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Edward knocks the toe of his shoe on the lip of the threshold. Pain splits through the haze of painkillers and meandering drowsiness, snapping him awake and choking the breath in his throat.
Winry catches him before he can sprawl, firmly clutching him to her side. “Easy, Ed,” she whispers into his hair, shaky but a promise. “I’ve got you.”
The pain woke him up a little. The fireplace is lit, shadows scrawled across the living room of their home. “Th-The kids, they…”
“They’re still with Mei, Ed, it’s okay. Focus on breathing.”
Edward tries to breathe. The congestion in his lungs thickens, clogs up his throat like rot in a pipe. Footsteps thump through the fog and then Alphonse is there, for… for some reason, and his face is all scrunched up like Mom’s used to do when she was anxious.
“A-Al?”
Alphonse takes his arm gently, settling some of Edward’s weight against his side. “Hey, Brother.”
“Thought you were… w’ the kids.”
“I was, but I wanted to be here when you came home. They were asleep when I left, Mei’s got them. They’re okay.”
Edward doesn’t doubt it. Nor does he deny that Alphonse’s presence is overwhelming in the best way, like a heatwave after blistering cold. Alphonse’s arm at his waist settles the jittering nerves, eases pain-plagued memories and old trauma. He woke up after surgery and he was eleven years old again. He doesn’t know what would’ve happened if Winry hadn’t been there. What he would have done in a drugged and flashback-driven haze.
Alphonse and Winry help him to the bedroom down the hall and he’s lowered onto clean sheets, blankets pulled back. A candle lights the room. Medicine and water sit on the bedside table, a pair of crutches leaned against the wall. Pain knocks between Edward’s femur and he grits his teeth against a cry, grappling Alphonse’s hand.
“Sorry, sorry,” Al says, bracing Edward’s shoulder. “Take it slow, Brother, I’ve got you. Lie back.”
Winry comes to his other side, taking his arm. Between the two of them Edward manages to get comfortable—as comfortable as he can be, trembling in agony while acidic pain chews up his bones—and Alphonse murmurs something over his head to Winry while she strokes Edward’s loose hair.
The sleep is drugged and unsatisfying, dreams half-baked and disturbing. When he startles awake, not fully sure why, Winry coaxes water down his throat and gathers his hair out of his face. Alphonse squeezes his hand when cloudy night terrors have Edward heaving for air. Winry checks his bandages and it’s all he can do to bite down on the edge of the quilt and try his damndest not to move.
For hours he drifts in stale fits, and it’s only after his second dose of painkillers that he’s able to scrape up some decent sleep while Winry and Alphonse talk gently over his head, half of it at each other and half of it at him. The smell of home finally overtakes the smell of antiseptic clinging to Edward’s skin, and when he does drop off, it’s into a rest with no nightmares and muted pain.
Edward isn’t in any less pain come morning, but he is considerably more awake. Awareness comes with its own set of problems, but he’d rather have this than dulled senses and blown-out night terrors.
Besides, it’s damn imperative for him to have the presence of mind to acknowledge his family. Al’s wide gestures and gentle-to-fiendish smiles and Winry’s furrowed brows and crinkly eyes when she laughs. Their concern stresses him out, just because he hates anything that makes them upset, but that’s miniscule.
He’s home, and so are his people. That’s plenty.
By afternoon, he gains a semblance of coherency, pain lulled behind strong medicine and the clinging drowsiness of sleep. Winry asks his symptoms, checks his bandages—he hates to worry her, but it seems like she finds some comfort in being able to fuss over him, so he lets her and tries not to feel too guilty about it. They’ve talked about it before; she doesn’t like it when he pretends he’s fine, even if that means seeing him at his worst.
“Your incisions look clean,” Winry murmurs, tugging the blanket down over his bandaged leg and moving to sit by his head. “You’re still pale, though.”
God, his wife is always beautiful but she’s stunning in the sunlight, and the warmth through their bedroom window lights her up like a star. “S’ fine, Win,” he says, reaching for her face and tucking back her hair. “It’s only been a day. Bloodloss is like that.”
“I know. But I don’t have to like it, Ed.”
That’s true. He doesn’t like it either.
Winry touches his arm. “You know, Maes and Sarah are worried.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm. Do you think you’d be up to seeing them? I know you don’t want them to see you in pain, but I think it would do all of you some good. I’ll make sure they’re gentle.”
It’s not roughhousing Edward is worried about. Mom’s face, pale and gaunt even as she smiled and reassured them (lied to them) tittles through his head, and he can’t meet Winry’s eyes. “I don’t wanna scare them.”
“They’re more scared not being able to see you,” Winry says. “They’ll feel better once they talk to you—you will, too, Ed.” She softens, slips his hand between hers and squeezes his fingers. “This is different.”
He appreciates that she knows him well enough that he doesn’t have to say it out loud. Deep breath in, deep breath out—Edward nods, quiet, and squeezes Winry’s hand back. “‘Kay. Send ‘em in.”
Winry’s smile still takes his breath away after all these years. She kisses him as she gets to her feet.
Half a minute later the bedroom door is flung open, and Winry barely has a chance to shout at them to be careful before Edward’s arms are full of the most precious things in his life. His leg does get jostled, and he bites the inside of his cheek, but it’s nothing. Nothing compared to having his kids in his arms. He laughs, giddy with exhaustion and pain and love, and hugs them tight while they squirm.
“Dad!” Maes’ tiny hands grab at Edward, digging into his ribs and his arm. “See, I told you! I told Sarah you were fine, just like you said you’d be!”
“I knew you’d be fine!” Sarah argues, tucking herself under Edward’s arm. She has a scowl that reminds Edward of himself, and if that isn’t both terrifying and hilarious. “Maes was way more worried than I was.”
Edward settles Maes on his thigh and curls an arm around Sarah, pulling them both close. “What’d I tell ya? Your mom’s not gonna let me off the hook that easily.”
“When do you get your leg back?” Maes asks, leaning back to look at Edward’s face. A complicated expression creases his forehead. “You look tired.”
Edward laughs again but this time it’s wet. Damn his stupid heart. He presses Maes to his chest to at least spare the kid from seeing tears in eyes, because Edward wouldn’t know how to explain. “Well, I am tired. And my leg hurts like crazy, so, I’ll probably be off it for a while.”
“It hurts?” Sarah asks, playing with the hem of Edward’s flannel. “But how can it hurt if it’s not there?”
His kids are the best. Unbiased, non-negotiable.
“It’s the automail,” Winry joins them, dropping onto the edge of the bed and reaching for Edward’s hand. His wife is the best too. “We had to replace it, remember? It’s going to take time to heal.”
Sarah nods. “You had to replace it because it was hurting.”
“That’s right,” Winry says. “Once it heals it won’t hurt as much, but until then we’re gonna have to work together to take care of Dad, alright?”
Sarah and Maes nod, very serious. Edward chuckles again, feeling soft. “I’ll try not to be too much trouble.”
Winry leans over to kiss him. Then she gets up. “Well, we should let your dad rest now. He’s gotta take his medicine.”
“But we just got here,” Maes says, curling his hand into the collar of Edward’s shirt. Sarah, too, wraps herself stubbornly against Edward’s side. “Can we stay? Please? We won’t get in the way or be annoying.”
“It’s okay, Win,” Edward says. Maybe it isn’t actually okay, but he feels steadier with his kids in his arms and he isn’t ready to let them go. “I won’t push it.”
“We’ll come get you if Dad needs anything too!” Sarah chirps in to sweeten the deal. “And we’ll make sure he doesn’t try to get out of bed. We can bring things to him.”
He gets to watch the fight drain from Winry’s face. Score. “… Well, if you’re sure,” she says. “But be gentle with your dad, kids. Alright?”
“Okay!”
When Winry comes in to check on them, Edward is fast asleep against the headboard, Maes tucked under his right arm and Sarah pressed to his ribs on the other side, wide awake and whispering conspiratorially to each other. They perk up when she steps inside.
“Dad fell asleep,” Maes tells her, a hand cupped around his mouth. “We’ve been reading to him.”
Affection thrums her heartstrings, and she moves closer to see the book Maes and his sister have open over Edward’s stomach. It’s the same storybook she’s often found Edward reading to them before bed—that sentiment gets her, too, settling under her ribs like a warm hug.
“I’m sure he loved that,” Winry murmurs with a smile, reaching to pet Maes’ hair. She’s proud of them. Proud of Ed, too, for letting them in and for letting them stay. “Come on, let’s let him sleep. Dinner’s waiting.”
“Is Dad going to eat?” Sarah asks as Winry extracts her carefully, draping Edward’s arm over his ribs and settling Sarah’s feet on the hardwood floor. “He took his medicine earlier but he didn’t eat anything…”
“I’ll make him something in a bit. It’s okay.” She closes the book, sets it aside while Maes slips off the bed and hobbles over quietly. “Go ahead downstairs. I’ll be right there.”
Maes nods and leads Sarah out. They leave the door wide open behind them, and Winry pulls it to before returning to her husband’s side. He’s so peaceful like this, serene, the lines of age smoothed from his face as he sleeps. But his neck’s gonna kill him if she doesn’t get him into a straighter posture, and that’ll affect his spine, which will affect his leg.
Winry maneuvers him carefully, wrapping one arm behind his shoulders and wrapping the other at the small of his back further down, just above his tailbone. He snuffles, breath hitching, and an ocean of fondness rushes over her heart as she shushes him, pressing him close and shimmying him lower. He gets the picture enough to help, kind of, drowsy as he is—it’s more funny than helpful, but it’s also a side of Ed that only she gets to see, with his guard completely down. His muffled noise of pain and confusion breaks her heart a little.
“W’n?” Ed croaks, heavy with exhaustion. “S’ okay…?”
“Shhh, Ed, everything’s okay.” She draws the quilts up around his shoulders, smooths them over his side. “You need to rest.”
Edward tries to push himself onto an elbow, perplexion knitting his face, but all it takes is her hand against his cheek before he falls into his pillow. She’d laugh if it were any other time.
“Kids?” Edward asks.
“Eating dinner. They were reading to you until you fell asleep.”
Edward makes a quiet sound of ascent, but tugs her sleeve when she tries to step away. “Leavin’…?”
“I told the kids I’d meet them downstairs,” she says, smoothing his hair off his forehead. He’s warm—warmer than she approves of. She’ll have to keep an eye on that. “But I’ll be back up soon, okay?”
Ed makes that sound again, but it’s further away this time, more in his chest than his throat. Winry drops a kiss into his hair.
“We’ve got you, dummy,” she whispers. “Rest.”
He’s asleep before she pulls away.
Winry snaps awake in the dead of night to the sound of gagging. It doesn’t click right away—the house settles often this time of year, wooden beams contracting with the weather. But the gag turns into a retch, and the croaky whimper of pain from her husband’s side of the bed kills any remaining drowsiness.
“Ed? Hey, I’m here.” She crawls to his side of the bed to brace him, combing his hair out of his face with one hand. “Talk to me, what’s going on?”
“J’st feel sick,” Edward wheezes. “Th’ Think I…” He sighs, curling an arm around his stomach. “Damn it.”
“You have a fever,” Winry says, flattening her hand over his forehead. “Oh, Ed—I have to look at your leg, are you done throwing up for now?”
“Y, Yeah, m’ okay.”
The surgeon in her wars with her heart. She has empathy for all of her patients, but this is her husband and the last time she saw him this sick was when he was eleven, being outfitted with automail for the first time.
She gets him settled first, easing him against their most comfortable pillows and bringing the blanket to his hips. The oil lamp is lit, shadows scattering, painting his gray face orange. A towel across his forehead, a tie to keep his hair out of the way. She holds his hand and strokes his feverish face until he catches his breath and the wet rattle has left his lungs. Then she tugs the handtowel down over his eyes and kisses his hairline. Surgeon mode.
“I’m going to check your leg.” She drapes his hand over his stomach. “Deep breaths. Let me know if you’re gonna get sick.”
Edward nods. Winry drags herself away and folds back the blankets to reveal discolored bandages. It isn’t bloody, but the drainage isn’t clear either. Winry draws up a stool and disinfects her scissors.
The stitches are inflamed, but the drainage is normal apart from that. Even the inflammation is expected, though more intense than she hoped. Edward fists the sheets and clenches his jaw while she cleans the incisions and applies salve. By the time everything’s bandaged up and she’s washed her hands, he’s panting shallowly and has an arm flung over the towel on his face.
“I’m sorry, Ed.” Winry sits by his head, presses her hand to his shoulder. His hand juts out and she reacts, taking it between both of hers and squeezing while he gasps for breath. “How do you feel?”
Edward just shakes his head, still breathing hard. She loosens one hand from his and tangles her fingers through his sweaty bangs. “Breathe, Edward.”
He nods, trembling, deep breaths through his nose and shuddering exhales through his teeth. She uses the corner of the towel to mop sweat from his cheeks. When she slips her hand against the back of his neck to test his temperature, he’s boiling.
“Sorry,” Edward rasps at long last. Her relief at hearing his voice is squashed by how small he sounds. “M’ okay, Win, m’… m’ okay.”
He isn’t, but it’s such a habit to insist he’s fine that she doubts he even believes it. “It isn’t too bad yet, but you aren’t coping well,” she murmurs. “I’ll call Granny in the morning to get her thoughts.”
Edward sighs. She thumbs a bead of sweat off his pale face. “I forget,” Edward wheezes, “f’forget m’ not so young anymore.”
She huffs, sniffling. “Yeah. I don’t think you’re gonna be able to bulldoze your way through automail recovery this time, Ed.”
“S’ okay.” Edward tries to roll over on his side. She lets him, only because he’s always slept better like that, and he takes captive of her entire arm as he presses her hand to his chest. “Don’t have anywhere to be this time. S’ okay.”
Her heart flutters like a dragonfly, fondness spreading warmth across her ribcage. For all the amazing things Edward has done, the most amazing thing to her is this: that he has grown enough to be able to sit still in one place, to watch their kids grow up and to enjoy being alive.
“That’s right,” she says, earnest and firm. “You’re exactly where you need to be.”
He brings her hand to his face and kisses the back of her palm. It’s the last thing he does before drifting off, and Winry resets the towel on his forehead before rising to clean up.
The leg is infected by day three.
Granny is called as well as Alphonse and Mei, and Maes and Sarah are banned from the bedroom despite relentless fussing.
“You can’t see Dad right now,” Winry tells them, holding one of Maes’ hands and one of Sarah’s. “He’s sick, and he’ll have to go back to the hospital if he gets worse.”
“But we can help,” Maes argues, more desperate than angry. Sarah nods with tears in her eyes and Winry’s heart splinters for them. For Ed, who’d hate to see his babies so upset, hate that he put those expressions on their faces.
“I know you want to, but you can’t,” Winry says. “Granny’s gonna take you to stay with her for a bit. Aunt Mei will be there, too.”
“But what about you and Dad?” Maes questions. “If—If Dad has to go to the hospital, will you tell us?”
“I’ll tell you. And we’ll decorate the house for him when he comes home. But I need you two to behave, okay? Please. I know this is hard and I know you’re scared, but you have to be good for Granny and Mei.”
“Will Dad be okay?” Sarah asks.
Winry squeezes her daughter’s fingers. “He’ll be okay.”
Granny arrives with Alphonse and Mei. The kids hang off Alphonse just long enough for a hug and ruffled hair. Then Granny and Mei shunt them off and Winry draws Alphonse to his brother.
Tending to Edward is easier when Winry knows he’s in the hands of someone she trusts. There are times she trusts Alphonse’s hands even more than her own—times like this, when her surgeon instincts battle her emotional ones. Alphonse convinces Edward to take an injection for the pain, as he can’t keep anything down and the stress on his body is too much. Winry makes it as painless as possible, but that doesn’t keep her heartstrings from yanking when Edward flinches hard and digs his face into his brother’s side. Cleaning the infected wounds is somehow even worse of an ordeal, with Edward having to stop multiple times to be sick over the side of the bed.
(It’s then that Alphonse manages to convince Edward of an IV, too, and Edward doesn’t have the fight in him to argue. Winry makes the insertion quick and then covers the catheter with gauze, tells him not to move. It’s best if he doesn’t have to see the needle, and he’s so out of it that he might wake up in a daze and forget she put it there. The last thing she wants is to trigger a trauma response in him.)
“Looks like he’s finally asleep,” Alphonse whispers, a smile spreading through his tone.
Winry ties off the last bandage around Edward’s leg before lifting her head. Alphonse is smiling, though it’s a more tired smile than his voice would reveal, drenched in warm affection. Edward lies smushed against him with his head on Alphonse’s thigh, while Alphonse twists hair out of his face.
“Looks like it,” Winry murmurs back, getting one knee underneath her, then the other as she stands. Pins and needles shoot down her calves. She takes a seat beside her brother-in-law and reaches to feel Edward’s forehead with the back of her hand. “Fever’s still going strong, huh…”
Alphonse’s smile wavers. He tucks strands of loose hair behind Edward’s ear. “It’s not like him to be this still. He’s always slept pretty hard, but…”
But it’s different when he’s sleeping because he’s sick and in pain.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine, Winry,” Alphonse goes on, reaching for her hand and giving it a squeeze. “You know how he is.”
Yes, but—
“And you couldn’t have done anything to prevent this, either,” says Alphonse before she can open her mouth. She gapes at him and he smiles, knowing, smoothing Edward’s hair off his face. “You know automail, Winry, and you know Brother. You couldn’t have done a better job taking care of him.”
Alphonse is the best brother-in-law, and the best brother.
“He just seems… I don’t know,” Winry sighs. “It was one thing when I was just helping Granny with the procedure, but doing it myself was completely different. He seems so… lethargic, this time around, in a way he wasn’t before. I know he’s not a teenager anymore, but…”
Alphonse’s smile surprises her. It’s wider than the last smiles he’s sent her way—for a second, it makes even the dark bags under his eyes disappear, and it’s like they’re children again running through fields in springtime.
“That’s because Brother is allowing himself to rest,” Alphonse says. “I’m sure him being older has a little something to do with it, but he isn’t trying to put on some kind of show or convince all of us he isn’t in pain. It was hard for him back then, too—he just did whatever it took to deny it. I’m actually relieved.”
“Oh.”
Winry gives her husband another once-over, from the sweat on his flushed face to his greasy hair. He’s in pain and she hates that, but he hasn’t fought her on resting, or tried to insist he wasn’t hurting. She initially took that as him being worse off than she could have imagined, but thinking back and looking at him now, that isn’t the case.
“Oh,” Winry says again.
Alphonse chuckles. “He’ll probably fight the bed rest at some point—you know how antsy he gets—but he really has been trying not to be ‘Fullmetal’ anymore. I think he’s doing alright.”
She knows that. She and Edward have talked about it, actually, when they found out she was pregnant with their first. Edward’s habit of carrying the world on his shoulders is so ingrained into him that it’s subconscious, but taking on that mantle whilst raising a family isn’t sustainable. It already wasn’t sustainable when it was just the two of them. It wasn’t sustainable when he and Al were traveling the world together, although back then Edward could argue it was necessary. He couldn’t argue it was necessary now, nor did he try to.
Winry finds Edward’s hand amongst tangled blankets, strokes his overwarm knuckles with her thumb. “Good. Having a metal heart never suited him.”
Two days later, when Edward’s fever has dropped a tic and he’s gone twenty four hours without throwing up, the kids are finally able to come home. It’s late when Mei arrives to drop them off and pick up Alphonse, late enough that Maes and Sarah are already in their PJs and teetering into each other. They wake up just a little when Winry comes to hug them, asking how Dad is, and Winry placates them with a promise to see him in the morning. Mei helps her get them to bed while Alphonse refreshes the ice around his brother’s leg.
With Maes and Sarah tucked in bed and Edward asleep, Winry thanks Mei and Alphonse for everything and they make her promise to send for them if she needs anything. She couldn’t be more grateful for them.
Winry is sponging heat from Edward’s forehead with a cold towel when the bedroom door creaks open and two tiny faces peer through the crack, golden hair and shiny eyes.
Edward spots them, too, tipping his head toward the door. A ragged smile splits his face, pinched at the corners, and he glances up at Winry for some sort of approval. Winry hardly even has it in her to be exasperated.
Edward sees it on her face and holds a hand out to Maes and Sarah, and after Winry nods to them they waste no time hurrying in and climbing onto the bed. The words be careful spring into Winry’s throat, but she doesn’t have to say them; Maes and Sarah are already doing just that, staying close to Edward’s chest and Winry’s side, far away from his leg.
“Hey, brats,” Edward rasps, tightening his arm around Maes’ and Sarah’s shoulders. They snuggle into his chest and Edward sighs into their hair, eyes fluttering shut. “Hey.”
“Your face is hot,” Maes says.
Edward chuckles a little. “S’ alright. This is part of me getting better.”
“How come?”
Edward tucks them in, shoulders hitching as he breathes, and it only takes one more glance at the lines on his face for Winry to know he’s out of energy.
“You get fevers when your body’s fighting something,” Winry takes over, scooting forward and cupping her hand at the back of Ed’s neck. “And your dad’s fighting automail surgery.”
“I’m winning,” Edward slurs. “Always win. Except at Go-Fish.”
“You’re bad at Go-Fish,” says Sarah sincerely.
Edward hums. Normally he’d have more to say about that—good-natured fussing, loud objections, maybe chasing her around the house while she howls with laughter—but all he can do this time is squeeze the kids’ shoulders.
“Can we stay?” Maes pipes up. “We’re being good, aren’t we?”
Edward clearly doesn’t mind them staying. This is as relaxed as he’s been since the infection, and when she takes a moment to sit back and breathe and acknowledge herself, she feels that same stillness in her own soul, slack where there used to be bowstrings. Exhaustion and worry have thinned her resolve beyond saving. She and Ed are weak for their kids. Always will be. Having her family under one roof in one room and one space settled nerves she didn’t even know she had, tension loosed into something manageable.
She kisses Maes’ forehead first, then Sarah’s, then Ed’s. “Guess we’ve got no choice, huh?”
Watching Maes’ and Sarah’s faces light up is like clouds parting after a long and dredgy winter. Emotion makes her eyes burn and she’s too tired to even identify what it is. When Ed’s clammy hand closes around hers, she nearly chokes up.
“Y’ should rest, Gearhead,” he mumbles. “M’ okay.”
Instinct wants to argue—the nagging surgeon in the back of her head says she needs to be awake to make sure he’s taking his pain meds on the dot, needs to be up at the crack of dawn to change his bandages, needs to be present if he needs—but he’s okay like this, if just for right now, and if she doesn’t rest soon then she’ll be too exhausted to be of any good to him if he makes another turn for the worse.
She kisses his brow, murmurs “Stubborn” into his skin, and smiles gently when she feels him grin.
There are a few things she does before she lets herself rest: she packs more ice against the back of his neck and around his leg, using towels as a buffer to not bite his skin; takes his temperature (39.4c, and she can’t shake the mercury down fast enough) and changes out the towel over his head; and by that point, Edward’s weakly tugging at her wrists to get her to stop fussing, and she hasn’t the energy to be annoyed.
Once her family is as settled as can be, she joins them, ducking under Edward’s arm and nestling into his shoulder. He shifts onto his back, dragging their drowsy kiddos with him—she isn’t even sure he’s awake. She drapes her arm over his waist and plays with Sarah’s hair.
“Y’ don’t have to worry,” Edward murmurs. If she weren’t so attentive to him she wouldn’t have heard it, the words pressed gently into her scalp. “M’ gonna be fine, ‘kay? And m’ not goin’ anywhere.”
She remembers what Alphonse said, about Edward letting himself rest. Letting himself stay.
“Yeah,” she agrees tiredly, closing her eyes. “Yeah. We’re staying right here.”
He drops a lopsided kiss into her hair as she brings her arm over the one he has wrapped around their kids, squeezing gently. With her family in her arms and their breathing guiding hers, she finally lets herself sleep.