Author's Note: To anyone who started reading this twelve years ago, I am beyond grateful to see you come back and continue after so long. I owe everyone an explanation and an apology. Last everyone knew, I had been going through a divorce and had moved back home where I did not have internet access or the will to continue working on this story. I have been remarried for nearly ten years now, and my husband is a saint since in those ten years, I have become a shadow of the person that I was before, due to illness. I was diagnosed with five autoimmune diseases, insulin resistance, and a multitude of food allergies, and I have spent this decade being sent to every specialist under the sun and lost much of my self-sufficiency in the process.
Without my husband, I would have given up, and at times, even with him, I wanted to. I am not healed by any means, however, I have been feeling more mentally capable than I had in years prior, so I have been in the process of turning some of my fanfictions into original stories. I would like to do that with this when I am done, as well. I had always pictured this as a three-part AU, but everyone who has ever read, liked, followed and reviewed deserves an ending, and so with that in mind, I am going to be working on this intermittently as I am able, to give any remaining readers that closure before doing a rewrite to hopefully self-publish. I can never apologize enough for my extended absence, and to anyone who has read all of this, thank you for caring enough to do so.
AN2: I have recently read through every chapter and there are many issues that I found within; typos, grammatical errors and other embarrassing mistakes, but hopefully that can be ignored for now while I work on moving forward, though I am going back and working on editing prior chapters.
Ed was unnerved the moment Winry opened the door and he saw her desolate expression and the dried tear tracks on her cheeks. His stomach was roiling in worry as he followed her into the living room and set her coffee on the small table beside him. Her movements were wooden and perfunctory as she made her way to the chair next to the couch, where he had sat down.
He needed to know what had happened in the short time that he was gone, and he was fairly certain she wasn't going to offer it without him broaching whatever was on her mind. "Winry, did something happen while I was gone?" trepidation was obvious in his voice, but he attempted to seem calm despite this.
Her sapphire eyes seemed dull and void of life as she turned to face him. "I went to the library." He waited for her to say more, but it became obvious that he would have to pull every word from her, which made him wonder if someone had hurt her or if maybe that little shit who had tried to assault her last year had come back and harassed her.
Worry creased his forehead, and he looked directly into her eyes and asked, "Did someone hurt you?"
"Yes." It was one solitary word, and yet it held so much weight that he was nearly crushed under it. He couldn't take her detachment or the space between them, so he moved from the couch to kneel before her and took her hands into his as he searched her face for answers that weren't coming.
"Win, please tell me what happened, I don't know how to help you without knowing." he beseeched her. He squeezed her hand with his flesh one in encouragement.
"It was you." she rasped out. He jerked back as if slapped, and then really took her in... she was a shadow of herself. There was none of the spark that he loved so much. He felt instantly sick; he knew that she had learned the truth. She knew the truth and had somehow found out from someone that wasn't him. Fuck.
Not doing her the disservice of prevaricating to any degree, he replied hollowly, "Yes, it was me." What else could he say? He knew that this day would come. He had actively avoided it for completely valid reasons, even before meeting her. There was no way that he could ever repair the damage he had done to her. At least with Al, there was a chance that someday he would find something to help him regain the use of his legs, but there was no way to replace what he had caused Winry to lose. He should never have allowed himself to get close to her. He knew that it would only crush them both in the end. "How did you find out?" Not that it really mattered at this point. He had known and hadn't told her in all of this time.
"I saw archival newspapers at the library. I was looking up an article that Sheska read about my grandmother...and then I found an article with pictures of the wreck and details about what both of my parents suffered, along with the people in the other vehicle. The names of the occupants were familiar, but it wasn't until I saw the picture of you, Von Hohenheim, who I am now assuming is your father, and my grandmother that it all seemed to come together," a single tear slipped down her lovely face and he damned himself to every hell for the hurt he had caused her. "Did all of you know who I was this whole time?"
Swallowing thickly, he nodded then stated, "I suspected after I saw your last name on the seating chart when you were in Biology, but I know that Alphonse did not realize until the night that you and Sheska had discussed the article about your grandma and by then he had already considered you a friend. As for Mustang, he knew after a conversation that I had with him and as to my father, I am not sure, though I would imagine he put it together immediately as he had been friends with Pinako before..." he let the sentence trail off, feeling incapable of finishing it with her.
"And is this why you wanted nothing to do with me?" The bluntness of her question made his chest physically hurt. If he were being honest with himself, he had been drawn to her from the first moment he met her, even when she referred to him as 'miss' and didn't back down from telling him that he was an asshole.
Absently rubbing his chest over his heart, he answered truthfully, "Despite our initial interaction, I found myself overtly aware of you and curious, which has never happened to me with anyone. When I saw your name on the seating chart, I knew even if I was attracted to you and even if you weren't my student, there was nothing good that could come from me forming an attachment to you, for your sake or for mine, so I tried to keep my distance from you. I didn't have the heart to tell Al that it would be better for him to do the same because I ruined his life and had no right to dictate to him. I have hurt enough people in this life, and I did not want to hurt you even more than I already had, whether you knew or not. For what it is worth, I hate myself for all of my failures, especially for being too scared to tell you before you found out this way. I know you will never believe me, but I had every intention of telling you today; I couldn't take knowing that I hadn't been forthright about our connection, more so after last night, which as wonderful as it was, shouldn't have happened without you knowing everything first. You deserved to have all of the information, and I am sorry, Winry." his chest practically heaved by the time he was done speaking, but he wasn't done, "I know there is no way to give you back what was taken from you and I have no right to burden you with anything more, but I love you...I am in love with you and I know it is the most selfish thing to tell you this and hope that you can somehow love me back even knowing all of this, but I can't change the way I feel. You have every part of me that counts, and all I want is to earn your love in return, if you will let me." his shoulders drooped as he breathed out the last words in supplication.
Her silvery blonde bangs had fallen to shade her eyes, so he didn't have a clear view of her expression, but the set of her mouth was grim, not leaving much hope for him and the next words out of her mouth made that clear, "I need for you to leave." He stared at her hopelessly and debated arguing with her, though he had the sick feeling that nothing he could say was going to fix things. Fix. What a laughable word for something irreplaceable. As if there was anything that could replace her parents. Feeling utterly defeated, he pushed up from her floor slowly, praying that some space would somehow bring them back together.
"Winry, I just want you to know that I am sorrier than you will ever know and -."
She terminated his words with her own, "Ed, just leave, please." She caught her lower lip between her teeth and for a second, he thought that she would finally cry or react in some way besides the strange detachment he had seen, but her expression became steely, and she waited for him to follow her direction.
He exhaled heavily and began to walk to her door. As he turned to leave, he said one last thing, "Al loves you too, you know. Please don't shut him out, even if you never want to see me again." And with that, he closed the door behind him. He had known all along that to love her would be self destruction, but he couldn't help being tethered by her, maybe he always had been, and all of this loss and grief was the culmination of that. Maybe loving her and never being able to keep her was how he was actually meant to pay for his sins but even knowing that he would lose her wasn't enough to make him regret it.
Winry was beyond bone tired. While she had presented an icy exterior when Ed had been there, it was a quickly crumbling facade. The revelations of the day were too much for her, and she was vacillating between falling apart again and completely shutting down. She needed to divorce herself from her emotions for the moment because she had so much on her plate.
She was starting her new schedule for the semester on Monday, which included labs and clinicals, and that was all aside from her ramped-up hours that she had been taking on at The Complex, and the one day weekly that she was still scheduled at The Dark Horse. She was well beyond her mental and physical max and was close to her breaking point.
At least she had the small miracle of having just finished her classes with Edward. She honestly didn't think she would have been able to handle being in the same room with him for any amount of time until she sorted through her feelings. She also wouldn't have any classes with Al or Sheska this semester, which would make avoiding them easier, though there was her work at The Complex with Hohenheim to consider.
Her feelings were a study of dualities; on one hand she could see that Ed had made every effort to avoid her and warn her off, but she felt utterly betrayed that everyone else had known the sordid truth, excluding Sheska, possibly. Winry had read the article which had disclosed the events surrounding the accident and knew that the witness, who she was guessing was Alphonse, had stated that Edward hadn't been driving recklessly, but that a small child ran out into the street and he swerved to avoid hitting her and while that action lead to the gruesome death of her parents, it did indeed seem to be a horrible accident.
She wasn't without empathy; she knew the brothers well enough to know that they had both faced plenty of hardship in the aftermath of everything, but she couldn't help feeling the suffocating sense of anger and heartbreak once she knew exactly how much her parents had truly suffered before their deaths. How could she possibly have a relationship with the man who had inadvertently killed them? How could she possibly love the man who had taken her virginity without disclosing this to her? She felt broken and betrayed, naive and lost... and even worse, she felt needy, needy because as much as she hated herself for it, she was still in love with Edward even knowing and feeling all of this, which made her feel like she was dishonoring her love for her parents.
Winry also couldn't help but love Alphonse. He was about as pure hearted as they came, and she knew he didn't have a bad bone in his body. So how could she cut him from her life, especially if her research and development could give him the ability to walk again? He was her best friend, and he deserved that opportunity, but again, she couldn't understand why he hadn't told her. She could hazard a guess that it was because of his brother, but did that excuse the omission?
And Von, who she had grown to look at in a familial way, had also kept his connection to everyone from her, though she was unsure if that was for his own sake since she was feeding him second-hand updates about his estranged sons, or if he had too much to gain from her research and he was only feigning friendliness with her to move forward with Alphonse being first in the trials... Though possibly he was concerned that she would tell Ed or Al of her work with him. It was hard to say, but she wanted to believe that he genuinely liked and respected her, especially since apparently Pinako and him had also been friends.
Which led her to another train of thought. Why had her granny installed Ed's automail after the accident? Had she been able to forgive the elder Elric? She couldn't see Pinako doing the install and having to spend so much time with someone that she didn't want to help, even if Hohenheim was a friend of hers. Her granny was no push over. She wished more than anything that Pinako was still alive so she could call her and get her take on all of this. If she had still been alive, this whole situation likely would have played out differently to begin with, but ifs and maybes were nothing to waste her time on and she desperately needed to pull herself together before facing everything on Monday.
For now, she was going to work around her house so that she would be too busy to think about the pictures she had seen of her parent's vehicle and the graphic descriptions of their burning agony. For now, she had to put the haunted look on Ed's face when she told him to leave out of her mind, because if she focused on that, she was scared to think just what she would be willing to forgive to erase it from his stricken face.
When she finally drug herself from bed the next morning, she felt bruised and achy everywhere. She overdid it yesterday. Actually, overdone was putting it mildly; she had torn apart each of her rooms, dusting baseboards and fans, washing walls and windows, sweeping, and scouring floors. She tossed out old food storage lids, organized drawers, set aside clothes and linens for donation, and color coordinated her whole closet. On the positive side, her house had never looked better, so there was that, but now she didn't know what she would work on to keep herself occupied today. Maybe she would go get a coffee and drop by The Dark Horse and check out their newest books and see if anyone wanted the day off. Sitting at home by herself with nothing to do wasn't how she wanted to spend her last day before going back to school.
Recently on Sundays, the Elrics, Sheska and herself would get brunch and catch a movie, or sometimes they would visit with Roy and Riza or watch football since Sheska was a much bigger fan than they had all guessed. Winry had to stop herself from laughing at the thought, though she found herself immediately saddened knowing that that wouldn't be the case today, and possibly not again.
She wondered if Edward had told Alphonse that she knew. She wondered if he was thinking of her at all or if he was going to excise her from his mind and heart. She hadn't forgotten that he had told her that he was in love with her. She had felt simultaneously elated and nauseated. If he had told her the night before, there wouldn't have been a moment more treasured to her, but now even that revelation was tainted with pain. All of the turmoil that they had experienced the whole of their relationship could not be normal or healthy, not that she had a watermark to go by considering this had been her first one, but still, when she compared it Al and Sheska or Roy and Riza, she felt like theirs was mired in heartache. Part of her even wondered if it was some sort of tragic karmic energy from all of the loss surrounding their convergence. She couldn't stop the thought before it slipped into her mind but dismissed it immediately. She couldn't let herself get caught in these thoughts or she would drown. She needed to leave the house and get out of her head.
She had gotten her coffee without incident, though if she were honest with herself, she had half expected to see a flash of honey because it had felt like someone was watching her as she ordered and waited for her drink. The sad part was that there was a piece of her that was disappointed that this wasn't the case. Sighing quietly, she made her way to The Dark Horse and wondered who would be working this afternoon.
When she walked in, she didn't immediately see anyone, but after a second, the telltale spray of blonde hair flipped up in a clip told her that Riza was here. As she rounded the corner, her eyes widened as they took Winry in.
"Winry, are you doing alright?" There was an air of concern in her voice, so she wondered if maybe she didn't look as put together as she had originally thought. Grimacing, she debated word vomiting everything to her right there and then.
"I've been better, I was actually coming in to see if anyone wanted the day off today." Riza stared at her levelly and seemed to be mentally coming to her own deductions. Now that she thought about it, she would guess that her coworker also had some idea of the connection that she only learned of yesterday. As if working out the same conclusion and realizing that Winry must need something to distract her, the russet eyed woman nodded once.
"Actually, that would be a welcome surprise, I have been wanting to get to the shooting range, so I would appreciate it." Riza said as she started picking up the tip that was on the table beside her.
"Oh, it is no problem at all. You are really doing me a favor, so thank you." she mustered the best smile that she could, though she could sense that Riza knew that it was put upon.
"Jean will be in at six to take over, and I'm going to clean up my tables that left a few minutes ago. If you want to talk when you get off work, give me a call, and we can meet up, okay?"
For a moment, Winry almost cracked. Her throat tightened, and she had to collect herself before she answered, "Thanks, Riza." and this time, her smile was real. She was grateful that Riza wasn't the pushy type and could understand needing to work through things on her own terms. She went to the employee area in the back to put on her work shirt and apron, stopping by the restroom on her way back out to give herself a quick once over.
Her eyes were stormy and forlorn. She looked as barren as she felt. Taking a minute to pull her hair into a tight bun, she turned on the faucet and ran cold water. Scooping up a few handfuls of water, she splashed her cheeks and tried to release some of the tension that she knew was evident on her face. Drying her hands, she pulled out her lip balm and smoothed it over her dry lips, then headed out on the floor to start her shift.
When Jean came in, Winry realized how quickly the day had sped by without her even registering it. The sky outside the large wall of windows was a perfect warm golden hue, and she did her side work by them so that she could appreciate how beautiful it was. As she was finishing up, she saw Sheska walking up to the entrance and her stomach gave a weak flip at the thought that maybe she was coming in with Alphonse, though she was heading in at a breakneck pace, so she doubted that was the case. The door opened noisily, and she turned to Winry wide-eyed in her oversized glasses.
"I am so glad that I found you! I came from your house, are you leaving soon?" Sheska's tone seemed pinched and worried. Hopefully, everything was okay. She wasn't sure how much more that she could take.
"I just finished up my side work. Let me grab my bag, and I'll meet you outside unless you are meeting Al-."
Sheska quickly cut that thought off, "No, I am not, I wanted to talk to you about, well, actually, if you aren't busy, can we go to your house?" Winry had an idea where the conversation was headed, and she wasn't sure that she was ready to have it with anyone, but she was concerned about how stressed her friend looked.
"Of course, I'll grab my stuff so we can head there now." Finally, the brunette seemed to let out a relieved breath, so she went to pick up her purse and say goodbye to Jean before heading outside.
They were mostly quiet on the short walk to her house, and she hoped whatever she had to say wasn't going to crush her. They walked up to her door, and she let Sheska inside. As soon as they entered her living room and she set her bag down, Sheska started wringing her hands.
"Winry, I don't even know how to bring all of this up. I have always been socially awkward, and I have never made friends easily. From the first time we talked, you accepted me exactly as I am without ever making me feel like I don't belong because of this. When I saw Al today and found out secondhand what had happened, I was so worried that you would think that I had known about everything and didn't tell you." her voice quivered and Winry walked over and pulled her onto the couch to sit beside her, but Sheska continued, "I would never do that and I am so upset with Alphonse for not at least being open about it with you. I have never pushed him to discuss what caused the incomplete paraplegia, thinking that it must have been something traumatizing and that he would tell me when he felt more secure in our relationship, but when I found out what happened today, I- I am just so sorry and I promise that I would have told you, regardless of my relationship with Al." There were tears streaking down her cheeks and while she hated seeing her so upset, Winry was relieved to hear that at least one person hadn't known the whole time and was either not going to say anything or wait for everything to implode. She hated seeing anyone cry, and she couldn't help enveloping her in a large hug.
"Hey, everything is okay," she soothed, "Well, maybe not everything, but it is with you and me, and it means the world to me that you care so much about my feelings. I am lucky to have such a good friend. Also, you are totally not awkward at all, and if you are, then I am too, so there's no judgment here." At this statement, Sheska let out a little, stuffy nosed laugh.
"You shouldn't be trying to make me feel better when I can only imagine how you must be feeling right now. Are you okay?" Winry let her go and took a deep breath.
"Honestly, no." Pausing before she continued, she tried to gather herself because she was precariously close to finally letting her losses swallow her whole. "I have been living in the state of avoidance, though it likely won't hold. I love him, Sheska, I love him, and I feel so blind and betrayed that he didn't tell me himself. How could he listen to me cry over my family and not tell me? How could he make love to me..." the words choked out around tears, but she continued, "and not say one word before?" She couldn't keep herself together anymore, the tears streaked hotly down her cheeks and she fought to get a full breath. She felt like she had used up all of the air in the room and she was going to pass out. Sheska reached for her then and wrapped her up in her arms and tried to soothe her, but her sobs only intensified around incoherent words lost to emotion.
She cried for her parents, who knew too much pain in their last moments in this world. She cried for her best friend, who had lost most of his mobility. She cried for the man who had been a boy and made a mistake that had hurt them all, but mostly she cried because it had changed everything, and it had changed nothing. Her parents were still gone; Edward had accidentally killed them, and she was still in love with him.
Sheska had stayed over, and they had ended up talking and eating junk food until much too late, but she was grateful that she had a friend who cared enough to let her work through her emotions and not judge her once. She had even found out that her friend had walked out after inadvertently hearing the brothers discussing everything and she had confronted Alphonse about not telling either of them. While she was glad that Sheska had spoken up for her, she didn't want them to have a difficult time on her account and she said as much to her, though Sheska had seemed adamant that their communication needed work and left it at that. They mostly kept their conversation light after she had broken down, but right before bed when they were in the darkened room and had gone silent, she hadn't been able to help herself when she asked, "How did he seem?"
Not needing Winry to specify who she meant, Sheska had paused for a moment before answering, "Truthfully, he seemed completely destroyed." Neither one of them said anything else as the words sat heavily on her chest.
Standing outside of The Complex, Winry was nearly nauseous with nerves. Her first day of the new semester had been a rush from the moment she opened her eyes. Sheska and her sharing a bathroom that morning had been a novelty that she hadn't expected since she had never grown up with siblings. They had stopped at the diner and grabbed coffee before they went their separate directions for the day and promised to catch up later in the week. Her first shift for clinicals had gone by in a blur of activity and before she knew it, she was there, contemplating her life choices and debating not going in to meet with Von. Sighing, she knew that there were a lot of things that she could avoid, but she was not the type to run from a challenge and she wouldn't do so now. Squaring her shoulders, she pulled out her badge and pressed it against the sensor to grant her access and walked in.
Once she got to the lab, she saw Von was deeply engrossed in his work, so she watched him unnoticed from the glass door. The tense set of his shoulders was much like his eldest son and his hair was exactly what Ed's hair would look like in forty years, bright golden blonde with some lighter gray strands, enough that she hadn't initially realized the relation, though really the eyes should have been the giveaway. Despite wearing glasses, Von had the exact same hue of butterscotch eyes as Edward. She was an idiot, how had she not put the familial resemblance together?
Walking through the door, she braced herself to discuss things with him. "Hello Von."
"Oh, good afternoon, Winry, how was your first day in your second semester?" he asked congenially, with a crinkling of his eyes.
"It was busy, but it will likely teach me a lot in the long term...How did you know my grandmother, Pinako Rockbell?" His eyes cut directly from his work to her, and he pushed away from his desk letting out a large gust of air as he took in her expression.
"We have a lot to discuss today, don't we?"
She stared blankly at him. "Yes, we do."
"Well, make yourself comfortable then, I'll tell you anything you want to know." Motioning to the chair in front of him, she took a seat.
"You seem like you were waiting for this conversation." She stated baldly.
"I was, I debated bringing up our connection myself, but I was hoping that my son would finally open up to you without my interference. As you know, we haven't spoken in some time, not that I wouldn't like that, but the last thing I wanted to do was create a larger wedge between us." Winry nodded as she could understand that logic.
"Edward was not the one to tell me about the accident." She was coming across coldly, and she knew that, but she felt like she couldn't pull her wall down without ending up in tears again.
"That is..." his voice trailed off as he searched for the right word, "unfortunate. I had high hopes that he would tell you. I am truly sorry, Winry. As to how I knew your grandmother, as unlikely as it may seem, we were actually drinking buddies. Pinako could put away more than most of the men I know." The last words were said with a sad little chuckle.
"Did you contact her about crafting Ed's automail?" Winry asked with curiosity evident in her tone.
"Surprisingly, no, I did not. Though I would have had she not offered... in the way that she offers most things, without a real choice, more a forgone conclusion, if you will. You might have noticed that Edward is quite obstinate, and he had decided, for a time, that he didn't deserve or want to get better. Your grandmother was much of the reason for the turnaround in his attitude. She reminded him that he still had much good to offer the world and if he was set on atonement, he could better achieve that on two strong legs, literally and figuratively speaking." She knew her Granny well and could picture that plainly, but what she couldn't make fit was her knowing that he was the cause of the accident and being at a place where she could help him and not having conflicting feelings about doing so, or maybe she was superimposing her own thoughts onto everything. Hohenheim continued speaking then.
"I can imagine, reasonably so, that you have a myriad of emotions and thoughts about the loss of your parents and Edward's part in it. I know that I have not been through what you have, but I have experienced the loss of a loved one as well and I can say this; no matter how they are taken from us, we feel cheated, angry and empty. I know I did, but I hope that you can take this from my mistakes; when we wall ourselves off from hurt, we may stave off temporary pain, only to find we have missed out on everything that makes life worthwhile. I lost my sons in my grief; I implore you to not let yours take everything meaningful from you. And I say this with as little bias as possible, I love my son, but only you can decide if you are able to or even want to forgive him. Whatever you choose, you have to live with it and regret is a heavy burden to bear that I do not wish for you. As for your work with me, I can understand if you no longer want to go forward with it, though it would be a true loss, not just for myself and my family and for the medical world at large, but because you can see that your whole heart is invested in this. You have worked diligently and deserve to see your seeds of inspiration bear fruit." She was stunned silent; it was a lot to take in at one time and she had barely begun to process things as it was. "I've given you a lot to absorb and I would like for you to take a few days to ruminate on everything and be sure of how you would like to move forward. Regardless of what you choose, you will have my utmost respect, and I will happily give you an excellent reference, though if I am honest, this old man would also miss having you around and not just for your intelligence." With a somber smile, he reached over and patted the back of her hand, and she stood to leave.
"I appreciate you being candid with me and I will carefully consider all that you have said. I will come back on Wednesday with my decision. Also, since we are speaking openly, maybe now is a good time for you to start living a life that is worthwhile again and even if you face rejection, keep making yourself available to him, I mean them." Her cheeks heated at the unintentional slip, but she ignored it.
"I think you had it right the first time and maybe that same compassion will help guide you to where you are meant to be." Nodding her head in response, she headed back out of the glass doors and headed home.
AN3: Okay, I'm having a moment over sharing my first chapter in years, I hope it isn't terrible and that you guys liked it. Please let me know what you think and feel free to yell at me for my absence, it is more than acceptable LOL.