That Would Be Enough (Chapter Eight)
Title: That Would Be Enough
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Ed/Winry, Ed/Roy
Warnings: Emotional Cheating, Ed is an idiot
Summary: Ed made choices. He made mistakes. They all had to live with them. Ed proposes to Winry on the train platform, but was it the right choice and for the right reasons? With a serial killer on the loose and Ed the next target, he had no choice but to look for the truth in his own heart.
The morning light woke her and Winry stretched lightly. She was still half sleep and she moved closer to the warmth at her back, only to have Ed move away from her. It woke her completely and she nearly cursed at the way her body betrayed her every damn morning. Seventeen days since they’d come home together, seventeen days to try to make sense of what the madman had been trying to do. Seventeen days of avoiding each other or yelling until she was hoarse. And Ed just took it. He didn’t fight back. He didn’t say anything in his defense.
Ed took the blame for all of it and Winry didn’t know how to get him to fight back.
She got out of bed and showered, then quickly went down to fix breakfast for Ed and Granny. Granny knew something had happened but neither of them said anything. Luckily, when Tanner had come she’d been away visiting a client in one of the outer edges of Resembool. She hadn’t come home until the morning after and while she knew something was wrong, she didn’t know the extent of it.
Ed had already left when Winry went to the kitchen so she just made food for Granny and left it for her with a note.
It was obvious that Ed was going to stay here and keep taking her anger for as long as she let him. She couldn’t. Oh, she was mad enough, but it wasn’t all on Ed, was it? How many nights had she laid awake next to him and wanted to ask him? Was he really happy? Was this really what he wanted in life? Because Winry loved Ed, but this wasn’t the relationship she’d always envisioned for them. Before this had happened, he smiled and laughed with her and they made love, but he was always on his way out the door. He was always returning to Central City and his brother.
To Roy Mustang.
Winry had never asked, though she’d always wondered. So many times over the years she’d almost asked if they had been lovers, before. She knew the age difference between them and she knew all the things that said they shouldn’t, but she also knew how Ed was. He hadn’t been a child since his mother died, no matter how he acted sometimes. And now she could admit to herself that what she saw between Ed and Mustang now was the same she had seen back then.
And she had always been afraid to ask because she knew the answer. She had known when she married him and she had said the words, hoping that in time he would love her the way she loved him. She had been so certain that their history and the love she had for him was enough to make him love her. Because she had also known that whatever had been between them, once Ed said ‘I do’ Mustang would never cross that line.
Funny, how she never thought of that as problematic before Tanner had mentioned it. That she had always believed that Mustang would keep the line, and not the man that had vowed to be true to her.
She sighed as she walked out the front door and walked down the road a bit towards a familiar path. They’d always come here, Ed and Al, when they needed to think and Winry had long memorized the route. It led to the middle of nowhere, but the hillside looked down on the entire Resembool valley.
She saw him there, his golden hair blowing gently with the light morning breeze. He was leaning back with his arms braced behind him. His eyes were closed and there was a small smile on his face. Her heart stopped for a moment to see him like that. He was still the most handsome man she’d ever known, but it had been a long time since she’d seen a smile like that on his face. His visits to Resembool had become more duty than desire and while they could laugh and joke together, wherever his thoughts took him now, it was far more intimate than anything they shared.
She looked down, feeling guilty that she was catching him in such a moment, then huffed just loud enough to get his attention as she made her way up the hill.
The blush on his cheeks was enough to tell her what she didn’t need to know. He’d been thinking of Mustang, or remembering something of the man.
She took a seat next to him and he seemed to be holding his breath. He was waiting for the anger and the yelling, but Winry was done with it. That one moment, that one unguarded moment said everything, didn’t it?
“So. I’m going to go to Rush Valley for a couple days to get my head clear,” she said softly.
“Do you want me to come with you?” he offered.
She shook her head and let out a deep breath. “You love him.”
“Winry…”
There was something so desperate in the way he said her name that she felt tears in her eyes. “Ed, please. I need to say this. You love him in ways you couldn’t love me. I understand that now. I get it. He’s handsome and strong and …” she paused because this wasn’t about Mustang. This was about her and Ed.
“I used to think I understood you and Al better than anyone could, but I was wrong. I knew these two boys from Resembool who loved alchemy and their family and who set off to make themselves whole. Who you became is so much more than that and I barely knew what was happening. I don’t know the man you are, because I was afraid to ask. I didn’t want to know how you were changing, and when I saw the change with you and the General, I didn’t ask. In fact, I turned my head. I just looked away. I wanted so much to be a part of your story and if I knew the whole of it, I was afraid I wouldn’t fit.”
“Winry, you’ve always fit.”
“That’s the thing, Ed. I fit as your best friend and I fit as your childhood sweetheart, but you grew out of that a long time ago. And you are going to keep trying to put me back in the story because you think you’re hurting me by doing anything else. You’re sitting here now, when we both know you should be somewhere else.”
“Winry, you’re my wife.”
Not Winry, I love you. Not Winry, I need you. Winry, you’re my wife.
She stared down at her hands and tried to hold in the anger, because he was going to hide behind that. That damn letter made it all too clear that he had been hiding behind the title of husband rather than doing what he should to keep it. He couldn’t do anything else though, so she had to be the one. She had to remove herself from the narrative. Whatever story was told about Ed’s life, Winry Rockbell could no longer be a part of it.
“I love you, Ed, and I hate you for making me be the one to do this.”
He stared at her and she took a deep breath to keep from yelling. “I’m going to Rush Valley, and when I return, you need to have all of your things out of the house. I refuse to be married to someone who doesn’t love me.”
She got up and didn’t turn around when he called her name. She ran home and went straight to her room and curled up on the bed, on his side which rarely smelled of him because of his long absences, and gave in to the tears.
The least he could have done was chase after her one last time…
“Mustang,” Roy answered the phone as soon as it rang. He had a headache that wouldn’t seem to go away and he would have called it an early day if he hadn’t had the same damn headache every day since Tanner had died.
“General.”
He sat up in his chair at the voice on the other end of the line. A voice he’d, quite frankly, never thought to hear again.
“Winry? Are you okay?”
There was a bitter laugh at the end of the line and he sighed. “I meant-”
“I know,” she said softly.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I’m trying. I guess that’s the best I can say right now. I’m trying to understand. I … can I ask … I know it’s-”
“Winry, what do you want to know?”
“He wrote you letters like that one, often, didn’t he?”
“Like that one? No.” He wished he’d never heard that one either. And yet, it sat in an envelope on his desk, along with the charm that he had given Ed. They’d come the day before. “He did write though about whatever was happening on the road. Sometimes things that didn’t belong in a work report. Sometimes things about his travels. Usually just whatever was happening around him. Things about you and Al and everyone he was visiting.”
“He wrote to you about me?” she asked.
“Often.”
“He would never write me. Not a single letter in all these years. Do you think it was… because of you?”
He signed and found himself speaking in a way he never thought he would to Ed’s wife. “I love him Winry, but that doesn’t make me a mind reader. I have no idea why he wrote me and not you.”
“He tried to explain why he couldn’t write to me once. I wish I had listened better. He said it was hard for him to write because he had to trust that the person who was reading it would understand him well enough to know what he meant, even when he fumbled the words.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Winry,” he admitted.
“I don’t either. I just… I guess I used to call you when I was feeling upset about Ed or worried about him and it always made me feel better. What does that say about my marriage, General? What does it say about me now, that I still expect it to be true?”
“I’m sorry Winry. I wish there was something I could say that would make this better, but I did this to you. There is nothing I can say to change that.”
“You didn’t. Listen, Ed made his own choices and you and I did also. We all screwed this up but Ed can’t fix it. That Tanner guy, he was right about that. Ed is so damn worried about hurting the people he loves that he can’t see how much we’re all hurting because of it. So I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything, of course.”
“I need you to be on the train to Resembool this afternoon.”
“What?”
“You got the letter and the charm that I sent, right?”
“Yes, I did,” he said as he picked up the envelope.
“I don’t know what the charm was, but they used my wedding ring to lure Ed away, so I’m guessing it means something between the two of you too.”
He closed his eyes. “Yes.”
“That was … he transmuted it into his automail, didn’t he?”
“So he wouldn’t lose it, he said,” Roy answered.
“The letter? It’s a beautiful confession. You deserve to be happy, General. So does Ed.”
“As do you, Winry,” he reminded her.
“It might take some time, but I’m going to be. Please, just be on the train.”
He let out a deep breath. He knew the train schedule by heart after all these years of waiting for Ed to go back and forth. “I can make the next train.”
“Thank you.”
She hung up before he could ask anything else. He stared for a moment but then the door opened as Hawkeye came in.
“Sir, you have a meeting in thirty minutes.”
“Please reschedule it. I’m leaving the office.”
“Sir.”
“I’m going to Resembool.”
“I know Ed is dealing with a lot, General-”
“Winry asked me to come.”
He cut her off because they didn’t know. They didn’t understand why the three of them had been tied up and a clever lie had them all thinking that it had been a choice between Ed’s career and Ed’s marriage that had been in the balance.
Hawkeye was clearly confused by that but she nodded. “I see. I’ll take care of it. Will you be in the office tomorrow?”
“I’ll call when I know the situation.”
He pulled his jacket on and didn’t bother with anything else. He had a train to catch and too many troubles on his mind to worry about something as trivial as necessities.
“You don’t have to go,” Ed said as they walked to the station. He’d said it a few hundred times over the last few hours since Winry’s announcement that she was going to Rush Valley, but she refused to stay.
“I want to go. I need to go,” Winry said as the station came into view. “And you need to move on with your life in Central.”
“It’s not that simple, Winry. You know none of this is.”
“I do. I’m sorry that this last two weeks I’ve been so angry that I couldn’t see that this was killing you as much as it was killing me.”
“I’m so sorry I did this to us Winry, to you.”
She shook her head. “For God’s sake the two of you do deserve each other. Stop blaming yourself Ed. Yes, I’m angry but we all played a part and I’m able to see how I let it happen too. But I can’t stand by anymore. So take care of yourself Ed. And take care of him. You do deserve to be happy.”
“Winry.”
“I’m going to keep this,” she pulled the necklace out from around her neck where it had been tucked under her shirt. Her wedding ring was still hanging from it. “I’m going to keep this and you’re going to keep your promise. That you’ll always come back, right? Everything is different, but I still need to know that you’re safe out there. So you’ll come back to Resembool every so often and let us see that you’re still alive, okay?”
There were tears in her eyes and he wanted to reach out to her and comfort her but he wasn’t allowed to do that, was he?
“You’re such an idiot,” she huffed and she wrapped her arms around his neck and quietly cried into his shirt collar.
The conductor called for the departing Rush Valley train and Winry pulled back.
“Did the Central train come in yet?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. It just went outbound before they called for the Rush Valley train.”
“Good.”
He wondered what she meant by that but then she took off towards the station and he followed. “Ed, would you get my ticket?” she asked.
He went to the window but he lost sight of her a minute later with the people moving over the platform. He picked up the ticket and stared, lost for a few moments, before he let out a deep breath. This was what Winry wanted.
No, she wanted to be happily married, but that wasn’t what Ed had given her. Now, she was going to find a way to move on and that meant Rush Valley for now. He pushed aside the regret and pain at what he’d done to her and began to look for her on the platform.
He stopped when he found her.
She had her arms wrapped around another man’s shoulders, whispering something in his ear. Ed recognized the uniform and the gloves and the arms that were wrapped around Winry’s tiny waist, but his brain couldn’t quite put it all together.
When Mustang looked up, there was surprise in his eyes.
Winry must have felt something because she held him closer for another moment before she let go. He nodded to her and she smiled back, but there were tears in her eyes again when she turned to Ed. “Time for me to board,” she said. “I guess it’s my turn to have an adventure on the train. My ticket?” she asked.
“Here you go,” he said as he handed it to her. “Winry-”
“This is where you wish me the best, Edward Elric. And you tell me you’ll always love me and you’ll still call but you’ll never write and I’ll yell at you not to let my automail get destroyed. Alright?”
He nodded because it was the most he could do. She was so damn brave. So much more so than he had ever been.
She turned to enter the train but Ed caught her hand and pulled her close. He pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. “I do love you, Winry.”
“I know. Now, go find a way to be happy Ed. It’s not simple, you’re right, but you’ve got a pretty good start on it. Just … fight for it this time. Alright?”
She pulled away before he could say anything else and Ed took a few steps back and followed to where she’d found an open window seat. She put the window down and waved. “You remember what I said, General!”
“I will, Winry. Be safe. Let us know when you reach Rush Valley.”
When the train rolled off into the distance, Ed could only wave. He stared off after it until well after he could no longer see it.
“Ed?”
He had almost forgotten that he wasn’t alone on the platform.
“What are you doing here, Bastard?” he asked, though his voice was just weary and not angry the way he wanted it to be.
“I wish I knew,” he said honestly. “Winry called me. She asked me to take the train to Resembool.”
He had no idea what to do with that.
“Are you okay, Ed?” he asked.
“I … don’t know. She’s going to Rush Valley. She asked me to move out.”
“I’m sorry, Ed.”
“Are you?”
He turned to look at Mustang and the look of surprise on his face made him regret his words immediately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
Mustang just nodded. After a moment of staring at each other, he looked back to the ticket counter. “I’m going to head back to Central.”
“Don’t.”
Mustang looked at him but Ed couldn’t read anything from his expression.
“Please, just stay a little while at least. There are a couple hours before the last train.”
Mustang put his hands in his pockets and nodded. “Alright, Fullmetal.”
He watched the way Mustang put up his guard and Ed hated it, but he understood. He started to walk away from the platform and down the road towards the house. He couldn’t go there, but he didn’t know what else to do. Neither of them spoke but as they walked, Ed spotted a little market and he stopped. “Just wait here a minute. I’ll be right back.”
He ran off before Mustang could say anything. It was a quick trip. He’d made it often the last couple weeks. He left the house most mornings before Winry woke and he didn’t go back until dinner time. He picked up a couple sandwiches from the deli along with a jug of lemonade and some finger foods. The lady who owned the place lent him her basket again and he walked out a few minutes later.
“Figured I could at least feed you for making the trip,” Ed said as he joined Mustang again. The General smiled but it was still his polite, political smile and Ed sorta wanted to punch it off his face, if he didn’t understand why the man was being so distant.
When Ed left the road to walk around the hills, Mustang followed without hesitation. He did take his jacket off and roll up his sleeves and that at least made Ed feel a little more relaxed. If Mustang was willing to remove at least a little of his professional armor, Ed had a chance at getting him to talk.
When he stopped they were in a small secluded area. Trees surrounded them on all sides and a small stream ran past them. He realized it could be considered a romantic spot, but Ed came here to think when he needed to be alone. Not even Al knew this spot.
“I come here a lot to get away from everyone,” Ed said quietly.
The sun streamed through the trees onto the rocky face that Ed usually sat on and he went to it and set the basket down. It was large enough to lie on if he wanted so there was plenty of room for the two of them.
“Ed?”
“Can we just… eat? Can the complicated stuff happen after that?” He was just postponing the inevitable but it’d been seventeen days since he’d spoke to the General and Ed just wanted a few minutes of peace before the inevitable war broke out between them.
Mustang watched him for a minute, then sat down on the rock and looked at the basket. “What did you get for me?”
Ed was grateful for the reprieve and he handed out the food. They ate in silence that was companionable and not the strained variety he’d had to live with since Tanner. He sighed because he wouldn’t let himself lie, even in his head. It wasn’t because of Tanner. It was because of him. Because of his actions and his inaction. It was nice though, sitting on his rock, eating, watching the stream move along, and just being with Roy.
When he was done eating he packed it away and watched as Roy laid back on the rock, using his jacket as a pillow. His eyes were closed and Ed just let himself look.
He’d undone the top couple buttons of his shirt and he was more relaxed than Ed had seen him in a long time. “Stop staring at me, you freak,” Roy said softly. There was a smile on his face though and Ed couldn’t help but laugh.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you just relax like that.”
“You think I get much of a chance in Central?”
“Yeah, I guess not.”
Roy sat up and grabbed at the jacket he’d been using as a pillow until he had something in his hand. An envelope. He pulled something out of it and put it away quickly but not before Ed recognized the letter.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
Whatever Roy had taken out of the envelope he kept in his hand, rubbing a thumb over it.
“Winry. She found the letter and took it before it could be made evidence.”
“I’m sorry that you had to hear it that way,” he said.
Roy let out a huff of a laugh. “I wasn’t ever going to hear it any other way.”
“Maybe not,” Ed said. “I … I don’t know what to say anymore. Apologizing doesn’t seem to be enough. It doesn’t … it can’t make up for how much I’ve screwed everything up.”
“Ed, you weren’t alone in this.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I wasn’t innocent. I couldn’t move on, but I could have tried to make you think I did.”
“You think I wouldn’t have seen through it, Bastard?”
“Maybe. But I shouldn’t have encouraged you either.”
“You kept me faithful. You know that.”
“Ed.”
“That night,” he looked across the stream because he couldn’t admit how weak he was while he looked him in the eye. “When you came back to bed, you know what I wanted.”
“Don’t make me out to be a saint, Ed. I wanted the same thing.”
“But you stopped when I wouldn’t have.”
“You would have hated yourself in the morning.”
“The next morning my wife was abducted by an alchemic serial killer and I hated myself for it anyway. But… I’ll damn myself more and admit that I’m still glad I was with you that night.”
“Ed-”
“I needed to be there. He wasn’t wrong, you know.”
“Who?”
“Tanner. Alphonse figured out how it worked and what he was reading. It wasn’t people that wanted to die, but he could tell when people were depressed. It has to do with brain chemistry and chemicals in the body. I’ve been slipping further and further into it for years. I’ve known it but I was never able to see my way clear of it. As much as everything hurts right now, I feel like maybe I can fix things.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“Winry needs time to heal. She can’t do that if I’m here in Resembool. She’s made it clear that she wants to be friends still and I hope we can manage that.”
“If anyone can, it’s the two of you.”
“I don’t know what to do about this though, about us. If … there is an us.”
“Ed, what happens next is up to you. It has always been up to you. I love you and my heart has never been so fickle as to change course once it’s set on something. You were right in your letter. I loved you when you took me to your hotel room all those years ago and I have loved you ever since. But you need time to heal, just like Winry does. Just like I do.”
“I was thinking of making a trip to Xing. I missed the last one and it would be good to see Ling and Lan Fan and maybe visit with Mei.”
“I hate the idea of you going that far away, but I can make a call. It would probably be better if you didn’t surprise the Emperor.”
“You just wanna call and talk trash about me with Ling,” Ed teased.
Roy leaned back to lie on the rock and Ed watched for a second before he moved closer and lay down beside him. He pillowed his head on Roy’s shoulder and waited for the other man to push him away but it never happened. Instead he felt the tie pulled from his hair and then Roy’s hand was stroking through it.
“Is this okay?” Ed asked as he shifted so that he could press his nose into Roy’s neck. Roy’s fingers tangled in his hair for a moment and his breath hitched but Roy didn’t pull him away.
“Yeah. This is okay, Ed.”
He dozed in and out, unaware of the passage of time. Sometimes he thought he felt the press of lips in his hair but he just smiled each time. Sometimes when he thought Roy was asleep, he pressed his own lips to the man’s neck just to feel the warmth of his skin.
When he was finally shaken awake the day was almost gone. “Ed, I have to get back to the station.”
Ed let out a deep sigh. “Yeah, I guess you do. You could stay.”
“I really can’t,” Roy answered but his voice was tinged with regret. He pulled Ed close though and Ed took the moment to breathe deep and just feel the man beside him. “I really don’t think I’d behave myself if I did, and the last thing we need is to confuse everything like that.”
“But you wanna…” Ed teased.
“You have no idea how much.”
Roy sat up then and Ed followed suite. They walked back to town quietly. When they got closer to the station, Roy began to button himself back up and his jacket went back on. Ed already missed the more casual side of the General but he knew the importance of appearances, especially for Roy who still had so much work he wanted to do.
Roy went up and bought a ticket for the return home and Ed waited. When he was done they went to the backside of the building to sit and wait for the next train. It wouldn’t be long and Ed wished he was joining the other man.
“This was with the letter when Winry sent it to me.” He held the charm that Ed had given Ackerman. “It’s yours if you still want it.”
Ed looked at it for a second before he took it. He didn’t think about it but clapped his hands and transmuted it onto the back of his right hand. He didn’t need to hide it anymore.
“You’re really not subtle, Fullmetal,” Roy said with a smile.
Ed looked at him and before he could say anything Roy had pulled him close until their foreheads rested together. “Take care of yourself, Ed. Don’t get into too much trouble with Ling.”
“I thought you two had become friends while you were there.”
“We did. Which is why I’m warning you before you go,” he laughed.
He started to pull away and Ed turned his head ever so slightly in the hopes of catching the other man’s lips, just once. He could do that now, he could want to kiss the man he loved.
Roy pulled away from him without allowing it, but just far enough to look Ed in the eye. “Our first kiss will not be a good bye kiss, Edward.”
“Tease.”
“Come home when you’re ready, and I’ll show you a tease.”
“Still teasing.”
“Still want you to come home to me.”
They both straightened up when they heard the train whistle in the distance, signaling its arrival. He wanted more time, but he knew more time was just trouble with them. He needed to sort out his head and he needed to think on what Roy had said, about needing to heal himself. Ed knew he’d hurt him with this back and forth but he’d never thought just how much. Mustang was the General, after all, and he rarely let anyone see what was really going on behind those eyes. It was something Ed would have to break him of, when they were finally together.
It was time for the train and Ed gave in to the desire to wrap his arms around Roy. Roy held him close and Ed relaxed against his chest for a moment. He looked up at Roy and said the words he’d ached to say for years. “I love you.”
Roy’s eyes widened in surprise and it was worth it for that, but Ed would never forget the moment of relief that flashed there as well. As if in all the words and letters over the years, he had feared that Ed would never speak them aloud.
“I love you too, Ed.”
He closed his eyes when Roy caressed his cheek but he didn’t lean up, no matter how much he wanted to kiss the man.
“Be safe until you come home to me.”
“I’ll let you know when I get to Xing. I’ll write.”
“Call when you can, too. And Ed, I’ll keep an eye on Winry and Al.”
He smiled because he never even questioned it. “I know.”
Roy walked away then and Ed watched him board the train. As many times as Ed had left someone behind on the platform, he didn’t think he’d ever felt as empty as he did at the moment. He had some things to figure out though and he just needed some time to do it.
Tonight he’d pack up what he needed to and send it up to Central to Al. And tomorrow, he’d been on the first part of his journey to Xing.