I'll throw my voice into the stars and maybe the echo of my words will be written for you in the clouds by sunrise.
All I am trying to say is:
I will love you through the darkness.
-Christopher Poindexter
Low murmuring voices pulled me to the surface. I could hear, but I couldn't move or speak or even open my eyes. The heart moniter beeped softly, a steady metronome amongst the hushed whisperings. Everything ached. My entire body seemed to whine in protest of my conciousness, my head pounded, and my mouth was dry as the sahara. The muffled voices began to slowly come clear.
"...can be arranged, if it's what you really want. I'm not saying it's an easy life, but it's managable. With proper therapy- "
"-Absolutly not. Out of the question."
I knew these voices. It was Roy Mustang and Edward.
"You're not giving yourself enough credit. You saved her life."
"She nearly died because of me."
"You can't shoulder all the guilt for this. You were following orders, we all were. Nobody could have seen this coming. There was no way to avoid this. You have to accept that and be grateful you were able to stop it before it cost you everything." Mustang spoke in a manner I'd never heard before. Gone was the towering authority, replaced with the calmness of sage wisdom and the softness of family speaking to family. I heard a shuddering intake of air.
"What if it already cost me everything?" Edward asked, his voice cracking. "It's been two days, why isn't she waking up?"
Mustang's voice became muffled and fell away from me as I surrendered to exhaustion.
The fuzziness began to clear again, and I was met with the hysterical voice of my Grandmother.
"...personally responsible! This is an absolute outrage! Where is he? Where is that bastard Alchemist of yours who failed to do his job?!"
"Mrs. Rockbell please, if you would only calm down for a moment we-"
"Calm down?! My Granddaughter is stalked, kidnapped, beaten, drained of blood within an inch of her life, and you want me to be calm? You all need to get your heads out of your asses!"
"Mrs. Rockbell?" My heart sank at the sound of Edward's voice, wary and defeated and so unlike him. I could hear Riza in the room as well, taking the tongue lashing from my Grandmother.
"Edward what are you doing here? You haven't recovered yet, does Dr. Marcoh know you're here?" Her question went unanswered.
"You." My Grandmother started. "Are you the soldier who was supposed to be gaurding my Granddaughter?" The room grew quiet except for the beeping of the heart moniter.
"Yes." He answered bleakly.
"If you weren't such a tall drink of water I'd reach up there and knock you into next week you irrisponsible, good-for-nothing, son of a bitch!"
"Mrs. Rockbell that's quite enough!" Riza yelled. My head returned to its throbbing thanks to all my Grandmother's yelling, and I began to drift in and out of Riza's stern voice reasoning,
"This most likely would have happened wether Ed was involved or not. It's thanks to him that Winry is still with us, and ... ...more than his own safety... ...not his fault..."
Wetness dripped on my hand. I remained immobile as my mind climbed out of the abyss once more, unaware of the time or date, if I was alone or in the presence of others. The usual noisy hustle and bustle that accompanied the daytime was noticeably absent, replaced with stark quiet and a lack of movement from my surroundings. I suddenly realized my hand was folded between cold and warmth, and warm beads continued to roll over my skin.
"I'm so sorry." He croaked. "For everything."
I screamed at my body to move. Twitch a finger, blink an eye, do something for God's sake. But alas, I remained stationary. The mattress dipped as I felt him shift to sit beside me, and warm lips pressed themselves to my forehead.
"It has to be this way. For your own good."
And he was gone.
My eyes finally fluttered open to sunlight pouring through venetian blinds. Looking around I saw that I'd been hooked up to not only a heart moniter, but various machines dedicated to monitering my other organs and and two IVs: one giving me nutrients, the other giving me blood. Roy Mustang sat in a chair against the wall at the foot of my hospital bed, looking horrible. Dark circles, day-old stubble, his wild black hair even more wild than usual.
"Welcome back." He said. His military uniform jacket lay folded over the empty chair beside him and his white shirt was sloppily pushed to his elbows and open at the collar. He looked like he'd been running from the law. My inability to hide my stare wasn't lost on him.
"If you think I look bad, you should see Edward." Riza walked in at that moment and came to my bedside with a plastic cup full of ice chips. It was amazing how she always seemed to know exactly what a person needed. She spooned one out and fed it to me.
"You can't have anything to drink yet, but these are okay. We'll take it slow." Nothing in the world had felt as good as that ice melting in my dry mouth. Riza continued to feed me chips while Mustang spoke.
"If you're wondering, Edward's okay. He's a mess, but he'll be alright. He's worried about you." He turned to Riza as if I wasn't there and added, "You'd think he'd listen to me when I told him 50 goddamn times that she'd be fine." He rolled his eyes drammatically and Riza sent him a look.
"Cut him some slack. Remember when I was in this hospital after taking that bullet back in '07?" She turned back to me and smiled. "He paced outside my room wringing his hands nervously for days. Even though he'd been told more than once I'd be perfectly fine and home by the weekend." This earned a smile from me. The first one in what felt like forever. I finally found my voice, albeit a weak one and said,
"Can I see him?" Riza moved to sit next to the General.
"Not yet," He responded. "You're still recovering and so is he."
"He's recovering? Did he get hurt?" I tried to recall what had happened after Ed killed Bradley but came up empty. Roy and Riza cast eachother a quick glance.
"He took a bullet to the shoulder but he's fine." She said. "However, his mental state is fragile. He's been spending hours with his therapist everyday." I bit back a gasp and pushed down my rising panic at the thought of him being shot.
"His therapist?" I asked. Riza cast Mustang another worried glance, and he gave her a small nod to proceed. Clearly I was tip-toeing on a sensitive subject.
"He's been seeing a therapist regularly for years." Riza explained. "Edward's had a difficult life, therapy helps keeps his head above water. But it's obvious that he's seriously relapsed considering he attacked you."
I had nearly forgotten about that.
"Yes, he did. But I don't think he meant to. Something was wrong with him."
"Edward hasn't had a violent outburst from his nightmares in, well years if I had to guess." Mustang interjected. "They've always been triggered by prolonged periods of intense emotional distress. I didn't want Edward to be the one watching over you because I was afraid of him becoming too emotionally involved and becoming a danger to you and ultimately himself. Make no mistake, I would trust Ed with my own life, but we all care about you Winry and I knew if he ever met you, he'd grow to love you just as the rest of us have." His dark eyes flickered towards the window on-looking the nurse's station and I followed his gaze to find the smiling faces of Hughes, Havoc, Breada, Jessica, Feury and Sheska looking in on me.
It was then that I finally realized what Ed had been trying to help me see all along. I wasn't alone. I was never alone and I would never be alone. I had family in my Grandmother, who at 76 wasn't afraid to mouth off to an assassin in my defense. I had friends in the soldiers at Central, who took me in and watched me grow and gave me the tools to cure sicknesses. And I had love in Edward Elric, who became the first person I could truly open up to. The person who went the furthest out of his way to make me comfortable and secure. He never missed an opportunity to empower me, to help me face a fear, to catch me whenever I would fall. He helped me believe I could become the person I'd always wanted to be. Riza's voice brought me back to the room.
"I know how much you care about Ed. Just know that he's okay and understand that it will be awhile before you can see him, if that's what he wants."
"What he wants?"
Riza steeled herself before answering, and it made me fear what her reply would be. She looked back at me with wet eyes.
"There's a chance that Edward may not be able to see you again. Ever." She said softly. Roy slid his hand under hers and ran his thumb across her knuckles, completely unconcerned by my presence in the room. I had never seen Riza get emotional. And I never knew that she and the General were so involved. His small gesture of comfort was far too intimate to be an occurrence between 'just friends'. Anxiety swept through me when her words finally registered.
"I don't understand. What are you saying?" Mustang saved Riza the discomfort of having to continue and answered for her.
"We're not sure Ed can handle being around you. There's no doubt in our minds he cares deeply for you. He's never broken so many rules and and he's never disobeyed so many orders until he met you. When he was ordered away from your apartment I sent him to Finland to look into something important as a way to keep him busy; I didn't want him pre-occupied with what was happening with you, no offense. I needed his head on straight if he had any hope of doing his job and keeping you safe, but he completely sacked the mission when he started getting pictures of you sleeping. He's never sabotaged a mission before, knowing full well that such behavior is a great way to get court marshalled. You're like family to us Winry, and I wanted someone else gaurding you because any other soldier would have been sent in with orders to succeed in keeping you safe at any cost, even if it meant sacrificing their own life. But when the order came in to send Fullmetal to you, the situation changed. State Alchemists aren't like other soldiers. They aren't ordered to succeed at all costs. They're ordered to SURVIVE at all costs. Because there are so few of them and their skills are so valueable, the military has been known to abort a mission and try again later if it meant they could save an Alchemist. Edward was told by Bradley himself that if things got really bad, he was to get out and leave you to die."
Riza sat forward and quickly interjected, "Please believe we were never okay with that Winry. We wanted someone watching you who would have orders to keep you alive no matter what. That's why Edward wasn't supposed to be there."
"Edward put himself in immense danger by going after you." Roy continued. "He completely shattered protocol by jumping off your apartment building's roof and running into gunfire to get to you. He took several bullets in his false limbs along with the one that got his left shoulder. He also went against his orders in the warehouse where King Bradley was draining you. When we moved in, I had instructed him to wait for the opportune moment to incapacitate Bradley and his men and shut down the operation. But I could barely hold him back during Bradley's psychotic monologue, and when we watched your head get slammed into the floor he went ballistic and slaughtered everyone, putting his life at risk yet again despite his orders."
This was information overload.
"Edward is dangerous, Winry. He's a danger not only to you, but to himself when emotionally comprimised. He attacked you in his sleep because he spent days going out of his mind thinking you were dead and the stress made him relive his past in his nightmares. He has an incredibly dangerous job that victimized you as a way to get to him, and who's to say that couldn't happen again? You've managed to emotionally comprimise him more than anyone he's ever encountered. You're both adults and we can't tell you what to do, we're just warning you that he may not be willing to see you ever again if it means risking your safety. You need to prepare for that likely possibility."
Mustang's warning felt like a sledge hammer to the chest. He was right. Edward and I could never be together because even though I was willing to put myself at risk, Ed would never allow it. I recalled the sound of his broken voice, telling me how sorry he was and holding my hand, kissing my forehead. Telling me that it had to be this way. He wasn't coming back. He would make sure we never saw eachother again. Riza had the good sense to usher herself and Roy to the doorway when my tears started to fall. She looked back at me from the doorway.
"I want to be alone, please." I said through the lump in my throat. Her eyes swam again and she turned away as a tear fell. I watched Roy put an arm around her and motion his team to disperse as they left. Finally alone, I curled myself on my aching side and wept knowing that Edward wouldn't be coming to find me. But my devastation was cut short by a thought. He cried. He CRIED. He wept when he told me goodbye. He didn't want to leave me, same as before when he held me in my apartment and insisted that he never wanted to leave me to go to Finland. Same as when we sat in front of my fire place while he rattled off like a maniac about not getting too close before insisting that I was stuck with him, like it or not. He was a rule breaker. He didn't follow orders when it came to me. I found a tiny glimmer of hope in the thought that If I could find him, if I could see him just for a moment, his resolve would snap and he wouldn't be able to stay away. I had so many questions, I was so worried about him. I would not allow him to vanish from my life, because I knew that deep down, he didn't really want to leave.
A/N: There's a lot of information here, and more secrets to be revealed very soon, along with some surprising behavior. Thanks for hanging in there, your support and reviews mean the world to me.