Delayed Reaction (Fullmetal Alchemist, Ed/Winry, PG-13)
Title -- Delayed Reaction
Author-- cornerofmadness
Fandom -- Fullmetal Alchemist
Disclaimer -- Arakawa owns them, I’m just playing
Rating -- PG-13
Characters/Pairing -- Ed/Winry, Alphonse
Timeline/Spoilers -- post 108
Word Count -- 3,326
Warning -- PTSD
Summary -- His combat fatigue came late, but it hit hard.
Author’s Note -- written for springkink spring 2012 round for the prompt ‘Winry/Ed; Hurt/Comfort; Ed’s PTSD didn’t manifest until he and Al returned to Resembool.’ Thanks to Bay115 for the beta.
XXX
Winry wanted Ed to sleep in her room, but it wasn’t exactly going to be the proper thing to do. Granny might frown on it. Well, given some of the stories she had overheard in Rush Valley, Granny probably had no problems with pre-marital sex. She would, however, protest being kept up all night by the noise.
And there was Al to consider. Before being trapped in that horrible metal body, he had liked her every bit as much as Ed had. Winry suspected that had changed over the years. He might be sweet on that mouthy, tiny princess from Xing, but she didn’t know for sure. She wanted to talk to him, feel him out and, if she thought he might still be carrying a torch for her, Winry would be honest about how she felt about his brother.
Ed felt the same way about her, or at least she thought he did. Sometimes, Ed was just perplexing. Well, she had known for some time she was in love with a weirdo. Winry had made peace with that. She guessed that some of his emotional distance, some of the bizarre crap he did in her presence had to do with not being derailed from his singular train of thought: saving his brother. Al was back now. Ed at least had his arm back. They had won. Now was the time for her to figure out how to let him know that she loved him.
She stifled a yawn. Winry had been working late to finish Mr. Naifeh’s leg on time. She had put it off so she could work on one for Ed. He’d gotten even taller in the last few months, broader in the shoulder, looking more like his father, but she wouldn’t tell him that. It was true, though. She had found a really old picture of Hohenheim up in a box of photos in Granny’s attic. Granny had been a young woman herself and there was at least one photo of Hohenheim clean-shaven. Granny had laughed when she showed her it, relating a tale off too much booze and friends that couldn’t be trusted after one passed out. She could just see her Grandmother and Dominic shaving an unconscious Hohenheim. What Winry couldn’t see was how much alcohol it must have taken to knock him out, given what the brothers had told her about their dad.
As she walked past the door to where Ed was sleeping - Al was across the hall, wanting his own space after years being stuck with Ed - Winry paused, listening to him breathing. That’s when she realized he was whimpering, a soft small noise like a trapped puppy. She tested the door, finding it unlocked. “Ed?” The frightened sound continued so she peeked in.
Ed had the sheets twisted around him, tore up from where they had been tucked in at the end of the bed. Wet with tears, his face puckered up against some nightmare. Winry wanted to run over and put her arms around him, tell him it would be all right but her training had been expanded in Rush Valley. She’d seen patients soon after they had lost their limbs - something Granny had shielded her from the time Al had brought his broken brother to them when they were children. Winry knew the night hags that could ride a dreamer all too well. She also knew they didn’t come out of dreams easily sometimes. She didn’t want Ed to feel guilty if he hit her in the face. For that matter, she preferred her face not to get punched.
“Edward!” she called, hopefully not so loudly as to wake the rest of the house.
Ed all but catapulted himself off the bed with a strangled cry. His chest heaved, air dragging in and out as if wrapped in heavy chains. When his eyes looked less like a spooked horse’s, he turned to her, pale-faced. “Winry? Winry!” He swung out of bed, his metal foot thumping as he ran over to her.
To her surprise, he flung his arms around her, putting his face against her shoulder. “You were dead. I was too late and everyone was dead but me and Al.”
She stroked his back. “It’s all right, Ed. It was just a dream.” Winry hoped he couldn’t tell she was shaking. She remembered that time, the vortex of voices, lost in it. She had her own nightmares about it, but now was not the time to bring it up.
He pulled away, running a hand through his hair. She noticed he didn’t use his restored hand even though it was his dominate, too many years with hair-snarling metal joints. He hadn’t readjusted yet. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
“No, I was working. I heard you on my way to bed.”
He bobbed his head. “Glad I didn’t scare you. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Do you want to go back to sleep?”
Ed glared at the bed as if it were his enemy. “No. I won’t be able to, not yet. I haven’t had a dream that bad in a long time. I had some about Mom way back when it first happened. This is new.”
“It’s not too unexpected, not with what you and Al went through.” Winry took his hand, happy when he let her, how unusual. “Let’s go out on the porch and watch the stars for a while.”
“You should get some sleep,” he protested.
“I’m used to all nighters. I’ll be fine.” Winry gave him a little tug, delighted when he didn’t argue further.
When they made it outside, Ed dropped into one of the chairs on Granny’s porch. The night air smelled of honeysuckle and sheep. A sliver of a moon danced with thousands of stars against the black silk of the sky. He canted his head up, as if reading a secret message in the stars’ patterns. Winry let him gather himself. He’d talk when he was ready. She sat in the chair next to him.
“Remember when we would lie out on a blanket, me, you and Al and watch the stars all night?” he asked finally.
It was more like an hour until they fell asleep and their parents gathered them up but Winry said, “That was always nice.”
“Unless me and Al would catch fire flies and try to stick their glow onto our skin,” Ed retorted. “Of course, we didn’t realize we were killing them to get that glow at the time. Now I feel bad.”
“I always did. We were so young then,” Winry replied.
“I feel old sometimes.” Ed sighed. “Older than I should be.”
“Of course you do. You grew up too fast, way too fast. Granny should have bounced Mr. Mustang out of here on his butt. Twelve was too young to be recruited,” she said even though it would be a year before he actually followed Mustang. “But I know you needed help in order to get Al’s body back.”
“Yeah. Mustang did more than that. He shielded us from investigation for what we did. He gave me freedom to do pretty much whatever the hell I wanted and he looked out for us.” Ed shrugged. “He’s still an ass, though, but we owe him. Just don’t tell him that.”
Winry chuckled. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“You grew up fast too, seeing us like that.” Ed looked at her. “And you went to your apprenticeship early.”
“It’s all I ever wanted to do. I already had the skills, so why wait? What were a few more literature and home economics classes going to do for me?”
“Last I heard you set the cake on fire,” he laughed.
“That happened once.” She leaned over and slapped his arm. “I’ve improved a lot with my cooking. I can almost make an apple pie as good as Mrs. Hughes. In fact, I’m making one tomorrow.”
“Good because Al has been going on and on about that. He is determined to eat his way through that list of his. We need to keep him active or he’ll need buttering to get in and out of doorways.”
Winry snorted. “You let your brother eat what he wants, Edward.”
Ed fell quiet again, looking back up at the sky. “Do you remember what happened, Winry? On the Promised Day?”
“Yes. It’s vague though, like a really bad nightmare that won’t get away.” She glanced over at him. Ed deserved the truth. “I have bad dreams about it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t do whatever it as that thing did,” Winry remembered Ed and Al’s story about the First Homunculus and carving a giant transmutation circle, but a lot of it went past her not-interested-at-all-in-alchemy head. “You stopped it, reversed it. I wouldn’t be here right now if not for you. You should be proud.”
“I should have stopped him before he could activate the circle,” Ed replied, his voice as bitter as unripened berries.
“You did all you could. You saved our lives, so thank you.”
Winry got up and went over to brush her lips over his. Ed’s eyes widened, but he smiled. He put an arm around her neck, pulling her down into another kiss, but he let her go quickly. Winry knew that was a big step for him, so she didn’t protested.
“I couldn’t let everyone die.”
“No, that’s not something you would have accepted,” Winry replied, sitting back down.
Ed nodded then looked back up at the sky. It took her a few minutes to realize Ed had fallen asleep. She planned to just let him rest for a little bit before getting him to go back upstairs, but she ended up greeting the sun, stiff from sleeping in a chair outside half the night.
XXX
“Explain to me why we have to go to Smitty’s farm,” Ed grumbled, following Al and Winry along the dirt road to one of Granny’s closest neighbors - outside of the remains of the Elric homestead.
“The lambing was last week,” Winry said, daring to reach out and link arms with him. Ed gave her a puzzled look but didn’t pull away.
“And I want to pet the sheep,” Al replied.
“Like you didn’t have enough of sheep back when we were kids. They make too much noise. They’re dumb. The rams are mean and lanolin smells.” Ed sniffed the air. “This whole place smells funny.”
Winry pinched his side. “Be nice.”
“It does,” Ed replied, recalcitrant to the last.
“I’m well aware that I’ve petted a hundred sheep.” Al looked down into the hand that didn’t hold a cane. “I can’t remember what they feel like.”
Ed’s lips turned down at that and Winry pulled him a little closer as they walked. She noticed Al glance back at them, smiling at what he saw. If Ed noticed, he gave no signs. Smitty met them with his six year old granddaughter who talked a mile a minute, bouncing from the gate of one pen then the other, apparently trying to show Alphonse all the new lambs at once.
“Why don’t you sit down on a bale, boy,” Smitty said, trying to catch his granddaughter but she was too fast.
Al looked confused but he obeyed. Smitty got a black lamb out of the pen and put it on Al’s lap. The young man beamed, putting his arms around it. “Thank you, sir,” he said, stroking the lamb’s soft wool.
Winry put a hand in the pen, petting the ewe Smitty’s granddaughter pointed out. Al yelped as the lamb started sucking his shirt.
“That’s what you get when you play in a barn. Your clothes get dirty,” Ed smirked.
“It’s not the shirt. It’s got skin!”
“Fine, if you get a sucker bite from a lamb, I’m telling everyone,” his brother promised.
“Sometimes you’re the worst brother ever,” Al huffed, breaking the lamb’s hold on him. It bleated as Ed laughed. Winry just shook her head and kept out of it. Siblings, sometimes she missed not having any, especially when she looked at Ed and Al. Though there were days, like now, she was glad she was an only child.
The disappointed lamb contented itself with a head scratch. Winry heard something rustling in the barn, looking up at the loft. The noise came again, like something was in the walls, but that didn’t explain the sudden ragged sound in her ear.
“Just rats in the hay. I have a dozen barn cats, the lazy buggers.” Smitty grumbled.
Winry nodded. She had heard that sound in the attic once or twice and Den would bark her head off, but never the ragged noise. She caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye, her jaw dropping when she noticed Ed was pale-faced, his chest heaving.
“Ed?” She turned to face him squarely. His gold eyes looked like they could pop free of his skull at any moment. A fine tremor made his body quake. “What’s wrong?”
Nearly hyperventilating, Ed couldn’t answer her. Al buried his face in the lamb’s wooly back, mumbling, “It sort of sounds like the one-eyed creatures as they came up from below.”
Winry swallowed hard. The brothers had told her about the soulless homunculi the military had created and she was glad she had to pull an all-nighter that day. She took Ed’s hands in her, squeezing, feeling the difference in musculature between his left and right, the need for future rehabilitation. “Edward, it’s all right,” she said softly. “It’s just a rat or a mouse or something. Those things are gone. You told me so yourself.”
Smitty and his granddaughter gave her a curious look. The military had quashed as much of the real story as it could. It wasn’t a surprise to her that her neighbors didn’t know all that much about what really happened on the Promised Day.
“Just mice,” she said again.
Ed nodded, his breathing evening out and a little of his color returning. “Sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. It’s natural. I mean that. I see a lot of soldiers in Rush Valley. I know Soldier’s Heart when I see it,” Winry said. Soldier’s Heart, Shell Shock - or more cruelly and with less understanding, Malingering - was not news to her. She knew how an off the cuff remark could incite anger or a loud sound - which were in abundance in an automail mechanic’s shop - could have a grown man cowering in fear behind an exam table.
Ed said nothing, pulling his hands free of hers. He turned to one of the pens and scratched an ewe between her ears. A few awkward moments passed then Al held out the lamb.
“Thank you for letting me come here, Mr. Smith,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem,” Smitty said, taking the lamb and redepositing it with its mother. “Hopefully, you’ll be strong enough to come help out around the farm if you want soon.”
Al smiled at the farmer. “I’d like that.”
Winry couldn’t actually see Al doing it. He liked animals, but he also liked to not get dirtier than he needed to be.
“Does your barn cats have any kittens?” Al asked and Ed turned away from the sheep pen.
“No cats.” He tried to smile but it looked weary.
“I can do as I please,” Al informed him, getting up off the hay.
“I’ll let you know when they do, Alphonse,” Smitty promised.
Winry took Ed’s hand as they headed back for Granny’s. He didn’t say much, but he did give her hand a gentle squeeze as if to say ‘thank you.’
XXX
She really hadn’t needed to work late but Winry wanted to check on Ed. He’d had a fierce nightmare the day they had come back from Smitty’s. She wanted to be able to do something for him, but at the moment she didn’t know what. Winry felt like he was entirely beyond her reach. There were doctors who specialized in treating Soldier’s Heart back in Central and in Rush Valley, but certainly not in Resembool. She wondered if she could convince him to go with her to Rush Valley, at the very least, and maybe seek help.
It didn’t hurt to get ahead on her work and Winry didn’t require sleep. Ed had blamed his link to his brother was the reason he liked to sleep so much. Al was a light sleeper like Winry. Ed still slept like the dead, well if the dead could have bad dreams. It was easy to stay up an hour or two longer than he did.
Having an idea - one that would either not get the approval of Granny or Al or get a rousing round of applause, Winry couldn’t figure out which - Winry went to her room and changed into her night gown before heading down the hall to Ed’s room. She paused at Al’s door, too. He had seemed almost as upset at the sound of the rodents in the barn as his brother and if anyone should have nightmares, it was Alphonse, trapped so long in that place.
She heard him softly snoring, so she went across to Ed’s room. He wasn’t snoring nor did it sound like he was fighting his sheets. When she peeked in, she saw she was wrong. He had been fighting the bedding. Ed murmured in his sleep, his hands twisting in his sheets. She could hear his teeth grinding and thought she’d better awake him before he cracked one.
“Edward.”
This time she had to repeat his name several times before he finally woke up. It took several moments longer before Edward saw her and not the hell inside his head. He pulled the sheets closer to him, as if shielding himself.
“Winry?”
“You were having another bad dream,” she said and the slight nod was his only response. Winry went over to the bed and sat on the edge. “Move over.”
Ed’s nose wrinkled. “What?”
“I’m staying with you, like we used to do when we’d have sleep overs and one of us had a nightmare,” she replied.
“Did that ever work?”
“Of course it did.”
“We’re not kids any more,” Ed protested.
“But we still have bad dreams.” Winry rested her hand on Ed’s crown.
He regarded her then scooted into her path. “I want this side.”
Winry smiled. “Whatever you want.”
She went around to the other side of the bed, crawling in with him. Ed twisted so he could look at her. He ran a hand down her arm, his little finger trailing over the curve of her breast.
“This is definitely not like when we were little,” he said.
Winry put an arm around his waist, feeling the heat of his body. “Definitely not.”
She was about to ask if he wanted to talk about his dream when Ed kissed her. That question seemed suddenly unimportant. Winry returned the kiss until Ed pulled back slightly.
“Too much,” he muttered. “Too much after that. This needs to be another time.”
Winry stroked his long, loose hair. “I understand.” And she did. He had to be feeling rough.
“It’s enough that you’re here.” Ed closed his eyes, ending the conversation.
Winry didn’t let him escape that easily. “Do you want there to be another time, Ed?”
A smile spread across his face before he reopened his eyes. “More than anything.”
“That’s all I needed to know. Tonight, I’ll keep away your dreams and if I can’t do that, then I’ll help you face them,” Winry said.
Ed murmured a thanks against the skin of her neck. Winry nestled against him. She would guard his dreams as long as he needed her to and beyond.
Author-- cornerofmadness
Fandom -- Fullmetal Alchemist
Disclaimer -- Arakawa owns them, I’m just playing
Rating -- PG-13
Characters/Pairing -- Ed/Winry, Alphonse
Timeline/Spoilers -- post 108
Word Count -- 3,326
Warning -- PTSD
Summary -- His combat fatigue came late, but it hit hard.
Author’s Note -- written for springkink spring 2012 round for the prompt ‘Winry/Ed; Hurt/Comfort; Ed’s PTSD didn’t manifest until he and Al returned to Resembool.’ Thanks to Bay115 for the beta.
XXX
Winry wanted Ed to sleep in her room, but it wasn’t exactly going to be the proper thing to do. Granny might frown on it. Well, given some of the stories she had overheard in Rush Valley, Granny probably had no problems with pre-marital sex. She would, however, protest being kept up all night by the noise.
And there was Al to consider. Before being trapped in that horrible metal body, he had liked her every bit as much as Ed had. Winry suspected that had changed over the years. He might be sweet on that mouthy, tiny princess from Xing, but she didn’t know for sure. She wanted to talk to him, feel him out and, if she thought he might still be carrying a torch for her, Winry would be honest about how she felt about his brother.
Ed felt the same way about her, or at least she thought he did. Sometimes, Ed was just perplexing. Well, she had known for some time she was in love with a weirdo. Winry had made peace with that. She guessed that some of his emotional distance, some of the bizarre crap he did in her presence had to do with not being derailed from his singular train of thought: saving his brother. Al was back now. Ed at least had his arm back. They had won. Now was the time for her to figure out how to let him know that she loved him.
She stifled a yawn. Winry had been working late to finish Mr. Naifeh’s leg on time. She had put it off so she could work on one for Ed. He’d gotten even taller in the last few months, broader in the shoulder, looking more like his father, but she wouldn’t tell him that. It was true, though. She had found a really old picture of Hohenheim up in a box of photos in Granny’s attic. Granny had been a young woman herself and there was at least one photo of Hohenheim clean-shaven. Granny had laughed when she showed her it, relating a tale off too much booze and friends that couldn’t be trusted after one passed out. She could just see her Grandmother and Dominic shaving an unconscious Hohenheim. What Winry couldn’t see was how much alcohol it must have taken to knock him out, given what the brothers had told her about their dad.
As she walked past the door to where Ed was sleeping - Al was across the hall, wanting his own space after years being stuck with Ed - Winry paused, listening to him breathing. That’s when she realized he was whimpering, a soft small noise like a trapped puppy. She tested the door, finding it unlocked. “Ed?” The frightened sound continued so she peeked in.
Ed had the sheets twisted around him, tore up from where they had been tucked in at the end of the bed. Wet with tears, his face puckered up against some nightmare. Winry wanted to run over and put her arms around him, tell him it would be all right but her training had been expanded in Rush Valley. She’d seen patients soon after they had lost their limbs - something Granny had shielded her from the time Al had brought his broken brother to them when they were children. Winry knew the night hags that could ride a dreamer all too well. She also knew they didn’t come out of dreams easily sometimes. She didn’t want Ed to feel guilty if he hit her in the face. For that matter, she preferred her face not to get punched.
“Edward!” she called, hopefully not so loudly as to wake the rest of the house.
Ed all but catapulted himself off the bed with a strangled cry. His chest heaved, air dragging in and out as if wrapped in heavy chains. When his eyes looked less like a spooked horse’s, he turned to her, pale-faced. “Winry? Winry!” He swung out of bed, his metal foot thumping as he ran over to her.
To her surprise, he flung his arms around her, putting his face against her shoulder. “You were dead. I was too late and everyone was dead but me and Al.”
She stroked his back. “It’s all right, Ed. It was just a dream.” Winry hoped he couldn’t tell she was shaking. She remembered that time, the vortex of voices, lost in it. She had her own nightmares about it, but now was not the time to bring it up.
He pulled away, running a hand through his hair. She noticed he didn’t use his restored hand even though it was his dominate, too many years with hair-snarling metal joints. He hadn’t readjusted yet. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
“No, I was working. I heard you on my way to bed.”
He bobbed his head. “Glad I didn’t scare you. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Do you want to go back to sleep?”
Ed glared at the bed as if it were his enemy. “No. I won’t be able to, not yet. I haven’t had a dream that bad in a long time. I had some about Mom way back when it first happened. This is new.”
“It’s not too unexpected, not with what you and Al went through.” Winry took his hand, happy when he let her, how unusual. “Let’s go out on the porch and watch the stars for a while.”
“You should get some sleep,” he protested.
“I’m used to all nighters. I’ll be fine.” Winry gave him a little tug, delighted when he didn’t argue further.
When they made it outside, Ed dropped into one of the chairs on Granny’s porch. The night air smelled of honeysuckle and sheep. A sliver of a moon danced with thousands of stars against the black silk of the sky. He canted his head up, as if reading a secret message in the stars’ patterns. Winry let him gather himself. He’d talk when he was ready. She sat in the chair next to him.
“Remember when we would lie out on a blanket, me, you and Al and watch the stars all night?” he asked finally.
It was more like an hour until they fell asleep and their parents gathered them up but Winry said, “That was always nice.”
“Unless me and Al would catch fire flies and try to stick their glow onto our skin,” Ed retorted. “Of course, we didn’t realize we were killing them to get that glow at the time. Now I feel bad.”
“I always did. We were so young then,” Winry replied.
“I feel old sometimes.” Ed sighed. “Older than I should be.”
“Of course you do. You grew up too fast, way too fast. Granny should have bounced Mr. Mustang out of here on his butt. Twelve was too young to be recruited,” she said even though it would be a year before he actually followed Mustang. “But I know you needed help in order to get Al’s body back.”
“Yeah. Mustang did more than that. He shielded us from investigation for what we did. He gave me freedom to do pretty much whatever the hell I wanted and he looked out for us.” Ed shrugged. “He’s still an ass, though, but we owe him. Just don’t tell him that.”
Winry chuckled. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“You grew up fast too, seeing us like that.” Ed looked at her. “And you went to your apprenticeship early.”
“It’s all I ever wanted to do. I already had the skills, so why wait? What were a few more literature and home economics classes going to do for me?”
“Last I heard you set the cake on fire,” he laughed.
“That happened once.” She leaned over and slapped his arm. “I’ve improved a lot with my cooking. I can almost make an apple pie as good as Mrs. Hughes. In fact, I’m making one tomorrow.”
“Good because Al has been going on and on about that. He is determined to eat his way through that list of his. We need to keep him active or he’ll need buttering to get in and out of doorways.”
Winry snorted. “You let your brother eat what he wants, Edward.”
Ed fell quiet again, looking back up at the sky. “Do you remember what happened, Winry? On the Promised Day?”
“Yes. It’s vague though, like a really bad nightmare that won’t get away.” She glanced over at him. Ed deserved the truth. “I have bad dreams about it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t do whatever it as that thing did,” Winry remembered Ed and Al’s story about the First Homunculus and carving a giant transmutation circle, but a lot of it went past her not-interested-at-all-in-alchemy head. “You stopped it, reversed it. I wouldn’t be here right now if not for you. You should be proud.”
“I should have stopped him before he could activate the circle,” Ed replied, his voice as bitter as unripened berries.
“You did all you could. You saved our lives, so thank you.”
Winry got up and went over to brush her lips over his. Ed’s eyes widened, but he smiled. He put an arm around her neck, pulling her down into another kiss, but he let her go quickly. Winry knew that was a big step for him, so she didn’t protested.
“I couldn’t let everyone die.”
“No, that’s not something you would have accepted,” Winry replied, sitting back down.
Ed nodded then looked back up at the sky. It took her a few minutes to realize Ed had fallen asleep. She planned to just let him rest for a little bit before getting him to go back upstairs, but she ended up greeting the sun, stiff from sleeping in a chair outside half the night.
XXX
“Explain to me why we have to go to Smitty’s farm,” Ed grumbled, following Al and Winry along the dirt road to one of Granny’s closest neighbors - outside of the remains of the Elric homestead.
“The lambing was last week,” Winry said, daring to reach out and link arms with him. Ed gave her a puzzled look but didn’t pull away.
“And I want to pet the sheep,” Al replied.
“Like you didn’t have enough of sheep back when we were kids. They make too much noise. They’re dumb. The rams are mean and lanolin smells.” Ed sniffed the air. “This whole place smells funny.”
Winry pinched his side. “Be nice.”
“It does,” Ed replied, recalcitrant to the last.
“I’m well aware that I’ve petted a hundred sheep.” Al looked down into the hand that didn’t hold a cane. “I can’t remember what they feel like.”
Ed’s lips turned down at that and Winry pulled him a little closer as they walked. She noticed Al glance back at them, smiling at what he saw. If Ed noticed, he gave no signs. Smitty met them with his six year old granddaughter who talked a mile a minute, bouncing from the gate of one pen then the other, apparently trying to show Alphonse all the new lambs at once.
“Why don’t you sit down on a bale, boy,” Smitty said, trying to catch his granddaughter but she was too fast.
Al looked confused but he obeyed. Smitty got a black lamb out of the pen and put it on Al’s lap. The young man beamed, putting his arms around it. “Thank you, sir,” he said, stroking the lamb’s soft wool.
Winry put a hand in the pen, petting the ewe Smitty’s granddaughter pointed out. Al yelped as the lamb started sucking his shirt.
“That’s what you get when you play in a barn. Your clothes get dirty,” Ed smirked.
“It’s not the shirt. It’s got skin!”
“Fine, if you get a sucker bite from a lamb, I’m telling everyone,” his brother promised.
“Sometimes you’re the worst brother ever,” Al huffed, breaking the lamb’s hold on him. It bleated as Ed laughed. Winry just shook her head and kept out of it. Siblings, sometimes she missed not having any, especially when she looked at Ed and Al. Though there were days, like now, she was glad she was an only child.
The disappointed lamb contented itself with a head scratch. Winry heard something rustling in the barn, looking up at the loft. The noise came again, like something was in the walls, but that didn’t explain the sudden ragged sound in her ear.
“Just rats in the hay. I have a dozen barn cats, the lazy buggers.” Smitty grumbled.
Winry nodded. She had heard that sound in the attic once or twice and Den would bark her head off, but never the ragged noise. She caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye, her jaw dropping when she noticed Ed was pale-faced, his chest heaving.
“Ed?” She turned to face him squarely. His gold eyes looked like they could pop free of his skull at any moment. A fine tremor made his body quake. “What’s wrong?”
Nearly hyperventilating, Ed couldn’t answer her. Al buried his face in the lamb’s wooly back, mumbling, “It sort of sounds like the one-eyed creatures as they came up from below.”
Winry swallowed hard. The brothers had told her about the soulless homunculi the military had created and she was glad she had to pull an all-nighter that day. She took Ed’s hands in her, squeezing, feeling the difference in musculature between his left and right, the need for future rehabilitation. “Edward, it’s all right,” she said softly. “It’s just a rat or a mouse or something. Those things are gone. You told me so yourself.”
Smitty and his granddaughter gave her a curious look. The military had quashed as much of the real story as it could. It wasn’t a surprise to her that her neighbors didn’t know all that much about what really happened on the Promised Day.
“Just mice,” she said again.
Ed nodded, his breathing evening out and a little of his color returning. “Sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. It’s natural. I mean that. I see a lot of soldiers in Rush Valley. I know Soldier’s Heart when I see it,” Winry said. Soldier’s Heart, Shell Shock - or more cruelly and with less understanding, Malingering - was not news to her. She knew how an off the cuff remark could incite anger or a loud sound - which were in abundance in an automail mechanic’s shop - could have a grown man cowering in fear behind an exam table.
Ed said nothing, pulling his hands free of hers. He turned to one of the pens and scratched an ewe between her ears. A few awkward moments passed then Al held out the lamb.
“Thank you for letting me come here, Mr. Smith,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem,” Smitty said, taking the lamb and redepositing it with its mother. “Hopefully, you’ll be strong enough to come help out around the farm if you want soon.”
Al smiled at the farmer. “I’d like that.”
Winry couldn’t actually see Al doing it. He liked animals, but he also liked to not get dirtier than he needed to be.
“Does your barn cats have any kittens?” Al asked and Ed turned away from the sheep pen.
“No cats.” He tried to smile but it looked weary.
“I can do as I please,” Al informed him, getting up off the hay.
“I’ll let you know when they do, Alphonse,” Smitty promised.
Winry took Ed’s hand as they headed back for Granny’s. He didn’t say much, but he did give her hand a gentle squeeze as if to say ‘thank you.’
XXX
She really hadn’t needed to work late but Winry wanted to check on Ed. He’d had a fierce nightmare the day they had come back from Smitty’s. She wanted to be able to do something for him, but at the moment she didn’t know what. Winry felt like he was entirely beyond her reach. There were doctors who specialized in treating Soldier’s Heart back in Central and in Rush Valley, but certainly not in Resembool. She wondered if she could convince him to go with her to Rush Valley, at the very least, and maybe seek help.
It didn’t hurt to get ahead on her work and Winry didn’t require sleep. Ed had blamed his link to his brother was the reason he liked to sleep so much. Al was a light sleeper like Winry. Ed still slept like the dead, well if the dead could have bad dreams. It was easy to stay up an hour or two longer than he did.
Having an idea - one that would either not get the approval of Granny or Al or get a rousing round of applause, Winry couldn’t figure out which - Winry went to her room and changed into her night gown before heading down the hall to Ed’s room. She paused at Al’s door, too. He had seemed almost as upset at the sound of the rodents in the barn as his brother and if anyone should have nightmares, it was Alphonse, trapped so long in that place.
She heard him softly snoring, so she went across to Ed’s room. He wasn’t snoring nor did it sound like he was fighting his sheets. When she peeked in, she saw she was wrong. He had been fighting the bedding. Ed murmured in his sleep, his hands twisting in his sheets. She could hear his teeth grinding and thought she’d better awake him before he cracked one.
“Edward.”
This time she had to repeat his name several times before he finally woke up. It took several moments longer before Edward saw her and not the hell inside his head. He pulled the sheets closer to him, as if shielding himself.
“Winry?”
“You were having another bad dream,” she said and the slight nod was his only response. Winry went over to the bed and sat on the edge. “Move over.”
Ed’s nose wrinkled. “What?”
“I’m staying with you, like we used to do when we’d have sleep overs and one of us had a nightmare,” she replied.
“Did that ever work?”
“Of course it did.”
“We’re not kids any more,” Ed protested.
“But we still have bad dreams.” Winry rested her hand on Ed’s crown.
He regarded her then scooted into her path. “I want this side.”
Winry smiled. “Whatever you want.”
She went around to the other side of the bed, crawling in with him. Ed twisted so he could look at her. He ran a hand down her arm, his little finger trailing over the curve of her breast.
“This is definitely not like when we were little,” he said.
Winry put an arm around his waist, feeling the heat of his body. “Definitely not.”
She was about to ask if he wanted to talk about his dream when Ed kissed her. That question seemed suddenly unimportant. Winry returned the kiss until Ed pulled back slightly.
“Too much,” he muttered. “Too much after that. This needs to be another time.”
Winry stroked his long, loose hair. “I understand.” And she did. He had to be feeling rough.
“It’s enough that you’re here.” Ed closed his eyes, ending the conversation.
Winry didn’t let him escape that easily. “Do you want there to be another time, Ed?”
A smile spread across his face before he reopened his eyes. “More than anything.”
“That’s all I needed to know. Tonight, I’ll keep away your dreams and if I can’t do that, then I’ll help you face them,” Winry said.
Ed murmured a thanks against the skin of her neck. Winry nestled against him. She would guard his dreams as long as he needed her to and beyond.