Every man has his secret sorrows

which the world knows not;

and often times

we call a man cold

when he is only sad.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The city was cast in the soft early glow of sunrise when Edward awoke for the second time. He was in a hospital bed in a small, dark room when the door opened and an exhausted Winry shuffled in. The events of the evening surged back to him and he moved to sit up, only to be gently pushed back down by Winry, who was oddly quiet and not quite looking at him.

"You need to stay down a little longer. If you try to get up now you'll just get dizzy and fall again, plus we still have to attach your arm. I can give you morphine after that."

She didn't make eye contact with him as she fed him a large ice chip to melt in his parched mouth, and quickly turned away to update his chart again. She was angry, mostly at herself. She shouldn't have left him alone, the whole incident could've been avoided if she'd only done her job properly and stayed at his bedside. Winry wasn't unfamiliar with how to handle disgruntled patients; automail surgery was agonizing and would bring out the worst in people. Normally it didn't get to her much, even if the patient got physical like Edward had, but the way he shouted at her. The menacing glare. She had only seen sweet and caring sides of him before then, and hadn't stopped to consider what the nerve reattachment could do to his personality. Not that it would've changed anything; the surgery was unavoidable considering the condition he was in. But being screamed at for drugs was something she knew well, and having it come from someone she had complicated feelings for only reminded her of her life 3 years prior.

She had been such a fool for so long, she wouldn't allow herself to fall victim to anyone ever again. That promise she'd made to herself kept the fiery anger burning in her chest when she thought of the woman's name tattooed on his body.

Edward wasn't sure if her sour expression came from sheer exhaustion or from him lashing out, but his curiosity peaked all the same in spite of the waves of pain that rolled through his body. Her body language had changed since the night before. She wasn't chipper and casual, she wasn't winking at him playfully to try and lift his mood. She was treating him like he was a stranger, someone who made her nervous for the wrong reasons. He could see it in her knit brow, her sad eyes, the way she bit her bottom lip in frustration as she scribbled notes on his chart. He wanted to know that she was okay, that THEY were okay. He wanted to look at her.

"Winry…"

She didn't look up from his chart. Ed shifted his body to carefully push himself up to a sitting position, and Winry didn't stop him that time because she was so focused on everything but him.

"Winry, look at me."

She still refused to look at him and instead gripped to the professionalism she'd cast away the night before.

"Ed, why didn't you say anything about the nerves in your shoulder?" Winry asked as she set down the chart and retrieved his arm from a nearby table. He watched her knowing it was time for reattachment, feeling the irritation radiate from her and in turn becoming irritated himself when the previous evening's events flooded back to him. Suddenly he couldn't wait for reattachment. As soon as his arm was on his body he would be out the door, but he would answer her questions first if it sped the process along.

"It wasn't super obvious at first. It felt almost like a phantom pain, so I chocked it up to that and let it be." Edward shot.

"How long ago? What did it feel like?"

Ed eased himself to lay down again when she approached with his arm and the tool he recognized as the driving force behind automail connection. She set the arm into the socket and prepared as he answered.

"Occasionally a deep, dull ache. Or a throbbing sensation. About two months ago it felt like..." His eyes wandered as he searched for proper descriptives. "It felt like... light brush strokes. Almost like a single, errant strand of hair feels when it skims across your skin, except the sensation was inside my shoulder."

Winry had to suppress the urge to grab her favorite wrench and clock him with it.

"That's nerve damage, Ed. You can't just ignore those kind of symptoms the way you can ignore a sneezing fit or dry skin. Any pain or tingling you feel on an automailed limb definitely means trouble, and ignoring it is like ignoring a flat tire. It only gets worse the more you drive on it."

She punctuated her statement with an angry yank on her tool, wrenching his arm back into the socket forcefully and causing Ed to holler and curse before snapping back at her.

"Fucking WARN ME! What kind of sadist are you?!"

Winry stopped before turning away from him and bit back,

"Oh you think I'm the sadist? I think we both know you've enjoyed playing with my emotions long enough."

Edward fought the urge to scream at her again. Sure, the last 24 hours had been shitty for both of them, but she'd started it by leaving him alone when she'd promised to be there. He had every right to his anger, what he didn't understand was why she was so pissed at him.

"Are you pissed off because of last night? Look, I'm sorry I freaked out but you have no idea what this shit feels like! You started this by not being there when you said you would!"

Winry grabbed his clothes and chucked them at him before stomping over.

"You wanna talk about not being there for someone?! Exactly how many women are waiting for you to be there for them?! I'm not gonna add my name to that list, Edward."

Ed's building anger surged his body to stand and he pulled his pants on as he geared up to yell back, but was rendered speechless when she pointed at the name on his ribcage.

"Instead of giving me excuses, why don't you explain to HER where you've been all this time?!"

Time slowed for a moment as Edward's wide-eyed gaze locked onto where Winry pointed, and his feelings for her washed away along with his manners as he looked back at her.

"…You bitch…"

Winry's jaw hit the floor as she watched a completely different person yank his shirt and boots on and literally throw a wad of cash at her before glaring at her with a fury she'd never witnessed in her life. She felt swallowed as he loomed over her, and fear squeezed her heart as Edward spoke quietly,

"Be at the studio tomorrow at 10 am. I don't give a fuck if you have plans, cancel them. I'm finishing your back tomorrow and then you get the hell out of my life."

Winry watched him storm out of the room and down the hall, but screeched to a halt when his eye caught the title of a book on a nearby shelf. Winry stood silently watching him as he approached the shelf behind the front counter and quietly whispered to himself something akin to "…it can't be" as he pulled the book from the shelf and opened to the inside back cover.

The blood drained from Ed's face and he snapped the book shut before raking a hand through his loose hair. He laughed, but not joyously. He laughed out of disbelief that his life could be that fucked up. That his luck could be just what it was. His laughter was distraught hysteria, and without so much as a backward glance toward Winry he tucked the book under his flesh arm and walked out leaving tears pouring down her face, as well as his.

Each pass of the needle over her skin was a fiery razor tearing at flesh, but Winry welcomed it because she knew each swipe brought her tattoo closer to completion and closer to the moment when she could tell Edward to go fuck himself and she'd never have to see him again. The thought of it made her want to cry. His anger for what happened during his procedure was justified, —she should've been there when he woke up. But it didn't excuse him lying to her about having a woman in his life. It didn't excuse him calling her a bitch and stealing from her. She'd strongly considered not returning to his studio, but her idiotic pride helped her find her way there with the hopes he'd at least apologize for the way things ended. She deserved an apology after he'd completely lost it over her comment about his tattoo, but Winry figured if he couldn't handle someone pointing out his faults then she didn't want him in her life anyway. She'd spent enough years being abused by her ex who believed himself to be perfect, she would NOT go down that path again.

Edward had made sure he was set up with gloves on and ready for her when a timid Sheska brought her to his station. His anger pulsated in waves that his employees hadn't seen before and they all did their best to stay out of his way. He didn't say so much as 'hello' to Winry when she entered his booth and removed her shirt; her fury completely bulldozing any self-consciousness she'd previously had for her scars. She didn't even care if Ed saw her naked chest at that point. She was so fed up with everything they'd been through trying to complete her stupid tattoo, and she was more than ready to move on with her life. The only thing that saddened her was while the tattoo would hide the evidence of what Frank Archer had done to her, the finished piece would be the reminder of what Edward Elric had done. Hours later when Edward finished, he peeled off his gloves to chuck them in the trash before calling to Envy to clear his station. His office door bore the weight of his rage as Edward stormed in and slammed it behind him, leaving a speechless Winry sitting with her bare chest still pressed to the chair back as she rolled her eyes, not terribly surprised by his actions. A large and tattooed visiting artist with white hair and dark glasses skidded to a stop when he'd witnessed Edward's behavior.

"What the hell is his problem?" Scar asked as he turned to Winry and handed her a towel to cover her front so she could stand. "He's never unprofessional like that, I'm very sorry."

"Don't worry about it," She said as she recalled her own lack of propriety back at the automail garage. "it's an eye for an eye I suppose."

Scar handed her a mirror and escorted her to the large framed mirror that leaned against the wall outside Edward's office, and as Winry turned to examine her back she gasped.

The scars were gone. She could hardly tell where they'd been to begin with. Replacing them were the massive blooms of cabbage roses and peonies -her late mother's favorite flower- and the beautiful shading that created the stunning depth and emphasized the detail of texture in every petal, on every bud, on every bloom, even the few that cascaded down the small of her back. Slowly the other artists began to notice from across the studio and whisper amongst each other, and Scar stood by Winry gazing at her back in the large, antique mirror.

"I don't know who you are, but you must be special if Edward put this much time and effort into flowers for you. He never does flowers for anyone, especially not in hyper-realism."

Winry fought back tears at the beauty of his work, but her euphoric moment of freedom was suddenly forgotten by a pressing question she'd been meaning to ask.

"What's the deal with Ed and flowers? How would this make me important to him? I'm honestly no one special."

Edward's office door yanked open at that moment and he appeared with an accusatory glare at his visiting artist.

"Don't you dare say a thing." Sharp golden eyes wandered the studio to briefly land on Sheska, Havoc, Envy, and Greed who was also visiting for the week as they watched him nervously. "If any of you say anything I'll fire you."

"That feels illegal, Ed." Havoc dead-panned from across the room. Edward glared at his friend before turning to Winry, who was too exhausted to even be embarrassed at that point. Ed had heard the exchange between her and Scar when he leaned against the wall of his office trying to calm himself.

"Are you happy with your tattoo?" He asked Winry, finally connecting eyes with her after what felt like forever due to his personal shame at how he'd spoken to her the night before. He was pissed at her, and he was pissed to find a book he'd spent years searching for just sitting on her shelf, but when he'd gotten home that night and stood under the hot shower he couldn't distinguish between water and furious tears as he thought of what he'd said to her. He wasn't raised to speak to women that way, and his beloved mother whom he'd lost at 9 years old would've been ashamed. The blue of her eyes was deep and clear like an evening sky and he saw the immediate change in how she carried herself; timidness gone, shoulders squared, looking back at him like she knew him better than he knew himself —as though she could predict his every move. Completely unafraid, Winry locked onto Ed's piercing eyes and stated very simply.

"It's beautiful. Thank you."

Standing there with a white towel clutched to her front and his artwork adorning her back, she was a new person in his eyes. She was the person he'd suspected had been hiding beneath her fear all along, and the completion of her tattoo had set her free. Edward knew he'd accomplished what he'd set out to do for her. The little voice rang clear like a bell in his mind and he had to fight tears —he'd healed her, and was stunned to find that in spite of how beautiful he'd always found her to be, she had never been more breathtaking than in that moment as the strong creature that stood before him, stubborn eyes locked on his increasing the pace of his pounding heart. It was no longer him making her nervous, she held all the power and she knew it.

If his staff weren't watching them, he would've ripped that towel away and kissed her hard, and let her shout every curse she knew at him while he lay on the shop floor and let her ride him like the horrible animal he was.

The air in the studio grew stagnant despite the bluesy rock music playing throughout, and the ringing phone on the front desk was a welcome distraction that pushed the staff back into normal activity. Edward turned to Scar.

"I'm okay now, thanks." Scar clapped his old apprentice on the shoulder and moved on toward the front of the studio leaving Edward and Winry alone. A sigh escaped the disgruntled artist and Winry breezed past him to straddle the chair in his booth again so he could bandage her, which he did carefully and silently before helping her up and watching her dress herself. Gathering the appropriate bills, Winry attempted to hand them to Edward but found him gently push it away with a shake of his head.

"No, just… don't worry about it." He said, still reeling from the actions of the night before and how easily she'd made him want to cower in shame without even trying. "Consider it payment for the book."

"Why did you take it?" Winry asked, pocketing her money gratefully with the knowledge she could use it to relocate. "I mean, I would've given it to you anyway if you'd just asked."

Edward shook his head angrily and breathed out. "I…I just can't tell you why. It's just so… …it's just too fucking hard to talk about."

"I wish you would tell me SOMETHING." Winry pressed. "I mean…. I told you EVERYTHING—"

"—It was wrong of me to force that from you. I'm sorry." Ed interjected, hoping it would drop the subject. It didn't.

"I'm fine now, really I am." She insisted with an earnest look, but it wouldn't sway his scowl and he stood with arms folded -the perfect picture of stress and frustration.

"Winry… yesterday was…" As he locked eyes with her again he found himself unable to find appropriate descriptives for what they'd done to one another at the automail garage, and he didn't bother to finish the sentence before saying that it would perhaps be better if they ended their association. Winry couldn't agree more, wanting to scold him for being a player but choosing not too; she'd gotten what she'd needed from him and was now being offered the chance to walk away without further issue. She would simply have to push aside the way her heart fluttered frantically at the thought of him, the way his smile made her smile in return, the way his smell sent waves of want through her for the first time in years. She would push out of her memory forever all the times he'd made her feel safe, all the times he'd shown up to protect her without even being asked. If he couldn't trust her enough to open up about who he really was and what was hurting him so much, then she couldn't give herself to him.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye then." Winry said softly, just above a whisper that sent Edwards eyes back to hers, not liking what he heard as it came from her lips. But he knew it was necessary. The weight of the moment's finality pressed heavy on them as they looked at each other, and again found themselves unsure of how to part. A handshake was too cold, a hug was too hard, a kiss would kill them both, and so he took her hand in his and raised it to his mouth, barely feathering his lips across her knuckles. Winry's heart squeezed horribly as she turned to go, unable to look back at him as she strode out the front door and down the stairs, only briefly noticing the distraught looks on the faces of Edward's fellow artists as Sheska hung up the phone with her hand to her heart. Edward dissapeared into the darkness of his office, closing the door behind him yet again to slide down the wall and sit in despair when the softest knocking sounded along with Sheska's shaky voice.

"Edward?"

"I need a minute please." He muttered, but she persisted.

"…Edward its an emergency…" Sheska said quietly. Ed noted the sadness and the nervousness, but not the urgency that would normally accompany a dire situation. The doorknob turned and he didn't try to stop his receptionist as she slowly opened the door ajar to look at him on the floor.

"What's wrong?" He asked, taking in her pale and fragile state.

"…That was Commissioner Mustang… Noah had an overdose. She passed away early this morning."

A/N: thank you all so much for sticking with me and for reading and reviewing. More soon, I promise.