Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of their characters (any of the others are mine)
A/N: THIS IS THE FULL CHAPTER! I HAVE COMPLETED IT!
Ok... on with the story...
3 Days Later
"It's about damn time!" a very annoyed Edward exclaimed as Winry came walking in his room with a new automail leg.
"You better be glad it's here so soon! I spent two all-nighters making this for you!" the girl shot back.
"At least you're not sleeping with me," the bedridden boy muttered under his breath. However, Winry heard the comment and immediately started to blush wildly when the memory flashed through her mind.
Winry woke next to a very warm object and cuddled closer to it, not wanting to lose the heat that seemed to seep off of it. She was not expecting the object to move, however. Winry snapped her eyes open and found that the thing she was cuddling with was none other than Edward Elric. The girl gasped and leaped from the bed, causing Ed to jump awake, sitting straight up and alert, "What happened!? What's wrong!?" He quickly searched the room and became confused when nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Winry, wide-eyed and red, stared at Ed, "W-Why was I s-s-sl-sleeping with you? I-I mean in the same bed!" she barely managed to choke out in her frantic and embarrassed state.
A now furiously blushing Edward began to try to defend himself, "W-Well, you fell asleep and I couldn't exactly carry you to bed, and I'll be damned if I let anyone else take you to your room, so... I... I just.. let you sleep, and I-I guess I fell asleep too..."
Winry pushed the thought out of her mind while her cheeks became a light pink again, "I never wanted to, it just kinda happened, and it'll never happen again!" the girl said defiantly.
"Good! Let's just get this over with."
Winry smirked, "Just don't cry, ok?"
"Me? Cry? Ha! Please, in your dreams."
The young mechanic grinned while walking closer to the boy, "You never know. I've seen grown men cry 'cause of the pain."
"You forget. I've dealt with it before. Hurts like hell, but I know the pain... I deserve the pain," Ed drifted off on the last sentence, speaking to himself other than Winry.
Winry heard it, but decided it would be a topic for another time, "Are you ready?" she decided to ask instead.
Ed shrugged, "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess."
She sighed, preparing herself for whatever might occur in the next few minutes, as she slowly walked towards Edward, bringing her tools with her.
"You did change into shorts before I came, right?" she asked, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible.
He easily lifted his upper half out of the many pillows supporting him and kicked his legs around the bed, sitting on its edge. "Yeah," he simply stated.
"Ok, just try to be still," Winry told Ed, not wanting him to be in more pain than he needed to be in.
He nodded and Winry placed a stool in front of him the same height of the bed to connect the nerves. She had already finished everything that needed to be done, all I had to do was make sure it was in the right angle and height. Winry'd boiled it in hot water to disinfect during the night, so she knew it was clean, and all she had to do was connect the nerves, right?
Wrong.
She found it was hard to concentrate with Ed watching her every move. She didn't let that keep her from doing the task at hand, though. After a minute of him staring at her and her getting very frustrated at him, she looked up at him and aimed her wrench for his skull when she saw the distant look in his eyes that told her he was not looking at her so to speak but was rather deep in thought about something.
She sighed, knowing he was worried about his brother and wanted so badly to get him back. They had been so close, she thought that nothing could tear them apart, but alas, she was proven wrong.
She tried bringing Ed out of the state he was in by nudging him on the shoulder and the leg. He didn't seem to notice the girl's futile attempts to bring him out of his trance.
"Edward," she pleaded with him, and when she realized there was only one hope to wake him, she gulped, whispering, "I'm sorry. Please don't be mad at me."
Winry took a deep breath and connected the nerves, bringing out a half-yelp and half-grunt from the blonde boy. "What the hell, Winry?! Are you trying to kill me?!"
"Well, you were too busy in dreamland to tell you, so I had no choice but to just go ahead. By the way, how is it you don't scream or anything when the nerves are connected? Even the strongest of men I know at least yell," she asked, intrigued about the boy's reaction to her connecting the wires.
"It's not that surprising I don't scream like a little girl like other men do, I am stronger than most of them out there. And, to answer your other question, I was just thinking," his voice lowered almost to a whisper at the last part.
She leaned closer, trying to look straight in his eyes, but failing when he turned away, "We all miss him. You're not alone; he was close to me, too, even if I only knew him for a week and a half. I'm going to help you find him. We can do this; all you have to do is just trust me, and we will find him and get him back safely, no matter what, I promise." She focused her gaze on nothing but his beautiful golden eyes. They were so full of pain and sorrow that she had to restrain from crying herself. Winry took in a deep breath before continuing, "Please don't cry, Ed. I'm here and I swear I will help you in both getting through this and bringing him home."
She pulled him into her arms while he softly shook, hiding his face into the crook of his neck. He slowly brought his hand around her waist and held onto her like she was his only lifeline.
After a few minutes of holding on to each other while the boy cried and Winry tried to remain calm for him, the shakes settled and the tears slowed their decent. However, neither one let go, for they were scared that if they released, the tears would return.
They stayed in that position for a few more minutes when Winry finally, and somewhat reluctantly, pulled away, "I should probably go back to work on your arm, I suggest you rest a little. Your arm should be done tomorrow, so just wait until then and we can go back to the ship while you recover and to find Al, OK?"
He said nothing but simply nodded his understanding.
"Here. Let me put your arm in a sling and I'll let you rest." She brought out a long white piece of cloth from one of her many pockets in her worn-out light tan overalls and wrapped it under his armand gently reached around him to tie it at the back of his neck.
She gave Ed a gentle smile before turning to leave the room, but a hand catching her arm made her pause and look back around to see Ed watching her with a certain fire in his eyes. "You even hint one word of this to anyone at any time, you will be fish food, got it?"
Winry's eyes widened slightly and she nervously laughed while she agreed to his statement and promise that it wouldn't leave her mouth, and quickly left the room.
His gaze never left the door from which she escaped through.
He attempted to do what the girl instructed, but his thoughts turned to the girl with the long flowing blonde hair, gracefully pulled back into a high ponytail except for two pieces falling over her ears. He admired her beauty; the perfect curves of her figure, her perfectly toned arms that were so strong when she held him, her smile that never failed to leave his stomach doing backflips, but his favorite feature of this beautiful girl had to be her eyes. Her sky blue eyes that always looked at him with happiness and hope, instead of the fear and sadness he was used to.
The ones who didn't know him always feared him because of the stories they had heard, but the ones who did know him and his and Al's story always showed them pity and sorrow, but he hated it. He never wanted anyone's sympathy for the mistakes he made.
Instead of kindness, he expected fear to come from Winry's eyes, but none ever showed. He never once saw fear in her eyes directed towards him, except when they first met, and for some reason that was beyond him, it hurt to see fear in the girl's eyes. He vowed he never wanted to see that fear again.
Slowly, he fell into a deep sleep, dreaming about the girl with the long blonde hair.
After a few days, Edward was thankful Winry allowed him to walk around after a long argument ending with a wrench painfully launched in his skull. He winced at the memory of that long conversation.
"You are NOT going to go out walking by yourself!" Winry practically screamed to Edward.
The older blonde cringed from the level of volume and pitch coming from the girl.
He quickly recovered and shouted from his spot on the edge of the bed, "You can't boss me around!"
"I can and I will!" she leaned forward, giving more emphasis on her statement.
Ed leaned forward as well, "I'm the captain, and you're just my servant, so I out rank you, meaning you can't!"
"Maybe so, but when it comes to automail, I know more than you and I know that if you try walking by yourself, you're just gonna hurt yourself! You need to think about these things, alchemy geek!"
"Automail freak!"
"Jerk!"
"Tomboy!"
"Pipsqueak!"
"WHO'RE YOU CALLING SHORT?!"
By now, the two were inches away from each other, noses almost touching. Both were near the point of growling when Winry suddenly pulled out a wrench, seemingly out of nowhere, and slammed it down on his head.
The boy coward in fear, holding his now bleeding head. "Ow! Ow! Ow! What the hell, Winry?!"
Said girl sighed and simply said before turning and leaving to her makeshift workshop, "Go ahead and take the stupid walk and hurt yourself. See if I care."
Rubbing his still sore head, Ed sighed, realizing that the pain would stay there for a while longer.
After a moment, his mind transferred to his now metal right shoulder. They had done the surgery to attach the port the day before, and it hurt like hell. Winry told him that it was best to attach the limb after about a day, so she had to finish the arm soon.
Ed was glad to be able to get his arm back; it was a pain to try to do anything other than walk.
While his mind was still on his arm, he accidentally ran into the blue-eyed beauty. "Sorry," both apologized before Winry immediately started dragging him by his remaining hand towards the room again. "Come on, I just finished your arm. I was wanting to connect it as soon as possible, if that's ok with you?" she finished, turning to face a red Edward.
"Uh... Yeah... Sure..." Edward agreed, crimson. 'Why am I always so jumpy around her? I've been around hundreds of girls before and I never acted like this! Maybe it's just because she's my friend. Yeah, that must be it. That has to be it. But friends don't feel this way towards other friends! Ugh! This is stupid! Why am I acting like this?'
Winry smiled brighter while continuing to pull him into the room. Unknown to her, a pair of moderately dark golden eyes stared at the back of her head.
Edward sat there, shirtless, on his bed, watching a focused Winry work on his automail. His internal war with himself had been plaguing him since Winry had told him his arm was ready. He watched the concentrating girl absentmindedly, thinking of how he had lost his arm saving her and how he would do it a thousand times more if it kept her alive, but he had no idea why. He had never even looked twice towards a girl and now he was obsessing over this one. He didn't know what, but something was keeping her on his mind and pulling him to her, and it was really starting to irritate him.
Winry was just about to tell him she was ready to connect the nerves when she noticed his beautiful golden eyes watching her every move.
She blushed lightly before stuttering, "Umm... A-Are you ready?"
He snapped out of his dream state and turned away, blushing heavily, steeling himself for the upcoming pain, and nodded.
Winry turned back to the automail, readying herself to connect to nerves, and began counting down, "Three..."
Ed took a deep breath
"Two..."
He gritted his teeth.
"One..."
Suddenly, excruciating pain rippled through his body.
A muffled groan escaped his lips, his whole body stiffened, and after a moment it dulled, leaving a ghostly pain of the agony.
"Damn, I hate that. It's always the worst part," Ed complained, voice lined with pain.
Winry helped him lay back down on the bed. careful not to cause him more pain in his right side.
"Ok, sense it's your first time having an automail arm, don't use it for a while. Keep pressure off it for at least a month, or until it heals. Then you can start therapy on it," Winry informed him, going through the process that has long-since been burned in her head.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, but how long until I have complete control over my arm?" Ed asked.
"The minimum time is two years," she simply stated, half paying attention.
"TWO YEARS?!" he bolt upright, grunting from the pain shooting through his body from the sudden movement.
Winry jumped at his volume, trying to push him back down on the bed. However, he refused, so she then switched to propping him up against pillows, allowing him to stay comfortable, and also be able to look at her. "Yes, two years. You have to give your body time to get used to the new arm," she soothed him.
Edward, however, was not satisfied with her reasoning. "I'll do it in half a year," he stated determinedly.
Winry deadpanned, "You've go to be kidding. You're not serious, right?"
The alchemist's determined eyes never left his expression as he stared into blue irises.
Winry instantly began laughing, startling the other teen.
"What's so damn funny?!" Ed yelled.
"You," she replied simply, "You're insane if you think you can be in complete control in half a year!"
"I have to!"
"Look I know you're worried about Al. We all are, but you'll seriously hurt yourself if you do that," she tried to reason with him.
"I don't care! I'll kill myself before I let Al get hurt!"
"Why are you doing this?" tears began to form in her eyes.
"I'm keeping a promise," he stared straight into her eyes, starting to feel bad about making her cry.
"To who?" she choked out, trying no to allow the water to fall.
Ed's head dropped, covering his beautiful eyes with his golden bangs. His voice was so small so that Winry had to strain to hear, but what she did hear, she instantly felt pain for the boy on the bed.
"My mom."
A/N: Please forgive me for the wait, I've been busy. I'm going to take a break for a while, I have too many extra-curricular things to do. I'm sorry... :(
Chapter 6: Back Stories