Chapter Text
“Brother!”
Ed twitches awake at the sound of his brother’s voice. He stands in the doorway, half leaning in, with a smile that breaks across his whole face. Before Ed can make sense of his own surroundings, he fleetingly observes that his little brother’s jaw looks squarer than usual, and if he’s not mistaken, his shoulders have broadened too.
He casts a glance at the digital clock mounted to the wall, waiting for the room to come into focus. It’s quarter to midnight, though, for how long he’s been asleep, he can’t fully say.
“Al,” he croaks. He pulls himself into a sitting position but the wound in his side screams in protest. Black spots spray across his vision from the pain. Dizzied, he slides back down with a hiss.
That’s right, he recalls. His entire body throbs all the way up to his brain. The bed feels like it’s undulating beneath him. I was shot.
Ed runs his flesh hand along the gauze wrapped around his waist. The wound flares with pain from the contact.
“What’s going on?” Ed asks, lifting a curious eyebrow. “Why are you smiling like that?”
Alphonse steps into the room with his hands behind his back. With a slight bounce, he moves to Ed’s beside.
“They’re back,” he says.
Ed blinks. His stomach knots, though, he isn’t certain whether it’s from anticipation or anxiety.
“Brother,” Al says, laughing in disbelief. “Winry is back.”
Ed limps through the hallway with Al’s support. His little brother’s arm is looped around his waist while Ed slings his over Al’s shoulders. Each step is a strain on his stiff prosthetic leg, and his wound burns like fire, but he bites back the pain and trudges on.
His mind swirls with such a vast collection of thoughts and what-ifs that he’s unable to discern one over the other. All he can make any sense of is the pounding in his chest.
Winry. Winry is here. Winry is alive.
Ed’s eyes sting at the very thought, but he’s far too overwhelmed to cry. All he can do is keep moving forward, his stomach twisted, his chest heavy, and with his brain ready to burst.
Al falters as they turn the corner, bringing Ed to a short stop. They look ahead and see two figures tangled in each other, one in 13’s dismal gray garb while the other wears nothing but a hospital gown. Wrapped in each other’s arms, they tremble against the wall and collapse to the floor. It takes Ed a moment to realize the one in gray is Roy. And the other one–the blond woman…
“Riza Hawkeye,” Al explains in a whisper, pulling Ed along. He stumbles on his feet, but matches his brother’s pace once the initial astonishment wears off.
“What?” Ed looks over his shoulder as they pass, but the two don’t seem to notice the brothers at all. With a twisted heart, Ed sees that they’re both crying.
“She was rescued too,” says Alphonse when they’re out of earshot. “And Maria Ross. Everyone is here, Brother.”
Ed’s jumbled brain whirls that much more. That was her. The Hawk’s Eye. He’d heard stories from Roy and Christmas back in the arena of how she wasn’t all here anymore. But having now seen her in the flesh, clinging to Roy like a lifeline, Ed feels strangled. With a record body count, she’s the most notorious tribute to ever play. But her skill and self-preservation in the arena wasn’t without a steep price.
A shiver courses through Ed. He knows first hand that living through the Games is almost as bad as dying in them. It doesn’t end when you win. That’s far too merciful. He thinks of what Winry told him back on the beach. How Riza doesn’t get through a night without screaming. It’s something Ed can’t blame her for.
Ed straightens up, despite his aching side, when Alphonse stops in front of a sliding silver door. He flattens his metal hand against it, the hand she gave him, and waits with bated breath.
“Al,” Ed says, closing his eyes. “You don’t think…”
His mind flickers to the image of her on the Capitol broadcast, frail and unfocused, with the tortured look in her eyes that stirred Ed’s stomach. He shakes the thought off. It doesn’t matter. She’s still Winry and the only thing that matters is that she’s finally safe. With him.
“Nevermind,” Ed sighs. Before he can convince himself this is a bad idea, he slides the door open.
Ed’s breath catches in his throat. The room is small, only able to fit a small bed, a facing cabinet, IV fluid, and a monitor hooked to a mess of wires Ed’s blurry mind can’t make heads or tails of at this moment.
Between blinks, he processes that Izumi is in the room as well, her hand resting on Winry’s arm as she speaks to her in a low voice.
Winry.
Ed thinks his legs must have given out from under him, because Alphonse is quick to offer him full support, pulling him to his feet. Ed’s head feels light as he starts forward, the floor moving like waves beneath his steps.
Winry’s eyes snap to his, and Ed stops with a short breath. Alphonse’s fingers dig into his arm as he steadies him.
She’s smaller than he remembers, but he quickly realizes that the correct word is emaciated. The hollows of her cheeks have sunken into her pallid face. An IV needle punctures her rail-thin arm. For a brief moment, all Ed can wonder is how the careful hands that gave him an arm and a leg can possibly look so weak and tremulous now.
They are both unmoving, nothing audible but the monitor’s steady beeping. Her bloodshot eyes–the same wide blues that offered him solace after his mother died, kept him anchored in both arenas, and showed up in his dreams every night since–restlessly sweep up and down his body, as if the pieces of her brain are clashing together, unable to find purchase on a conclusion that makes proper sense to her. She stares like she can’t afford to blink, lest she lose the weak grasp she has on this moment.
“Winry,” Ed says, but it comes out a choked whisper. Suddenly, he finds the will to move. He extricates himself from his brother and limps toward her, his lips forming a smile before he even realizes it.
“Edward,” Izumi says, but Ed ignores her. He reaches out, the flurry of thoughts in his mind too abstract to offer any coherence, but urging him forward like a string wound around his spine, pulling him closer, and closer, and closer…
“Edward,” Winry says thoughtfully. As something clicks inside of her, she peels the tabs that connect the monitor to her heart rate and suddenly she’s on her feet, moving toward him. Her wild eyes settle on him, and something flashes in them. Passion, Ed thinks. Or desperation. They’ve been apart far too long. He can’t say he feels too differently.
Ed opens his mouth to say her name again, but is cut off when she rips the IV out of her arm and lunges at him, aiming the needle to his throat. Her nails rake across his cheek before he dodges, falling back against the floor, his vision flashing black. Dimly, he hears Alphonse call for him.
“Winry!” Izumi shouts, scrambling through the narrow space between the bed and medical cabinets. She grabs Winry by the arms and wrenches her back. The metal IV rack crashes to the floor.
“Edward,” Winry forces out through her teeth. She thrashes in Izumi’s arms and screams, “Killer! Monster!” Her feet slip wildly against the tile floor as she fights to break free from Izumi’s grip.
“Winry?” Ed asks weakly. He shakes his head, fully convinced that he’s still asleep in his hospital bed, and this is nothing but a twisted nightmare. He brings a hand to his stinging cheek.
“Edward Elric! He’s a monster! We have to kill him, Izumi, before he kills you!” Winry shrieks. Saliva dribbles down her chin. Izumi struggles to keep her in place, stumbling back into the counter. A stack of files cascades to the floor from the impact.
(animation by pahndah)
“Winry!” Al yells. Ed notes that his brother has joined him on the floor and has braced his hands on either of his shoulders. Ed’s heart surges up his throat, as if he’s falling. The tears streaming down Winry’s face, and the venom spiked through her voice when she says his name makes him wish he were dead.
“Let me go!” Winry throws her body forward. She fights Izumi’s hold and sobs, “He killed everyone in 12! He killed my mom and dad and Granny and he’s going to kill us too! He’s a mutt, Izumi!”
Ed doesn’t realize that Al has brought them both into a standing position. The room spins out of focus as Winry’s voice echoes through his head, striking him more lethally than the bullet in his side. What is she saying? Who is this mutt? It’s all too much to process. All he knows is that between one moment and the next, Al has dragged him out into the hall and slammed the door after them. From outside, he’s barely able to hear Winry’s hysterical sobbing as Izumi, assumedly, subdues her. If such a thing is even possible.
“Brother,” Alphonse says, squeezing him. Ed closes his eyes. He shakes his head.
“Ed,” he tries. But still, nothing. All he can think of is Riza Hawkeye in the hallway, tormented by her kills, driven mad by a Game she was nothing but an inconsequential piece in.
Killer. Monster. Mutt. Words he never imagined he’d ever hear in Winry’s voice, let alone directed toward him. Suddenly, Ed can’t take it anymore. The relentless overlap of thoughts and emotions finally breaks him. He doesn’t know what to feel, whether it’s fear, grief, sadness, anger, or a combination of it all.
So he drops to the floor, slipping out of his brother’s grasp. And he screams.