And it hits you so much harder than you thought [complete]

[once_whole]

Characters: Edward Elric, Winry
Time: Late afternoon
Location: Lima bean structure
Content: Fullmetal Alchemist, checking in.
Format: Prose
Warnings: Ed's personality. Uh. Some blood. And likely some spoilers.

Comments

[nowhere_winry]

Millenium Park was beyond the Blackstone Hotel, but Winry felt like she needed a walk to clear her head after her encounter...or whatever it was...with Lara. The ring felt strange on her finger. She wasn't accustomed to wearing jewelry on her hands, not and work the machines necessary for crafting automail. Rings could get caught and tear off fingers.

She caught sight of something under the Bean, hesitating. It looked like...her breath caught in her throat.

Winry was running before she even realized she wanted her feet to move. "Ed. Ed!"

[once_whole]

Winry's voice cut off his anger and filled him with instead a cold dread. His gaze snaps to her direction, eyes widening in panic. "Winry! What are you doing here?!" Because to him, 'here' could still be one of Father's tricks. Something to stop Al, maybe. Something! His mind was jarred and there was still the dizziness, not to mention his state.

Oh god, his state. His eyes flicker down from her to his lack of automail, the connections hanging limply. He could see it now: "What did you do to my work this time?!" and maybe a wrench across his forehead -

Stop it. Focus, Ed.

He tries to stumble back to his feet; it isn't as though he hadn't dealt with lacking an arm before (it happened far too often that he'd like to keep track, but then Winry probably knew that number). "If you're here then - then -" He shakes his head, not understanding. She was in Rezembool. How could she possibly have gotten caught up with anything Father could have done?!

He hated being ignorant.

[nowhere_winry]

"I - I've - " Winry shakes her head, wide eyes staring at Ed. At the damage to his body. To his automail. "Ed," her voice goes hushed and strained. She reaches out to him, her hands hovering, almost afraid to touch him. "Ed, what happened to you? Wh-where's Al?" They'd disappeared together; shouldn't they come back together?

[once_whole]

He was afraid to move much at all, honestly. His left arm felt it had suffered the worst of his wounds, but from that mess back in Central, he couldn't tell if he had broken much else.

"I don't know," he tells her carefully. "Al - he was -" For a moment, Ed looks desperate, feeling just as he had when he watched his brother activate a transmutation that would have effectively sacrificed his own soul to bring back Ed's proper right arm. Instead... instead he was here. How the hell was he supposed to explain that to Winry?