Disclaimer: I do not own FMA or any of the characters. If I did, I'd hurt the writer's for only making half the movie good, and half of it horrendously unacceptable.
I'm in the FMA category, woo! And, uh, I apologize if this is badly out of character. Feel free to stone me if you don't enjoy the fic.
He was never much of a drinker. He felt it ruined too many reputations, too many lives. From the looks of it, neither was Al. Both were in the smoky German bar, wondering if their informant would show up to help them find the bomb, wondering how every man could find themselves so entranced with the blonde beauty singing a low, slow melody as she poured the beer, and wondering, like they always did when they saw a blonde haired blue eyed girl, if this was perhaps Winry in this world.
"It's not her, brother," Al deduced finally, turning to Ed.
He shrugged. "There's a lot of people we won't find, Al. She could be anywhere, from Germany to America to Japan. No reason to keep looking. We've just got to worry about the bomb."
Al paused, eyes narrowing on the girl. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but she looked so much like their Winry. Her voice was a lot better than Winry's, and the smile she gave to the drunken men seemed much faker. Hands seemed to move quicker, motions seemed almost hesitant and twitchy, so much unlike the mechanic who could work on machinery without so much an a cramp in her wrist. He looked for more faults, more things she would never do, then stopped himself.
"It feels like we're giving up on the old world," Al said suddenly. "If you stop looking for things that look the same and only look for the differences, what if we forget completely? What if we just…what if our old world…"
"Becomes a dream?" Ed suggested. "Already is, at least in my mind. It's a new world, Al. We can't go back to the old one. Better to just settle down here and move on with our lives."
The first song finished and the men began to cheer, asking for another one. They called out a German song name, and she laughed, a light fake laugh, and explained to them that she wouldn't sing a dirty song. A few more and she retorted that she didn't know the lyrics, or she hadn't heard the song, until she came across a clean one that she did know, and began to sing again. This one was a little more bouncy, a happy love song that had a rhythm the men could clap to.
"I think she's in trouble. I don't like all the men around here or the way they look at her."
"You're being ridiculous," Ed grinned, raising his ice water glass to his lips and taking a long swallow. He set it down and watched an older woman get up with her husband and spun around the bar, bumping into objects and laughing all the while. "It's a happy place, Al. They're enjoying themselves and the girl seems happy too. She's smiling, laughing, she's got a happy tune. You just want to go over and talk to her, see if her name's Winry. It's not Winry. It never will be."
"But brother-"
"Al," Ed said firmly. "I've moved on."
"I haven't," Al whispered fiercely, lowering his voice. "I know we're stuck here, brother, but you're always trying to put our past behind us. It didn't work last time, and we even burned our house to the ground! We can't forget! We're supposed to use those experiences to make our future better! And if I want to keep looking for Winry, even if you don't, I don't see why it's any problem to you! Just because you're changing and acting weird doesn't mean that I can't act the way I'm supposed to! And I think we ought to take care of her, especially if she's in as much trouble as I think she is. What if she's got a wife beating husband?"
"She doesn't have a wife beating husband."
"But what if she does?" Al insisted.
"She doesn't," Ed chuckled.
"But what if-"
"We'll settle it," Ed cut him off, waving his arm in the air. "Ma'am, excuse me! The one with the pretty voice! Could we have a refill on the water?"
She smiled in their direction and picked up a pitcher of ice water, foggy on the edges and dripping when she picked in up. She walked to them, singing to the end of the song, and ignoring the calls of the other men for another. A second girl, this one with dark hair and dark eyes began a much louder song, this one with lyrics not nearly so clean, and spinning around in erotic motions. This left the blonde free to chat with them as she poured their drink.
"You're not from around here," she said, pouring filling Ed's glass to the top. "I can hear it. Your accent is off. Very, very close, but not exactly right. Where is it? Spain?"
"Somewhere around there," he waved it off. "Now, my brother was wondering if you've got a cruel, wife beating husband. He thinks you look fake."
The woman arched an eyebrow at the younger boy. "Why would you say that?"
"You're just…" Al began. "I don't know, you don't look like you're really happy. Your smiles look fake, your laugh seems fake, and you flinch a lot. There's drunk men everywhere, and I've seen them trying to…trying to touch you. I can't help it, I just get nervous because you're pretty enough and I know that men sometimes…sometimes take advantage of women and would hit you and…" His face flushed. "I'm just going to stop talking now."
"He's probably just asking if you have a husband so he can ask you on a date," Ed winked playfully.
"Mmm, thank goodness it's him," she nodded. "If it was you I don't know what I'd say. I couldn't stand to date a man shorter than me."
For a second, Al flinched away, prepared for his brother's explosion, but it didn't happen. First, lips twitched upwards, and then Ed began to laugh, a loud, doubled over, happy laugh. The woman had called him short and his brother was giggling like she had told the best joke in the world. And when he finally stopped, wiped away tears of mirth, and smiled as big as he could at the girl in front of him, taking in her features as best as he could.
"Could you tell me your name?" He asked.
She looked a little confused, but answered anyway, "Winry. It's a little weird, I know, but parents are strange people."
Ed began to laugh again, holding out his hand to shake. "Edward Elric, and you've just erased our entire conversation. What do you know, Al, we found her!"
Hands shook and Ed chuckled again, shaking his head with disbelief, and Al began to laugh too. Things were changing quickly, old lives changing and melting away, and every old thing was met with something different, a fusion of their world and the blonde's in front of them.
Like finally finding Winry…
Or Ed learning to laugh.