Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Changes ❯ Changes ( Chapter 1 )

Changes

A FullMetal Alchemist Fanfiction

Pairing: EdxWin

Rating: K(plus)/ PG

Note: Mild spoiler for chapter 24 of Manga. Ed 12 years old, Winry 12 years old, Al 10years old.

Summary: Rizenbool - September 9th, 1911. Winry didn't understand why Ed was suddenly reluctant coming into her room. But then again, their relationship had changed, so maybe something else had changed as well? EdxWin! Mild Spoiler for chapter 24 of Manga

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Rizenbool - September 9th, 1911

 

Winry stood in front of Edward's room, her tool box in hand. It's time to check the boy's newly installed automail again. Although Edward had insisted that they felt fine and did not sting anymore, the twelve year old girl could not help but worry. It should had taken at least three years before an adult can move around freely after an automail surgery, but true to his words, Edward had recovered and mastered his new mechanical limbs just in fourteen months. She knew a child heal quicker, but Ed's case was way out of ordinary almost to the point of frightening.

 

“Ed?” she knocked at the door.

No answer came from the room. Winry tried knocking again three times before opening the door herself.

 

No braided blonde haired boy was in sight. Winry scrunched her face in a frown. That's just like Ed, he knew that this was a scheduled maintenance check of his automail and he should had been in his room, but knowing him he must had gone off somewhere to the back yard or the river banks with Al.

 

Despite it being annoying, she smiled at the possibility. It was good to watch Ed acting like a normal living person again. It had been only a little over a year after that fateful night when a giant suit of armor that claimed itself as Alphonse Elric stumbled upon their door asking Grandma Pinako to help his badly wounded brother.

 

Winry shivered involuntarily. The traumatic image was still crystal clear in her mind as though it happened just last week. That was the first time she had felt so helpless. Her grandma had kept her away from the room until she had finished taking care of Edward's wound. But Winry had not read medical books for nothing even though she was only an eleven year-old girl. She knew the moment her grandma brought in a glowing amber knife that she had seared Ed's wound to stop the bleeding. She had wanted to go into the room, to clutch Ed's hand and telling him that it'd soon be over, or to comfort Al, that it'd all be alright.

 

Helplessness was a feeling that had constantly kept creeping into her heart lately. First of not being able to be there were Ed's wound was being treated, then to watch his soul died away little by little without being able to do anything.

 

She felt really bad, that she was more worried about Ed than Al. But despite of his physical state, Alphonse had started acting like a normal living person a day or two after the incident, showing signs that he was indeed alive and trying to move on. Ed, on the other hand, was just like an empty shell. The only indication of him alive was the fact that he's still breathing. He had not even glare at his milk when she brought the white liquid along with his meal three times a day… he had barely eaten at all. If it wasn't for the fact that he occasionally responded to Al, she might have thought that he had finally lost it.

 

She closed the door again then moved along the hall and down the stairs. Her thoughts flew back to those dreadful days when she had to watch her best friends suffer from something they wouldn't tell, and there's nothing she could do about it.

 

She was always the one who tried to fix things up, the one who cheer for the brothers if they're doing one of their pranks, and the one who comfort them when they were upset. It kills her when she found that she could not fix Ed's condition. He wouldn't even respond to her, nothing she had said or done could pull Ed out of his pitiful state. She even considered beating him over the head just so he would yell at her, anything to get her a reaction and show her that everything was indeed going to be fine in the end. But Ed gave her none of those. It's like he had given up on life.

 

Then, of all things that could make Ed pull himself together, it had to be The Military. Edward had recovered completely the day that man from the Military came. He said his name was Roy Mustang, A State Alchemist. Then he started telling Ed about all the abilities of accessing limited information if he joined in, one of them might be a way to get their normal body back.

 

After that talk, Ed's golden eyes had regained its glow. That glow scared Winry, it had been a look of complete determination. Winry knew the moment she saw that expression that she had lost her best friend to the one thing that had killed her parents, The Military. She didn't know whether to scream or to laugh at the irony.

 

However, that visit from the military had made Winry realized one thing. She had learned that the only thing that Ed needed most to return the spark in his life is hope. Ed needed hope that there is something he can do to return everything back to normal, something he can do to atone his sin… to regain everything back.

 

The night that man from the military left, Edward asked for an automail surgery. Winry decided that she would be supporting him in whatever he should do to reach his dreams. If that support came in a form of automail, then she would be the best automail mechanic in the world. She would took care of him and make sure he could continue moving forward without any inconveniences.

 

Returning back to the present, Winry strolled to their workshop that was just down the way to the back yard, thinking that she should ask her grandma if she knew where the elder Elric had gone to.

 

She poked her head through the wooden door, “Granny?”

 

Pinako Rockbell glanced up from an automail leg she was working to her only granddaughter, “If it's Edward you're wondering about, Winry, he should be in the back yard, I saw him going that way with Alphonse moments ago.”

 

Winry sighed, “Just as I've thought. What is he doing there anyway? It's not like he could spa-”

 

A loud clanging sound of something metal hitting against each other suddenly cut her sentence.

 

A vein popped on Winry's head. That had better not been what she thought it was. “That idiot,” she grumbled as she rushed to the back yard through the kitchen door.

 

Winry found both of the Elric brothers in a fighting stance, obviously in the middle of a spar. Anger crept up her heart and she clenched her fist that was holding her wrench before throwing it straight on to the blonde's head, “HEY!”

 

She approached the brothers with her hands on her waist, “What are you thinking! You'll break the automail!” she shouted loudly, anger filling her voice.

 

Ed held his abused head and shouted back, “Then it's okay for you to break my head! That hurts, Winry!”

 

“Good! May be it would knocked some sense into your thick skull! Those are mine and grandma's hard work you've been swinging around carelessly!” Winry retorted, still angry.

 

Ed growled at of the truth in her words but not long before he came out with the most intelligent come-backs in the world, “You're so un-cute! Un-sexy! You machine freak!”

 

Veins popped again on her head, “Not cute, not sexy, big deal! You alchemy freak!” The nerve of that boy! Edward just doesn't get it, how important was his automail to her, and that made her angrier. “Until the day you guys gained your bodies back, I will be supporting you!” she said.

 

She picked up her wrench and stomped off, “So if you don't listen to what I say, I'll serve spaghetti again!”

 

She heard Edward's distant `yuck' comment but decided not to confront him about it. After all, he had just recovered from an automail surgery; more than one daily dose of head wound might be bad for him.

 

Winry stopped dead in her tracks as she realized that she had totally forgotten about his maintenance check. “That idiot,” she muttered again. The phrase seemed to roll off her tongue more often these days.

 

`That's because that was exactly what he is!' her conscience did some self-defense. Yes, Edward was an idiot, though not literally. In a matter of intelligence, Edward is above anyone his age and more. He was a declared genius, figuring out what alchemy was just from books at the tender age of eight and all. But he also had the knack to do exactly what was bad for him, acting rashly, loud mouthed, and more than half the time didn't even have a clue of other people's feelings. And for those, Winry decided, he should bare the title `the idiot'.

 

Edward seemed to make her angry easily these days. They didn't use to fight as much back then when they're still toddlers. They mainly spent their time playing around together. Edward was their leader, naturally, always making sure that they could complete their prank or exploration in the woods, and fearlessly took responsibility if something had gone too far.

 

Winry sat down the kitchen's table and watched the brothers chatting as they walk around the back yard trough the glass window. They'd stop sparring. Good. Maybe she should change her threatening method from physical abuse to diarrhea. An evil smirk crept upon her face.

 

It'd quickly turned into a smile as she watched Ed move around swiftly. `He doesn't even limp anymore,' she thought proudly.

 

The rehab had been a disaster. After the surgery, Edward had to re-teach his right arm and left leg's nerve how to move. It was a frustrating experience for them all. Ed would get angry that his automail would not move at all and shouted all things about deceit and liars. She would whack him over the head, told him to stop blaming others, and to stand up and walk forward, even without his own real legs. Thus start all the fights between her and Edward.

 

If Winry had to pinpoint the exact moment when their relationship had changed, it would be that first day of rehab. Now days, they had always been on each other's throat. He was impatient to be able to move around normally again, more often than not pushing himself and his automail too hard. She would shouted at him and sometimes threw him a wrench for acting so recklessly. Recovering from an automail surgery is not a small thing, and though his limbs are metal, they're not that durable. She wouldn't be surprised if he would have them broken within two or three years.

 

An all too familiar light caught her attention and brought her back from her musings. Someone had preformed alchemy, and seeing the light had come from the brothers' direction it must had been Ed or Al.

 

Actually excited with the idea that the brothers were using alchemy again, she leave the kitchen ran and back to the back yard.

 

What she saw though, made her blood boils in anger again. The only words that reach her head were, `That ungrateful brat!'

 

Edward had trasmutated the cap of his automail arm to sword-like.

 

Before she actually thought about what she was doing, she had taken a foldable chair that stood by the door, and shouted to the top of her lungs, “HEY YOU!”

 

In a matter of seconds she was already near the brothers and whacked the chair down Edward's head. “You transmutated the automail!” She whacked again, “Turned it back right now!”

 

Edward groaned in pain, “You B-tch! That's cheating! You attacked me from behind!”

 

Winry dropped the chair, “Maybe if you appreciate the automail more I would stop hitting you on the head! Ungrateful brat!” she panted heavily.

 

Ed held his repeatedly abused head protectively as he shouted back, “Automail! Automail! You worry them more than you worry over human beings! Machine freak! I paid for this automail, I can do whatever I want with it!”

 

Winry clenched her fist until her knuckles turned white, “Not everything is Equal Trade, you alchemy freak! That automail means more to me than you can ever imagine!”

 

“Just because it was the first automail you've ever made that doesn't mean you could go all protective to it!”

 

“That's not what I meant, Ed! You're impossible!”

 

“Oh, yeah! Then you're a noisy old hag!”

 

“I'm not noisy and I'm not old!”

 

“Then stop behaving like a nagging grandmother!”

 

“I'm not acting like a grandmother!”

 

“Yes you do!”

 

“No I don't!”

 

“Do, too!”

 

“Do not!”

 

“Do to- Oof!”

 

Al had clamped his large hands to both of their faces. “Please stop fighting, guys! This is starting to get old!”

 

“Then please tell that noisy hag that I'm expecting an apology for abusing my head so much,” Ed said through clenched teeth.

 

Winry replied just as heatedly, “Please tell ungrateful boy that this old hag will not apologize since he was just getting what he deserved.”

 

They engaged themselves in a glaring contest. Al put a hand over his face in a sigh.

 

At the end, both of them had threw their face away from each other. Ed crossed his arm arrogantly, nose high. Winry gave a loud “Hmph!” before stomping off for good in anger.

 

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Later that night, Winry heard a soft knock on her bedroom door.

 

She had been up longer than she intended due to her still sour mood after the fight earlier that afternoon. She got out her bed and was on her way to her door when the person knocked again, this time calling her name, “Winry, you in there?”

 

Winry stopped dead on her tracks. That's Edward's voice. She debated whether she should answer bitterly or just forgive him and let him in. A thought crossed her mind that maybe his automail was bothering him, something might had gone wrong when he sparred that afternoon, and she never really gave him that maintenance check.

 

It didn't occur to her that Edward could go to Pinako for that sort of problem, but her mind was already full with worries she overlooked that possibility and rushed to the door as quickly as she could. She opened it almost too roughly, “Ed, is something wrong? You're okay, aren't you?”

 

The blonde boy stared at her confusedly before frowning, “What are you talking about? Why shouldn't I be okay?”

 

Winry blinked at him before growing red in embarrassment, “Oh I'm sorry… I just thought,” she didn't continue.

 

Ed brushed it off, “I came to apologize,” he said at last.

 

Winry's eyes grew, “Oh, that!” she had completely forgotten about their fight for a minute there. She gave him a genuine smile, “Apology accepted. I'm sorry, too, for hitting your head so much today.”

 

Ed flicked his flesh hand as if he was trying to chase away flies, “Nah, you said it your self that I have a thick skull to live with it. Just don't hit as hard next time,” he blinked, “Wait… don't do it again next time, aargh! That didn't sound right!”

 

Winry giggled at him, “I will stop hitting your head if you start taking care of your automail properly.”

 

Ed frowned at her statement, considered asking why she worry about his automail more than she worry about him …err… about anyone else. However, he decided against it as it might lead to another fight. “Fine, we have ourselves a deal.”

 

Winry nodded, “Agreed.”

 

They were silence before Ed spoke again, “I better go back to bed,” he started to turn away when he felt Winry's hand upon his flesh one.

 

“Wait, Ed. I haven't really given you that maintenance check-up…,” she gave him a guilty smile.

 

Ed turned back to her, “It's okay, Granny Pinako did it, she said I am officially recovered and completed my rehabilitation.”

 

“Oh,” Winry replied in disappointment. The last maintenance check and she wasn't there to do it. She looked up to him again and gave him a pleading eyes, “I still want to make it sure by myself, can I… would you- ”

 

Edward sighed in defeat but his eyes softened, “I understand, where do you want me?”

 

Her face lit up as she smiled brightly, “Right! We can do it right here then!”

 

“Winry! I'm not standing half-naked in the hallway just to satisfy your curiosity!”

 

“Not in the hallway, silly!” she giggled, “In my room!”

 

“What!” Ed sputtered hastily.

 

Winry blinked back at him with her large innocent eyes. “Why? I used to be in your room for all of our previous check ups.”

 

“That's not it! Oh, never mind!” Ed ran his left hand through his hair, suddenly looking flustered. He pushed his way into her room without another word.

 

Winry didn't understand why he was reluctant all of the sudden, they used to be in each other's room back then when they're younger. But then again, their relationship had changed, so maybe something else had changed as well? She shrugged her shoulders as she closed the door behind her.

 

Ooo FIN ooO