Tree
She climbs all the way up the huge ancient tree in their front garden, compulsively, in the spur of the moment. Sitting balanced between a large bough, as wide as her waist, and the gnarled trunk, she picks pieces of bark from the branches around her and watches them fall onto the dry grass below. She collects leaves in the palm of her hand, one leg slung over the solid wooden limb beneath her, and squints up at the sky through the foliage, simply enjoying the height of the vantage point, and the breeze on her face.
When, a number of minutes later, he walks out of the front door and gazes around with a confused expression, obviously wondering where she has gone, she flings a handful of leaves at him.
He looks up and around blindly as they flutter down around him, and only realises where she is when he hears her giggle from the branches of the tree above his head.
He stares at her. "What are you doing up there?"
She shrugs, "I don't know," she says. "I wanted to see whether I could climb it."
He blinks.
"It's nice up here," she says, gazing around. "It's like being a kid again."
He looks blankly at her for a moment- and then suddenly moves towards the tree and swings his leg over one of the lower branches.
"It's not as hard at it looks," she calls down to him, shifting around so that she can watch his ascent. "There's a big knot, slightly to your right, see? You can step on that."
He finds it quickly, and within a few minutes he is sitting breathless on the branch beside her, looking around in delight.
They sit in silence for a while, high above the ground, watching leaves fall in dizzying spirals to the lawn below them. But soon, inevitably, their attention turns to each other; she wraps both arms around his neck and turns her face up with a smile, and their kiss is long and deep.
After a while- neither of them can say whether it is seconds, minutes or even hours- there is a loud crash. Startled, they break apart and stare as a very angry Edward Elric sticks his head out of one of the windows.
"Oi!" he yells. "Cut that out! I can see you, you know."
"Don't look, then," Winry replies coolly- although Al, at least, has the decency to blush.
Ed sputters for a minute or so; Winry raises an eyebrow, crosses her legs, and waits for his coherency to return.
"Don't look?!" Ed manages eventually. "You're right outside my bedroom window!"
There is a short pause.
"Sorry, Brother."
"What are you doing in your bedroom at this time, anyway?" Winry asks innocently.
"Studying, what do you think?" he snaps, and he pulls his head back inside and slams the window.
Mournfully, they begin to climb down once again, both rendered strangely silent. They cannot complain about Ed's irrational demands, as they usually would have, because today his behaviour has been disarmingly reasonable.
"It really is nice up there," Al comments once they are standing on solid ground once again.
"Hmmm."
He stands for a moment gazing up into the foliage, as if memorizing the patterns of the leaves-
- and Winry is standing close beside him, and her hands are running down the inside of his arm and over his fingers, and her lips are at his ear.
"This evening, once it's got dark. Ed will have closed his curtains by then, right?
Author's notes: The good news is that my exams are now over, so I have more time to write and update.
The bad news is that soon I'll have exams again.
But for now, I'm going to work hard on this series! I want to show it more love.