Work Text:
The workshop was quiet again.
The boy — a farmhand from a ranch nearby — was asleep in the recovery room.
Pinako had sedated him after the emergency surgery. She was with his family now, explaining what had happened, what to expect, and what would come next. His leg was gone at the hip — there’d been nothing left to salvage after the combine had torn through it. They’d barely had time to prep the operating room after the call came in from the foreman down the road. There was an accident. The hospital was too far. He would bleed out on the way — please, please save him.
So she did.
It was a miracle he survived, truthfully. He had already lost too much blood and the surgery had taken hours, even with Pinako and Edward assisting. The limb was so mangled she almost lost her bearings more than once. But she had persisted and he had survived.
Her hands stung from how many times she’d scrubbed them clean — but she could still feel the blood beneath her nails.
Still hear his screams.
Still felt his grip on her sleeve before the sedative took hold — desperate, shaking, begging her to make him a new leg.
One like his.
Like Edward’s.
So, there she sat at her drafting table, shoulders tense, adrenaline still swirling her mind and making her hands tremble. The few scratches she’d managed to put to paper were smudged and shapeless. She stared, waiting for the rest of the schematics to spill from the tip of her pencil like they always did.
Edward found her there an hour later.
The lamplight painted tall shadows on the walls, looming over her like specters of Death. They seemed to press against her, mirroring the tense line of her spine and the way her jaw clenched every few seconds. Her eyes were unfocused, lost somewhere in the past, and her fingers hovered over the paper like they were stuck between the weight of the moment and the need to fix it all.
He didn’t speak right away. Just leaned against the doorway, hands in his pockets, and watched her — the way her fingers twitched, itching to continue but unsure how. He knew better than to push her to talk before she was ready.
When she did speak, her voice was raw. “He’s so young,” she whispered. “Not as young as you were, but sixteen is still just…”
A child.
And Ed was barely eleven, back then.
If sixteen is still a boy, Winry thought with a rigid shake of her head, then what the hell had that made Ed?
Her grip tightened on the pencil, and with a soft snap, it broke.
“Winry…?”
She didn’t react. Just stared ahead, her eyes glassy, distant.
Ed crossed the room quietly and knelt beside her. He took the broken pencil from her fingers, setting it aside, then gently held her hands in his.
“It was just like that night,” she whispered, voice trembling. She still wouldn’t look at him — her breath quickened, eyes glassy and fixed on something only she could see. “The screaming, the bleeding, the begging. It felt like it was happening all over again. Like I was there. I was right back there with you, and Al, and—”
“Hey, hey,” he said, voice low and steady. “You saved him. Just like you saved me. From that. From worse.”
She shook her head, barely, her gaze still unfocused. She couldn’t shake the image of the boy, the same desperation in his eyes that had shown in Ed’s all those years ago.
“You saved us both, Winry,” Ed said again, softer now, squeezing her hand. “He’s asleep in the clinic, and me?” He paused, watching how far her mind had drifted. “I’m right here.”
He gently took her hand and placed it on his automail knee, pressing her palm there firmly.
Her breath caught as her overheated skin met cold steel.
“Look at me,” he said quietly. “I’m already fixed. That moment you’re stuck in — it’s over. I’m here. I’m right here.”
Her gaze finally dropped to the automail. Her fingers moved on their own, tracing the seams where metal met metal, the familiar, delicate hum of mechanical nerves whirring beneath the plating. The feel of it became a lifeline, gently reeling her thoughts back to the present. That’s right. This was her work — her craftsmanship, her legacy. She’d already put him back together.
“You didn’t just give me a leg,” Ed said, steady and sincere. “You gave me a way to keep moving forward. A way to make things right again.”
Then Ed spoke again, voice lower now, like he was letting her in on a secret.
“You think you just make metal limbs,” he murmured. “But hell, Winry… you’ve been building hope out of scraps and stubbornness since you were a kid.”
A shaky exhale escaped her, the spell finally beginning to break. “I didn’t feel like hope. I felt like a wreck.”
“So did I,” he said gently, voice laced with relief. “But you still looked at me like I was worth rebuilding.”
“You’re still worth rebuilding, Ed.” Her eyes — wet, raw, but steadier now — finally met his.
Ed smiled, warm and unwavering. "And when you need it, I’ll rebuild you too. Always."
Winry’s mouth trembled, but no words came. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, pressing her forehead to his. He cradled the back of her neck with one hand, grounding her, holding her steady. They sat like that for a long moment, just breathing, before his voice dropped again — low, certain, and meant only for her.
“If miracles were real, your automail would be one. And this—” he nodded toward the table “—this is your altar. This is where you rebuild lives with solder, steel, and your bare fucking hands.”
A choked laugh slipped out of her — half a sob, really — and she shook her head, forehead still pressed to his.
“Idiot,” she half-heartedly chuckled, her voice still thick. “You just called me a goddess.”
“The only deity I’d ever worship.”
“Such a heathen.”
“Damn right,” Ed smiled, warm and just a little smug. “And I’m your heathen.”
She pulled back just enough to narrow her eyes at him, the corner of her mouth twitching despite herself.
“Keep swearing in front of my sacred drafting table, and I’ll find a wrench to smite you with, Edward.”
He held up both hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. Holy workspace. No cussing.”
Her laugh came easier — lighter, more real.
She leaned forward, nuzzling her forehead firmly into his. “Thank you.”
Ed smiled, warm and genuine, and with a gentle tug at the nape of her neck, tilted her head down to press a soft kiss to her brow. Nothing rushed or hasty, just his quiet way of saying that she didn’t need to thank him. He was here. He always would be.
“Don’t stay up too late, gearhead.”
She chuckled softly. “I won’t.”
With that, he stood and turned, giving her one last soft smile before he left.
Winry took a deep, steadying breath — in through her nose, out through her mouth. With his kiss still warm on her skin and her heartbeat finally steadied, she turned back to the table and reached for a fresh pencil.
This time, her hand was steady.