Familiar

Author's Note: I was struck by a sudden inspiration to write this as I listened to Ave Maria. I highly recommend you play it while reading this (the German version). Mild, mild EdWin, super-short one-shot, does not include what happened in Conqueror of Shamballa, but now I'm just telling you things you can find out just by reading. Enjoy, and don't forget to review! :-)

Love,
Ridell

Berlin, Germany
November 1938

Edward Elric hurried past a strip of empty store fronts, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets. Most of the windows had been smashed in; glass crunched under his boots, thin rivers of dried blood ran across the pavement. It was the aftermath of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. The streets were mostly deserted, save for a few policemen who stood at street corners, jeering and stopping civilians who looked Jewish or simply suspicious. Edward scowled, his fingernails digging crescents into his palm, but continued walking.

And then he saw her.

A flash of blonde hair caught his eye. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman was approaching him on the same side of the street. She was just as he remembered, a lithe-looking woman who, under her trenchcoat, had enough muscle to break jaws with a vicious right-hook. He wondered, vaguely, if she had a wrench hidden in her coat, too. She did not shy away from the leers of the police nor flirt with them like the other blonde girls did, but rather continued as if she did not see them, her head high.

Edward slowed his pace, eyes fixed intently on her. She met his gaze.

"Winry," he said under his breath, turning as she passed him, leaving a faint trace of mint and metal. Had she not have been as curious of him as he was of her, she would not have heard him.

She stopped and eyed him suspiciously. "Can I help you?"

"You look familiar," Edward said awkwardly. "There's this girl I used to know, Winry, and you look just like her."

"I see," she said slowly, nodding her head though she did not seem wholly satisfied with his short answer. At last, she said, "I'm Wendy. And, well, you look like someone I know, too, except you can't possibly be him. He's dead. Zepplins got him back during the War."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. He always was talking about Equivalent Exchange," she said, not noticing him flinch at the words. "It was war...a life for a life, I suppose. I guess he would have thought it was fair."

She paused, lost in the past as she stared at the cracks in the pavement, and he in the familiarity of her gestures, postures, and expressions. For a moment, it seemed to Edward as though he was suspended in time, at least, until she shook her head quickly and laughed nervously, looking at her watch. "Anyway, I should get going. I'm meeting someone."

Edward nodded, and as she raised a hand briefly in goodbye, he saw a flash of metal and diamond on her finger.

Now, it was his turn to watch her walk away.

Familiar
End