The rain to the wind said,

'You push and I'll pelt.'

They so smote the garden bed.

That the flowers actually knelt,

And lay lodged—though not dead.

I know how the flowers felt.

-Robert Frost

Frantic nerves were suddenly put on pause at such a direct question. Was she afraid of him?

Yes. And also no.

"I'm more afraid of …what you could become." She gulped, trying to be strong and honest like he was. Edward remained shirtless in only his jeans and cracked a window to alleviate some of the stifling heat in the apartment. No lights meant no ac, and the storm outside blew a wonderful cool air into the little living room. He raked a hand through his messy long hair as he grappled with what to do next. He would never run around in circles like this with any other person, and he still wasn't sure exactly why he was willing to do it for Winry. All he knew was that despite his better judgement, he liked her. He liked her immensely and could tell she felt something too, but they were both afraid of attachment. He eased back onto the bed to sit beside her.

"If it helps, I'm afraid too." He said with a sad smile. Somehow it did help Winry a tiny bit, although it made no sense to her. Edward was tall and strong, Winry knew he could overpower most people if the motivation was there. He was a soldier who'd been to war. What reason could he have to fear her? Winry shifted her position to sit a little closer to him in the darkened room. He smelled like her shampoo, mixed with something else. The same earthiness from his bedsheets that stirred her stomach deliciously.

"Why would a man like you be threatened by a woman?" She asked. Ed bit his tongue from telling her the truth behind his suffering, the way his heartbreak had been stretched out for so long, and would likely never end. That was the thing about women; so often they didn't know the way they held men in the palms of their pretty hands like tiny, fragile birds. One in particular had broken his trust to the point where he'd wished he could hate all women for eternity.

"I suppose we fear rejection, or being mocked," He said with a shrug as he skirted around his personal truth. "Or maybe we fear someone calling us on all our bullshit. I've known guys who were really controlling with their girlfriends to compensate for their fear of a power shift. They felt emasculated by dating women with higher-paying jobs."

Winry would've laughed if it weren't unfortunately true.

"What about you?" Ed returned. "You're successful and confident in what you do, you're smart, well-liked, you're beautiful and you don't seem to spend much time dwelling on the opinions of men. Why would a woman like you be afraid of a man?"

Winry twisted the bedsheets in her hands as her blue eyes found his and she whispered,

"Mostly we're afraid you'll kill us."

Edward nearly swallowed his tongue as he shrank back in alarm. The air quickly grew thick as he blinked at her, trying to come up with what to say when something clicked and he regarded her with an intense look.

"Wait…did someone try to kill you?" He asked carefully. Winry bit her bottom lip in frustration. The wine had caused her to reveal far too much.

She moved to turn away from him but found her hands caught by his mis-matched ones and she paused, eyes cast downward as she tried to focus on breathing. Warm fingers tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and her eyes rose slowly to find him close to her.

"I meant what I said, I'm not going to let anything happen to you. I swear you don't have to be afraid, not of me." She felt his breath over her skin and his fingers softly bury into her hair.

"Being cautious is all I know." She said. "I don't remember how to be any other way around men."

Edward had never been foolish person, but he saw value in the concept of an educated gamble. No risk, no reward.

"Stay still." He murmured softly to her as his hand smoothed over her hair again. "I wanna try something."

He leaned in slowly and pressed a small, soft kiss just below her ear. He hovered in place, waiting for a reaction and expecting her to shrink back, but Winry's hand came to rest on his shoulder, not pushing him away but steadying herself as she became light-headed. Ed pulled himself closer to her and shifted slowly to right himself and meet her gaze, pausing to see what she would do. She stayed put, and her shoulders relaxed. He took his opportunity and pressed another slow and careful peck, this time to her cheek, feeling her eyes flutter closed and her long lashes whisper across his cheek. It pained him to do so, but he pulled away and stroked her cheek softly, while looking at her closed eyes.

"Too much?" He mumured. His low and breathy voice sent something through her. A feeling she hadn't known in what felt like forever. She could only identify the feeling as waves of want, and she gazed back at him through sleepy, half-lidded eyes as her hands smoothed over his strong shoulders. She drew in a shaky breath and her eyes danced back and forth between his.

"Don't stop."

Edward had to crush his urge to leap forward and devour her. If it were any other woman on the planet this chase would have been over weeks ago. He would've showed up, flashed a grin, and one hand on the knee would've earned him an all access pass to the land of flesh and orgasms. But this was different. This he had to work for so very carefully, and if he was successful, his prize would be far greater than one night of drunken sex.

Winry was finding it not just harder to move but harder to breathe altogether as his face inched closer and closer, ever-so-carefully. Eyes were downturned and a metal hand raised to touch her jawline, coaxing her closer until their breaths were shared and barely whispered over each others lips.

"Don't be afraid." He hushed to her, even though his heart pounded as forcefully as he suspected hers did. He wanted this badly, but not at the risk of breaking what trust he'd earned. He drew on every shred of decency and control he possessed to stay frozen in place, and let her close the fractional, barely-there distance between their wanting mouths. When he thought she may not grant his wish, he felt her fingers dive into his loose hair and she tilted her chin, closing the distance.

His phone started ringing.

Winry pushed back from him, suddenly remembering where she was and what she was about to fall prey to as Edward pulled his phone from his pocket, illuminating his perfect scowl of frustration as he looked at the screen before grunting and sending the call to voicemail. Winry watched him carefully as he flippantly tossed his phone on the bed beside him.

"Sorry about that. Where were we?" He reached for her but she shrank back and eyed him suspiciously.

"Ed, someone's calling you in the middle of the night. Maybe it's important?"

"It's not." He shot back. "If I answer that call I'll only wind up even more pissed off."

He didn't mean to appear callous, but the knowledge that his ex-wife had now ruined yet another moment with a woman he was genuinely interested in made his blood simmer beneath his skin. The feel of her lips on his lasted only a fraction of a second and yet had left significant impact on him. He had known hunger as a child, and her mouth pulled on him emotionally the way the smell of the neighbor's dinner twisted his empty stomach. Edward could no longer tell himself he was only mildly infatuated with her; he desperately craved to have that intimate moment with her the way a drug addict needed their fix. The tugging on his heart he felt everytime she appeared truly vulnerable could no longer be passed off as casual empathy; he now felt an intense compulsion to protect her. Edward's desire to comfort his troubled client had manifested into a fierce and passionate conviction to heal the heart of a woman he could no longer deny having feelings for. It was with dread in his hollow chest that he recognized the severity of his condition and he swallowed heavily, knowing he couldn't admit it to himself.

His phone sounded yet again, and this time Winry took notice of the name that appeared on the screen before Edward was able to snatch up the device and silence it.

"Who's Noah?" Winry asked, not caring that she'd committed a social faux-pas by looking at another person's phone.

"It's not important. She's not a part of my life."

"She must be if she's calling you at 3 in the morning." Winry bit back. A text message chimed to Ed's phone, and he reached to turn it off as a lengthy trail of curses sounded in his mind. Winry's eyes didn't quite catch the message that popped up on his home screen, but she'd seen enough exclamation points and the words 'ignoring me' in all caps to piece the story together.

"You've obviously got a phone call to make and I need to get some shut eye, so I'll let you see yourself out." She said, unable to mask the bitterness in her voice. Ed's flame of burning irritation at Noah instantly roared to a bright blaze when he realized Winry assumed him to be a scumbag, and he found himself nearly stammering as he fumbled for the right words to explain himself.

"Shit, I… It's not what it looks like, Winry I—"

"—I think you were leaving?" She pressed with a nod to the front door. Something horrible crept into Edward's chest as he stood and retrieved his shirt from the dryer before exiting quietly, unable to look back at Winry. He wasn't ready to tell her about his life, but she would never trust him if he didn't. And so for the time being he would hide away what he'd discovered about himself that night, that for the first time in years he could see the glimmers of hope. He may be able to trust someone again. He may be able to love someone again.

It terrified him.

Winry punched her pillow in the dark as Ed's footsteps fell away from her door and she lashed out at herself.

"Fucking idiot," She muttered. "Being handsome and well-mannered doesn't make him honest. Don't be so stupid."

Shuffling to the front door Winry placed her hand on the deadbolt but stopped before locking it, remembering that he'd said he was afraid too. Vulnerability was something she'd seen in men almost every day in her line of work, but they still hated admitting it. Mostly her clients would put on a strong front until their procedures left them crying for their mothers. Edward didn't seem to fear being perceived as vulnerable -in fact he seemed rather familiar with it. She finally slid the bolt into place and returned to bed wondering if Edward might not be as calculating as she'd assumed. She wondered if he could be more genuine than she'd ever known a man to be, and maybe that was why she was frightened. Edward confused her. She didn't understand him, and it was normal for people to fear what they don't understand.

The rain continued to pelt the city, and as she slid beneath her covers white lightning flashed outside briefly illuminating her apartment and allowing her eyes to rest on the red hoodie hanging to dry on a nearby chair. Thunder boomed a moment later, beating home the reality that he was out there in the storm without any protection from the unforgiving weather and guilt gripped around Winry's heart. She was so busy being angry that she'd kicked Edward out into the storm that he'd already braved once to return her treasured planner. She fell back onto her pillows with a heavy sigh.

"Who knows, maybe I'm right and he's a jerk." Winry said to the ceiling. "Maybe he has a girlfriend that he's lying to and he's just being nice to me because he wants to get in my pants. I'm not gonna fall for it."

Satisfied with her clever deduction, Winry pulled the blankets around her and rolled over to get comfortable. But the booming thunder wouldn't fail to remind her of the man she'd just reduced to a drowned rat and she grimaced.

"…Or maybe he's not lying, and maybe I'm just a big, frigid bitch."

A/N: I'm so sorry for being away longer than I said I would be! I hate to use the old excuse of life getting in the way, but it's unfortunately true. The good news is that most should be back to normal in a month or so, meaning that i'll have more time to update at my normal pace. The bad news is that until then I'll have to update a little more slowly, because I haven't finished writing this fic and I don't want to update too quickly and make mistakes. Rest assured as with all of my fics, I do not believe in leaving stories to rot without endings and I don't believe in making my readers wait a millennia for an update. So here's a little something to tide you over and I promise i'll be back in a week or two.

As always, thank you SO MUCH for reading and sharing your thoughts with me.