To Hold Him Close.

A Fullmetal Alchemist Fanfiction

By xxLilMizCaityxx

She'd love to be able to hold him close.

So close he couldn't breathe, so close his eyes would shut tight, the tense pressure would leave his shoulders and he would relax into her vice grip and just let her hold his to her heart.

So he could feel it beating.

So she could smell titanium and chromium that made up his beautiful automail, and wonder why he even bothered with his quest to get his body back when he could have the whirr of steel muscles as they ground against each other with him always, a reminder of her and not just the troubled past he faced.

She'd love to be able to tell him the truth, that she loved him, that she always had, but she's far too stubborn for that. Why grace him with that sort of knowledge when all he does is leave her behind? When all he does is run off to the far corners of Amestris, risking life and limb, literally, in an attempt to get his little brother a proper body back- the body he was born with.

Winry would love it if Ed was just a little more considerate towards her feelings- she is a girl after all, and she simply can't understand what's so difficult about that fact for Ed to understand in the first place?

Winry directs her attention back to the automail leg she's working on. It's a new design she's come up with, flawless steel minor workings, the set titanium coated thinly with chromium for added endurance ready to be moulded into the final shape needed for Ed's leg. She's fiddling with a gear, because it's just not turning correctly, and if that gear acts up then it'll disable the lower half of the leg. Her tongue slides out so it rests between her teeth, as she picks up a different screwdriver and rubs the back of her arm along her roasting brow. Her hair is sticky at the nape of her neck, and she's tired, so she decides to stretch her legs.

Resembool is roasting warm in the summer. Below freezing in the winter and wet, wet, wet in spring time. For these facts, Winry both despises and loves this place. She wanders around for a moment, before plonking herself down on the porch, and laying her head in her hands.

She'd love to be able to see him with his brother, hale and whole once more. To see him truly happy, because all he ever seems to do nowadays in scowl wildly.

Winry glances up and sees figures drifting over the horizon, the high hill that sprawls beyond her family's land.

One is tall, and wide and the sun reflects off his shiny metallic body. The other is short, yet persistently growing, and the sun reflects off his own exposed metallic limb, as he cradles his arm slightly. Winry's eyes narrow, as she realises he's destroyed her beautiful automail once more. She stands and begins to run as fast as her legs can carry her.

She skids to a halt in front of the eldest brother, eyes accusing, and brow lined in confusion as to how he's harmed himself this time- her trusty wrench already in hand. He grins sheepishly and says the words she had always wished he would.

"Hi, Winry. I missed you."

And she'd love to be able to hold him close.

But she can't, at this moment, because she's too busy cuffing his ear with her wrench.

A/N: Inspired by the challenge on the Final Fantasy Couples LJ community. I just adore Ed and Winry :) Thanks for reading. Please review :)