I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
- Galileo

My heart pounded in my chest as I watched the numbers above the door climb slowly. The soft ping and stopping of the elevator informed me of my arrival on the 7th floor. The doors opened and I stepped out into the foyer that expanded into an airy great room. Polished hard-wood floors met matte taupe walls that climbed 30 feet at their peak to meet white cathedral ceilings. I was transfixed by industrial shelves and tables molded from raw woods and wrought irons accenting the buttery lushness of warm brown leather club chairs and the coarse kanvas stretched over cusions into tufts on a long, charcoal sofa. The dust of everyday living, or perhaps the lack-there-of, floated in the air suspended by the golden beams of sunlight that poured into the apartment from the skylights, and criss-crossing exposed wooden beams painted glowing geometrics on every surface. I was so absorbed by the rustic beauty of my surroundings that I completely forgot the reason I even came. And then I heard him.

"What are you doing here?"

My stomach flipped and I whirled around. There he was. He had a way of making those low-riding charcoal sweats I loved and a fitted, short-sleeve black tee shirt look like luxury items. Flesh and metal arms were folded, his brow knit in a stern manner, and his golden eyes carried their usual piercing assertiveness. Slightly taken aback by his unexpected query, I responded,

"Are you alright? I never heard from you. Its been weeks and I've been worried. Have you been here all along?"

"I'm fine." he tersly replied. Something was wrong with him. He was different. Colder. "Even though all your problems have been solved, it's still bedlam here. I've been busy." Confusion and worry were conjuring inside me. Why was he acting this way? He continued to stare me down as I crossed the room swiftly to be closer to him.

"What's going on? Are you not feeling well? Why are you treating me like this?"

"Like what?"

"Like you did when we first met!" I exclaimed. "I've been worried about you for weeks wondering if you were alright. I'm not eating, I'm not sleeping, all I can think about is getting to you. And now that I'm here it's like you don't even know me." My eyes fell from his to the floor as my throat began to tighten. I heard him breathe out a sigh and he placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Winry I apreciate you coming here, but I don't need you to check on me. What I need is for you to take better care of yourself. I know you're not in my charge anymore, but Mustang will have my head if something happens to you that I can prevent. I need you to move on with your life and forget about me."

My head snapped up. His hand dropped to his side. The hardened look is his eyes held a coldness that he had never excersized on me before. Dread creeped slowly into my chest and twisted its way toward my stomach like murky fog, and tears welled.

"How can you say that?" I quaked, "Have you completely forgotten about what we went through? You said I was important to you! You said you would always be here for me, and now you're sending me away?"

"This is how it has to be. I do care about you, but you need to go back to your normal life. A life without me in it." He reasoned. My throat continued to tighten and I couldn't keep the tears back. Reaching up I held his face in my hands and coaxed him to look at me in a desperate attempt to see what he was thinking. His amber orbs revealed nothing to me. The wall that we had chipped away at for months before finally toppeling over had suddenly been rebuilt. My lip quivered.

"How can I go back to my normal life? I never had a normal life! You showed me that!" I wailed. "I was a husk of a girl, living an existance that I thought would be fufilling until you showed me that's all I was doing. EXISTING. Not living." I stood on tip toes to rest my forehead against his as my eyes shut in sudden exhaustion. "You showed me the possibility of a life I never thought I could have." I pleaded quietly, "If you dissapear, I'll never truly live again." I felt him gently push me away and he shook his head in frustration.

"For your own good, just go away." His words slammed into me and my hand flew to my mouth. Fear, anger and agonizing sadness were raging at eachother in my soul. Anger won.

"Were you LYING when you said that I was important to you? That you cared about me?!" I wailed bitterly. "I don't care about your automail, or your past, or your job, I care about YOU!" Fire sparked in his eyes at this, and he began to unravel.

"Winry I'm losing my patience, get out of my apartment." He damanded. I wasn't leaving. I continued to sob.

"I don't give a damn about what's easy, and I don't care how many times some asshole threatens my life. Even during our worst times I still felt safe with you. I've never been happier than I am with you. I love you Edward!" He stepped to me and gripped me hard by my upper arms, jostling me in anger.

"YOU SAW WHAT HAPPENED!" he roared at me, fire raging in his eyes. "I strangled you in my sleep! I slaughtered dozens of men in front of you! I EVISCERATED King Bradley without a second thought! It was easy! Ripping his throat out was like breaking a fucking toothpick and I did it without a drop of remorse."

My eyes squeezed shut, my heart unable to bear the weight of this agony, and my voice cracked amidst my sobs. "You were protecting me."

"I WAS GETTING REVENGE! I'm angry, and impulsive, and I'm driven by pure hatred. I'm not capable of controlling myself. I'm a perfect assasin because its what the government built me to be! Winry, killing is the only thing I'm good at. I'm a monster. I will KILL you if I lose control. Don't give me that opportunity. LEAVE NOW!" His heavy breathing blew bursts of warmth into my face and my already fragile state began to melt where it had already crumbled. The onslaught was unbearable. Fresh tears spilled as I softly replied,

"Tell me you don't love me." He released me and took a step back. His eyes widened a fraction for a split second before his hardened, stoic expression returned.

"Enough is enough Winry, stop torturing yourself." I focused my glassy cerulean gaze back at him and clenched my shaking fists at my sides in determination.

"Edward, tell me you don't love me."

"Jesus Christ..." he muttered to himself, hand at his hip and pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked back at me with black fire in his eyes, and I knew then that it was over. "Don't come up here ever again. Don't call me, don't ask about me, and don't come looking for me because I'm going to spend the rest of my life staying away from you. You don't hold any special place in my heart, you're Mustang's miserable little lab rat to stick all his needles in and I was simply protecting a multi-million dollar government investment. You were a job. A contract. I've finished my job and now have no reason to see you ever again. I don't love you Winry. Now GO!."

My blood ran cold. Misery clawed her cruel hands around my heart and dragged me down to the crushing depths of her black ocean. My hand flew to my mouth in a feeble attempt to comfort the tightening in my throat from the new wave of despair. I raked my hands through my hair, waiting for the walls to break away and for me to wake up from this horrific nightmare. Except that wasn't happening, and I was melting down. I turned and ran, leaving the ear-splitting sounds of glass shattering off the wall and Edward's raging curses behind me.

I burst through the door to the stairwell and raced down the stairs as swiftly as my liquifying legs would bring me. Between the tear-blurred vision, my weak knees, and my shattered heart, I simply couldn't take another step. I stopped on the fifth floor landing, leaned against the wall, and completely gave in to my heart-wrenching, heaving sobs. I was so deep in my turmoil that I didn't hear the uneven footsteps racing down the stairs behind me. I was suddenly turned around and crushed against a warm, hard body. Strong arms of warm flesh and cold metal held me desperately, one supporting my weak body with the other cradling my head and I felt Ed's hot mouth all over me. Pressing his lips over my own, and my closed eyes, my tear-stained face, full and slow, pouring out muttered 'I love you's', hoping every contact would lessen the sting of the horrible things he'd said as he whispered over and over,

"Forgive me. Winry, forgive me."

My head was throbbing from the stress of being reduced to a sad puddle, and I had no strength to fight him off when he scooped me up and climbed the stairs back up to his apartment. My tears had stopped but my breath still hitched in small, shuddering gaps as I tried to slow my heart rate, with no luck. We entered the great room once again and headed toward the hall when I snapped out of it, thinking to myself,

'This is some real BULLSHIT.'

"Put me down." I mewed, struggling to break free as his grip on me only tightened. "Let me go!" He ignored me and continued past the kitchen and down the hall into his bedroom.

"You jerk put me down NOW!" I yelled, pushing myself out of his arms to stand on my own wobbly legs. I swiped any remaining wetness from my face and glared at him as I moved to walk past him. No way was I sticking around. He blocked his bedroom doorway.

"I'm sorry, don't leave. We need to talk about this." I swear my eyes nearly bugged out of my head.

"NOW you want to talk?! Fuck OFF, Elric!" Bravo Winry, let him have it. "Get out of my way."

"I can't let you leave, not like this. Please let me explain and if you still wanna go I won't stop you. I didn't mean what I said, I swear it." I ducked under his arm braced against the door frame and strode past him, towards the greatroom. He followed after me.

"You don't need to explain anything, Edward. Roy already told me all about you." I stopped my crusade for the stairwell door when I heard his uneven footfalls halt suddenly. Shit. I sighed and turned.

"I already told you, your past has no effect on my opinion of you. But this behavior? This borderline, split-personality? I don't know what to make of it. You can't say what you just said to me and expect me to stick around and hear you out. It's bullshit, Ed." I waited. I could tell he was scared. If he wanted me to be a part of his life, in any fashion, he had to say the right thing, right now. Otherwise, good riddance.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

"Remember when we were in the shower, and I said that you scared me? I knew what I wanted, and I knew there would be consequences, but I didn't care. I told you I was afraid of you, and afraid of what would happen afterwards. But I didn't tell you when I started being afraid."

I stared blankly, waiting for him to make his point.

"I've been freaking out inside for a long time over you. You know that I've been a mess about this, going back and forth. Saying one thing and doing the opposite. All I've ever known is the job: I've always had my orders and I've never had an issue accomplishing a task, even if I had to break rules to make it happen. But now, for the first time in my life I've been struggling between what's allowed, what's right, what's easy, and ultimately what I want. Because they're all different things."

"You're not making sense!" I barked impatiently. My throat was betraying me once again with it's building tightness. I silently ordered myself to not cry infront of him again. He stepped to me again and took my hand.

"I know I'm not. I'm sorry. I've never done this before." I averted my eyes, too angry to look at him, but he laced his fingers through my hair and brought me back to meet his gaze. "I didn't mean what I said before. Not a word of it. I was pushing you away because it's easier to live my life alone if I know that I'm not endangering you. It's pretty selfish of me to beg for your understanding after everything I've done to you. But I can't let you leave without knowing the truth."

"What truth?" I asked.

"That you're not just a job to me. You never have been. The day I walked into Mustang's office and saw you was the day I went live, and it terrified me. I pushed you away because of how I felt, knowing that it's against policy for us to be together -not to mention completely dangerous- and that you wouldn't possibly want anything to do with me if you knew what I really was. And I got angrier at you because you just wouldn't stop being so damn ...enticing." No wonder he was such a crab half the time. His words were hypnotizing me, capturing me with a passionate honesty so unlike the Edward I'd known.

"I lied when I said you held no place in my heart; until I met you I thought I didn't have one. You've managed to fill up every inch of it." I had thought for sure he'd killed every one of the butterflies in my stomach, but they began to stir softly in time with the thumping of my cautious heart. I was hopeful, but not a fool.

"Edward, what are you trying to tell me?" I asked, stepping closer to him. "Stop thinking about what you're supposed to do or supposed to say. You told me to take control of my life, now I'm telling you to do the same. Tell me what you really want." He took a breath to steady himself and gazed back at me.

"You know what I want, but it's not fair for me to ask this of you. We're both playing with fire here, and I..." He sighed sadly, and gathered me into his arms. "...It's just too dangerous to have me in your life." I was almost ready to start crying again when an thought hit me, and I pulled back to look at Ed.

"What if it doesn't have to be?"

His bedroom was dark grey walls and plush white carpeting. Minimalist, utilitarian black furnishings kept most personal belongings hiddens, and we were in a King size bed surrounded by the high thread count Egyptian cotton I'd grown to miss almost as much as the man it smelled like. He had attacked me with a passionate desperation very different from the first time we'd done this dance. The first time he was fast and hard, pleasure almost punishing. A hungry wolf, taking his prey, satisfying a long-built appetite, grinning wickedly as I gave myself over completely and he devoured me to quench his thirst and sate his starvation. This time his passion was far more controlled, very careful not to call attention to healing wounds, basking in the relief of forgiveness and urgently conveying his adoration. I was divine goddess, slowly savored with expert precision and gratuitously worshipped; a rare treasure he had no difficulty showing his devotion to before sliding in to take his claim. The unhurried siphoning as he pumped from pools thought to be forbidden to him, divulging in the gluttenous feast he had self-disciplined to indulge in one delicous taste at a time as I slowly starved on the other end, the want growing tighter and tighter in my belly. I grabbed him and pulled him flush against me, nearly all his weight pressing me into the mattress and driving him deliciously deeper in me, where he belonged.

"Faster. Now." I gasped.

"Your wounds."

"Minor. Take me faster now."

I panted loudly as he angled himself, and obeyed goddess divine's demands.

I awoke to sunlight glowing through the blinds and stretched lazily in bed. Without reaching for my phone on the floor I knew there would be missed texts from my grandmother, asking if I'd stayed at my apartment last night. I untwisted myself from the sheets and sat up, to find the bed empty next to me. My heart dropped. He had fled again. I jumped up and pulled the sheet around myself as I tiptoed down the hall toward the great room only to be met with the sound of the tv, but no Edward. I didn't have time to be angry or hurt because a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind.

"There she is." He planted a kiss on my bare shoulder. I smiled in relief and turned to meet him. It was like seeing a new person. Heavy alertness gone, the rigid tension and weighted soul of a soldier with PTSD significantly lightened. He looked... happy.

"You thought I bailed again. It was only to get breakfast; the bodega on the corner makes some of the best." He handed me a styrofoam cup of coffee and showed me over to the couch. He was in yesterday's sweats and wrinkled tshirt, unshowered, unshaved, with messy just-been-fucked hair and grinned at me like a cheshire cat when I settled in with his bed sheet billowed around me. He handed me a blueberry muffin -my favorite- from a brown paper bag and reached back in for banana nut.

"I raised more than a few sets of eyebrows this morning when I walked through Central with breakfast for two." He said laughing. I blushed madly.

"Cat's out of the bag, I guess."

"Well," He paused, taking a swig from his coffee. "We won't be sticking around here for long. By the time we get back, I'm hoping the shock will have blown over."

I stopped chewing.

"Back from where?" I gulped. He grinned again and said,

"That's your call. I've got a small plane on standby, ready to go wherever we want, whenever we want. I've never taken a vacation in my life, and you've never left New York. I think one of the best ways to make sure I'm not a danger to you, is to make sure my head's in a good place. Making you happy makes me happy in return." He leaned close and stroked my cheek with his thumb.

"Now, where can I take you?"

A/N: I hope you all loved this chapter as much as I do. We're in the home stretch, but there's a couple more surprises up my sleeve. Stay with me.