Every day is a journey

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They had nearly messed up. They had only just gotten there in time to warn everyone, and stave off the Witches attacking Spirit till Stein arrived. She heard there had been various other attacks throughout the city, but they had been fending off, and thankfully there had been no deaths and only a small number of casualties. Now, after the four of them had explained things to Kid they were shepherded off to the clinic. Her clinic, she realized with a bit of surprise, though it hardly felt like it anymore.

The clinic was rather busy as to be expected so soon after a battle, and Winry was trying to convince Naomi and Watson to let her help, but her efforts were completely shut down by both of them who insisted that she needed to rest as well. She knew they were right, but she couldn't help but feel a sense of guilt after having been missing for so long, and leaving the responsibility of the clinic in Watson's hands.

She was about to give up, concede and go to her room when yet another person entered the patient room.

Comments

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"You..."

He shook his head finally, getting a hold of himself and very much pushing a certain conversation or two out of his head.

"Tch. Some joke."

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"Why would I joke about something like that?"

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"Why would you say something like - that - out of the blue like that?"

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She shrugged. "Because I figured it was something you already knew. As I said--I made assumptions too so now I'm going to make up for that, and I'll tell you exactly what I told the you of ten years from now. No matter who I meet, or where my life goes, you will be one of the people who means the most to me. You, Al, Granny--everyone will always come after you guys."

She sighed and shrugged, scoot up the bed a bit so she could lean against the headboard.

"You don't think you deserve it, but frankly that's not your decision to make. That's the way it is, always has been, and always will be."

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He was quiet for a long moment, leaning back against the bed with his legs crossed under him. 'Don't think you deserve it' was putting it lightly, after the past month. He closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out.

"The day you left. [a beat] I saw my Shadow. You know what that is, right?"

Complete honesty, wasn't it?

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Now that was definitely not something she had been expecting. Her head shot up and she stared wide-eyed at him. "You did? But...how?"

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"People's powers came back that day. Rise's is to go into some freaky place where they live, and I got caught up in it."

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...that's some crappy power right there. Winry couldn't imagine ever wanting to go to a place where Shadows lived.

She hadn't ever thought she'd hear of those things again, hadn't ever wanted to, really, but now it left Winry with a deep concern. Knowing Ed he probably hadn't told anyone about this so had he kept this bottled up for the entire month or so she was gone? She looked at him, unsure, but patient to see what he would say.

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He was quiet, actually, mulling back over that memory which he'd tried to keep locked up with everything else going on.

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She shifted forward again and this time just rested a hand on his shoulder, giving it a small squeeze.

"It's okay, Ed. We can talk about it later if you need, whenever you want."

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"No," he said pretty quickly, and if he noticed her touch, he didn't react to it. "You'd said complete honesty, right?"

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Yet something else she hadn't expected, but Winry nodded and remained by his side, pulling up some of the blankets around her.

She said nor did anything else, not wanting to seem impatient and rush him into such a talk. She knew how hard it was.

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'Worse than murder, isn't it?'

He pulled his legs up close to his chest, resting his arms on his knees.

'Trust wasn't able to save anyone.'

"It wasn't able to get very far."

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She frowned. "What do you mean?" The hand fell from his shoulder to his back, gently kneading him with her knuckles. The fatigue she felt from the day had hardly gone, and she knew this was going to be a long and equally tiring conversation but Ed was being open, she couldn't waste this opportunity. She thought it would take much longer before he would be able to speak freely to her as he was.

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"Rise'd said that you have to accept them to stop them. It wouldn't shut up, so..." He trailed off, then continued, a set look to his face. "Listed names, mostly."