Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Automail Heart ❯ Part 2 ( Chapter 2 )

 

"What do you mean Ed and Al are coming back?" Winry's yells echoed throughout the Rockbell residence, even startling the usually docile Den.

 

"Does it surprise you? Pinako asked her. "After all, you are Ed's mechanic. There's no reason for him to go to anyone else."

 

Winry muttered some choice words about Ed's uncanny sense of horrible timing under her breath. Normally she wanted to see him, and got quite irritated when he stayed away for so long, without so much as a phone call or a letter to let them know he was still in one piece. Even though it was inevitable, did he have to pick right now to come back and see her?

 

Not one to be defeated, and in her own sheer stubbornness, Winry began frantically looking through her wardrobe for something that might help conceal her new body. She didn't have much luck.

 

"Don't I own anything decent?" she yelled in frustration. Den whined, lowering his head and moving into another room.

 

When the doorbell rang that afternoon, Winry was the one who was insistent on answering it. If she didn't keep up her stereotypical attitude, Ed would grow suspicious. A quick visit, get his automail looked at, and he would be off on his way again and she didn't have to seal with hiding anything until they met again in a few weeks, or months, or however long it would take him to revisit. Her body made a different sound as it moved across the floor, but in comparison to the clamoring Al made whenever he moved, it should go unnoticed, so she hoped.

 

Winry breathed deeply before opening the door. Even as she swung it open to meet his eyes, she still found herself fidgeting nervously. It was strange seeing him - as if he had grown up several years, though it had only been a short time since they last saw each other.

 

Ed's eyes caught interest when he saw her as well. She was sporting a long-sleeved jacket, work gloves, her usual pants and boots, and her bandana was tied as a scarf around her neck as opposed to its usual position of holding her hair back.

 

"Winry," Ed said with a smile. Aside from the clothing change, there was something different about her, but he couldn't quite place what it was. "You look… good."

 

"Oh, you think so?" Winry said with the best of her characteristic smile she could muster. "Thanks." She glanced over at Al. She was fairly sure she had the boy's older brother fooled, but Al was much harder to read nowadays. He was quiet and kept his thoughts to himself until he was good and ready to get them out. And in the meantime, reading his facial expressions was impossible.

 

"So, you guys got anything to eat?" Ed inquired, changing the topic and breaking the silence. "I'm starving."

 

"You come all the way just to eat up our food?" Winry said smiling. "Ed, you should be ashamed of yourself."

 

Nevertheless she led to the two boys into the house for a well-deserved home cooked meal. Al and Ed sat at one end, with herself and her grandmother at the other. As long as she kept up the cheerful façade and stayed far enough distance away for them not to notice anything, it all went smoothly. At least, going smoothly until.... "Aren't you warm in that, Winry?" The usually quiet Al finally spoke up about halfway through the meal, throwing Winry a bit of a curveball.

 

"Warm in what, this?" she asked, indicating the long sleeve shirt. "Not really, why do you ask?"

 

"Well, Brother's wearing short sleeves, which he hardly ever does and they said on the radio the temperature was unusually hot for this time of year."

 

Nervously, Winry looked down at a biscuit on her plate she hadn't touched. It had been her intention to build a system into the automail until that could store food, making it appear that the person was eating, even if they couldn't do anything with the food. That was before she had to put it into action much earlier than expected. "I just like to do something different," she said. At that point, even Ed started to give her odd looks.

 

"Doesn't sound like you," he muttered, his mouth still halfway full of food. He swallowed what he had in his mouth and looked her over more carefully. The way he was scrutinizing her made Winry nervous.

 

"Have you even touched your food either?" Ed finally asked.

 

"What is this, twenty questions? I'm just not that hungry, that's all," Winry replied, standing up from the table. "And I did eat some, you just didn't notice." With that, she took up the plate and scraped the leftovers into the trash.

 

But Ed's eyes continued to follow her like a cat watching its prey, knowing its attack full well but saving it for the worst possible moment.

 

"So Winry," he said, bending his face down so that his bangs covered his eyes. "How long how you had your automail installed for?"

 

Winry froze on the spot, the dishes loose in her hands. The top dish slipped out and ht the ground with a loud clash, but since it was only made of metal, there was no damage done.

 

"That's not an unreasonable question, is it?" Ed asked. "I mean, you've been working with automail patients since you were a little girl. Surely something like the fact that you're wearing it yourself now wouldn't embarrass you, would it?"

 

There was sharp anger in his voice, and a bit of sarcasm for good measure. It made since - they'd shared secrets since their childhood. But how had he figured it out?

 

"The knuckle joints are squeaky," he said bluntly, as if he could read her mind. "Especially when they're first installed, right? So how long has this been, a week? Two weeks?"

 

"Drop it, Ed, I don't feel like talking about it," she snapped, not particularly caring to be read like an open book by him.

 

"Yeah? And maybe I do," Ed said, sharply standing up and causing the table legs to quiver a bit. "If you think you're going to give me some lousy excuse about being embarrassed about it, it's not happening."

 

Winry turned to leave, but as she did, Ed caught hold of her arm. If he had grabbed her with his automail arm., it probably wouldn't have matter, but when he touched her with his flesh and blood, she knew all too well, there was no way to argue herself out of this predicament. Ed's eyes widened when he first made the connection.

 

"The left arm too?" he asked. "But I was sure it was the right that I heard..." Winry wasn't about to let Ed stand there and figure out more than he already had. She took advantage of the shock part to pull out of his grasp and make a run for her room.

 

"Winry!" Ed called out just as she slammed the door. He cursed under his breath and started to go after her, but Winry's grandmother laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

 

"Be calm, Ed, please. She's been though a lot." Ed looked at the old woman who had done so much for him, gathered his breath, and nodded. Then he started walking towards Winry's room. It hadn't really changed much since they were little kids, running up and down these hallways, with Al in tow. Only now they were older, and more exposed to the harsh realities of the world.

 

Ed knocked lightly on the door before going in.

 

"Winry," he said quietly. "It's me. Can I come in?"

 

"I know it's you Ed, I'm not stupid," she snapped back. Ed sighed and took that as as much of a welcoming in as he was going to get. Slowly he opened the door. Winry was sprawled out on her bed, with her arms curled under the pillow.

 

Ed sat down next to he. His first instinct was to reach out and touch her, but considering her last reaction, he didn't think she would appreciate that too much. Even so, he couldn't let go of a bit of anger that she actually though she could pull something like this over on him.

 

"You must figure I'm pretty dense," he said, half serious, half not. "I mean, me of all people should notice an automail limb, right?"

 

In response, Winry shot Ed a look that could've pierced glass. "Ed, you are dense," she informed him. "You don't even have half a clue."

 

"I think I have enough," Ed said, now becoming more annoyed than sympathetic. "You're the one who always says that an automail limb is nothing to be ashamed of, but now you have one yourself, and you're trying to hide it from me and my brother. What happened, Winry? Was it an accident while you were working, or..?"

 

"It was nothing like that!" Winry snapped again. "Trust me, you wouldn't understand."

 

"You think this is something I wouldn't understand?!" Ed yelled, as if determined to match his tone with hers. "I have an arm and leg ripped off while I'm trying to save Al and you think I don't know what this is like?!"

 

"You haven't had the fossil disease, though have you?!" Winry yelled. At this, Ed gasped and stared at her in disbelief.

 

"You.. didn't.." he muttered out.

 

"I had to do this or I would've died Winry explained, turning her face away. "And I didn't want you to know.. because… actually, I'm not sure what I was thinking. I just thought things would be easier, I guess."

 

Ed looked down at the floor. They had played on it many times when they were young. As a matter of fact, if memory served, he had done his first transmutation for Winry right here in this room.

 

"You must've caught it early then," he said. "Most of the patients we saw… they… well, amputation wouldn't have helped them at their state, let me tell you that. The disease spreads like a fire."

 

"I know," Winry said. "And before you know it, everything's consumed." She sighed and shook her head. "Ed, remember that one time I told you that you were an idiot?"

 

"What one time? You tell me that on a daily basis."

 

Daily was a bit extreme, Winry thought to herself, but it was an irrelevant point now. "Ed, I wouldn't have been so upset about just needing one automail limb, you know?"

 

"I know - you lost two. We established that already," Ed replied.

 

"It's more than that," Winry said, gripping the bottom of her shirt. Instinctively, Ed turned away, blushing madly in the process. But when he realized that it was her intention to show him something important and that Winry of all people, was not going to show him anything she didn't want him to see, he slowly and cautiously turned around.

 

The turtleneck and scarf were off. Instead, Winry was wearing her usual black shirt strapped around her chest. Only now...

 

"W-Winry," he stuttered, staring down at her in disbelief. It was her same figure but every inch of her, like his arm, was covered by metal. Or rather, he had a sinking feeling telling him, the figure itself was metal.

 

"It's the same on my lower body too," she quickly explained. "Like you said, the disease spreads like a fire. There was nothing to stop it. Guess I deserve the title 'full metal' more than you do now, huh?"

 

"How did you even accomplish this?" Ed finally managed to ask, ignoring her pathetic joke. "There's no possible way you could have survived without alch..." He glanced up at her face again. "Sensei," he said bluntly. That name explained it all. There was a moment before Winry spoke again.

 

"Izumi's been very kind," she said quietly. "At first, I didn't want to ask her, I knew how hard it would be on her."

 

"She would be furious if there was a way she could help and you didn't tell her," Ed pointed out. She leaned over onto his shoulder and began to sob. There was no heaving of her lungs, but her voice cried out and the tears still flowed. She had cried two other times aloud and in front of Ed. Once when they burned their own house to the ground, and once when her parents died. Like both those times, he tried to cheer her up by talking to her, even though she wasn't listening to his words. The sound of his voice calmed her pain on its own, and she fell asleep in his arms.

 

The next day, Ed and Al got up early to leave. They thanked Pinako Rockbell warmly for her hospitality, asking her to please give their regards to Winry, who was still asleep upstairs. Although the mechanical body did not tire, her mind needed the sleep to cope with running it, probably more so than when her body was flesh and blood. This was a small advantage, Ed thought to himself, as it would have been a very awkward moment having to talk to Winry after she fell asleep on his shoulder.

 

"Do you think it's okay to just leave like this, brother?" Al asked cautiously. Ed shrugged and slug his suitcase over his shoulder.

 

"It's fine," he assured his brother.

 

"I think you just don't want to see Winry again, because you don't know how to act around her," Al noted. Ed scowled.

 

"She was tired… I didn't want to wake her up…" he muttered. Then, as if just to perfectly contradict him, a loud call echoed over the grass towards them. It was familiar as childhood.

 

"Ed! Al! Wait up, you guys!"

 

Ed turned around in shock to see Winry, dressed in traveling attire, running up the worn path, her own suitcase in hand.

 

"I've decided," Winry said, stepping out into the sunlight. "I'm going with you two."

 

"Oh?" Ed asked playfully. "And how do you figure that?"

 

"Well, I need to do a lot more research," she explained, lightly swinging her suitcase from side to side. "I'm breaking technological ground here, after all. And eventually, I'm going to have to figure out a way to do repairs on this body without hurting the life support system too. So I figure I'll tag along with you two. See the sights and hopefully meet some more experts in the field."

 

Ed glanced over her. She was wearing the yellow floral dress she liked to take with her whenever they went sightseeing, even though it made her automail hands and ankles clearly visible. So she wasn't so ashamed after all.

 

"We're not taking any detours for you, if that's what you mean," Ed said quickly.

 

"With as much as you get into trouble? I figure we'll need to stop by an automail repair shop every few days or so. So what are we waiting for? Let's go."

 

She walked past Ed and Al down the path away from town, looking expectantly back at them to see if they would follow.

 

"Aren't you going to argue with her, brother?" Al wanted to know.

 

Ed smiled and shook his head. "With her? Nah. We're in a hurry to find the Philosopher's Stone, Al. Things'll be much smoother overall if we don't get Winry mad." With that, he picked up his own suitcase and started down the path after her.

 

 

A/N: Yeah, that's the end of the story. I know it gives the potential for going on to be something longer, but honestly, as I read over this, I liked it as it was - a self-contained "what-if" scenario. Hope you enjoyed.