Title: Flux
Rating: K
Characters: Winry-centric, Ed/Winry
Summary: Her bedroom was the best place in the house to watch for people approaching.
A/N: Written for my
Alphabet Drabbles challenge, as requested by
foxkaiya with the prompt “moment”. Manga-verse, spoilers around chapter 84.
moment
-noun
1. an indefinitely short period of time
Ed was right - her bedroom was the best place in the house to watch for people approaching. Winry spent the majority of her time in the basement, helping Granny build some automail when she could and being careful not to attract any attention, ever mindful of the fact that she was still technically a hostage, even if she suspected that the military was too busy with this whole Promised Day stuff to worry about some missing girl, hostage or no.
The trains ran on schedule though, and Winry liked to slip upstairs around the arrival times- if she could, if there wasn’t a customer or a neighbor hanging around - and gaze out the window, never sure if she was scaring herself or reassuring herself.
Whatever it was, it became routine, quickly. It helped her count hours that would otherwise have been spent hidden away in a windowless basement and kept her from dwelling on those memories of the last time she saw Ed - Ed, and the way he made her heart beat wildly, even when he was frowning at her. She didn’t like to think about what it meant for her if Ed didn’t come back, and wouldn’t let herself think about what could happen if he did.
There was comfort in routine, until the day that Winry tiptoed up the steps after the 10:15 train had arrived. She could count the number of steps between the door and the window, and when she positioned herself against the wall and tugged back the curtain, everything changed, instantly, in a single moment:
There were men dressed in blue coming up to the house.