Fanfiction: To Smile

Title: To Smile
Word Count: 285
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: Ed, Al, Winry
Summary: She smiles for them because she feels like she has to.
Warnings/Notes: For evil_little_dog (who asked for a fic about our Risembool Trio and gave me the prompt 'blanket') and the help_nz fic auction. This is also kind of but not quite a companion to Absence. So... yeah.
 

To Smile

She smiles for them because she feels like she has to.

She isn’t the only with parents who’ve left, after all – Ed and Al sit by their mother’s grave every afternoon as if their waiting for her to come back too – only they know that she won’t.

Winry’s parents are just out there, that’s all. She doesn’t really have any right to pine for them because they’re still alive and they will come back. But sometimes she can’t help it – she’s sad because they haven’t come back yet and she misses them and she sits by the stile at the end of the road watching for them everyday, wishing they’d never left in the first place.

Then, one day, while she’s waiting at the stile, things happen a little bit differently, and Ed and Al join her too. Ed has a blanket in his arms and Winry can’t help but eye it curiously.

 “What’s up?” she asks them, offering her usual, practised smile.

“We know you’re lonely too so you can quit pretending,” says Ed bluntly, trying to look nonchalant.

Al nudges him, frowning. “What he means is we know you miss your parents so you don’t have to pretend you’re okay if you’re not.”

Winry laughs a little. “But I am okay, you guys, really.”

“You’re not fooling anyone,” says Ed, dropping the blanket into her lap and whumping down beside her.

Al sits too, taking the blanket from her and throwing it over their shoulders. “We’ll wait with you too. You don’t have to be completely alone.”

Winry says nothing as she tugs the edges of the blanket around their bodies, and for the first time in weeks, she smiles because she can.