Chapter Text
It’s as if she was looking at a ghost.
Seeing his face in the crusty, wooden picture frames of her childhood home, unmarred by wrinkles and greying hairs, unlike her whose aging face were decorated by them. Gazing at him with such sweetness of which the gods’ holy nectar could barely compare. Caressing his face in the image with the back of her finger, imagining, believing that it was his face, the one she dreams of waking up to every morning, instead of dusty glass that houses rotting paper.
How long has it been — twenty years? Twenty years since she last saw him. Twenty years to the day he and his brother disappeared from the face of the country and never returned.
She was so, so young at the time, only two decades old. Young Winry would have never imagined how long old Winry would have waited for her Edward’s return. Her juvenile self was taken aback when she first heard the news of the brothers’ sudden disappearance. Surely, she thought to herself, that they had gotten their bodies back by this time. They had already sacrificed enough, and her precious heart couldn’t take it anymore. Haven’t they lost enough already?
So, she talked herself into delusion, firmly believing that they would only take a month or two to return. What could Truth take from them now that it hasn’t already stolen from them? Edward promised, promised her that he would be back and that he’d give back her little earrings, that they’d live the rest of their days in quiet solitude.
Weeks passed and they still hadn’t come. Surely, she thought to herself, that they had a lot more challenges to face this time. Maybe another conspiracy brewed up or that Truth truly wanted to see the brothers pay for their crimes against god themself, which is why they are taking a little longer than necessary. Perhaps they may be hungry after their recent operations. After all, saving the world will work up an appetite.
Ed mentioned that Gracia’s apple pie was absolutely the best thing that could come out of this world, and she recalled Al wanting one once he got his body back. So, why not prepare one for them in the circumstance that they return home? She couldn’t just welcome them home starving.
She also knew Ed would make a show of his return. She knew he wanted to make their reunion memorable. She knew he would make an effort to board a train and arrive at the date of their anniversary, the day they realized they were in love with each other.
Once a year, she decides, on the third of May, she’ll wait at the train station as soon as the Sun awakens from her slumber. During the night before, she’ll prepare an apple pie to celebrate his return. The train station has a bench anyways to accommodate waiting loved ones should they arrive soon.
All day, from when the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, she remains on that bench; a basket of apple pie sitting right next to her. Her best outfit adorning her figure, even putting a bit of effort into applying makeup on her figure. It’ll be like the movies, she told herself, a grand reunion scene with romantic music playing in the background.
On that first day, he didn’t return, nor did his brother. On that day, she went home a little bummed, but nevertheless hopeful. The three little ones in her belly had hungered during that period, so she ate all of it by herself, feeding what she had left of her family.
Riza had called her then, once it became a yearly ritual. “Please, Winry,” she begged. “You can’t keep doing this. We don’t know where they disappeared from. They might be dead for all we care. Don’t hope for their return.”
“I can’t,” she recalled herself saying, “they promised. They never break their promises.” The lieutenant no longer spoke about it, understanding the weight of carrying love to an alchemist who dared not look back.
The years became harder once Pinako and Den died. Her childhood dog and the woman who raised her were swept away by time. Their losses became more devastating once she found out she was pregnant. She should’ve been happy, after all, the house would become a little less lonely, but she knew deep down she would still be alone,
Her children, oh, her children, her band of little triplets. Theodora, Cintra, and Sasha, all of whom were months old when this started, and who are now grown women. It hurts to see them, especially seeing that they reflected most of Edward’s features, if not, his character.
Theodora, the first who came out, was blind from birth, and brilliant. She was the sweetest amongst the three, always in the fields picking flowers. And yet, she was also an alchemist, a powerful one. Professors from her university had written to Winry about her daughter’s intellect when it comes to using alchemy to heal, that she was a once-in-a-lifetime prodigy. Just like he was.
Cintra was just like her father in every way, shape, and form, as Colonel Mustang chuckled. Specializing in the same alchemic field as her father and possessing the same stubborn and scrawny attitude. Always fought in wrestling matches to pay up her tuition, always debating with her professors on the correctness of their circles, yet was still always kind and gentle in the ways when it mattered. Just like he was.
Sasha was building up to be a strong Rockbell woman. Another automail genius, her grandmother would be proud. Despite all this, despite taking after mostly from her, she still possessed that same scowl, that same temper, and that same smirk once she knew she was right. Just like he was.
Pinako would have chided her. Her daughters weren’t all Edward’s traits. They had a lot of remarkable features that could only come from her, but how could she notice? How could she focus when all those little idiosyncrasies were what remained of her Edward?
And yet, even through the listless days of waiting for him at the train station, even through the nights where she leaves a side of her bed blank in the hopes that one day he’ll lay right next to her, she had to move on. Her daughters needed her, her clients needed her. She can’t keep mourning forever,
Which she did, despite her sorrow. She worked like the strong Rockbell woman that she was, the kind of woman who never needed a man to depend on in terms of survival. The kind of woman who can single-handedly raise three girls to become the best in their interests. She was strong-willed and headstrong; she wouldn’t let a lack of a husband bar her from being considered a successful breadwinner.
Yet, she still aches for that companionship. She tried, tried to replicate the feelings Edward had placed in her heart. However, no man she had met had ever had the same sheer brilliance Ed had. No man had ever been as so passionate or adventurous as her little alchemist had been.
Winry was first and foremost an engineer, a scientist. Problems were her specialty, what excites her. Edward was an enigma, a mosaic of many intricacies that built him up to who he was. Not many men had those curious complexities that he had. Not many men had stories to tell of evil dictators and trickster monsters. Not many men loved her like he did.
A bump on the bookshelf snaps her out of her daze. Her little automail engineer of a daughter must have been staying up all night working on a commission and had forgotten to mind her way. Sasha was the only one with her today. Theodora and Cintra were off to who knows where, having their little shenanigans.
“Sasha, are you okay?” She yelled from the living room.
“I’m fine, mom!” Sasha yelled back as she trotted from upstairs. “I didn’t have much sleep last night,” she smiled clumsily, “and I think you didn’t have much either.”
“It’s a big day today,” she says, a little bitterly.
Edward, fearing that all of his dark discoveries may fall into the wrong hands, entrusted all his journals and documents to her. He knew that his and Al’s missions were dangerous and that they could get killed at a moment’s notice. So, just to be safe, he wrote in his will that all of his secrets were given to her.
Once every alchemist in the land knew of that fact, they all came knocking, sometimes barging, through her door. Pleading for her to give them the notes that were written down by the Fullmetal Alchemist himself. It was hell on Earth, as some of the careless and inconsiderate ones had annoyed her to the point that they’d break her land and property to give them what they wanted.
Fortunately, Truth had been kind to her ten years ago. Once they started coming, Alphonse had emerged from what he calls another world. Although they didn’t have the picturesque reunion she had imagined, she had been jovial that her little brother had come back to her.
When asked about Edward, Alphonse admitted regrettably that he did not know where Ed was. They had fought a few years back, and separated for a little while. When Al came to look for a reconciliation, Edward was nowhere to be found.
They had both petitioned at the courts for Al to inherit the notes, as he co-authored most of them, but to no avail. The men would keep pestering Winry until she gave up, and even if Al had aided in fending them off, she would still struggle.
Winry closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to recall Ed’s laugh, smile, everything. Twenty years had done much to her memory, and with each passing day, she started to forget the parts of him that made him hers. She wanted to cry, she was already beginning to forget him, but she promised him that the next time he made her cry would be tears of joy.
Today was the day when all of this came to an end. She and Al had planned a series of obstacles that only the best alchemist could conquer, challenges only Edward could solve. If they could decipher all of them, they’d have his documents, taking away what little Winry had of him.
And on the dawn, before her fate is decided, she sets candles on the little table where she gathered all the pictures of him. She lights them up, and she prays. Winry was never much of a religious person, inching closer to Ed and Al’s beliefs in god, but in her quiet desperation, she begs for anyone who could hear her to give him back to her. She has waited long enough, she has given up so much, can’t they just return him to her?
Tomorrow would be the last day she gets to wait at that train station for him, apple pie in tow. She is fairly certain that the man who would eventually win his knowledge would also want his partner, and she can’t say no. After all, it was the winner’s right.
In her prayer, she only asks for one thing: him. That was all. She did not ask for riches or a lavish life, but for her golden alchemist to return home.
“I have bought you so much time,” she grieves to herself. “Has all of it been wasted?”
Waiting, waiting, waiting…
“Poor mom,” Theo sighs to herself, staring at her mother from the side window of her home. Her guide dog whimpering next to her.
“I don’t blame her,” Cintra shrugs, seated at the fence where the vines grew. “In a few hours, she’s supposed to lose her freedom.
She leapt off. “You’d think years of protest for women’s suffrage, she’d earn the same respect as her male automail peers, but noooo,” Winry’s second eldest whines. “They still think she’s a small, helpless woman. God damn this country and its government.”
Cintra kicks the figure on her right’s metal leg. “Which means that you have to actually stop being an old geezer and win this thing, you know that, right?” Cintra chastises. “If you somehow lose and let some weird ass creep take your notes and marry my mom, I’m going to have to punt you in the head a second time.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it,” Edward grumbles in return. “I know I’m a little up there in my years, but cut me some slack. I just got here!”
Cintra snickers at her father’s discomfort, which painfully reminds Ed of how he treated his own father when he saw him again. He looks at Winry from afar, seeing her once proud face leaning solemnly next to his pictures.
He hadn’t meant for her to wait for so long, but personal problems and emotional struggles had failed him to realize that there was so much to live for. He had thought that Winry had moved on with another man and that coming back would be heartbreaking for him and for her. Seeing her now made him realize how foolish he was for having those thoughts.
It was only through his own daughters did he realized how wrong he was, and that he should come back before it was too late. Al and his other friends at Central had not yet known of his arrival, only his three daughters conspired to take him back home to make their mom happy.
Of course, since his daughters wanted a show, they wanted him to compete in Al and Winry’s challenge for his belongings. “You know, to actually prove you deserve those notes. Twenty years of being in this hellhole might’ve shitted your brain in some way,” Cintra jested, to which he vastly defended that his brain was fine and that you couldn’t just erase alchemical talent like that.
“Come on, before she sees us,” Theo beckoned them, clearly in a rush. “After all, you also have to prepare for your big reunion,” she gleamed.
Since they were, in fact, Edward’s daughters who only wished the best for their mom, they had instructed, no, commanded him to meet her again the next day at the train station where Winry had always desired to reunite with him. “It’s the perfect plan, trust me, it’ll be the perfect surprise for her. She’s been waiting far too long,” Cintra had told him.
As his daughters began to walk away from the Elric household, Ed began to reminisce. He nearly jumped out of his socks when he saw his house, the same house he burned down many years ago, the house he entrusted to Winry in his will, rebuilt to accommodate the family he and Winry had. It made him truly wonder how much Winry had missed him, and how much guilt he felt for thinking otherwise.
Ed takes one last look at Winry, blowing out the candles at his makeshift memorial, and slumping her shoulders in preparation for the hours to come. It has been so, so long since he last saw her, and he’s really fighting the urge to break through the door and embrace her in his arms, to show her that she’s done waiting and they could finally be with each other again.
No, he reminds himself. He has to prove himself yet again. In front of his friends and colleagues, that he’s worth being the Fullmetal Alchemist again, that he’s worth his brother’s forgiveness, and that he’s worth Winry’s love. In a few hours, he will use what he learned and unlearned in the past twenty years to be the person he thought he’d never get the chance to be.
“I’m finally coming home, Win,” he whispers into the dead air. “Wait for me.”