Word Count: 7,774
It took twenty-two pages for only this amount of words? I'm ashamed of myself.
I'm sort of happy with this, sort of unhappy with this, just like all the rest of my one-shots, really. I mean, it has its good quirks, but then it has some parts that just make you cringe and want to run away.
But try to enjoy, and give me critique on the characterization. Too much, too little? Have at me.
NO FLAMING ABOUT CHARACTERS, PAIRINGS, FANDOM, ETC. ARE ALLOWED HERE.
1. Girl
"It's a funny thing," Winry giggles, pulling a few pieces of bone and gristle off of the meal she was about to prepare. "When you first went back into your old form, I thought that you were a girl."
Envy scowls, but he does it in good sport because he knows it's sort of true. "At least I'm not as girly looking as you."
"That's because I am a girl," she laughs, finally placing the meat in the pan. "You're not, so you shouldn't look like a girl."
He smirks. "Got a problem with that?"
She smiles, pretty and clear and he can feel just a bit of something old and familiar rise back up in his cold, dead heart. "Not really, no."
"Good."
---
2. Ribbon
He twirls the blue ribbon around his finger till it threatens to cut off his circulation—not that he cares, of course. It wouldn't do anything to him anyways.
It's the color of her eyes, he thinks, and the ribbon grows just a bit tighter when the same blue appears around the corner and waves its hands in greeting.
---
3. Phone Call
"So," she asks casually, clutching the black phone close to her ear as she rubs the already sparkling plate clean in her hands with the sopping wet rag. "When are you coming back? I miss you, you know."
She can practically hear his crazy grin as the crackling sound of him shifting comes from the other end. "Oh, I don't know, Winry. Mustang said it might be another couple days—maybe weeks."
The sound of his voice is light and teasing, but she frowns anyway. "Envy, please. Spare me the jokes."
He laughs and she can't help but giggle as well before the phone, already expending its charge, hangs up for the both of them.
---
4. Pouch
The market is rather crowded today as he strolls down along the path, hands behind his head in a completely different form than his usual. Today, it's a little boy with big blue eyes and mussed up black hair with an adorable smile to top it all off. It's a lot more convincing form than his preferred one, and he usually uses it for taking items for free. Having a cute face and smile helped with shopping and bargaining.
Stopping by a stall on his (so far) peaceful way back to his new headquarters, he leaves a few coins on the wooden surface in order to snatch a pouch from the owner. It's not his usual purchase or style (because usually, he only takes the item, grins, and then runs away as fast as he can), but it's worth it, he thinks.
The owner, an old woman with sagging bags under her eyes, wiry white hair tied in a knot above her head and a kind smile asks, "Who is that for, young man?"
Envy smiles sweetly and holds the pouch protectively to his chest. "Just for someone I know."
---
5. Comedian
"You're really not funny," Winry snarls in irritation and anger. She pulls away from the intoxicated man's grasp and begins to stalk away down the alley.
A greasy hand clenched around her pale wrist pulls her back, and she fails to hide a scream rising in her throat. "Come on honey," the man slurs, eyes drooping and idiotic looking. "Let's have some fun. Mess around. It won't hurt a bit, I promise." He leans forward, and Winry squeezes her eyes shut.
Seconds later, the man's heavy weight is thrown off of her and her eyes fly open to see Envy looming over the man's prone form on the concrete floor. His own violet eyes are wild with rage and madness, and his lips are pulled into a horrible sneer. She wonders about when he got here, and then remembers about his homunculus abilities. Right.
The man whimpers and begins to attempt to crawl away, only to be pulled back by Envy's extended arm, the boy laughing humorously all the while as the man screams and pleads for him to please let go, I'll give you anything you want.
"Now that's funny, scum," he giggles as his hand sails through the air towards the man's heart. "But beg all you want—I really don't care."
And Winry, oddly, feels no regret as the man's blood pools across the ground and drips off of Envy's hand.
---
6. Color
She brings multiple emotions into his life that he had forgotten about long before when he had died and was sealed with all the dead souls of Cselkcess. True rage—not just a pitiful imitation at being called something he wasn't, at little tiny things that happened to her that he couldn't control. Sorrow when she cried, tears rolling down her face from the thought of anyone close to her dying or of losing the war. Happiness from just being around her, her hair whipping around her face in a whirlwind as she laughed in the wind.
She brings color into his life, color that he had forgotten and had left out of his black and white paintings from long ago that now lay somewhere in the back of his head, discarded and abandoned for her vibrant colors on the other side.
---
7. Cup
"Envy," she calls out behind her, shifting through the cabinets in confusion. "Envy, did you take my favorite cup? The green one with the little pink heart on the front and the crack down the middle?"
Even though she can't see him, Winry can faintly hear the sound of him shifting around and shoving something hastily under the covers of his bed in the next room. She smiles at the echoing of his hasty voice hollering back, obviously guilty. "Nope. Haven't seen it. Sorry."
She lets him get away with it this time and keep it for a while. When he's out on another mission with Edward and Alphonse, however, that's when she creeps into his bedroom and steals it back from under the bed. The green (just like his hair) glints faintly in the poor lighting, and the pink heart looks faded and worn.
She's not too surprised to find the crack sealed up with glue painted over in a little different shade of green than the original.
---
8. Meeting
He still remembers when they first met, him the little homunculus reduced to a parasite in a jar and her, the pretty girl in the suit sitting stiffly on the couch with Alphonse by her side. She had looked at him then with blue eyes filled with disgust and something akin to pity at the sight of his tiny form. Envy supposes that was why she took him in at all. Because she pitied him.
And even though he minded at first, now he finds that he doesn't mind too much at all.
---
9. Cold
"This is horrible," she complains as she snuggles deeper into the blankets, flipping the channels on the old, little, black box to escape the horrible images of war and pain. "I wish winter would end already. It's too cold out there." As if replying to her sentimentality, the wind shakes her wooden house even more and she squeaks, burying herself deeper under the covers.
It doesn't escape Winry's attention that a strangely green-colored dog crawls in and curls up beside her underneath the blanket to watch the destruction with her and keep her safe from the angry memories probing inside her mind.
---
10. Vase
Envy stares at the broken vase in front of him, scattered across the floor in little cream-colored pieces. Beside him, Edward stares as well, his jaw almost hitting the floor with horror.
"Envy," he says slowly. "Envy, do you have any idea of what we have just done?"
Envy swallows nervously, feeling the overwhelming sense of unnatural fear welling up inside of him. "Not really, no."
"We just broke Winry's grandma's vase."
"And?"
"It's her favorite vase." Edward turns to him, eyes wide and fearful in their panic. "It's her favorite vase and we broke it." His voice squeaks out the next few words, voice strangling on his fear. "We're going to die, Envy. Painfully and slowly by wrench."
Envy manages to break out of the heavy blanket of fear around them and laughs derisively. "You might die, pipsqueak. I won't, and I can't, remember?"
"Who're you calling a pipsqueak so small that he could—"
"Guys?" The boys froze. "Guys, what's all the fuss about? Did something happen—" The sound of grocery bags hitting the floor behind them did not bode well for either of the two. "—here."
Envy and Edward turn to look at her. Her face is slowly turning the color of bright red. Her fingers begin twitching for the wrench sitting innocently on the counter. Envy can practically feel the tension arising in the room.
The two boys then look at each other, nod, and race for safety and away from Winry's wrench gripped tightly in her hands and the raging battle cry echoing through the house.
---
11. Glass
The glass flies out over the floor, scattering in glowing white patterns. Winry doesn't flinch, merely waiting for the boy in front of her to calm down. She's used to his tantrums, though they were random and infrequent. The only times that she can expect them are after he wakes up from dreams that are cluttered around in his head, angry and painful and bringing out dormant emotions from long ago.
Envy breathes in and out before turning towards her in a panic. "Winry," he says desperately, striding towards her and clutching her in his arms. From her view, she can see his skin melting over and pasting itself into rightness. "Winry," he whispers, and he seems so fragile, so broken and uncertain. "You aren't going to leave me, are you Winry? You aren't going to leave me like them."
Winry knows that he is not himself at the moment. The boy who is holding her is a shadow of the past, a broken spirit from long ago that still lives in Envy's mind and heart and never resurfaced until Doctor Marcoh almost destroyed him. This boy is a piece of broken glass, just like those on the floor, just managing to survive along with the parasite in his head.
She smiles sadly and holds him back. "No," she whispers. "I won't."
---
12. Shelter
"Envy," Winry says pleadingly, "Can the kittens please stay? They don't have anywhere else to go."
"Yeah," Alphonse agrees, eagerly joining in with her in her pleas. "Can we let them stay?"
Envy grumbles under his breath and briefly wishes that the fullmetal pipsqueak were here. It would make things so much easier for him. "Don't see why we have to provide shelter for a bunch of animals if they can walk and run on their own."
Winry and Alphonse collectively gasp. "Envy!" Winry scolds, her tone harsh and sad. "How dare you say that! Let them stay."
Envy scowls and turns his head away slightly.
She opens her eyes up just a bit to expose pure blue, and his heart (if he had one, that is) gives in a little.
He sighs. "Just for a while. Then we find them homes, you hear?" And, not waiting for her answer, he stalks out of the room and to his bed. He just manages to overhear Alphonse saying sneakily to Winry:
"He can never say no to you, really."
---
13. Stars
Winry smiles faintly as she sits down next to Envy. She watches him move the brush up and down the walls, blue mixing with black and black mixing with blue. "What're you painting, Envy?"
He starts, obviously not having sensed her. His violet eyes flicker towards her expectant gaze, and to her confusion, look away again. "It's a surprise, Winry."
Winry doesn't remember when he started calling her by her name and not just 'mechanic' or 'girl' like he used to when he first got here in his little see through jar. Sometimes she wishes she did.
She gazes towards the wall and sees little white speckles all over the ceiling, intercepting black and blue and painting a mural of their own. "They look like stars," she murmurs, and her heart begins to ache for a reason she can't remember.
Envy grins, and she can feel the ache disappearing almost immediately again. She doesn't know why, just like she doesn't know why there's a flush rising on her cheeks at the sight of his smile. "I'm glad they do."
---
14. Song
Envy can hear her singing in the next room as she moves around the kitchen. It's a sweet song, filled with pretty lies and joy that is forgotten and dead. It's a pretty song that loves to lie, loves to lie about the silliest and most horrible things. It's a song she sings when she remembers memories she'd rather not remember.
So he gets up and joins her there in that room to make sure she stops singing those lies and starts speaking the truth.
---
15. Dash
She dashes across the room, knocking over chair after chair in her hurry. The boy in front of her always dances out of her reach somehow, lips twitching into a smirk. Finally, she slows down and stops in the middle of the messy room.
"Envy!" she pants, breath harsh and heavy. "Envy, tell me why does Colonel Mustang want you to go with him."
Envy shrugs and smirks fully and completely this time. "Don't know, don't really care. But why does that qualify for you to chase me around the room like a maniac?"
"Because if I didn't, you wouldn't tell me!" she practically shrieks, waving her hands around wearily before letting them flop back down to her sides along with her body, which collapses onto the floor in exhaustion. "Please tell me, Envy. I figured that if I'm going to be left alone for almost a month, I want some sort of explanation, which you're not giving to me." She glares at him reproachfully and he looks away innocently before responding just as innocently and slightly teasingly.
"I told you Winry, I don't know and—"
"You don't care, I get it." She stands and walks back over to him, crossing her arms and tapping her feet on the floor. "Fine. If you're not going to give me that little piece of information, can you at least promise me that you'll come back alright?"
Envy pauses and stares at her for a few moments. Inwardly, Winry began to laugh. Of course he would expect something angrier. Finally, he smirks and actually bothers to hug her—awkwardly, of course. Homunculus weren't used to human contact. "Sure, Winry. I promise."
---
16. Church
He walks towards the church with an expression somewhat akin to disgust. He didn't want to come here in the first place—it was just that Winry had insisted that he go say hello to the father, that it would be good for him.
Yeah, right. It was more like he was signing his potential bodily destruction certificate in bright red ink. There was no way a man of God would ever welcome something like him into his beloved church.
What was he supposed to do when he got inside, anyways? Get into a booth? Confess his sins (that would take a while)? Kill the priest after meeting him?
Remember, this is for Winry. Keep that in mind.
Envy contemplates on the last question before knocking it away and reaching the enormous church door. He pulls it open, the hinges on the door squeaking and creaking under the pressure.
Across from him sits a short, rather plump man in a priest's attire, staring wide-eyed at the green-haired boy standing in his doorway.
Already Envy can feel the faint sense of dread rising up in the pit of his stomach. So much for a good start.
---
17. Crawl
There is ash swirling around her in the gloom. She coughs, doubling over and falling onto her side. I need to get out, she tells herself desperately. I need to get out. However, her legs refuse to respond to her thoughts and instincts, and she can only use her arms to pull, crawl towards the creaking, splintering door.
She crawls out of the house and lands on the cool lawn, breathing in and out as her house slowly flickers in flames and several neighbors begin to pour huge buckets of water onto the rooftop from multiple ladders.
She breathes and coughs and as the grass in front of her eyes grows blurry, she swears that she can hear Envy's voice yelling in the distance.
---
18. Bed
It's cold in here, he thinks as he sits in his shackled chair, eyes blindfolded and neck braced against the cold stone of the chair protruding from the ground. Way too cold in here. Mustang should stop being so damn cheap and get a bed. And a decent heater.
He can't remember how he even got in here in the first place, though he can remember the reason. Mustang still suspected that even though Envy was now a somewhat member of the State military and worked alongside Edward and Alphonse Elric, he could still be working for Father. So he took him and put him in here for questioning.
Envy would laugh if only his mouth weren't bound by tight cloth that tastes like blood and dirt and smells faintly like urine. What would this do for anyone, he wonders. It was more likely that he would start working for Father again after this than before.
Not that he would now. He has something here that he did not have before (a girl with pale blonde hair with sky blue eyes), and there was no way he is going to let it go now, not just after discovering its value.
He closes his eyes (still in that horribly itchy blindfold) and dreams of laughter and pretty smiles and a comfortable bed to sleep in, not a stone chair in the middle of a stone room.
---
19. Return
When Envy returned, Winry immediately confronts the Colonel in anger at the sight of his malnourishment, the gaunt and tired look in his face.
"What have you done to him?" she yells, hair wild and in disarray. She could really care less about that now. "What were you even thinking? No one should be treated like this, ever." She can hear the rattling breaths coming from the next room and rage rises, fresh and beautiful inside of her. "How can you think that he is a monster if you are the ones who can actually do something like this to him? Answer that, Colonel!"
The Colonel looks at her in something akin to confusion, and she feels her anger rising even higher. "Winry," he says. "Why do you even trust him in the first place? Why—" He struggles with himself before saying the next thing. "Can't you see, Winry? Can't you see what he's done to you?"
Winry feels scorn mix in with the red-hot rage and she smiles mockingly, tightly, the smile that she uses for people that she is angry with. "I can't see it, Colonel. But I'm sure that it's probably something that you can never understand." Then she swivels out of the room, not caring that that speechless man never answered her question.
---
20. Awake
Envy really didn't remember how long he had been sleeping since he got back. A while, he estimates when he awakes and sees Winry's worried face right above his own.
He would have laughed with relief if he had any voice left in his throat.
---
21. Relief
Words would have been much too little to even try to express the relief she felt when his eyes opened for the first time since he got back.
---
22. Fake
"She's kind of cute," Edward comments on one girl passing by in the bar, her hips swaying back and forth as she sashays away. Envy wonders about how the hell did he get roped into this before remembering that this was an investigation mission assigned by the great Mustang loser himself. Lovely. Absolutely charming, sending him to work at a bar with the Fullmetal pipsqueak, who was less likely to get a hooker than a goldfish.
"Her boobs are fake," he jabs in, and smirks at Edward's twisting expression. "Come on, look at them. They're so…"
"Big?"
"Yeah. That."
Edward snorts and turns back around to the counter, taking another sip of his water. "I guess you like small ones. Like Winry's."
There was a crash, a bang, and the Fullmetal Alchemist's head becomes sopping wet with the water he had just been drinking. He blinks, and watches Envy storm out of the bar, his face beet red and flustered and most definitely not thinking about Winry's breasts at all.
---
23. Sight
Winry hadn't really thought about Envy's looks before until now.
Alright, so she's thought about it a few times before, when he first turned back into his true form, when he was that little parasite, and when he transformed back into his regular form with the waving green hair (like a walking palm tree, she had thought, giggling to herself). She'd thought he was kind of cute, sure. Any girl with the gift of sight can see that Envy was definitely attractive, even a bit in his huge true form.
That was nothing compared to right now, with Envy picking irritably at the itchy black collar on his neck and in that wonderful black suit that Riza (that wonderful, wonderful woman) had picked out for him.
---
24. Pen
The pen swirls around the page, black ink blotting in the white parchment.
Envy lolls behind her, watching her every move, every letter she paints onto the page. "What're you writing?" he asks, genuine curiosity marring his supposedly cool tone.
She smiles and looks back at him, and Envy can feel something in his chest beat a little faster. "Just something for someone."
Later when she's out, Envy comes back into the room and peeks at what she's written and smirks. He picks up the pen, tests it on the desk, and then writes a chicken-scratch 'thank you' underneath the flowery words of praise.
---
25. Honey
Winry honestly didn't expect for Envy to actually take up Edward's dare, that one dare where he had to go out to a beehive and steal a whole jar of honey. It is the exact same dare that Edward had had to do when they were little, and the end, he had come back covered in beestings and unsuccessful and upset at the jibes from the boys in town.
She honestly thinks that Edward just wants to see Envy come back covered in beestings and just as unsuccessful as he had been so many years ago.
Too bad for Edward, she thinks admirably as she swabs a bit of honey from the enormous beehive on their table onto her toast.
---
26. Knot
He pulls the string around and around the pole. It falls in little rings around the bottom and he frowns, pulling it back up into a tighter position. Better.
Behind him, Roy nods wisely. "Ah, I see. Preparing for your wedding day."
Envy spits out the toothpick he has in his mouth (all for appearance, of course—if he doesn't seem naturally threatening, no one will take him seriously) and swivels to gape at the now smirking Roy. "What?"
Roy's smirk grows just a bit wider, and Envy's inner self begins to curse him out. "You know. Tying the knot? Wrapping around and around wrists? Specifically—" Roy now leans in, looking positively devious. "Miss Winry's wrist."
Envy stares and blushes as Roy walks away, whistling softly under his breath.
---
27. Parasite
Winry knows that thing she had seen before is still there, somewhere in the depths of Envy's mind. That parasite which had taken a hold of multiple enemies who were in the middle of a desperate escape and had melded together to form who he was now. He is still there. She is sure of it, because she can still see glimpses of him in there. Watching, waiting to strike out and absorb her too, into the depths of his body and turn her into one of the lost souls there.
She knows that he knows her fears and sometimes, when she least expects it, he (the real one, not the parasitic monster inside his head) wraps his ice-cold arms around her shoulders and whispers, "I won't let him," in her ear.
---
28. Caught
He is falling, hitting the ground with huge bang and crumbling of dust. Above him, he hears someone laughing before they turn away.
"Shame there was no one to catch you, boy," the man (at least, Envy thinks it's a man) chuckles as his voice fades away.
Rage rises up in his chest and he struggles to stand (sticky, warm blood running from his melting skin and bones and onto the cold, hard ground) before transforming into a bird and flying back up, swiveling as he turns back into himself and stabbing the man through his eye.
"Don't worry," he grits out, grimacing as he catches a glimpse of an approaching Winry. He can hear her screams, her cries in the distance. He will have to finish this now. "I don't need anyone to catch me besides her."
---
29. Misery
She remembers when he used to like to cause people misery. She remembers when he looked at Doctor Marcoh (back then when they were younger and far more pitiful) and grinned such a sadistic, wide grin that she momentarily felt panic rising in her throat. She remembers when he first looked at her, wide violet eyes assessing her on a parasite's body. She remembers the warmth, the feeling of color rising up in her chest and blooming out across her body at that one glance.
Winry remembers too many things about him and as she sits on her bed, she grabs the pillow and places it over her head to fight the tears rising in the corners of her eyes.
He may not know it, Winry thinks to herself as she tries to pull herself away from the misery in her mind, but he causes me far more pain (and hate and fear and joy) than he can ever understand.
---
30. Halloween
He once turns into a dragon to make her scream for Halloween (a holiday which Envy never really understands, but likes anyway because it gives him a chance to scare a bunch of little kids). He had slithered into the room, stood up to full height when Winry turned around and roared loudly. He had expected her to scream right then and there, for her eyes to widen and her mouth to gape open in horror.
He hadn't expected a giggle, a smile, and a kiss on his scaly cheek before she grabbed the bowl and danced towards the doorway.
"Happy Halloween to you too, Envy," she called back over her shoulder.
---
31. Immortalize
On the night of Halloween, she had taken a camera, a box of matches, and an old mask of a old Chinese god (Sun Wu Kong, she believes he was called, a monkey god) into Envy's room. Sneaking around behind the bed, she had crawled over and lit one match, raised it just slightly beneath the mask and whispered, "Envy."
She took a picture to immortalize the moment of Envy's horrified shout a few seconds later.
It is still hanging on her wall, even as she waits for her boys (three of them, once enemies and now like brothers) to come home.
---
32. Family
Wnry once asked him a most Awkward Question.
"Envy," she had asked innocently, having no idea of what she was really saying. He had not suspected anything either, only continuing to paint the pretty mural on the wall. "Envy, haven't you ever wanted to have a family?"
Envy spits out of whatever liquid is in his mouth at the time and turns to look at her (now beet-red) face. "What?"
"You know, a family. A gathering of brethren, brothers, sisters, kids…" She hesitates before saying the next thing as quickly as she can. "A wife." She blushes and twiddles her fingers as inconspicuously as she can.
Envy blinks. Envy stares. Envy realizes that he tends to do this a lot more often than he used to.
"Once or twice," he mumbles under his breath before quickly painting higher up the wall to distract himself from the cozy, warm feeling in his stomach.
---
33. Human
She can hear it more than she used to. It's a thumping in his chest that was faint, so faint at first when he got here that she couldn't hear it at all. Now it grows stronger, faster, harder, loud enough so that when she gets just close enough she can hear its beating
(just like a human's heart).
And one time he gets close enough so that they accidentally brush against each other, and she can feel heat coming off of him in little waves (like a human's skin, only harder and stronger).
He is becoming human and she hopes that he realizes that for himself.
---
34. Carnival
"And we spin 'round and 'round and 'round," the boy with the crimson red hair sings on his seat. The merry-go-round continues to spin, a blur of gold and animals with chipped paint.
Envy raises an eyebrow. "You're supposed to be me?" he laughs. "You don't even sound like me in the slightest."
The boy giggles and hops off of the horse's saddle. "I don't sound like you because I am the you that you have become, that you have changed into because of her. I am your regained humanity."
Envy snorts, feeling laughter rising back up again in his throat (and though the doubt is there, he can feel something like a need to believe what this boy says, like it is the truth that he needs so desperately). "Sure. And I'm a carnival master who owns the biggest carnival in the history of carnivals."
The boy giggles again, then points up towards the sky. "Maybe another day, Envy. She's calling you now. You need to go."
And with a pop and a crack, Envy finds himself sitting in his chair still holding the same glass of water he had been drinking two hours ago with a worried Winry standing behind him.
---
35. Knives
"You really shouldn't play with knives, Envy," she says one day when they're sitting in the kitchen, sunlight streaming in from the window in streaks of gold and red. She gazes at his hands that are melted into silver-gray knives, scritch-scratching at the already engraved wood.
(She takes note that he never used to do this until he got back from that place with Roy, and she swallows the lump already rising in her throat)
He glances back at her, looks away, glances back, and looks away again. Winry briefly wonders if he gained an obsessive-compulsive disorder while on one of his missions.
"I can't help it," he mutters.
Winry raises an eyebrow. It's not like him to be sullen either. "You can try to help it," she says softly, and then adds, teasingly, "For the poor table's sake." Then, she stands up and leaves.
She notices that he doesn't do that anymore after that.
---
36. Hug
She falls one day, a slip on the loose carpet edges that sends her spiraling downwards towards the floor. She would have fallen straight down on her face if he hadn't caught her just as her head was about to make a touchdown on the floor, drama all intact and ready to go.
Envy smirks at the sight of the blush rising on her face. "My, Miss Winry," he says as loftily as he could (for a dead guy who just somehow regained a human heart). "You're quite the clumsy woman."
She laughs as her hair somehow manages to slip out of her ponytail, gold silk now falling down her back as she leans up and hugs him, fully and truly like she almost never did before. "Why, Sir Envy," she says as dramatically as she can for someone whose face was turning a shade of red a tomato would have been proud of. "I most certainly am not clumsy, but I am still just as honored to have such a graceful man in my midst."
(And then he feels a sort of crazy thumping in his chest that he doesn't really understand, but that he knows means well as his face goes just the slightest bit pink).
---
37. Scar
If she was going to be called clumsy, she thinks later, then have Envy speak for himself. She glances back at the homunculus (who was somehow turning human, she reminds herself quickly, praying that it wasn't a false hope), who was frowning and picking at the bandages around his waist.
"I don't see why I have to have these on," he grumbles. "I have fast healing abilities anyways. It's not needed." He has the most adorable expression on his face, one that involved his bottom lip jutting out slightly and his eyes narrowed in a pout.
"Yes, but it's always good to keep precautions," she says loftily (managing it this time), and busies herself with cleaning up one of the pans she used last night for dinner. "Just in case it might scar."
Envy scowls, and an unfamiliar thought that rants about how cute he looked began to run through her head. She shuts it down almost immediately, hiding the rising heat in her face. "Scars aren't going to do anything to me. They'll heal, so don't worry." The last part he rushes out and turns his head to the side.
She smiles when she realizes he didn't say 'homunculus' and sees the faint image of red on his cheeks.
---
38. Hairpin
It's a pretty hairpin, one with little fake silver studs as stars and red paint in the back. It sparkles in the sun and is luminescent in the dark, almost like a beacon. It would go wonderfully with her hair.
So Envy feels a bit jealous when it's the fullmetal pipsqueak who gives it to her and not him (though he never saw it before the pipsqueak in the first place, which reminds him that he never gave her that pouch he bought one time, the pretty blue pouch from the old lady's stand).
---
39. Gift
Envy stuffs a pouch into her hands on one hot Saturday afternoon, the heat and humidity vibrating in the reddish-gold air. "Here," he mumbles, sweating only faintly and his face wet from the moisture in the air. "This is for you."
She stares at him, feeling her hair sticking to the back of her neck from all the sweat and dang it, why was it suddenly so much hotter here? Then she looks down at the pouch, inhaling a breath of warm liquid air at its pretty blue, the little metal clasp and the stitching (crude and obviously not professional—Envy's own doing, she guesses) reading out in messy, blocky letters Winry.
She looks back up at him, eyes wide, uncertain, but reassured for some reason that she can't explain at all.
"Happy Birthday, Winry," Envy mutters, face turning the slightest bit pink. "Hope you like the gift, or whatever it is that you say when you—"
He's cut off by the feeling of her arms (smooth and sticky from the heat) wrapping around him in a tight hug.
"Thank you Envy," she whispers, eyes shining when she pulls back, expression wildly happy. "Thank you so much."
---
40. Fire
The house burned down, Envy thinks numbly, staring at the pitiful wood remains that Roy and his men were still trying pathetically to stop burning. The stupid house burned down from a kitchen fire.
Looking down, he sees Winry still asleep on the grass, his traveling coat draped over her still form. Beside him, Edward and Alphonse sit heavily on the grass, looking downcast and glum as can be.
"Well," Edward says, attempting to be chipper. "At least Winry got out all right. Somewhat."
Envy looks back down at the sleeping girl, and feels a sense of calm flood over his chest at the sight of her peaceful face. "Yeah."
---
41. Sun
Sometimes in the market, when she thinks he isn't looking, she glances over to where he's standing. She can see multiple girls and men alike, standing behind or gawking in the streets at him (she can't tell if it's out of admiration or curiosity, but all she knows is that she can't help but feel a bit jealous).
Unintentionally, she coughs into her palm. The ash and smoke from the fire (she recalls the incident with lingering fear and sadness—she lost almost all of her possessions in there, except for that pretty pouch, her wrench, and the green mended cup) still resided in her lungs, and she coughs harder, feeling her back shaking horribly from the tremors.
Suddenly, she feels a hand steadying her from the back and a worried Envy looking at her from below. "Are you okay?" he asks.
With those few words, she can't help but dwell on how much he's changed since he came here almost more than half a year ago. How much he's changed from a sadistic killer to a more considerate being.
How much she cares about him now, now that she's gotten to know him so well.
So she smiles and watches the sunlight glisten in his hair, and feels that right now, all is almost right with the world. "I'm fine, Envy."
---
42. Vengeance
He really doesn't know how to react when Edward tells Winry about the cause of the war (all his fault, all his fault). He really doesn't know how to react when Winry turns her eyes on him, mouth parting into an expression of desolation, of horror, of anger and vengeance so wanted.
He stands rooted to the spot, hands clenched tightly at his sides as she rushes forward, pounding his chest in fury and screaming why, why, why did you do it, Envy, why did you kill my parents, why, why?
He can't answer her. He just can't.
Later that day, when Mustang hands him another mission form, he accepts it and runs away from the sad woman waiting for him at home.
---
43. Monster
Winry never really thought of Envy as a monster before, even when he first came to her—them, she corrects herself firmly, them—in a jar with his little squishy legs crossed stubbornly over his chest. She just thought that he was kind of weird, kind of sad, and kind of cute, really.
Even when she saw his true form (with monstrous black eyes with red melting in and screaming souls erupting in his chest), she held her ground and told herself over and over that it was just Envy, the Envy that was now her companion, a friend of sorts. He wasn't a monster.
But when she was told about the war, about how it all started with Envy shooting a child in the head, she couldn't help but cry, but scream in rage and anger and pain and I trusted you, Envy, I trusted you!
Monster, she can't help but think, now as she looks at his picture on the wall. Monster, monster, were you laughing at me? Were you laughing at my pain, my pity, my—
Love?
---
44. Turn
It had been five, six weeks since he first set out on the mission he accepted. He wasn't really planning on coming back anytime soon, however—it wasn't something that he thought wise to do. For all he knew, if he went back into that house Winry would take her wrench and shove it into the most painful places she could think of (and, knowing Winry, she probably knew a lot of painful places).
Or, even worse, she would shun him and call him a monster.
So he doesn't turn back and continues walking through the heavy wilderness, violet eyes scanning the foliage and most certainly there and not on an imaginary girl's back.
---
45. Forgive
"I shouldn't have told you," Ed says suddenly one day as she's buttering her toast. It's early in the Saturday morning and the kitchen (brand new and shiny clean) smells like ash and soap.
Winry pretends to be indifferent. "Shouldn't have told me what?"
"I shouldn't have told you about the war. About Envy doing…that." He looks up at her, golden eyes worn and sad and regretful. "Now I don't even know if you'll forgive him at all."
She looks at Ed and sees something just a little bit broken.
He's lost someone who used to be an enemy, but is now a friend, and he doesn't know if he'll ever come back.
"I will forgive him, Ed," she says quietly, placing the knife back down on the side of her plate. "It will take time, but I will."
After all, I can't stay mad at someone I'm still in love with.
---
46. Missed
Even though he tried (well yes, he did try quite hard), he just couldn't stay away from her for too long.
It's not because of the little afterimages he sees under his eyes, with the glimpses of silk hair and pretty smiles.
It's not because of the missed sounds or touches that he used to receive, hugs and laughter and life.
It's because he misses her, the girls he managed to get to know, the monster managing to come to terms with the human. He misses how she knew him so well, how she came close without flinching because she was brave and knew it was still him, how she was, how she was just herself around him. How she was still Winry around a monster like him.
So he opens his eyes once more and sets back for home, clutching the dirty black cloak around his shaking form in the cold.
I'm coming back.
---
47. Because
She looks in the mirror a few times. Glances here and there, little pats to keep her hair in place.
She didn't know when he was coming home, but when he did she wanted to look at least somewhat nice.
(She didn't want him to look at her and then run away again—forever this time)
Before, she never would have done this. She would have called it cynical, stupid, why waste time and energy on a silly boy who wasn't even really a boy but an artificial human? Why do it?
"I do it," Winry says softly to the mirror of her former self, "because I have come to terms with myself. Because I—" She swallows and breathes in and out a few times. "Because I want him to stay and not leave forever like my parents. Because I hate waiting and I want to do something to keep him here. Because I love him, even though I know he is not a human. Because I feel that even though he is not, I still can't help but care."
And with that, she turned away from the mirror of her former self and walked away.
---
48. Push
It's been almost three months since he left and decided to return.
He sits heavily on the ground, breathing shallowly in tiny gasps and heaves of the shoulders. Even being a homunculus, it was still hard to go on such long treks.
Even so, he stands back up, shuffling his legs before beginning to sprint across the rocky dirt and back towards the mountains.
I'm coming.
---
49. Hope
She looks back towards the sky, the horizon from which he left. She can still smell ash and salt from the countertop from long ago, still feel the cool surface of the cup that he mended clumsily.
It's because that she can still feel these things that she hasn't given up. Not yet.
(Because she hasn't said sorry yet, for all the things she said and didn't say, because she hasn't lost all hope yet, because—
I know you're coming home.)
---
50. Reunion
It's been so long that he can't even count the months anymore, but he's made it.
He staggers through the brush and back into the light. Tiny stars dance inside his eyes and he ignores them, choosing, needing to keep going forward.
He can see the house in the distance, and feels slight relief that they rebuilt it so fast—due to the fullmetal pipsqueak, he bets. He chuckles hoarsely, breathlessly, still staggering and moving and he's almost there—
He can see her sitting by the window, gazing out. He can see her see him, catch his eye, blue eyes widening. He can see her chair get knocked backward, can see her race for the door, fumble with the doorknob for a few seconds (he almost laughs, but he decides to save that for later) and burst out of the door. He can see her scrambling towards him, smile growing on her face, eyes filling with tears, mouth opening—
Then he feels her heat against him, feels her arms wrap around him (fingers tangling in his hair) and her lips pressing against his dry, chapped ones firmly and surely, feels her breath against his skin, feels her break away and whisper
"Welcome home, Envy."