I woke up the next morning to the sound of him getting dressed. I watched his back for a moment, studying all the scars lining his skin with a half-asleep brain. Then memories caught up to me and I closed my eyes again. I heard his automail shift, arm giving the slightest of clicks as he turned to look at me from over his shoulder.
"I don't wanna go through today fighting like this." he told me, again saying my name. But the word was much softer; much like how he always said it.
"Let's go back to Resembool then." I retorted. "You can start the day off by apologizing to Winry."
I expected him to at least get a little bit angry. When I opened my eyes, he was still standing there, in the tank top and his pants. Still turned and looking at me from over his shoulder. Finally, he looked back, posture hunching as he sighed.
He shifted, boots dragging against the floorboard as he turned around to me, keeping his eyes to the ground.
"I wouldn't know where to begin." he said. A shrug came to him, weak as he continued to avoid my stare. "With my apology to you, to Al... To her..."
A hand rose, fingers resting between the strands of his bangs. His eyes shut as he spoke. "She's always been there for us, when we've needed her to be..." He stayed quiet, and distantly I felt his anger before it even breached onto his face. "But... Dammit!"
"What, Ed?" I was practically yelling now, somewhere lost on the map to hysteria. "What is so terrible that you can't tell me?!"
"Forget it!" the word was thrown as he stormed out, suitcase in hand. The suitcase that I should be holding!!
"This is what she means, Ed!" I put my arms out, gesturing to him. "You don't open up!"
He stopped at the doorway, back hunched, and I only saw a flash of Edward's mirth before he was suddenly over me. His forearms next to my face, pressing against the mattress and holding him up above me. He leaned in close, and beneath that anger I saw a hint of hurt in his eyes.
"You really think I've never opened up with you?" His left hand clawed against the pillow above my head, not quite becoming a fist. Dozens of memories shot into me. "You really think..." He leaned in closer, letting me really see those eyes. The hurt beneath the anger, the emotions that leaked into his voice as he continued on. "After all we've been through and everything we have done... You think you haven't seen anything new? That you haven't seen the sides of me Winry's only dreamt of?"
I kept my breath stable, keeping my focus on him. On those golden eyes that were pleading now. Begging for me to understand, to answer him.
I gathered up a bit of courage.
"What happened between you and Winry?" I asked.
He was off of me as quickly as he got on. I watched him pull on his coat, the end flourishing out once again. It just reminded me of the way it had whipped when he turned away from Winry, leaving her standing half-collapsed against the doorway.
I had to make him go back... I had to help make things right.
"What're you getting out of this?" he asked me. "What's with all the pushing?"
Images shot into me. I knew why I was doing this; part of the reason, anyway.
"I..." My mouth felt dry, the sound of my voice cracking out between my lips.
He was waiting for me to answer, staring with one hand in the pocket of his coat again. One brow quirked in half-irritation. I recollected my anger.
"Don't try turning this on me!" I shouted.
"God, you're just like her..." With that, he left, the doorknob hitting the side of the wall from the force of him opening it.
He left, leaving me in the wake of what he just said. I tried, really hard to remember how I fell in love with him. I found those memories again, picked them all up and carried them to a safe place inside my mind. I... Wasn't letting this destroy how I felt about him. It was getting harder, though. The more he pushed me away, the more I was going to fight him on this.
He couldn't leave her, not in the same way I was left...
________
The train pulled up a handful of minutes later, but I never budged from the platform, Al beside me.
"Brother..."
Ed looked behind himself, one hand on the entrance's frame, one foot in the train car.
He didn't speak a word, allowing the silence to scream volumes.
I twitched something of a smile, as Al began to speak and fill my empty mind. Train car. Wrong direction. Lost time. Proper apology.
A proper apology this time.
I don't know what I'm dealing with.
I looked up, my gray eyes outlining his shoulders as they both hunched in deflation. A defeat, a lesson learned.
And then he climbed aboard completely, leaving Al and I to eventually follow.
Resembool was famous for its cattle, after all.
________
"We're not going to Winry, are we?"
Ed remained motionless, one hand supporting his jaw. Legs crossed, suspended foot moving in some mental rhythm, something only he knew. My eyes followed the bouncing motions for just a moment, then I drew away, standing up and brushing off my skirt.
"Al," I stated, bringing that empty helmet to me in a click, "I'll be in the next car, waiting to apologize for your brother."
But Ed's hand caught my wrist, and my existence stopped there.
Who was I... to say anything?
My walls crumbled and rebuilt at the same time; a lung reaching for air and sputtering that oxygen out simultaneously.
He...
He hurt her...
Left her...
And I couldn't let that pain reach out to someone else. That feeling of abandonment, that pain of being left to rot, to die, to...
To...
Reach for a ghost of someone you once loved.
Tears threatened my eyes, and with my head bowed, I felt Ed's hand slip down, capturing my palm, fingers wrapping around my hand.
The gentlest of embraces.
My first tear fell, and with that drop discoloring the rug below, I only thought of Winry. Her tears, her pain.
I couldn't let that spread onto someone else. I had to...
I had to...
Ed spoke my name, and his response made me return the embrace he was giving my right hand. The hand I always use to silence myself.
"We'll go back, okay?"
________
Ed was true to his word, and one train transfer and forty-five minutes later, we were walking that dirt Resembool path once again.
I tried to swallow, tried to imagine cum in my throat. But that wasn't what was crowding my airways; it was nervousness.
And... some other emotion, one that reached out from the depths of my walls, reaching out from the inner-layers, bear the center of it all.
That emotion... it'd been so long that I didn't even recognize it, the emotion so black, so poisonous.
Jealousy?
I looked up, as we approached the steps to the Rockbell home.
One
Two
Three
And we were on solid wood again. I thought of the bomber, how we'd gone door to door, and how when we'd finally got that first lead, Ed had taken those steps back and conquered them all in one stride, while I had taken them one by one. As if they were all glass.
One, two, three.
Those steps had brought me down to solid ground again, and here I was climbing higher. Climbing to some conversation, some predicament I knew nothing of. Lips of a ghost, I had tried to kiss, but that pleasure had evaded me with the turn of a translucent head.
Pinako opened, after four knocks with a metal hand.
"So you've returned," she said, smoke streaming from her cracked lips.
When no words came to her in response, I looked over to Edward, his suitcase still in my hands.
His head remains bowed, casting shadows over those eyes. And then, finally, with Al and I watching—with almost all of us watching—he spoke, returning those words with his own.
"I... came to apologize."
It took a moment, one painful to wait through, but Pinako gave one solemn nod, and within a handful of moments, I heard footsteps from inside the house.
Winry's steps.
She came to the doorway, and held onto the frame. Those eyes of blue shaking with... fear.
"E-Ed..."
I turned away, wanting to step down to the porch and join Al. Ed grabbed my wrist, the motion gentle but firm.
Winry looked at our hands, and when she turned back to Edward, she was yelling again.
"You really have to have her here in order to talk to me?!" Her hands rose to her head. "God, Ed, what are you? Some little kid with a security blanket?"
Ed gritted his teeth, and I willed for this not to turn out like last time.
"I came here to apologize, Winry." he said, nearly growling the words.
I sighed. What kind of apology was that?
Winry just crossed her arms, leaning on the frame of the door. It was then I noticed her eyes, how red they looked. She'd been crying recently...
"You gonna apologize for breaking your promise, too?"
The hand around my wrist tightened, the metal gently squeezing me.
Ed had his head downwards, once again preventing me from seeing into his eyes. I could tell he was in pain, and the sound of his voice breaking nearly forced me away.
"It wouldn't be the first time I've broken a promise."
Winry remained silent. Even though I was turned, facing away from both of them, I felt her stare move to me. She spoke to Ed again, voice hushed.
"You seem happy with her. I'm glad..."
I heard Ed nod, felt his hand tighten a little more in his soft hold.
"I am..." he replied. "You seem happy, too."
I heard Winry give the faintest of giggles as she smiled. But the motion was forced; I knew from experience.
"I am."
She didn't reply, and I forced myself not to turn around, see her face. I didn't really want to know how she was looking at him...
"I'm sorry, Winry, for making you cry again." His voice dropped into a lower, rougher, quieter tone. "I know I—"
I heard the sound of something solid hit something solid, immediately feeling Ed's hand let go of my wrist. I turned, seeing Winry with her face buried against his chest. Seeing Edward with wide eyes that gradually became normal again, gradually became hidden from me as his head bowed and Winry spoke, her voice a little muffled.
"Stop apologizing." The hands she had wrapped around him curled, grabbing fistfuls of coat. "Just... Just promise me you'll get your bodies back. Promise me you'll end this, because I can't keep seeing you and Al still so hurt."
Her voice broke at the very end, that last word. She began shaking, trembling, and with my mind swirling in some fog of absence and disbelief, I watched Ed's arms wrap around her. Pull her closer, rest his chin on her head. Eyes still closed away from me.
I could tell it was hard for him to say. But he said it anyway, that determination riding underneath those words.
"I promise."
His voice didn't break. I was glad at least one of us was still standing tall.
And then, moments later, he spoke again, voice on the verge of breaking.
"That one's long overdue, isn't it?"
Eons past. They unraveled from each other, and he slid a foot back, turning a little towards me. Ed stayed quiet, and after a few moments, I turned until I could see him in the side of my vision. His head was down again, eyes still hidden.
"Alright," he began, "I guess we'll see you later then."
She nodded, and Ed's hand only slipped down to hold mine as he turned around. We both stepped down from the porch as I glanced over my shoulder. She was leaning a shoulder against the door frame, arm wrapped around her stomach and her fist by her mouth. A tear traveled down her cheek.
I nearly stopped Ed from moving. But almost instantly I realized this was a problem I couldn't fix. Not even if I really wanted to...
He'd been right all along. I'd just been too idiotic to really see it.
________
He was painfully quiet on the train ride back.
"Ed..."
His stare shifted up, gold eyes looking into mine with a quiet solemnness. He didn't reply; just waited for me to continue on.
"Are you..." I searched his face, trying to find the answer on my own. "Are you okay?"
I realized that was probably a stupid question, considering what had just happened, but there was this horrible tension crunching my stomach into a ball. I just wanted him to give me that wide grin and say everything was perfectly fine.
But he didn't. He just nodded, still keeping his eyes locked onto mine.
"Yeah," My name sounded... Different in his mouth. "It's fine."
It? What was it?
Maybe I was just analyzing this too hard. I felt the beginnings of a deep headache rise from the middle of my brain. I was just thinking too hard, that was all. Everything was fine. But even as my eyes remained shut, fingertips still pressed against my forehead, I felt Edward's stare on me. Still giving that same quietness.
I didn't know what to make of it. Fortunately, the pressure of his eyes fell away, his stare dropping. I breathed a little easier, opening my own eyes to see his were closed. Hand still resting against his face, propping his head up. I tried to fight back the feeling that something was wrong. I really did.
________
I wanted to apologize. I wanted to tell him that he'd been right, but something about how he acted was different. It kept the words from my throat, but the glue softened as we settled down from a day of traveling.
"Ed..." A word I had spoken in lilt too many times. A fire hydrant to a burning church.
"Yeah?" he sent that softness back to me. A match to my flame, and I tried to smile.
His eyes returned it, curving completely. A mask; that, I knew for sure.
"What..." I swallowed, looked away, did all the necessary distractions to keep my heart from collapsing entirely. I was dangerously close, my walls shaking...
"What 'what'?" he replied, trying to tease. Trying to make me laugh in a way that wasn't self-deprecating.
"What..." Are you running from?
Such a question, my mind purred. Allow us to explore.
Water rimmed my sight, and I looked away, closed my eyes. Keep myself from breaking, kept myself stable for another moment.
And then it all came at once. I stepped forward, facing drooling lava at my feet. But I moved, and my voice came with me.
"Why are you running?!" I shouted. A question I should be asking myself. The bane of my existence...
Anger ticked onto his face, an immediate stab to my already bleeding wounds. "Alright, so while we're on the topic of running from things—"
"No, Ed..." I couldn't... He wouldn't bring that up...
"Why don't you tell me what was going on back at your house, huh?"
Maybe it was the parallel of Winry. Maybe it was my brain too exhausted from constant hiding. But either way, just the mention of it brought a sob out my mouth. I clamped my hand against my lips, instantly seeing his expression fall. He stepped back, eyes shifting over me.
"I... I'm sorry... I didn't mean to..."
That wound opened back up, and everything I thought I had healed from, all the progress I thought I had made... Everything unraveled. I tried to hold on to the little bit of composure and strength I had left, mouth moving and pouring out the words I felt chained to.
"He left. He left me over two years ago. We were engaged, and I loved him so much. God, I absolutely adored him." Another sob hiccuped through me as I saw Ed's head lower, hiding his eyes from me. I closed mine as well, forcing myself to continue. "I was coming home one day. He thought I was still taking classes, we'd always talked about how exciting it would be to do that emotional training, and how I was almost at the rank I needed to be. But I'd quit weeks before; I just couldn't bring myself to continue on." I pulled in a breath, feeling the oxygen shake from my mouth. "So in the mornings, when he thought I was going to class, I started jogging. And one morning..."
The memory held me there. Kept me standing in the past. Forcing me to see that note on the kitchen table again, just waiting for me to open it.
"One morning I came back..."
In my mind's eye, I was looking at the note again, reading the words I knew by heart. Tracing over each thick line of his pen like I was re-writing it all myself.
"I came back... And he was gone..." I breathed again, feeling the air move out of me a little easier. "I found the note he'd left. Told me he couldn't be with me anymore, that he'd fallen for someone else." Tears kept pouring from my eyes, but my body had stopped shaking. I'd stopped sobbing. "He said not to contact him again. Our lives were better off being lived separately."
I remembered the beginning of that note, the way he left out my name. No reference, no recognition. Some part of me crumbled further, and I was forced to direct my thoughts elsewhere.
I remembered the last part of the letter, at the very bottom of it all. The one that had stung the most when I finally figured out the reason behind it.
"He signed the note, Ed..." I raised my eyes to the alchemist, feeling the motion burn. "He signed it like some kind of fucking business proposal."
Ed just stared at me, golden eyes wide. Foot still positioned to step back. And I realized what an absolute wreck I really was. I realized how low he must think of me, to still be attached to this. To be chained by it. A weight I had dragged with me through everything. Constantly slowing them down. Constantly falling over myself with absolutely no regard for them. I was so selfish.
I admitted this to myself out loud, through tears and shakes of my head. His arms came around me, and I instantly tensed at the familiarity of them.
"What're you talking about?" Ed asked quietly, gently holding the side of my face against his chest. Embracing me a little bit tighter. "You're the least selfish person I know!"
He actually flapped his lips when he said that, trying to get me to laugh again. I just stood there, barely standing upright. Barely on the edge between normality and a breakdown.
One I wasn't sure I would be able to recover from.
Ed was quiet for a long moment. I could tell he was thinking, his head bowed enough for his lips to press against the top of my head, lightly cushioned by hair. He was swaying a little from side to side, seemingly absentmindedly. His thumbs stroked the same spots on the backs of my upper-arms. A calm rhythm to them.
It worked, the peacefulness of it. I focused on the patterns of every movement he was making, like instruments playing a symphony. His breath, his hands, the swaying; all of them were separate movements connecting together. Smaller pieces of a larger whole. A few minutes, and my breathing stabilized. The last few tears fell from my burning eyes, and I heard him speak, voice quiet.
"I can tell you about Winry, if you want me to."
This came as more than a shock. My thoughts bit the emotion down; this was Ed. I had just opened up to him, so of course he would do the same for me.
I just wasn't sure if I wanted him to...
A/N: Such a fun chapter to write!