"Winry?"

Ed's metallic knuckles echoed hollowly across the surface of the wooden door in front of him.

"It's Ed."

The air around him felt thick, quickly swallowing his words into silence and drawing his breaths thin. Without thinking, he grasped the doorknob and gave it an impatient twist. Anything to escape the feeling and distract him from the itchy gauze covering the newest wound on his forehead.

"I-I'm coming in," he announced hastily as the door gave in with a soft whine from its aging hinges.

Even though he knew she was inside, as the alchemist stepped over the threshold, he couldn't shake the feeling that the room felt incredibly empty. She sat at the end of the bed, his red coat still draped over her shoulders. Her toolbox and suitcase rested against the wall underneath the window, both unopened.

Everything he recognized was absent; the glint of tools spread across a foreign desk, the bitter scent of grease, her scolding him for getting himself hurt again, even the tears she cried for him that he still didn't quite understand. But this was her sadness, not his.

The corner of the bed sank under Ed's weight, the words whirling inside his head faltering long before they reached his lips. The late afternoon light slipping between the heavy curtains fell in a harsh blade across her shoulders, and reared up over his own as he shifted closer to her.

"I'm back," he managed, his voice barely above a whisper.

Winry didn't respond, her eyes fixed to the floor. The wildness he saw in them earlier was gone, almost as if her soul had pulled away from the surface; a light growing ever smaller in a sea of darkness.

Finally, against the oppressive silence, Winry released a single wish.

"Stay."

Now you understand…

The tears this time were silent, sparkling with a kind of cruel beauty in the fading light.

What it's like to be taunted by your own darkness…

Ed gently laced the fingers of his left hand through her right. Winry tightened her grip.

And think you can undo what death has done.

Her sobs grew louder as Ed fought the tightness in his own throat.

I just never know what to do…

So, he held her hand, and let her go.