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Maybe it’s time to admit that he was wrong.
It shouldn’t be that big of a deal. He is an academic, after all, and well acquainted with failure - at least failure of hypotheses. Of experiments. Concepts.
Those seem to be easier to accept because they’re not really his failures, right? They’re flaws of nature, when it comes down to it, or a sign that he hasn’t fully grasped a concept yet. They just mean he has to work harder, do more research, discover the rules.
Maybe the problem is that in this case, there are no rules.
He doesn’t want to admit that he was wrong.
It’s an uncomfortable situation to be in, and one he doesn’t have to subject himself to, if he doesn’t feel like it. Especially because there’s no one around to admonish him if he doesn’t.
All he has to do is power through this… whatever it is that’s making him regret his decision, and no one will be any wiser to the fact that he struggled.
That he came dangerously close to admitting... that he missed her.
The thing is, though - he does miss her.
And that’s stupid, right? That’s childish, right?
They used to spend months apart without any issue at all. Why should two weeks be so troublesome now?
Ed kicks the legs of his chair and scowls. He can’t unhear the ticking of the grandfather clock, and it’s slowly driving him insane.
It’s not often that he finds nothing to do at all.
Maybe it’s because he’s already done everything on the list of chores Winry gave him when she left.
Maybe that’s because he’s had to distract himself from the sudden silence.
He crosses his arms, and tips the chair backwards.
Being wrong fucking sucks.
“You go ahead! It’ll be fine.” Obviously. “I don’t wanna tag along to an automail conference . One gearhead is enough for me, I can’t handle fifty of you.”
Winry, sticking out her tongue and scowling. “Serves you right if you miss out, then!”
Well. He wasn’t wrong about the conference. Most of the new tech Winry’s so into goes over his head anyway. And yeah, he’ll listen to her rant, of course - because she has a way of explaining things that’s kind of fun and engaging (and maybe he likes to hear her talk). But he can get more work done here than he would listening to a bunch of mechanics going into detail about the newest inventions.
No, it’s the “It’ll be fine” that’s the issue now.
He lets the chair fall forward again with a clack as the wind picks up outside. There’s probably a window open upstairs somewhere that he should close before this storm starts.
The phone rings as he’s halfway up the stairs, and he starts in surprise - and then he’s all but running down again, suddenly more awake than he’s been all week.
He picks up the receiver, slightly breathless, at the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Oh! Hello, brother! Didn’t expect to catch you, actually! How are you?”
Ed feels his heart sink with a startling amount of disappointment, which he swallows as quickly as he can.
“Al! It’s- it’s good to hear from you. Thought you might have gotten lost in Xing or something...”
“Hey! I’ll have you know, I have an excellent guide! That’s not what I’m calling about, though. Since I have you here, would you mind- there’s this book I bought last year, and I can’t quite recall the passage on medical alchemy…”
Al launches into a tirade of very specific terminology, while Ed fumbles with the receiver. “Hang on, okay? I’ll get it, then I can check.”
“Thanks, that’d be great!”
Ed finds the book - not in Al’s bookshelf, but under his bed, which is kind of annoying and costs him almost five minutes of searching - and lets his brother direct him to the relevant passages. He reads them aloud without registering the words, unable to work up an interest for what is surely a fascinating subject. He’s spacing out - and outside, it’s started to rain.
“Ed,” Al says, pulling him from his thoughts. “Hey, you still there?”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Did you need something else?”
He can hear Al smiling on the other end of the line. “Nope - but I do wanna know what’s going on with you.”
Ed puts the book down on the sideboard and leans against the wall, winding the phone cord around his finger. Stupid habit he’s picked up from Winry.
“What? There’s nothing-”
“I got a call from Winry.”
That shuts him up pretty fast.
“She said she was just checking in, from Rush Valley, you know? You didn’t tell me she’d gone.”
“Oh. Must’ve forgot.”
His fake nonchalance doesn’t even convince himself.
“She was a little bummed,” Al continues, and Ed hates how he can hear his brother’s smirk, “that she had to go by herself. And then she spent ten minutes ranting about you.”
As she would, Ed realizes. Shit.
“She- was she upset?”
“Huh? Oh, no. Just a little lonely, I figure. And too proud to call you to let you know. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“...stop grinning.”
“You can’t prove that I am.”
“I can hear you!”
“Well, serves you right! Frankly, I think you’re being ridiculous. You miss her, don’t you? That’s why you were in such a hurry to answer the phone.”
“I wasn’t-”
“Don’t lie to yourself. You thought it wouldn’t be a big deal, but it totally was, wasn’t it? Especially because she left in a hurry.”
“How do you even know that?” Ed blurts, angry at how stupidly accurate Al is, even without having been there.
“Like I said - she ranted. And you’re predictable, brother.”
Ed clenches his teeth. “I resent that.”
“You probably convinced yourself that you’d finally get some work done while she’s gone, or something else stupid like that. That she’d distract you anyway if she was around. That it’s for the best there’s no one interrupting you now.”
All of these could have been lifted word by word from Ed’s own thoughts in the past few days. All of them.
He’d tried to convince himself it was a good thing, that she wasn’t here to come into his room every other hour to force him to eat, or to ask him about something, or to drag him to bed when he would have pulled an all-nighter. That he’d be annoyed if she came in and refused to leave until he put down his book and turned around, completely breaking his concentration. That it’d be the worst if his stubborn girlfriend resorted to her usual trick of simply dragging back his chair and sitting in his lap until he caved and let himself kiss her-
That “good riddance” is really what he thinks, what he believes.
Well, shit.
“...it would seem I’ve hit a nerve.” He can hear Al’s raised eyebrows, and the reproachful look.
“Ugh. Fine. Whatever. You caught me.”
Thank goodness Al’s not really a gloater. Not for very long, anyway.
“...so why don’t you call her, then?”
Ed sighs, releasing the cord and then bunching it up in his fist.
“I can’t do that. She’s supposed to be out there having fun, after all. Enjoying herself. Learning things. I can’t just… I told her it was fine, that she should go without me.”
“So you’d just have to admit you were wrong. Shocker.”
“Fuck off.”
“You miss her!”
“Of course I miss her!”, Ed blurts. “What did you expect? But I can’t just-”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t- I can’t- that’s not how we- y’know.”
Al is silent on the other end, and that’s almost cruel; forcing Ed to listen to himself fumble for some pathetic excuse. I can’t call her, because that’d mean admitting I miss her? And missing her makes me… weak? Wrong? Dependent? Vulnerable?
“You’re such a stubborn idiot,” Al says eventually. “And by now you should know that so is she. And not admitting that you like each other enough to be lonely when you’re apart isn’t going to help anyone. At all.”
Ed feels the truth of those words. “Ugh.”
“Why is it so hard for you to admit that? It’s not a competition, you know? And you don’t have to hide it either, because you know she feels the same way. For crying out loud, can’t you just be honest with her?”
Ed exhales, long and slowly. Of course, infuriatingly, Al is right.
“...I wish she was here,” he mumbles. “I do. And I keep thinking I hear her, walking around the house, or working away in the shop.” And I miss her something fierce. When I go to bed, it feels too big, too empty, and I wish… I wish I’d wake up with her arms around me. I wish she was around to drape a blanket over my shoulders when I’m working late. To leave mugs of tea on my desk, even though I always let them go cold. To kiss me stupid when I pretend to ignore her, to give me that dumb-happy smile and make me feel like the world’s gonna be okay.
“Well,” Al says, and he sounds, once again, a little too smug for Ed’s liking. With a jolt, he realizes his inner monologue might not have been quite so... inner.
“Uh.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it bad. Not that it surprises me. You should have heard her, too - got so worked up about you and your ‘stupid eyes’ and your ‘dumbass mouth’ and other things I shan’t repeat…”
“She what?!”
“Maybe you should sort this out with her, huh? I gotta get going anyway.”
“Al-”
“Call her! Bye!”
Ed slowly puts down the receiver, letting out a breath as he does so. Al is right. Of course. He should call her, and just be honest.
The rain has gotten stronger. He really should close that window upstairs.
He turns-
And stops.
And stares.
Because the door behind him is open, and he’s not alone.
She’s standing there, dripping water onto the floor, still in her boots and jacket and with her suitcase in hand. Home early. Home four days early. And, judging by her expression - stunned silence -, arrived a couple of minutes ago.
Ed closes his mouth. And opens it again.
“...Winry,” he manages finally, aware that he must have gone beet red by now.
Winry drops the suitcase.
In a manner of seconds, she crosses the distance between them - Ed barely has time to take half a step back, unsure whether to expect an embrace or a wrench, before she’s grabbed two fistfuls of the front of his shirt, and slammed their lips together in a searing, bruising kiss.
He gives in almost instantly, reciprocating with a groan, and gasps for air when she pulls away.
“You stupid fucker,” she breathes, “you stupid, stupid, stupid-”
He cuts her off with another kiss, pulling her in by the waist. She smells amazing, like soap and oil and berries, maybe? Whatever it is, he’s missed it.
She pushes him off, but not away, just far enough so he can see her frustrated, exasperated expression.
“You’re a proud, stubborn dumbass and I wish I’d never met you, cause you’re confusing and stupid and I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Ed lets out a laugh. “You’re one to talk! You say all that, but then you leave? And expect me to just be fine?”
“I expect you not to lie to me! I was gonna prove you wrong, too, I was! I was gonna outlast you, I wasn’t gonna be the one to call and admit this was stupid-”
“You came back early!”
“Because you didn’t call! And I fucking missed you, okay, I said it! I missed your voice and your dumb idiot face and your hands, and- and then you go saying all of that and expect me not to cry, cause if I cry then I’ve lost, and I’m-”
“Winry. Winry, hey.”
“- a stupid, stupid idiot who should know that now that I have you of course I couldn’t ever go back to not having you with me, but I was too proud to admit it and you, you, you say that you miss me like it’s no big deal at all, and I don’t know how to deal with that-”
By now, she’s definitely got tears trickling down her face, and her words are trailing away into nothing as she tries to hold them back.
Ed finds himself unable to look away, because she really is his favorite person in the world and he can’t believe how stupidly, irrevocably in love he is with her, and how stupid it is that they’re both going to cry because of it.
“You’re home early,” he says again, and she lets out a helpless laugh.
“Yeah. I had to… y’know. I wanted… ugh. Whatever.”
He raises his eyebrows, smirking down at her, loving that he’s taller now, that he can tease her about it constantly, that she couldn’t use her old excuse of ‘I don’t date shorter guys’ even if she wanted to. Which she doesn’t. Which, well. Is kind of amazing in itself.
“You don’t get to be smug,” she snaps, flicking his chest with her finger. “You just said a whole load of embarrassing shit too. About kissing you stupid and waking up in my-”
Ed claps his hand over her mouth - and promptly pulls it back with a yell after she licked his palm.
“Hey!”
“Serves you fucking right! You don’t get to gloat, you’re not better than me! You fucking missed me, I heard you!”
Ed lets out a laugh, because now that she’s saying it, he hears how absurd it sounds.
“Why are you laugh-”
“I love you.”
She blinks, mouth clamping shut. She opens it again, then shuts it, then opens it - but the only thing that changes is the color slowly creeping up her neck, until her entire face is painfully blushing.
Ed snorts, and she breaks from her strange trance, punching his arm with surprising force.
“What the fuck?!”
“I said I love you, Winry.”
“I know! I heard you! What the fuck!”
“...I just realized, I’ve never… I’ve never actually told you that.”
She frowns, but of course she must have been aware of that, too - hence the reaction.
“...oh.”
“...also, that means I said it first, so… I win?”
A second of silence. Then, predictably, another punch to his arm.
“ED!”