Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Unmasking Truths ❯ A story to tell ( Chapter 2 )

 

 

Ed took in a shaky breath as he looked down at the smaller girl lying so still against him. It had been three days. Three days since he'd found out she was here. Three days since he laid down in the bed next to her. Three days since she'd fallen asleep tucked against his side, her face pillowed on the cool metal of his automail shoulder. Three days since he'd seen her blue eyes. Three days, it had been three days and she still hadn't woken. Not once.

 

Turning his attention to the woman standing in the room near the bed, he looked upon her. Maria Ross looked tired, worn even. He'd guessed she'd been assigned to look over himself and Winry. After all, the lieutenant did have some basic medical knowledge.

 

“Lt. Ross,” he called to her quietly, waking the woman from her thoughts.

 

“Maria,” was her answer and he met her eyes with a questioning glance.

 

“We're both off duty Ed. It's Maria.”

 

The teen nodded silently and looked down at the sleeping girl in his arms before looking back up at the woman.

 

“Maria,” he said, her name felt strange on his tongue. “Is she going…” he couldn't say it, he couldn't ask that question. “Will she be alright?”

 

“I don't know Ed. Her fever's finally gone down,” she assessed as she moved closer and rested her palm on the girl forehead.

 

“Why won't she wake up?” he asked her worried.

 

Maria looked at him deeply. This tiny slip of a girl meant so much to Edward Elric. And she knew that he would do whatever it took to make her better. Just to see the girl open her blue eyes again.

 

“I don't know,” she answered sadly. “You said yourself that she works herself to exhaustion. Maybe her body is just catching up on the sleep it was denied.”

 

She could tell that the young man didn't quite believe her answer, didn't really take it to heart. He'd listened though, that was enough. He looked different with his hair unbound and free the way it was now. It was funny she thought, that with his hair down, his face looked younger, but the worry in his eyes made him seem so much older.

 

Maria's thoughts were focused on Ed, and Ed's were focused on why Winry wouldn't wake up. Every bad thing imaginable was going through his mind, all the possibilities. That was quite possibly the reason that neither noticed the sleeping girl's eyes flutter open. Only when she moved, searching out the one she loved, the one that she always felt safe with, did they notice she'd awakened.

 

“Ed,” Winry called out, her voice weak and scratchy. “Ed,” she called out again, somewhat frantically.

 

“I'm here Winry,” he soothed as he wrapped her in his arms tightly and turned over so that she was lying back on the pillows. “I'm right here,” he said as he leaned over her and brushed her hair out of her face with his flesh hand.

 

The tiny girl took in gasping breaths, almost sounding as though she would cry. She narrowly avoided knocking their heads together when she launched up off the bed and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, crushing her body to his. He could hear and feel her trembling indrawn breaths, her face tucked against his neck. She seemed both scared and relieved, as though for some reason she thought that she would never see Edward again.

 

“Shh,” he whispered to her, rubbing her back in gentle soothing circles when he felt the hot liquid drops of her tears against his skin. “Shh, it's ok. I'm here Winry, I'm right here. I've got you.”

 

“Ed,” her voice trembled and he could hear the tears in her soft tone. “I was so s-scared,” she cried against his neck as she held him in a desperate embrace.

 

“Why?” he asked her as he sat up in the bed and moved her to sit in his lap.

 

He gave a small smile of thanks to Maria when she brought over a free blanket and wrapped it around both occupants of the bed. His metal hand clenched the blanket together in a fist against Winry's waist as his flesh hand combed slowly through her tangled locks. Turning his head, he nuzzled her shoulder where it met her neck and whispered soft comforts to her.

 

“Why were you scared Winry?” he asked her after a moment or two.

 

“Some men,” she began softly, slowly. “They came out to us, to our shop. Aunt Pinako wasn't there. I think she'd gone out to the market,” the girl said as she pulled her face from Ed's neck and sniffled softly. “These five men came in…”

 

“Did they hurt you?!” Ed asked fiercely, holding her face in his hands as he made her look at him.

 

“What?” she asked surprised as she gathered the fallen blanket up around her shoulders. “No! No,” she stuttered. “They didn't hurt me, well not like that.” She assured him and he released her face, wrapping her up in his arms and tucking her into his chest, her head beneath his chin. “One of them, the big one, he asked me if I knew how to do the surgery for automail…When I said yes, he asked me if I could go somewhere else to do the work on someone and I grabbed my kit,” her arms wrapped around his chest, tucking her body closer to Ed's. “One of the others grabbed my kit, the big guy grabbed me. Before I knew it, he knocked me out. I woke up in some warehouse type place. It looked abandoned.”

 

Maria, who had slipped out of the room shortly after tucking the blanket around the two, returned when Winry paused in her story, Col. Mustang at her side. The two stood silent as Ed held and comforted Winry and listened as the girl told more of her tale.

 

“There was…a man, or at least what was left of him. Both his arms and his legs had been blown off. He'd lost half his face…one eye and part of his jaw. They had all the materials for me to make all the parts. But it was so dirty in that place. I told them I couldn't do it without risking infection. I told them he could die. The big guy slapped me, he said they didn't care. The man, he was their brother or father I think. I couldn't tell, he was so torn apart.”

 

Winry stopped talking as she coughed her throat too dry to continue. A glass of cool water was slipped into Ed's hand, and he brought the cup to Winry's lips. Her hand covered his in a weak grip as he tilted the glass and she drank long draughts of the cool crisp liquid. A few drops of the water slipped past her lips and dribbled down her chin, Ed's flesh hand wiping away the spilled liquid, Ed kissed her forehead, holding the glass as she continued to drink.

 

She released her hold on his hand, pushing the glass away when she was done. Ed didn't look to see who it was that took the glass from him, he was just glad to be able to wrap her in his arms once more. Holding her close, he waited for her to continue her tale. Ed grinned; he was the only one to hear the soft delicate burp that rumbled softly in her throat, the girl covering her mouth as she puffed out the expelled air.

 

“I think they brought me water, maybe food too, but you know how I am when I work,” she looked up to see the blonde teen nod at her. “It took me nearly four days to complete all the needed surgeries so that the parts could be attached. I spent nearly three weeks making the parts. That poor man,” she said her eyes far away as she thought of the damaged man so near death when she'd met him. “I had to make him half a jaw, a cheekbone, an eye. I wasn't even sure that I was doing it all right. I made and attached his arms and legs first. He was so broken. I think he was hoping to die, and was upset when he realized he wouldn't. It took me two days alone to make his automail eye. When I first attached it, he couldn't see with it, then after a while he could…”

 

She cuddled closer to Ed, shivering with the chill that spread over her body. The place she had been in had been cold, completely inhospitable, and nearly ridden with diseases from the many rats running around. Maria and Roy watched as Ed wrapped her tighter in his arms, stroked her hair as he and they both listened.

 

“I think…I think the man hated me,” she said softly, sadly. “I think he wanted to die. Every time he looked at me he either looked angry, or like a wounded animal begging for its death. I couldn't kill him though, and those five men…they were depending on me to save him.”

 

“How long ago did they take you?” Ed asked her gently, concerned.

 

“I don't know,” she said as her brow furrowed and she tried to think. Her head was too full of cotton though, her nose felt stuffed up and her head ached. “How did I get here?” she asked as she looked up at her friend. “I didn't even know I was near you.”

 

“I found you,” Mustang said, finally announcing his presence. Both teens turned to him and he stepped closer to the side of the bed. “You were stumbling through the rain, sick and exhausted.”

 

“It was raining?” she asked as she tried to think back. “I don't remember much after I got all the work done. The big man just said he was grateful and that they were done with me. I was so tired, so hungry. I remember it was cold…they threw me out into the street once I'd packed up my tools. I felt like I was going to collapse…I don't remember anything after that,” she said with a bit of worried fear in her voice.

 

“Your mind probably shut down,” Roy said as he stepped closer. “You collapsed almost as soon as I got you inside the doors,” he lifted a hand to her forehead and cheeks to feel for fever. “You're still a little warm, but the fever's pretty much gone. That's good news. Major Armstrong traveled back to your family, to let them know you're alright.”

 

Winry giggled a bit, Ed chuckling as well.

 

“Aunt Pinako was quite taken with the major I think,” the girl giggled.

 

“Yeah, she'll work him to death,” Ed chuckled.

 

“Well she'll eventually let me have my Major back, right?” the colonel asked worried.

 

“You might have to fight her for him,” Winry laughed. “Boy I'd love to be there to see that.”

 

“Ah there's no contest,” Ed laughed. “Pinako'll kick your ass Colonel, no offense intended of course.”

 

“Isn't she only supposed to be something like four feet tall?” the man asked arrogantly.

 

“I'll have you know young man that I'm four foot five,” Pinako said as she entered the room, completely dwarfed by the mountain of a man next to her.

 

All heads turned to the doorway to see her and Major Armstrong. Winry couldn't help but laugh when Roy's eyes widened as he looked at the woman. From her attitude, you'd think her to be seven feet tall, not the four and half that she was.

 

“I just came to see that you were alright,” Pinako said as she came into the room and moved to the bed. “I was worried to death to find you missing and no word on where you'd gone. When this,” she looked at Armstrong, “mountain came to tell me. Well, I just came that moment. It's good to see you're alright dear. You are alright aren't you?”

 

“I'm fine. A little…tired, but I'm fine.”

 

“Well good,” Pinako said. “I hate to do this, but I've got to get back. I can't leave the shop alone for too long.”

 

“I know,” Winry said and leaned over the side of the bed to hug the tiny woman. “Thanks for coming.”

 

Pinako brushed off the girl's thanks and fairly commanded the colonel and Major Armstrong to see her out. Once they reached the doors and stepped out into the night air, Pinako turned to them with a hard stare. She instructed Mustang, quite fiercely, that he was to protect Winry and keep her safe and healthy. Turning to Armstrong, she commanded him to see her back to her home. Tiny though she was, the woman could more than likely command her own army if given a chance. Roy shook his head as he turned to go back inside, my was that woman forceful.