FMA: 52 Flavours, Prompt 8
Title: Dare to Let Go
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Theme no.: 8. But could we be together/outside of time as well as inside?
Pairing: Winry, Elric Brothers
Rating: K
Summary: Winry adjusts after the brothers leave again.
Notes: First of three updates for 52_flavours. One of the very few fics that I’m doing that purely anime-verse, following Winry after the end of CoS, which I usually prefer to pretend doesn’t exist. I wrote this because 1. the prompt begged for it and 2. because I read so many fics where Winry wastes away or pursues alchemy or some crap after the movie, and I’m just so protective of Winry that when I read fics like that I kinda wanna take Winry and hold her and tell her that she doesn’t need those silly boys anyway.
8.
But could be we be together
outside of time as well as inside?
For the first twenty four hours after Winry finally returned home she slept. Literally - her train pulled in to Resembool at 11 o clock in the morning, and she made the long walk up to the house, kissed Granny on the forehead, and tumbled into bed, taking only enough time to pull her hair clip out and remove her jacket. She didn't dream - there was only pleasant, all encompassing blackness, and when she woke up it felt like she’d only been asleep for ten minutes.
When she finally dragged herself from bed only to find that it was noon a day later, Winry sat at the kitchen table and allowed Granny to make her lunch. She could tell that Granny was dying to ask what had happened - she only knew the basics: Ed returned, and left again, with Al, Winry had whispered to her over the phone in the train station - but Winry didn't want to talk about them yet.
Her mind realized that she was saying goodbye to the Elric brothers, and that she would probably never see them again, but her heart was still catching up. Even with Granny and Den sitting in the same room as her, she felt terribly lonely, which was irrational, because didn't she have friends and family outside of the Elrics?
It wasn’t until a week later that Granny finally asked her why she hadn't been working on any automail. Winry didn't know how to explain - because she felt lost, because every time she started to work it was only half-heartedly and she was afraid that the automail was weak because of it.
All Winry could do was gape wordlessly at Granny, sitting at her workbench, and the old woman took pity on her, removed the pipe from her mouth, and said gently, "You know just because you can't work on his automail anymore doesn't mean you can't work at all."
And Winry didn't know how to tell her grandmother that it wasn’t because she couldn't work on his automail, it was because he had to work on his own automail now, and could he even take care of it? She hadn’t had much time to look at the junk hanging off of his body those few precious moments she’d had with him, but if that was the best he had to work with, how was he going to take care of those masterpieces she'd slaved over for him?
The thought made Winry scared for him.
Her mind had accepted it, but her heart had not, and selfishly she wondered if either brother ever thought of her, wherever they were now - if Ed was grateful for the lightweight alloy she used or if Al nagged at him properly to maintain it in her place.
Two days after that it all caught up with her, and that night Winry finally dreamed again - nothing dramatic, just Ed and Al walking down the long path from her home to the train station, two gold ponytails swishing in the summer air. They had no luggage, and Ed was doing that hand wave that she'd always hated, that one over his shoulder because he refused to look back.
When she woke up her pillow was wet and her eyes were swollen, but her heart was finally clear of the blind emotion - a heavy mixture of hope and grief - that had been weighing her down since the radio had blared the report of the earthquake in Lior.
Ed and Al are together, she thought, and they're healthy, and that's all they wanted, isn't it?
They’d taken a piece of her with them, but she wouldn’t begrudge them what she gave freely. She also knew they wouldn't begrudge her either, so she slipped on her uniform, tied her bandana around her hair with conviction, and hopped down the steps into the kitchen, where Granny was shooing an early customer out the door.
Granny shut the door behind her and turned to look at Winry, standing on the bottom step and smiling gently.
"So..." Winry searched her pockets for her wrench. "Who's our next customer?"