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As the wrench hits the mark, Ed, with fondness despite the growing pain in his head, notes that Winry really hasn’t changed at all. She’s still the same girl he knew from when they were little. The one that cried over scraping her knee, and who smiled at him and told both him and Al to come over for dinner.
She’s still the same Winry.
In a way, the thought causes a dull ache in his chest. There is a small voice in the back of his mind, the quietest whisper, saying ‘I want to go back to those days’. He wishes he could take it back, the times when all they had to be worried about what was for dinner, and when they were all still happy and free and together. (He knows that’s impossible. Both he and Al have committed this sin, and now they have to make up for it. Ed is not as naive as he was back then. He changed.
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like to dream.)
And besides, seeing Winry smile at them, as cheerful and energetic as she’s always been, makes him happy, too. She is the only constant in his life. Knowing that she won’t change gives him something to hold on to; she’s his anchor, in a way. Even when the fabric of all he thinks he’s known comes undone, she will always be the same girl he knew from back then.
Of course he realises that she’s grown. She’s older now. Her mechanic skills have improved, too, but those are things he knew would happen. And they don’t change who Winry is.
Winry isn’t like him and Al. She hasn’t made the mistake they’ve made. And at least one of them still has a home to go back to.
***
Realisation hits home when they’re confronting Scar after having thought up a plan to lure him out. It should have been perfect. Scar was after State Alchemists. Ed had gone all out in showing his abilities off in the city; even Ling, the Colonel and Lieutenant were helping them out.
In the end, they did get Scar to appear. It should have been perfect.
But they hadn’t taken Winry into account.
Back when they were still children, and were about to do something dangerous (like pinching apples from their neighbours garden, or playing pranks on other kids, or stealing into their father’s study to ‘borrow’ some more books about alchemy), it had usually been Ed and Al that did the work. It wasn’t that Winry wouldn’t have done it if they’d asked her to, but they didn’t want to get her into trouble. So they asked her to stand back and keep watch. It became a sort of pattern for them. (Truth.)
It was just the way their team worked.
And that’s why they... why he hadn’t even felt the need to ask her to stay back this time. Winry didn’t need to know about this plan. There was no way he’d put his friend in danger like this.
But if that was true... if their pattern really had become truth, why was she standing right there, staring at Scar with horror in her eyes?
Why had she just heard every word he said about the truth behind her parent’s death?
Why?
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Winry wasn’t supposed to be standing in the front line. She was always the one on the lookout, the one that smiled at them when they got back, grinning like idiots, and congratulated them on a job well done.
She wasn’t meant for fights and tears and suffering, and she certainly wasn’t meant to hear about what he had just asked Scar.
“What...? What do you mean? This person... killed my parents...? They were killed... by someone they saved?”
The sight of Winry, his strong, cheerful childhood friend, dropping to her knees; the way she holds her head like it's about to explode... it scares him. Ed has seen her cry before. Winry has always been one to cry easily, ever since they were children. But the thing is, she was just as easily cheered up. He still remembers the one time, when they were children, and they had played at the river together. He and Al had been in the water, and Winry, who had gotten a new dress and had been told to keep it clean, was jumping around the rocks that were sticking out. Until she slipped, that is. She’d fallen in and scraped her knee, but in the end, the main reason that she was crying was because she had promised her parents to take care of her dress, and she was scared of having disappointed them.
He hadn’t known how to react to his friend crying. Even then, he hadn't exactly been good at dealing with someone’s tears. So after they’d helped Winry out of the water, it had been Al that had kept telling her reassuring things like how her parents wouldn’t get mad at her for that. But that didn’t stop her from sobbing. Winry hadn’t been scared of her parents getting mad. She just hadn’t wanted to disappoint them. So when she hadn’t stopped crying then, Ed had done the first thing he could think of: he'd offered her a piggyback ride, telling her they would stop at their own house, and ask their mum for help. He’d promised her that they would help her make up for getting her dress dirty.
And Winry had smiled and nodded, and let him carry her.
When they’d gotten home, they'd explained the situation to their mum, who had smiled, and agreed to help out. She had washed the dress and hung it outside in the sun to dry, while Winry got to wear some of Al’s clothes, which were too small for her back then, because she was the tallest out of all of them.
And when it was time for her to go home, her dress had been clean again.
Back then, it was so easy to solve their problems.
What he wouldn’t give to be able to make her stop crying by making some sort of promise now.
But this isn’t something that can be fixed that easily. That’s his childhood friend down on her knees, screaming out in pain: “Give me back my mum and dad!” And he doesn’t know how to deal with that.
Of course he knows that losing her parents had hurt Winry. But what on earth made him think that it hurt her any less than it hurt them to lose their own mother? What made him think that she isn’t still in pain, even now?
And in that moment, Ed hates himself a little bit, because isn’t he the one that should understand her the best? He and Al have lost their mother, and they’ve been foolish enough to believe that they could play God and bring her back. They thought they were capable of anything if it meant seeing their mother’s smile again even just once. He should have understood that Winry was feeling the exact same desperation. May have been feeling it all along.
But no, he’d been too busy forming his idea of who Winry was into who she used to be when they were children, only because he needed some sort of anchor to the time when they were still happy. He needed proof that Al and he could still achieve happiness, so he refused to admit that Winry, who was his idea of that, was anything but always cheerful.
And that’s when Ed notices the gun, just lying there, a few feet away from where Winry is still on her knees. The phrase ‘innocently enough’ comes to mind, but then he has to wonder whether a gun can actually be called innocent at all. He thinks about how, back then, unlike him and his brother who relied on alchemy, Winry couldn’t do anything about her parent’s death. But now she’s facing their murderer, and Ed knows, because he’s been there before, just how foolishly blind desperation can make you. The second her eyes fall on the gun, Ed can see what she’s about to do, and everything in him screams against the idea of Winry becoming that kind of person.
Please no.
Please.
Anyone but her. She’s not... Winry isn’t meant for this kind of life!
Time seems to slow down as he watches her pick up the gun, all the while he calls out to her, trying to convince her not to do it. He raises his hand as if that could stop here from where he’s standing. But she doesn’t notice, doesn’t even hear. Her whole body is shaking, and he almost fears that she is already beyond any point of reason.
(But then, he knows all about what that’s like, doesn’t he?)
For a horrible moment, Ed can only keep talking to her, because he doesn’t know what else to do. “Don’t shoot, Winry. Let go of that gun.” And Al, who was always there to think of a way to cheer her up when they were little, seems to be stuck too. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hears Scar talking to her, but the words barely register. Something about the right to shoot him... and did that bastard just say something about making her his enemy? As if he’d let him hurt her...!
But then he hears her arm moving, and his attention is back on Winry. He has to stop her. Because he knows what it’s like to make a mistake from which there is no coming back, but more importantly, because they’re friends. Next to Al, Winry is the most important person in his life, and protecting her physically isn’t enough.
So when Scar attacks, the only thought in his mind is to get to her. He throws himself between her and Scar and knocks the hand holding the gun out of the way. Shielding her like that - and keeping his hand on the gun - leaves him in a very open position: he can’t dodge or even counterattack, but he can’t leave Winry now. He won’t.
But then Scar halts his attack. It’s only for a second, but that’s enough for Al to knock him aside and draw his attention away from the two of them.
He can always count on his brother like that, and it doesn’t take Ed long to figure out that that’s because they know each other.
(So when was it that he stopped seeing Winry for who she really is?)
Now that they’re out of immediate danger, he takes hold of her arm and tells her, again, to let go of the gun.
A shaky breath follows. A quiet whisper: “I couldn’t shoot.”
He doesn’t know what he expected. But seeing her this close, so upset about not having been able to harm someone... it feels wrong. Winry doesn’t hurt people. Even if she is not the little girl she used to be, Winry’s hands aren’t meant for harming people. She’s been supporting him and Al for years. She’s always been honest, and kind, and good, and doesn’t she see just how amazing that makes her?
No, he figures. Maybe she doesn’t. But then it is his job to tell her.
Taking her hand in his, Ed slowly loosens one of her fingers at a time and tries putting his thoughts into words. “You helped a mother deliver her baby and saved both of their lives. You have given me an arm and a leg to stand with... Winry, your hands are not meant for killing. They are hands that save people’s lives.”
The gun clatters to the ground, but Ed keeps holding her hand in both of his.
“I’m begging you.”
And then Winry sobs again, but it’s different. She lets her head rest on his chest and clutches his shirt and cries. Edtakes her arm and wishes he didn’t have to leave her like that. He just now realised just how important Winry is to him; not as a proof that happiness is still a possibility, but as the person she has grown into. But Scar is still out there, and Al is fighting him, and he had to help his brother.
So he wraps his coat around her shoulders, and tells a nearby guard to take her somewhere safe. It’s a promise, and he hopes that she understands. They’ll be back, safe and sound, and then they’ll see her off properly.
***
A few hours later, they’re at the train station. Winry is about to leave. “Don’t die”, she tells them, and Ed makes it a point to tell her that they won’t. Winry has already lost too much, and she’s not going to lose anymore. Not if he has anything to say about it. He remembers wishing that he could make it all better by making some kind of promise to her earlier. And maybe that’s exactly the point. Maybe it’s a promise she needs; something to hold onto, just like he needed something to hold onto and found it in her.
It’s embarrassing.
It’s embarrassing, and he almost doesn’t say it.
But he has to. Because Winry needs this, and in some way, he needs it, too. Needs to be able to make this promise and keep it.
“The next time you cry, it’ll be tears of joy!”
It’s not an easy promise to make, and it’s an even harder promise to keep, because in the end, he has no idea how long it’ll take for them to regain their bodies. But as they turn to leave, Ed vows to himself that he’ll find a way to keep it. He’ll make sure to, because Winry has already suffered enough. She’s not the same girl that he knew from when they were little. Scraping her knee isn’t enough reason to make her cry anymore. She’s grown so much, both physically and emotionally.
She’s changed.
Maybe in some way, she’s more similar to them than he originally believed, and the thought gives him hope. Because when he thinks of her, of how she yells at him when he has damaged his auto-mail yet again, of how she smiles and tells them “welcome back”, he thinks that even damaged people like his brother and he might have a home to go back to, after all.