The primary focus is EdWin, but other characters making an appearance is totally fine.

Prompts are open to interpretation and may be set in any FMA universe (manga, TV shows, movies, light novels, games, etc.). AU’s are always welcome.

Running behind? NO WORRIES! We accept late entries.

Fanfiction, fanart, gifs, edits, and animatics are all forms of acceptable media, but MUST BE ORIGINAL CREATIONS. Stolen or reposted work will not be accepted.

Roy didn’t even try to stifle the smile that crossed his face. Riza was also softly smiling to herself.

Ed continued. “I tried to figure out what she was making with the circle, but in all honesty, I think it was just gibberish. She said it was to make apple pie, but the formula was all off.

“Ah! I did take a picture of it to send to you! You’ll have to tell me what you think of it. Winry said she was just copying something from my notes, but it must be a conglomeration of several circles.”

Roy laughed loudly at this. “Is she the next Fullmetal?”

“Ah hell no. She’s not going into the military. Not on my watch. She’s going to be a brilliant alchemist all of her own. Or maybe a mechanic. Right now, she thinks she’s going to be a ballerina, so her future could go anywhere.”

Roy leaned forward on his desk, resting his chin in his hand. Riza had stopped sorting through papers, and he knew she was just as enthralled with the story being regaled by their previous team member.

“But Thomas, now that kid is going to be an engineer! Yesterday he took apart the radio and put it back together! I mean, not in working order, but still. He nearly got it all together!

“Ah, speaking of which, he started school last week? Did I tell you about it?”

“Yes, Fullmetal, you did call to let me know Thomas was in school now.”

Roy could practically see Ed’s chest pump up with pride. “He’s way ahead of his classmates in reading too! Got to see his teacher in town the other day and was complimented on how brilliant my boy is!”

This caused Riza to look over her should and smile at him.

When Ed and Al were scouring the nation looking for ways to get their bodies back, it was rare that either of them would know anything about what they were doing. They were lucky if they even knew which side of the country they were on at any given time. Sometimes Ed would write or call to report, like he was supposed to, but never to the extent that a State Alchemist should. It was often a long game of telephone to get ahold of the brothers.

But now, Ed was frequently checking in to tell him about his family, or to call and tell Roy about a breakthrough he had with his research.

His lack of alchemy didn’t stop him from continuing his quest to find all the answers he could.

“Well,” Roy said, “he is an Elric.”

“And a Rockbell! Nothing but brilliant genes running through him!”

Ed shifted the conversation to how he was working on a way to better balance the levels in soil to get the best results for planting, his latest endeavor. Winry had gotten into planting and growing her own food to can, which meant Ed had to find his purpose in her new hobby.

Roy listened politely, taking in the feeling that Ed, the so troubled and tormented boy he had once met in a wheelchair so long ago, had found peace and happiness at last.

It would be just a few short days before a large envelope would arrive at his office, Ed’s atrocious handwriting sprawled across the front.

Riza would open it before Roy got into the office, taking her time to look at all the pictures Ed had sent along, with Winry’s neat printing on the back giving a description of what was going on in the picture. By the time Roy arrived, the snapshots into the Elric-Rockbell lives would be neatly sorted on his desk.

Perhaps giving up any scrap of joy to be found is all part of the sacrifice to bring back his little brother. Maybe Edward Elric is not meant to be happy, in his world or this one. 

Maybe the next one, then. 

He sets the cup aside and gets to his feet, both metal and flesh unsteady—his appetite has been absent for days while preparing for the worst, and now that the worst is here, it turns out that avoiding food has not helped him in the slightest. 

“Where are you going?” Alfons asks. 

Ed doesn’t bother to answer, sliding on his worn shoes, not troubling himself with laces. 

“Edward, at least put a shirt on.” 

Ed doesn’t really care for this world’s delicate sensibilities, nor Alfons’ and his father’s obsession with them. His undershirt is plenty on this summer night, and the dark would conceal his hand long enough, so he leaves the apartment and his befuddled roommate behind. 

He walks the streets, his feet steering him down a path he’s committed to before. 

He is tired, so tired, so destroyed by longing and the emptiness in his chest, the constant ache for home and everyone he loves, and now losing Winry—not his Winry, but his Winry—is more than he can bear, more than he can take. Meeting Winry on that early March day had only delayed his plans, and now nothing holds him back. 

Because he has nothing left. 

And so he passes by the café—the small one with the warm lights where he and Winry had shared soft pretzels on three separate occasions, the same café he had given her a pair of silver earrings—and he knows the bridge is not too far away. 

Almost there. 

“Edward.” 

He turns, so quickly he almost loses his footing. 

She is standing there, a pretzel half-wrapped in paper and clutched to her chest, her blue eyes soft and wide in surprise. 

“Where are you going?” she asks, taking in the look of him, how improperly he is dressed. 

He feels his cheeks flush, but he’s not sure what to say. She would want to know why he is going to the bridge, and he doesn’t have a good answer.

“Walk with me?” she asks, holding out her hand. 

Mutely, not sure if perhaps this is a dream and he’s already drowning at the bottom of the Isar, he takes her warm hand in his flesh one. 

She leads him back the way he had come, and Ed feels like he sees the warmth of the shop lights like he hadn’t on the way here, the bubble of conversations and the murmur from the pub up the road, the ringing of a church bell calling for evening mass. 

And yet, his heart chills in his chest, dread eating away at that strange hope that just wasn’t ready to die yet. 

She leads him to the park across from Alfons’ flat. They take a seat on a bench a few meters from the pooling lamplight where Ed can watch the spitting image of Gracia Hughes close up her flower shop for the night. Winry offers him half a pretzel and they eat in silence for a while, the soft bread tasting stale in his mouth.

And when the pretzel is gone, she asks a question.

“Edward, I need to know something.”

He is afraid to look at her, but he does anyway. Her gaze bores into him like hot iron. 

“Do you love me?”

He opens his mouth.

“Think before you answer.”

He closes it. 

And he thinks. 

He’s never been good at this sort of thing. That’s how he ruined it with the Winry he used to know. 

Maybe, though . . . maybe he’s been given a chance—a chance he doesn’t deserve, but a chance, nonetheless. 

Maybe this time, he can do it right. 

Hope burns a little hotter in his chest.

“Winry,” he says, and he brings her hand to his lap, letting the metal fingers of his right ghost over hers. “You’re not the Winry I left behind. You are you. I loved that Winry, and I will be honest in telling you that that’s how all this started.”

She flinches, but she is patient. She is always so patient with him. 

“I love you, Winry. Not because of who you remind me of, though. Not anymore.”

He looks at her, and she is so much stronger than he could ever be. She doesn’t cry or run from him again. She only nods and slides closer to him on the wooden bench, fitting perfectly against his side. 

He is afraid to ask, but he is more afraid to not know. “Do you believe me?” 

Her gaze is on his steel fingers, their shape and movement almost spider-like over her beautiful hands. 

“I believe you,” she promises. “You never lie about what’s important.” 

It’s far more than he could have hoped for. Not even Alfons believes anything he says. 

“I believe you and I love you.”

Tears sting his eyes, because he has found purpose again, purpose in loving this woman. This woman that adores her coworkers, picks up strays off the road, hates the humidity of summer, and never leaves the house without a hat. This woman who has shown him more kindness and patience over the past six months than anyone here has the past year and a half. This woman that has every reason to think he’s just as mad as they come, but instead has decided to believe him. 

They are married in the fall, and Ed thinks he’s found what happiness is. 

They have two children soon after, two little blond boys with gold eyes, and soon Edward also finds purpose in loving them, raising them, trying to be the father he never had. 

And years later, wars later, Edward has moved his family over three separate countries chasing their safety, and they finally find it in a small farming community in the southeast of France. 

Sometimes in the evening, he looks out over the rolling fields and can almost imagine he’s in Resembool. 

Then Winry comes up behind him and wraps her arms around his waist. Fritz and Alphonse giggle and play in the front yard, and little Trisha, their third, gurgles happily in her father’s arms. 

Ed may not be in Resembool anymore, but puts his free arm over Winry, drawing her close and kissing her deep. 

And he is home.

Fin

XxXxX

Well, this has certainly been a fun experimental writing style c: I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did! CoS-verse is my favorite and I need more of these fics in my life. If you guys have any recommendations, I am all ears.  Speaking of, now maybe I can get back to my other fics xD