. "That's a good idea then, right?"

"Yuh," I grunted, tossing hair out of my face with a gentle jerk of my head. The late summer breeze was starting to annoy me; I couldn't walk anywhere at any pace without being blinded by a curtain of hair. It was amusing, too, though. Really.

We passed our house with a mutual thought that we did not even have to bring into words. Let's just go up there right now. Our house can wait. Neither acknowledged the shared notion, but simply kept going as if it was the right thing anyway.

"I wonder…what we'll have for dinner," I grumbled.

"Are you hungry now?"
His words sliced me open sourly, though I knew he hadn't meant it that way. I sent him a harsh scowl. "Maybe," I barked, and shoved past him a few rough steps, now at least a yard ahead of him, scattering two banty-hens out of my way with the swing of a dusty boot.

I could feel him frowning at me. Not out of concern now. Not out of caution. He was getting irritated too. When I turned my face upwards, my stomach nearly got hooked on my ribcage.

The sky was darker than it had been this morning. It was as if the clouds were crawling in according to emotions. The clear August sky was starting to smudge into a pale gray, and the sun was straining to make its way through the blooming thunderheads. Another breeze blew and for the first time I realized that it was chilly. Had I just been that oblivious, so sunken in my thoughts that I hadn't noticed the change in weather?

I glanced back towards my little brother.

Maybe I had been.

We reached the Rockbell house fifteen minutes before Winry did. We were both assembled at the dining table, me at the head of it, Alphonse at the tail of it, Pinako in the middle of us sorting cables and wires and potpourri parts of automail that I didn't really care about. I was finishing up arithmetic that I had ignored earlier today. Alphonse had his textbook open and was scribbling down answers to the Review-and-Assess Questions from Fifth A history. I remembered those dumb things. They got tedious.

The front door swung open and a stronger-than-usual zephyr squealed in towards the table, scattering papers and screws like a hungry, malicious force. Three pairs of eyes shifted dully, but angrily, up towards the threshold where Winry stood, hugging her satchel, her skirt fluttering around her legs wildly and her hair dancing at her shoulders. The gust died down and she moved out of the way, slamming the heavy door and pouting over her shoulder at the table.

"Well, don't you guys get too welcoming. Hi, and how are you guys? I'm fine. A little cold."

"It's gonna storm," Alphonse said in a voice that lacked any emotion whatsoever. He didn't look up from the text as he readjusted his composition book. I scowled deeply across the table at him.

"What the hell is your problem, Al?"

"Nothing, Brother."

"My ass!"

"Don't yell at me right now. I don't wanna get angry."

"Oh, sorry, you don't want to get angry?"

"Stop it." Alphonse sighed, looking up at me with stony caramel eyes that read just how able he was when it came to flaring tempers. My heart gave a large thump and I withdrew with gritted teeth, feeling my own gaze read just as much of a warning at his obvious clout to my own resignation. He was much better at holding in fury; everyone knew that.

"What did you do to him?" Winry squealed, giving me a comical wallop to the back of my head. I flew forward and my bruised stomach hit the edge of the table. I howled, tiny beadlets of spittle flying from my lips and hitting my paper. Granny sighed in exasperation, curling her pudgy hands in a wall around some miscellaneous automail parts and moving them closer to her work area.

"I didn't do anything!" I wailed, my voice squeaking and cracking the entire way through. Alphonse picked up his pencil, scooted out of his chair, tucked his paper into the text book, cradled the text book in his arm, and moved through the door into the kitchen, shutting it behind him.

The three of us stranded in the living room/dining area were quiet.

Granny looked at Winry, then focused her knowing gaze on me, strangely parental and regarding me with a punishers' eye.

"You dumb little jerk," she said levelly, her voice the same scratchy and strained yipping as it always was. "I have never once seen that boy so hurt and so mad and all the signs point directly at you. One day you're going to wish you were nicer to him."

Winry and I were absolutely silent. My chest was feeling heavier and heavier, pulling me back against the chair. I felt the rage dissolve into fear and guilt, spreading across my face as easily as jam onto toast. I stared at Granny with a blank kind of sharpness in my eyes, hoping that the Chewing Ed Out session wouldn't progress to any more levels.

It didn't.

She gathered everything carefully into the crate in front of her and waddled up the stairs.

Winry looked at me with eyes that read confusion and disbelief. She put a hand on my shoulder and with the other started to stroke hair out of my face.

"What…what's wrong with you guys lately?" she asked me after a moment. Her voice was soft, calm, clear.

I turned my face up to her, hoping to whatever was out there that claimed to be god that they didn't show her how upset I was in turn. "Studies."

She froze. Her brows furrowed and she backed a few steps away, her satchel bag swinging near her thighs and bunching her skirt up a few inches. My eyes fell to that, then rotated back up to meet hers. She was frowning a genuine frown.

"Ed…" she said gently. Winry shook her head slowly, keeping her eyes on me, then looked down to her feet, bringing her fingers around to play with the hem of her shirt. Her tongue darted out and ran along her lips nervously. Afterwards she looked back at me and tried to smile.

"Ed, will you let me cheer you up?"

"What are you talking about?"
But I knew. I knew what she meant.

I tried to push everything back into that box reserved for it, tried to slam the lid on and latch it tight. I wasn't going to let things that I had done or said, impulsively and stupidly, ruin what time I had with the girl that I loved – especially time that was fucking special.

"Lately…you haven't seemed as happy."

I tensed up, the smile that had formed on my face fading quickly. "What…?"

"I want to make you as carefree as you were." She took my hand and ran her thumb along each of my knuckles. She wasn't smiling anymore either. "I want you to relax. I want you to be happy."

"I am happy!" I snapped, jerking my hand away from hers. My spine was rigid again. She looked hurt, defeated. I knew what she meant, though. Again. I knew that I hadn't been as…happy, I guess, as I used to. Alphonse hadn't either. Studies. And the other thing was – no matter how much I tried to avoid it, there was always that looming feeling, the feeling that something was going to happen that would shatter everything I had and everything I loved.

"Listen," I said in a low, raspy mumble. I sat up straighter and reached out, wrapping my arms around her waist and pushing my chin into her stomach, looking up at her with what I hoped was a reassuring gaze. "I think it's just the storm that's coming in. Have you ever noticed that when the weather sours up, so do the people? Moods get dark just like the sky."

Winry giggled and rolled her eyes. "You're a dork."

I grinned.

As I grinned up at her I started to feel the suffocating guilt again. I had to tell her what I did. But not now; I wasn't going to ruin our moment. But at one point, I had to tell her…how horrible I am. How horrible I'd become.

She wound her arms around my neck and let them drape on my shoulders. She leaned down and kissed my forehead. Then she said, slowly, completely unlike herself but so like herself that was enthralling, "Come with me up to my room. I wanna show you something from the library."

My heart faltered and then sped up excitedly.