Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.

A Fullmetal Wedding

A Fanfiction by Strawberrypocky

A/N: I just want to take a moment to say, I promise that this isn't going to be as fluffy and cliché as it may seem. Whether or not you believe me is up to you. R&R.

Thank you.

Chapter 01: Homecoming

Twenty-year-old Winry Rockbell lay silently on the bed in her room with the door closed, staring up at the wood-tiled ceiling as she attempted to count the millions of dust particles that floated above her in the shaft of sunlight that was pouring through her window. After a few minutes of this, she gave up and rolled over onto her side, her long blond hair falling over her sapphire blue eyes and brand new eyebrow ring she had crafted from iron for fun. The sounds of Granny repairing something or other – or possibly filling a late order a customer had called for – floated up to her from the tiny workroom one floor below.

Winry sighed and squeezed her eyes shut, Edward Elric's face came rushing to her mind as she did so. She wondered if he and his younger brother, Alphonse, were alright, though she could never stop herself from worrying more about Ed than Al – he was the one with an automail leg after all. In the two years since the Elric brothers had departed from Amestris, Winry had had to leave home to tend to Ed's automail more than a few times, and both he and Al sent her letters on a monthly basis. Last she had heard, Al was traveling with May Chang and Xiao Mei as he had been for a little over a year now, but he had neglected to mention where they were traveling to in his last letter. Ed's letter had yet to arrive, though.

It was really strange. Winry had managed to calculate a while back, by using the post dates on the letters that Ed almost always sent his letters to her on the first of each month and they usually got to her within a week or two weeks, at most, which meant that he sent them via the express mail, but this month – nothing. She was beginning to wonder if he had been hurt or if he could have possibly…She couldn't bring herself to finish the thought.

"I'll give you half my life, so you give me half of yours!"

Winry frowned as Ed's words to her at the train station drifted across her mind. She knew deep in her heart, despite how very corny that may sound, that he loved her. Sometimes, though, she couldn't help but worry that while he was alone in those strange countries, Ed might have…Found someone else. Someone prettier than her, a fellow alchemist, who wasn't stubborn and never cried because someone else wouldn't, someone who wouldn't force milk down his throat – even if it was for his own good. Someone he loved more than her?

"Winry!"

The sound of her Granny's approaching voice, growing ever nearer pulled her from her reverie and she sat bolt upright on her bedroom. "Yes, Granny?" she called as she listened to her grandmother's footsteps.

"Winry," Granny said, poking her head inside the doorway of Winry's bedroom. "I just wanted to bring this up to you. It's just arrived." She waved the envelope she was carrying through the air, smiling.

"Oh!" Winry said, smiling brightly as she jumped up from the bed and started to cross the room. "Is that what I think it is?"

"A letter for you from Edward Elric, yes," Granny told her, handing her the letter. "It's only just arrived, like I said. The mail must be running slow this month."

"Yes, it must be," Winry said as she went over to the little desk in the corner of the room. She grabbed a letter opener from a cup on her desk and sliced the envelope open, carefully avoiding harming the letter inside. She looked over her shoulder at her grandmother, smiling, and added, "Thank you for bringing it to me."

"You're quite welcome, child," Granny said. "I must be getting back to work now, so I'll be downstairs if you need me." She turned to leave.

"Alright," Winry said somewhat absentmindedly as her grandmother left and she pulled the letter from its envelope. She began to read:

Dear Winry,

Hey, how's it going? Still having to run back and forth to your customers in Rush Valley? How about that one guy who had his automail leg fall off in the shower because he went to a back-alley mechanic? Bet you fixed him up good.

Oh, well. Better him than me.

Anyway, I don't know if Al might have mentioned this to you in his last letter, but our journey to study alchemy, Alkahestry, and whatever else might be out there is just about over. He and May Chang are traveling through Xing on their way back to Amestris. I'll probably be home before they are, though. You know how they like to take their time.

I hope you're excited to hear that I'll be coming home soon because you can expect me back on the fifteenth of May. Can't wait to hear from you until then.

Later,

Ed

Winry stared at the letter for a moment, her mouth hanging open slightly in confusion. She reread the last lines of the letter several times and said, "The fifteenth of May, but isn't that –?"

"Hey, Winry."

Winry spun around silently, not even daring to believe that she recognized the voice that had spoken to her. She gasped audibly when she saw Edward Elric standing in the doorway of her bedroom with his long, golden blond hair pulled away from his warm, smiling golden eyes in a long ponytail.

"So," Ed said, crossing the room to where she stood, beaming as he went. "You miss me?"

Winry stared at him in shocked, disbelief uncertain of what to say or how to respond. She opened her mouth to speak several times, but she all managed to accomplish with this was to cause Ed burst out laughing. "Ed," she managed to say at long last in a somewhat breathless voice. "When did you –?"

"Finally," Ed said, smiling down at her, "she speaks. I'm not sure I like seeing you act all speechless – it's not natural. It was funny, though." He reached out and brushed her hair out of her eyes as he spoke, raising an eyebrow at her new piercing, but saying nothing about it otherwise. "Seriously, though," he said, his smile fading slightly, "you did miss me, right?"

"Of course I did," Winry said, looking away from him, so he wouldn't see her blushing. She moved away from him carefully and went to go sit down on her. She looked up at him and asked, "When, exactly, did you get back to Amestris and where is Al – is he really back in Xing?"

Ed sighed disappointedly, but smiled nonetheless as he crossed the room to Winry's desk and sat down in the chair there. "Yep," he said. "It's just like the letter says. He and May are in Xing right now with Xiao Mei. They should be arriving here in about a month or two, maybe three, and I arrived in Central last Wednesday –"

"You've been in Central for a whole week and you didn't even tell me?" Winry said her voice now laced with anger and hurt. "I would have to come see you if I had known."

"Well, I wanted to surprise you," Ed said quickly, frowning when he saw the look on her face. "And I was really busy, too, Winry –"

"Too busy for a phone call?" Winry said, glaring at him.

"Oh, c'mon, Winry," Ed said, pleading now. "I just got back – you can't be mad at me already. If I tell you what I was doing in Central, will you promise not to be mad at me, please?"

"That depends," Winry told him, her expression now apathetic.

"Alright," Ed sighed, smiling, knowing that this was the best response he could hope to get from her. "Well, Mustang was in Central last week, so he agreed to meet with me about reconstructing Laboratory Five, so that the bio-alchemists can try to restore the human chimeras to their original forms. They won't be able to do it, though, without mine and Al's research on alchemy and Alkahestry, so Al and I have agreed to sell our research to the government, you know, to help the cause."

"And it took you a whole week to do all that?" Winry asked him skeptically.

"That wasn't all I was doing while I was there, you know," Ed said, laughing at her expression. "I had other things to do other than that."

"Like what?" Winry asked somewhat expectantly.

"Well," Ed said, looking away from her as his face began to burn beet red, "most of the time I was there, I was waiting for this to be finished." He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a small, white cardboard box, which he instantly began to fiddle with it in his embarrassment. "I had it commissioned right before I went to speak with Mustang. It's for you, Winry." He tossed the box across the room to her and looked away quickly.

Winry caught the box and held it in her hands silently, blushing deeply. She wasn't exactly sure what she was to do with it. She knew that she should open it, but she just didn't know when exactly. This was the first time Ed had given her a gift in years, and even the last time he had given her something, it had only been to keep her from being angry with him. He had never given her something that really felt like it had had any real meaning behind it. She looked up at him in disbelief and said, "What is it?"

"Open it and find out," Ed said without looking at her, his voice laced with annoyance and amusement. It was becoming quite evident that he just wanted the whole situation to be done and over with.

Winry nodded and pulled the lid off the small white box silently. Inside of it, nestled in a wad of multicolored tissue paper, was a small black maple box with a glass top that was stained deeply red. The inside of the black box was lined with white velvet and in the very center of the box was a small, round band of silver that wrapped intricately around three round, glistening diamonds with the one in the middle being the largest of the three. Winry's mouth fell open in disbelief as her eyes fell on the ring. "Oh, my –!" she gasped pulling the tiny black box out and opening it to get a better look at the ring.

"Do you like it?" Ed said, smiling at her, his face still red, but not nearly so much as before. "I had everything made special – even the box. It cost a fortune, but it was worth it, and judging by the look on your face, I guess that means I have pretty good taste." He stood up and walked over to her, beaming now.

"Ed," Winry said, looking up at him. "What, exactly, is this for?"

"What is it for – Winry, do you really have to ask?" Ed said, laughing as he sat down next to her on the bed. When Winry continued to stare at him in confused disbelief, he took her hand in his, causing her to blush deeply and said, "Do you remember what I said when I left Amestris – at the train station?"

"That's what this is for?" Winry said as realization dawned on her.

"Well, yeah," Ed said. "I mean, what else would it be for?" He continued before she had a chance to answer. "I just figured that now that I'm back it was time to make it – er – official." His face turned bright red once again as he said this.

"But, Ed," Winry said, "are you sure it's not too much? I mean, I don't even want to think about what you must have had to pay for this – "

"Winry," Ed said, irritation creeping into his voice, "do you like the ring?"

"Well," Winry said, "yes but –"

"But nothing!" Ed said, not even trying to smile at this point. "If you like it, then just wear it and don't worry about anything else, okay?"

Winry stared at him hesitantly for a moment before she pulled the ring out of the box and slid it onto her left ring finger silently. She knew from the look on his face and the tone of his voice that she had hurt him unintentionally by not accepting his gift right away, so she had to fix it. She reached out and waved her fingers in his face playfully, so that the three diamonds on the ring caught the sunlight streaming through her window and glimmered brightly. "I really do like it," she said, smiling as she kept her gaze fixated on the ring as Ed turned to look at her. "It's so pretty. I just can't believe you would actually buy me something like this. I never would have expected it of you." She looked up at him, meeting his gaze with an apologetic look in her eyes and knowing that he wouldn't ask her to say it out loud. He understood her.

Ed smiled at her knowingly and said, "Yeah, well don't worry about it so much. It's no big deal, honestly. If I want to buy someone something nice, then I will, and that's all there is to it. There is something I'd like you to take care of, though."

"And what's that?" Winry asked him inquisitively.

"Our wedding, of course," Ed told her, smiling, looking away from her as he spoke and scratching his head thoughtfully. "I mean, I know I've got a great sense of style and all, but when we get married, I want it to be all about you, so I want it to be nice for you and by that, I mean –"

"You want me to plan our wedding?" Winry asked, bringing about a momentary halt to Ed's embarrassed rambling, her voice filled with surprised intrigue.

"Well, who else is going to do it?" Ed said, looking at her. He looked away from her quickly and went on, "I don't really feel like doing it and, I mean, you're going to be the bride – I'm just trying to make you happy! What the hell is wrong with that?!" He glared at her, his face red with embarrassment, breathing heavily.

Winry burst out laughing, causing Ed to fall silent. "Nothing," she said, reaching out and lacing her fingers through his. "Nothing is wrong with that." She looked down at their intertwined hands, her face red and smiling as her gaze fell on the ring Ed had bought for her. The first really meaningful gift he had ever given her. "Thank you, Ed. Just thank you."

Ed smiled at her silently and squeezed her hand gently as he looked down at their fingers, blush coloring his cheeks once again.