Disclaimer: I love Fullmetal Alchemist too much to even pretend to own it.
A/N: There's so many witty things I could say…but I think I'll just dedicate this to my very good friend, Devon, who makes the world a more amazing place every day. ;)
Living Room Space
TerraCotta Bones
Chapter 4: Heart of Armor
Then you bring me home
'Cause we both know what it's like to be alone
"I can't believe she's taking a shower. I would have just gone to bed."
Al smiled wryly and slid into the plastic seat opposite his brother at Winry's breakfast table. "And that's what separates you from civilized company, Brother."
Edward shot him a pointed look and took a long drag from one of the mugs of tea Winry had brewed for them. "Sometimes you have to prioritize. Sorry if I might choose to save myself from collapse over hygiene."
"She did look like she was about to faint," Al conceded. He ran a finger on the rim of his mug. "Never seen someone look so tired."
Ed yawned. "We're not going to wait up for her to finish her shower, are we?"
"It might be more polite if we did."
"But it's Winry – I'm sure she'd understand."
Al was dogged. "I'm sure she'd find it offensive that we couldn't wait the few minutes for her to take a shower after barging in on her at one in the morning."
Sighing in a disappointed fashion, Ed's gaze fell upon an old clock perched on the wall. "Two in the morning, actually. Wish she'd hurry up." He took another swig of tea and, only for something to do, pulled an old newspaper off the counter and started to read.
The paper was a local one, and filled, predictably, with articles in which only locals would be interested. A new library had opened near the center of the town; a team of automail mechanics working in a cooperative workshop had developed some new cooling system; a little kid had saved a cat from the top of a roof by tying a fake mouse onto the end of a fishing pole and casting it up next to the cat, then drawing the line in until the cat jumped.
He stopped reading after a while, without noticing. Winry's kitchen gave off the faint, automated buzz he associated with boredom, and the sound of mosquitoes in the dead of summer.
As his gaze drifted listlessly, he saw the walls were yellow, the linoleum floor was rising and warping with age, and the hanging copper ceiling lamp was streaked with green. The cupboards looked like the patchy faces of old men – run-down, uneven, and discolored with liver spots. Ed guessed that they would squeak and groan when opened. The counters were lined with jars of spices, flour, sugar, and a tin of coffee next to a coffee machine. A small, red-painted radio sat on a corner. Everything was scrubbed and clean. Ed had to smile when he saw that the cleanest appliance was the oven – shiny and spotless.
Turning back to his paper, he knew that he would be digesting no new articles tonight. The tiny print blurred every time he blinked.
"Nice place she's got here," Al said.
Ed watched his brother curl a hand around the mug of hot tea Winry had made. What little hands he had, it seemed. He rested his chin on his palm. "Really small though. I wonder if she's even got a workshop in here."
He pictured himself walking through a half-closed door to see Winry hard at work with a hack saw. She would have her purple jumpsuit, her orange handkerchief, her long hair.
His stomach growled. They would have to eat pie at some point during this stop. He thought of the sweet red cherries of the Resembol orchards, and sighed.
"Do you think she has the time to make automail, working at the hospital and all?" Al mused jokingly.
Ed snorted. "Winry Rockbell always has time to make automail. Taken a look around you yet?"
It was true. Something resembling parts of an arm littered the counter, and a cardboard box full of gears lay by the door to the living room. What looked like a half-finished mechanical bird sat on the tabletop. A loose screwdriver and a toolbox and a series of metal trinkets sprinkled the counter, the table, the chairs, the floors. Everywhere they looked, something metal gleamed dimly.
Al chuckled a little. "Good old Winry." He took another drink. "I've never seen anyone look more tired in my life."
"It is almost two in the morning. Damn late trains," Ed added.
Al nodded, agreeing. For a minute, they sat and drank their tea, and tried not to drift off. It was hard, in the silence. Their butts and bones ached from riding too long on the stiff seats of an aging, clanking train. Ed closed his eyes, only for a moment, but in that second the buzz of the copper lamp, the tick of the clock, and the creaking sound of a small, old Rush Valley kitchen transformed.
Ed's mind flickered. He heard heavy footsteps, and the sound of frying; he smelled the cheddar, green onions and butter of his father's omelettes. If he only opened his eyes, if he only listened a little longer, he might hear his voice—
"Look," Al said, pointing.
Briefly disoriented, Ed looked around. Hanging in a frame on the wall was a cut-out from the Central Post – an article entitled, "MIA Alchemist and Hero of the People Returns."
He begrudged his brother a scowl, and stood up to wash his cold tea down the sink. "That's great."
He could feel Al's eyes in the back of his head, and so kept his gaze low as he sat back down.
"Wish Winry had some food," he muttered. "I could eat a horse."
"You can always eat a horse, Brother. It's when you can eat an elephant that we start to think about food." Al paused. "Are you going to tell her why we're here?"
It was ironic that Ed had searched for the key to restoring Al's body for so long, and now all he could do was look away. He didn't say anything.
"Then I guess I will."
Ed drew his mouth into a tight line. How could Al have the energy to argue now? "We just got here, Al. Give the girl a break."
"Why? She's not stupid, Brother. She'll figure it out." Al stared at him so hard it made him uncomfortable.
Figure what out? Ed wanted to say. And if she did, did Al think he was going to tell her anything? Certainly not.
"Ed, some day you're going to burst."
His brother's voice rang in his head, clear. "You don't understand," he muttered.
"Understand what?" Al snapped. "And how would you know?"
Ed shifted in his seat. He felt old, and tired, and disgusting, like he had just thrown up all over the floor. "Because you're my brother." Because you understood once, and now you don't have to anymore.
"And youdon't think I can handle it, Brother?"
"You already paid your price, Al." When he looked at his brother, Ed saw a little boy. When he looked away, he saw a suit of armor with Al's voice, and somehow they had the same expression.
Al slammed his fists on the table top, a sharp thud in the silence of Winry's kitchen. Ed jumped. "What price, Brother? What did I pay it for?"
"Al," Ed murmured at the floor, "I can't."
You gave me my life back, Al, with your own. But where had that gotten them?
Al scoffed, stood up abruptly, and brought his mug to the sink. His face smoldered. "When I met your old military unit, they told me that we would've sacrificed our lives for each other. And now you don't even trust me with the truth."
Al glared at him for an instant with wild grey eyes, then stalked out of the room.
"Al!" Ed yelled. He heard Al open his suitcase and rummage through it. He felt the space inside him shudder, tremble. We did sacrifice our lives for each other. "I was trying to bring you back," he mumbled. Three years – that was the price for his little brother's anger. Three years in a nightmare where he lived and dreamed and searched – and now he was home, where things were distinctly different from his dreams.
That ballroom was so old and decrepit that it started tumbling down on him only seconds after the transmutation circle started to glow, only seconds after he felt the reaction run through his mind, only seconds after the power began to course through his body. It was like drowning, he recalled, while the sky fell down from above. It was like drowning in an ocean, with the current crashing onto his lungs and smashing his head against the rocks. He had believed, at that point, that he was going to die.
He'd already died once, looking into his half-brother's face.
He'd only wanted to bring Al back. It seemed a fair trade.
Then the Gate wrenched him through, and he woke up to mud, then a hospital and his father's wrinkled face.
He dipped his face into his arms on Winry's kitchen table, tucked his feet under Winry's chair, and tried to stop the tremors rolling through his chest.
And I'm dreaming in your living room
But we don't have much room
To live
He was having a dream.
It was a whirl of colors, and he woke up to Winry shaking his arm. He couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming.
"Silly," she said as he rubbed his eyes, "you can't sleep there. I put pillows on the couch for a reason."
I was having a dream. He yawned, still hunched over the table. "Oh, yeah. Thanks."
He felt like he was underwater, and groggy. He was a fish, gasping. Winry swam into his vision like a reflection; she was the girl sitting on the dock, staring down at him, while he looked up at her from under the rippling surface.
She glistened in the lamplight, all glowing skin and dripping wet blonde hair. Her pink robe made her cheeks look rosy. She reminded him of something, outlined in incandescence, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
"You cut your hair again," he noted offhand.
She smiled like a school girl. "Yeah. Do you like it?"
He tilted his head, concluding, "It'll grow back." She puffed up in consternation, but he ignored her. "You should go to bed yourself," he continued, stumbling as she shoved him toward the dark living room.
"My hair is wet, I can't go to bed." He heard her add, under her breath, "I can't believe you don't like my hair."
Her hair, along with the rest of her, had brought him through three years of rocketry, of hopelessness, of Hohenheim and Alfons.
"However you like it, Winry."
She gave a dramatic sigh. "I don't know, maybe I'll dye it black or something."
He chuckled, and, distracted in the darkness, crashed his flesh knee into the coffee table corner. In the crossfire, he bit his tongue. Hard.
"Damnit!"
He sank onto the couch, hand on mouth and toe, and glowered at Winry's brief burst of giggles. "Why do I even have an automail knee in the first place if I'm gonna be bangin' the other one into stuff?! Fuck, this is useless."
"Hey! Automail saved your butt, so shut your mouth." She flicked on a lamp and ambled over. "You dummy, if you haven't learned to see in the dark by now, you should turn on a light first. Then you might not dent my automail."
He glared at her over the cage of his fingers on his jaw. She wasn't fazed – as usual – and sat down next to him.
"Strong boy like you wouldn't be hurt by a little coffee table, would you?"
He flung his hands off his stinging body parts and crossed his arms. "Jeez, you could at least be concerned. It's freaking two o'clock in the morning. You're not the most graceful blade in the tool shed either, so there."
He imagined her answering with her standard caustic wit, saw the wrench flying out, and could even feel the welt on his head before it happened.
But she just murmured, in an exhausted fashion, "Three in the morning, actually."
He sighed, deflated. She was in silhouetted in front of the lamp, shining at the edges. And, studying her, he realized something.
Give my love to your brother, when you see him.
He slapped a hand to his mouth to stop himself from crying out, then squeezed his eyes shut.
Winry shook him. "Ed, what's wrong? What's wrong?"
It was only for an instant – he didn't know why it came to mind – the flash, the alarm, the lights and buzz, flaring like an explosion in his head – but for an instant all he saw was his father's silhouette leaning over him, and his father's smile instead of hers, and the light of the transmutation circle on the ceiling instead of Winry's living room lamp, and screaming, screaming, screaming in his ears; his mouth was full of screaming and the blood was a cascade over him, a silhouette of his father, his smiling father and the transmutation circle—
Give my love – he ran it through his mind in a stutter – to your brother, when you see him.
When he opened his eyes, Winry had her hand poised to touch his face. He flinched and drew away at her proximity, and she withdrew.
"What was that?" She looked unnerved.
He stared at his brother, across from him on the other couch and sound asleep. "I don't know." Hey, Al! he wanted to say. I have something to tell you.
"Ed!"
He wouldn't look at her. He couldn't.
She took a breath. "Did you just – what happened?"
"I can't really describe it to you so you'd understand."
She punched him in the arm.
"Ow! Winry!"
"Don't bullshit me, Edward. You've been giving me that crap since you were ten years old, now grow up."
She was stern, but when he didn't respond to her red-faced glare – her typical red-faced glare – she crossed her arms and moved to the far end of the sofa. "Take your shoes off before you put your feet on my couch."
He smiled a little, because she was acting like him. His boots clattered to the floor with a sharp thud somewhere on the left when he kicked them off.
"Go to bed, Winry," he grumbled, stuffing his face into a pillow.
But she didn't. He waited to feel the cushion rise and to hear her pad down the hall to her bedroom, but there was nothing.
"It's three in the morning."
She stood up and he thought she might leave, but she just spread a blanket over him and sat back down. "Thanks. It was killing me not knowing."
He sighed exasperatedly. "Whatever."
She let him be, and after a while he fell asleep.
He had another dream, another disturbed whirl of color that he wouldn't be able to define or recall later. He woke up when he felt the cushions move; it was Winry, sitting down with some mechanical whats-it in her hand.
"Hey, Ed."
He sighed gustily to signify a response. Why was she even still there?
"Mind if I ask you something?"
To that, he only groaned.
She waited a moment, fidgeting. If he'd had the energy, he would've rolled his eyes. She continued, "What are you doing here?"
He felt the air pause in his chest, felt his façade puncture at her words. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like I mean. It's not really your style to make courtesy calls, or go on vacations, or even visit me at all unless you've been shot or beaten up—" she paused and he waited for her to say, Or if you've been gone for three years, "but you don't look beaten up or anything."
He just wanted to curl up and go to sleep; he didn't care if she sat there and watched him until he woke up in the morning. He couldn't tell her anything.
I promised you a good life, Winry. I won't ruin it.
"I don't know, Winry. Ask that one." He flung his hand out in the direction of his brother on the couch across from them. "Maybe you'll get it even if I don't." Dangerous territory. She raised her eyebrows.
"Are you guys having a fight?"
She'd said that once before, long ago.
Ed shrugged. "Here's a better question – why won't you let me sleep? Go the hell to bed, you lunatic."
She slapped his leg, and he flinched.
"Hey!"
"Hey yourself. Just tell me why you're here. I'm not attacking you or anything, so just tell me."
He took another deep breath, and perhaps he drifted away for a second, staring at the back of his eyelids and finding her face there the way he wanted to see it. Passionate and sixteen.
His voice, when it finally came out, was gruff, and tired. "You're here," he said. He could just hear her surprise. "And we missed you."
Even though you left us.
As the seconds ticked on and she didn't say anything, he thought the interrogation over and started to fall back asleep. Then, through the daze, he felt her hand on his ankle. Even with vision bleary from half-sleep, he saw her thrown expression, and the over-brightness in her eyes.
He blinked, and rubbed his eyes. "Winry—"
Why was she always so emotional?
He was too tired for this.
Even through his exhaustion, or perhaps because of it, he had the idea to take hold of her hand. It looked wanting and lonely on his ankle. And it seemed like a good idea to take hold of it, so he did.
"Edward, you're such an idiot," she murmured. Color blazed in her cheeks. She smiled ruefully, and bit her lip. "I was worried you wouldn't come back. It's stupid, I know, but most of the time years go by before I see you again."
He drew back his hand, and felt sick to his stomach.
The first time, a suit of armor with Al's hollow voice brought half of a ten-year-old boy to her door.
Every time after that he'd lost the use of his arm, or he was in the hospital, or he was getting ready to die. That last time, Schieska was in full hysterics at the train station, and Winry just stood there, watching him go like she wanted to believe he would come back.
"You just came back from that place—" she drew a long breath and continued, "— wherever it was, and it's been three years – and I thought that maybe—"
He didn't know what to do. Somehow, he should do something, shouldn't he? But she was being herself again, and he didn't know what to do. He never had.
"I had to leave," she finished. "I had to come back to Rush Valley. It's my life. But every day is just one more towards a month, and every month is just another towards a year and after that – I was just…worried. And all I did was go home."
She made a nervous laughing sound, as if embarrassed with herself. Ed said nothing. He remembered being angry with her, though he hadn't admitted it. He was ashamed, because she didn't deserve it.
"I guess I'll let you get some sleep now." She bent forward to take her gadget from the table, and turned back to him. "Good night."
How strange, that after all these years she was almost the same girl, and how strange that in his mind she was five years old, eleven years old, sixteen, nineteen. She was still Winry crying when he and Al transmuted her a doll; still the mechanic blisteringly angry when he came back with broken automail; still the beacon, the shining reminder, for a life loved and lost; still the girl with a blazing heart, who demanded that he be as healthy and wholesome as any other man in the world. Looking at her now – even with a red nose, she was much prettier than she used to be, before he left for purgatory and the Gate. Her face had a nice shape; her hair was newly cut and shiny. Even her robe couldn't cover the supple, easy curves of her body.
The lamp illuminated her from behind, like a sunset glow on a house you've lived in all your life and never want to leave. You can burn it down, but even after years go by you can still return to that spot of grass and say, "This is where I lived."
He stared at her, no fire at all, no armor and red coat.
"I'm glad you came," she said as she departed. "Sleep well."
Her eyes were a perfect, deep and pacific blue. Edward's heart lurched, surprising him. "Good night," he said.
And Konstantine came walking down the stairs
Doesn't she look good
Standing in her underwear
As Al rose from the couch, showered, dressed, and discovered Winry's note in the kitchen, he pondered over waking Ed. He thought about asking – again – about state alchemists, Maes Hughes, homunculi, and Scar, but then pictured Ed's diffuse and unresponsive stare and decided to find Winry. Hospital or no, she'd always been more reliable. He could only hope that in so many months she hadn't changed as much as his brother.
Rummaging around Winry's kitchen produced toast and marmalade, and Al leaned against the door post to chew, slowly, and stare at his brother.
"You know this is worse for you than for me," he quipped, pausing to gauge a reaction and, seeing none, continuing. "The desert's got to get the truth out of you."
Ed, ignorant, slept. Al almost wanted him to wake up, but remained confined to the door and the toast. It was warm, crunchy, and sweet in his mouth, and he wondered where Rush Valley acquired its marmalade.
I think you should go home.
"It doesn't get any better than this, Brother!" He waved his free arm around like a madman. Ed snored. Al sighed.
"This is just like arguing with you when you're awake."
Back in the kitchen, he noted the proliferation of dirty dishes, and set to washing them. It had been a long time since he had washed any dishes. He teased a small glass out from under a stack of plates. The last time he'd washed dishes, Teacher had handed him a single dish to dry before giving him one of her fearsome stares, and telling him to get off to bed – he had had a long day to look forward to in the morning.
Amazing, how much memory a plain wet plate could hold. It was only a piece of ceramic thrown into a disk, a bit of glaze and paint, and a few spurts of the faucet. That's all it was. And now Izumi stood blaring in his mind, ordering him to get out of her house and go find his brother.
"She's gone."
It was like he had just gotten the news, like he'd just had the sinking realization that he would never be able to see her again. If only Winry had a cat, so he wouldn't have to talk to himself anymore.
He wondered what it would be like to be wordless, like Winry – to stand over his brother after a surgery with a reheated pot of soup and two bowls and be pensively, graciously silent – to be happy with looking, and with presence.
Long ago, he remembered she'd demanded information, simple information, to fill the void; she'd wanted to know what they were doing when they refused to play with her, when they did boy stuff, when they did alchemy.
Perhaps she found out, finally, and lost her curiosity. Perhaps Edward's ghosts haunted her as well.
But to be happy with mere presence – that was a desperate condition indeed. To be happy with silence – that was not something a normal person should do.
Alchemy, and science, was a way of life. One must always search for answers. One must be inclined to figure out how things work. It's not stupid to ask questions if the answers aren't stupid, Teacher had told them once.
He didn't ever want to have Winry's expression on his face.
He didn't want to see that expression on her face again either, the one she greeted them with as she'd hugged them. It was old, sad, pathetic: a wrench melted down to ore; a country house to ashes; a pair of living, breathing parents to a letter from a soldier; a mother to a grave – a tornado to a whisper in his ear, "Welcome back." She was not the girl he remembered.
Ed was now more cheekbone than cheek; more bone than meat; and more tough and thickened delicacy were once there'd been only a wash of proud and frowning baby fat. He was aging everything around him.
Al dropped a plate, and it splintered on its mates. He jumped at the crash, and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.
"Sorry, Winry," he said.
He finished the rest of the dishes and left a note of apology on a scrap of newspaper. On another scrap he wrote a note to his brother, placing it on the table.
Winry had left directions to the hospital.
He'd never been to Rush Valley before. They'd always met up in Resembol.
Al stared at the table, not seeing it, suddenly distraught.
I miss you guys so much.
His brother and friend were too quiet these days.
There was no way Winry could be satisfied with Ed's mere presence. There was no way. She would not have given up like that. She would never let him give up like that.
"You brought me back, Brother," he called as he shoved his feet into his shoes. "You brought me back." Softer now. "That's what I hear." Softer now. "Now I'm going to do the same for you." Softer again. "And I won't let you take Winry down with you."
The click of the door shutting was louder than his voice.
And I was thinking
What I've been thinking
When Ed woke up, it was 4:13 in the afternoon.
No one had pulled open the curtains, but light diffused through the fabric as if it were only paper. Ed blinked, and drifted back and forth – through curtain light and darkness, curtain light and darkness, curtain light and his heart rate's steady increase, the feel of the air in the space inside his lungs.
Air is life. Air, he thought, was all he ever wanted.
He waited half an hour to let himself wake up slowly, and then tottered to the kitchen to eat everything in Winry's ice box that he didn't have to heat up to chew.
He didn't look around much. It was stifling inside the apartment, and the grind of his teeth was a roar in the silence constructed of absence.
All he noticed was Al's note and the cut-out from The Central Post – "MIA Alchemist and Hero of the People Returns."
He chewed for a while more, staring at the picture with the article. The Colonel – the General – Roy Mustang – whatever – was shoving him into a car. Ed had looked over his automail shoulder into the photographer's camera, surprised.
Ed, in the kitchen, chewed.
In the picture, he was pale, unshaven, with bags under his eyes and a smattering of cuts and bruises all over his face. He looked not so much like an alchemist than a ghost of one, and he wondered if Winry had worried over it when she picked the paper up off the stands, or when she ate breakfast everyday on her way out to work.
When he was finished eating, he looked for her pictures.
There were two in the living room – one of Winry and Pinako in front of the Rockbell Automail sign in Resembol, and the other of Winry grinning with a group of dirty, heavily muscled mechanics in front of some shop in Rush Valley.
In the hallway, there was only one. Winry stood on the steps of an old porch with an umbrella raised above her head. Ed was sure the picture was taken in Rush Valley, yet it was raining.
Winry's expression was distractingly sober, and – he searched for the word – soulful.
He glared at the frame, and spun on his heel down the hall.
The only thing at the end of the corridor was her bedroom and the bathroom. There was nothing in the bathroom.
For a moment, he stood in front of her door, not quite debating, with his fingers on the knob. Here is the Winry you never got to meet.
Here is three years when you didn't exist; here is five years when she was a stirring name from the past you wanted to leave behind. Here is eight years of a girl you've known since before you knew yourself, who grew up in your mind and in your heart, but not in front of your eyes.
After a few seconds, he opened the door.
He stood in its wake for a while, not quite debating, with his fingers by his side.
He went in, only for a bit, to look at the picture by her bed and glance around, then walked out and shut the door. Not quite debating, and coming to a decision, he walked to the living room, tied his shoes, stared at the curtains, picked up his suitcase, and closed the front door softly behind him.
If he whispered goodbye, no one heard him.
We've been drinking
And it doesn't get me anywhere