Edward awoke to a throbbing pain in his lower stomach.

He reluctantly got out of bed as he remembered he had to go to school.

He looked in the mirror and saw that his left eye was still swollen from the night before. He sighed and went to the washroom to clean up. He had managed to clean off any dried blood and put a cold washcloth over his eyes to ease the swelling.

When he looked in the mirror again, he was crestfallen when he realized that you could easily see the bruising around his left eye. He sighed and decided he would let his bangs hang in his face to try to hide it.

He brushed his hair and put it in its normal braid, got dressed, and snuck downstairs. To his relief, his father wasn't downstairs and he was able to easily escape the household.

On his way to school, he passed the Rockbell house. Winry, the girl living there with her grandmother, Pinako, called his name from her balcony and waved.

Awkwardly waving back and agreeing to wait for her, Edward couldn't help but think of how she was the only person (besides his dad and Pinako) who knew about his automail limbs (she had made them, after all). He shrugged this off as Winry came running down her porch and stood beside him.

"Do you wanna walk to school together?" The blonde girl asked.

"Uh...sure, I guess," Edward had to look up to talk to Winry, because she was taller than he was. This bothered him.

The two teenagers' hike to the schoolhouse was rather awkward. Neither knew what to say to the other, although Winry occasionally asked him how his automail was holding up and if he oiled it recently, blah blah blah.

They were about three-quarters of the way there when Edward moved his bangs out of his face, because the wind was making it difficult to see with all his hair in his face. Winry did a double take when she saw Edward's bruised eye.

"Edward?"

"Yes?"

"Are you okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your...your eye," Winry gestured towards his black eye.

Edward quickly moved his bangs back in front of his face. "U-uh-...u-um nothing! Nothing at all!" He quickly said, giving Winry a forced smile, trying to signal to her that everything was a-okay.

"Are you sure? I mean it looked like you had a black eye—"

"I'm fine, Winry. I just tripped on my way home from school."

Winry huffed in frustration, and rolled her eyes at Edward.

Finally, they reached the schoolhouse.

"Well...see you after school, I guess," Edward broke the awkward silence between them.

"Yeah," Winry waved and headed to her seat. "See ya."

Edward walked to his seat and was surprised to see that his tormentors were standing by the door frame with smug looks on their faces. This

usually meant they had been up to something stupid.

Edward waited patiently for the teacher to arrive. When she did, she assigned physics homework, which Edward finished easily. He spotted the group of bullies in their seats, and watched them struggle with the first question. He smiled to himself, happy that he was at least better than them at something.

When school was finally over, Edward gathered his things and walked out of the single-room schoolhouse. It was finally the weekend. He was about to head home when he felt a hand on his left shoulder.

Thinking it was the gang of ruffians, Edward squirmed away from the touch and was about to run until-

"Edward?"

He turned and saw the hand on his shoulder was Winry, not the gang of thugs. He let loose a sigh of relief.

"Winry," Edward's shoulders relaxed. "Sorry, I thought you were someone else."

"You mean those bullies that always beat you up after school?" Winry asked. "I bet that's how you got your black eye. Not by 'tripping'." She put strong emphasis on the last word.

Edward gulped. He didn't think anyone else knew about what happened to him after school.

"Uh, yeah," Edward lied hesitantly. "That's... That's how I got a black eye."

Winry chuckled and playfully hit Edward's shoulder. Edward quickly jumped away from her on instinct, earning him a confused look from Winry.

"...Ed?"

"Sorry, I just," Edward struggled to find the correct words. "I...never mind."

They walked toward their houses in silence for a few moments, until Edward broke it.

"Hey, do you think you could... I don't know... Walk home from school with me more?"

Winry obviously took this question the wrong way because her cheeks were now tinted pink. Edward realized this and tried to save himself.

"No, I mean, no not like that. It's just, this is the first time I haven't been attacked after school. And I think it's because you were with me."

"Oh," Winry replied. Did she sound... Disappointed?

They arrived at the Automail shop and Winry said goodbye to Edward. Ed continued down the path to his house and checked his watch. He had two minutes.

"Shit," Edward mumbled to himself and ran down the path. He couldn't risk Winry getting suspicious again.

(A/N: Excuse you)

He finally made it to the Elric household and entered through the front door. Van Hohenheim was sitting with his leg crossed over the other on the couch, checking his watch.

Frantically, Edward checked the clock on the wall.

3:01

Edward panicked and backed away from his father, towards the stairs. Hohenheim slowly stood up, and pointed to the clock on the wall.

"Late for two days in a row," the man snarled and stepped toward his son. He began to unbuckle his belt as Edward watched in horror.

Edward whimpered when he hit a wall. He was trapped.

Hohenheim took his belt and folded it, preparing to use it as a whip.

"P-please dad, it was only a minute... Y-you don't have to d-do this...please," Edward pleaded with his father to stop, although he knew he couldn't change his mind.

Hohenheim raised the hand holding the belt and brought it down on Edward's (flesh and bone) arm. Edward gasped in pain and held his arm where he struck him. Hohenheim used this as an opening and whipped Edward's back causing him to yell in agony. He whipped Edward many more times, and it wasn't long until Edward's shirt was torn and his back was bleeding.

Hohenheim decided it was enough and wiped Edward's blood off his belt and readjusted it back onto his waist.

Edward's back stung like hell as he tried to hoist himself up the stairs. He pulled himself up with the guardrail, and put as much of his weight on the wall as he could manage when making his way toward his room. He limped over to his bed-side table, where he kept spare bandages. With some difficulty, as moving his arms caused pain to flare throughout his back, he managed to wrap up his wounds.

He threw his tattered shirt in the corner and went to bed. It was hard to get comfortable with his wounded back, but he managed to fall asleep, dreaming about the small sliver of freedom the weekend would give him.

Another chapter!

Now that we've gotten past the awkward backstory part, we can start getting into the fun stuff *rubs hands together and laughs evilly*

This was a shorter one… School is probably why.

I'll probably post longer chapters on the weekends, but I'll update as much as I can otherwise.

~Kayla