They managed to return to Winry’s without incident after visiting the cemetery. When they came in, Winry wasn’t downstairs at the work table where they had figured she would be.
“Ed, would you go see if you can find her? I’ll see about putting something together for dinner,” Natalie said to him as she started towards the kitchen.
“Why? I’m sure she’s fine. Besides, do you think it’s the best idea for me of all people to talk to her? I mean considering…”
Natalie shook her head. “I actually think that’s the perfect reason for you to go talk to her. Winry misses her Ed and maybe having you talk to her might help ease that pain a little. But then we don’t know if anything is even wrong… but…”
“I know what you mean. OK, fine, I’ll see if I can find her.”
“Thanks Ed,” she said walking back over and giving him a quick kiss.
Edward just chuckled a bit. “The things I let you talk me into,” he muttered under his breath and went upstairs to start looking for her there.
When he got into the upstairs hallway he noticed that the door he figured was hers, since that it was the same as it had been in his world, was closed. Taking a chance he knocked on it. “Winry, are you in there?”
At first he didn’t hear anything but after a moment the knob on the door turned and the door opened. “Ed, what can I do for you?” she asked. It was clear that she had been crying.
“Mind if I come in?”
She nodded and moved out of the way allowing him to come inside. He could see that she had his leg on the work table in here. She was as much of a work-a-holic as his Winry had been. For now he stood against the wall.
Winry had followed him into the room, leaving the door open for the moment. She went right to sitting at the work table and tinkering.
“Everything OK?” he asked her. “Natalie and I were worried about you when we didn’t see you when we got back.”
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” she said softly not looking at him. It was hard for her to look at Edward. He looked the same as her Edward did the last time she’d seen him. She figured he had to be about the same age as her Edward had been when he’d gone back to that other world with Alphonse. That’s what made it all the harder for her to look at him. “I promised to have this done for you tomorrow and I usually work better in here so…”
Edward sighed. “You’re lying, I can tell Winry. You can’t hide it any better than the Winry I know can. Now come on, what’s bothering you?”
Winry put down her tools and turned in the chair to look at him. “I’m just having a hard time with this OK? I haven’t seen your face, well actually his face, in three years. I had just finally started to believe that I was never going to see him again and then you two show up here. I know you’re not the Edward I knew but it still doesn’t make it any easier. I miss him and I miss Alphonse a lot, especially now that…” her voice trailed off and she turned back away from him.
“Since Granny Pinako died…”
Winry nodded. “They all left me behind here, they left me alone…”
Edward couldn’t see it but he was pretty sure that she’d started crying again. He’d never been able to handle the sight of Winry crying and that hadn’t changed. He had to do something so he went over and put his hand on her shoulder. He didn’t want to do anything too personal but he couldn’t just let it go without doing anything. “I’m sure they didn’t want to leave you Winry…”
She just sighed and put her hand over his on her shoulder. “I know that. In the case of Ed and Al, well, I know they just did what they needed to do, they always did.”
“Sounds like Al and I. Seems your Ed and Al are a lot like us… what happened to them anyway?”
Winry took a deep breath. “Where do I start? I guess the best way to explain it was that Al sacrificed himself to bring Ed back after Envy killed him. Once he’d defeated Dante who was trying to use the philosopher’s stone so she could transfer her soul again, Ed then tried to sacrifice himself to bring Al back. He succeeded in bringing back Al at the age he was when they’d first tried to bring their mom back and Al didn’t remember a thing about traveling with Ed and their journey for the philosopher’s stone and he had no idea where Ed was. We all knew that Ed was gone but we didn’t believe that he was dead, none more so than Alphonse. He went back and studied with Izumi and three years ago Al managed to open the gate to the other world at the same time they were able to open the gate on the other side. Ed came back long enough to stop the army from the other world that came through and send them back. But he couldn’t stay here and at the time I didn’t know why. Later General Mustang told me what had happened after Ed and Al went after the commander of the airship army. After they defeated her Ed tried to go back to the other world alone to close the gate there. Alphonse stowed away and went with him. He couldn’t stand being without his brother again, not after he’d searched and studied so hard to get him back. “
Edward shook his head. “Reminds me of what Al and I went through…” he said softly.
Winry looked at him. “Tell me about it?”
Edward finally took a seat on the bed figuring it would probably be best at this point. “Well we didn’t have all the other world stuff to deal with…” He paused noticing that Winry had given him a questioning look. “The traveling worlds thing didn’t start until I met Natalie… so anyway, in our Amestris there was this guy called Father, who was basically a homunculus clone of my father who was trying to create a giant philosopher’s stone inside himself so that he could be God. He almost destroyed the entire country using me, Alphonse, my father, Izumi and Mustang as sacrifices to open the portal. My father managed to counter his circle giving everyone in Amestris their souls back but he was still powerful. He fought back, trying to kill us all again. We got pretty beat up; I ended up busting up my automail arm and getting my left one run through with a steel reinforcing bar. Al had been almost completely disintegrated and Father was just about to kill me when he decided to trade his soul so I could get my right arm back. This way I could use my alchemy again and get myself free. With everyone’s help I was able to finish off Father then I went back to the gate and gave up my alchemy to get Alphonse back, body and soul.”
Winry just sat there taking it all in. “The events were different but you all went through hell. At least you got to be together with Alphonse in your own world though. Wait a minute, if you said you gave up your alchemy to get your Al back, how did you have it now to fix your leg?”
“I have Natalie to thank for that, she got it back for me shortly after I met her. She paid a pretty hefty toll to get it back too…” Edward’s face turned a bit sad remembering what she’d given up for him.
“You care about her a lot don’t you Ed?”
Edward nodded. “Yeah, she helped me pull myself back together and didn’t give up on me. After Al and I got what we were looking for things sort of fell apart for me. I have to admit, I cared about the Winry in my world a lot too but I was a stubborn idiot and lost her. If I hadn’t had to hold it together for Alphonse while he recovered from having his body trapped in the gate world for four years, I would have completely self destructed. When Natalie came into my life, well it was like I got a second chance…”
“Was this why you didn’t go back to your own world to see your Winry to have her fix this?” she said holding up his leg.
Edward blushed a bit embarrassed. “Partially, I’m just not ready to face that yet. The other part is I don’t want Natalie decking Winry with her own wrench…”
Winry couldn’t help but to laugh. “Well I’m glad to know that at least one version of us ended up happy.”
“Don’t count out your own happiness yet OK Winry?” he said as he got up and gave her a hug. “You never know when things will change for the better.”
Just then Natalie knocked on the door. “Hey, dinner’s ready,” she said with a smile. She’d heard the last part of the conversation where he told her not to give up, before knocking on the door.
“Oh! I didn’t… I’m sorry!” Winry said getting up from the workbench, almost knocking Edward over as she did. Luckily he was able to catch himself before he fell on his rear end.
“Don’t sweat it,” Natalie said smiling. “You’re helping us out; the least I could do was make dinner right?”
“Thanks,” she said, smiling back. She headed out of the room and downstairs.
Natalie waited at the door for Edward. “Everything go alright?”
Edward sighed then smiled. “Yeah, she told me what happened to the Ed and Al of this world and I told her what happened to Al and I. It just makes me believe more that we’re doing the right thing in trying to go get them and bring them back here.”
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