Chapter Text
The skies over Coruscant were on fire.
Winry wouldn’t have ordinarily realized what was happening – this time of day, she was typically up to her elbows in machine parts down in her workshop – but this was a special case, because the Jedi Temple had been put on high alert. All available Masters, Knights, and Padawans were to prepare to defend the Temple and the Younglings, and all civilian employees were to prepare for evacuation.
Mister Garfiel hadn’t waited for them to be dismissed before advising Winry to head on home. “Word around the Temple is that Skywalker and Kenobi are up there to rescue Chancellor Palpatine from Count Dooku and General Grievous. Either they’ll defeat Dooku and Grievous and the war is over, or they fail and the Separatists overrun Coruscant. Whichever it ends up being, you should be with your grandmother.”
So she put her tools away and shut down her workshop, and headed out of the Temple, passing through what she could only describe as calm chaos. Younglings were being hurried towards the training rooms; she spotted Al with his lightsaber drawn, a reassuring smile on his face as he ushered a group of Younglings who looked to be about five years old down the hallway.
As soon as the last child passed him, Al’s smile fell into a look of determination. He met Winry’s eyes across the crowded corridor and gave her a grim nod before disappearing after his group, his lightsaber leaving a vibrant yellow streak in Winry’s mind.
She swallowed hard and turned to leave, back towards the Resembool cybernetics shop and the apartment above it that she shared with Granny. It should have been a thirty minute journey (or a fifteen minute one, if she took the train), but the moment she stepped outside she stopped and gazed at the sky in awe.
For the first and only time in Winry’s memory, Coruscant had activated its planetary shield.
She could see huge starships, the triangular ones that she knew to be Republic battleships and rounded ones that must have been from the Separatist navy, and tiny little starfighters darting around them. The atmosphere was a storm of laser fire; Winry was sure that there was a plan as to how to defend Coruscant, but from the ground it was impossible to tell if it was working.
Debris dropped to the ground with a crash some five meters away from her, and Winry let out an involuntary yelp as what had once been a droid was smashed to pieces against the sidewalk. Carefully avoiding the sparking metal fragments, she scooted around the ruined droid and started on her way home.
I can’t believe it’s almost over. Winry’s thoughts raced along with her footsteps as she hurried down the steps and swiped her ID to pass through the turnstile. Wind gusts from a passing hovertrain swept through her hair as she headed for her platform. Feels like the war’s been going on forever. It’s getting hard to remember what it felt like without it.
“Attention, passengers.” The voice over the intercom was tinny and pleasant as it spoke over the huddled crowds of Coruscanti citizens. “Train schedules will be subject to change at this time. Arrivals and departures may face delays as the Grand Army of the Republic defends our planet from Separatist attack. Thank you for your patience.”
Winry smiled in spite of herself as she reached the platform for her line. Only a droid could reduce the chaos and uncertainty of the battle for the fate of the Republic to an apology for a train delay. Finding a seat on a nearby bench, she sat her bag on her lap and wrapped her arms around it, trying hard to focus on her hopes for after the war instead of the sound of starship wreckage falling overhead.
I might actually get a couple of days off from work – I could take a day at home with Granny and Den and do some baking. Ed will stop disappearing for weeks at a time only to come back with that haunted look in his eyes. Al will stop constantly checking the Holonet for updates on the 241st – he might genuinely smile again.
A low rumble and the smell of metal alerted Winry to her incoming train before the intercom had a chance to chime its arrival. Taking a fortifying breath, she tossed her workbag over her shoulder and stepped into the car, looping her arm around one of the poles to keep her steady. The train left the station with a soft hum, its mag-lev track providing a smooth and even ride as the skyscrapers of Coruscant flew past her windows.
Until the train came screeching to a halt, throwing Winry to her knees on the floor and knocking the other passengers right out of their seats. Fear pounded in her chest as she saw the cause of a sudden stop.
There was a huge, badly damaged ship – if you could even still call it a ship, since it was more flaming wreckage than anything else – plummeting towards the planet. Winry’s breath caught as her mouth opened to gasp, watching the ship draw nearer and nearer to the surface of the planet.
Behind her, a man started praying, frantic whispers to whatever god or goddess he thought could help them now. A child began screaming, its mother trying in vain to calm it while another child began sobbing. The train car became a stream of languages and exhaled breath as a resigned acceptance swept over the occupants. Death came to everyone eventually, after all.
A little Mon Calamari boy sat next to Winry, his trembling hands pressed over his ears, his eyes wide with fear. Wordlessly, Winry turned his tiny body and pressed it to her side so he didn’t have to watch. She hoped he didn’t notice that she was shaking as badly as he was.
She closed her eyes.
And then it was over. There was no giant fireball, no world ending explosion, just a gentle shudder that ran through the train and an announcement thanking them for their patience during this unexpected delay.
The little boy went back to his family. His mother, who had been the woman with the crying children, gave her a grateful smile. Winry made herself smile back, because it seemed like the only correct response. Soon, everyone had resumed their quiet conversation as if nothing had ever happened.
Winry numbly watched the holonet news playing on the wall of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi assisting Chancellor Palpatine out of the wreckage and felt a chill run down her spine at the words scrolling across the bottom of the footage:
COUNT DOOKU KILLED IN BATTLE ABOARD SEPARATIST DREADNOUGHT. REPUBLIC VICTORY IN SIGHT.
Republic victory. Winry climbed to her feet as the train began moving again, an odd sense of detachment descending between her thoughts and her emotions. Not war’s end. Not peace. Victory. Just winning, no matter what that costs. Who that costs. And it costs too much.
—
Winry stayed home the next day, helping Granny with the current cybernetics orders and sitting on the sofa with Den as the Holonet played updated information on the news stations. She kept an ear out for anything regarding the 241st, but they must have been heading into battle because there was nothing. The past couple years had taught her that battles only received coverage after they were over. Ed said that it was because they didn’t want to give away their movements before they got the chance to strike.
But there was only so much downtime Winry could take. After one day off, the Republic didn’t appear to be taking immediate steps to take down General Greivous, and the waiting made Winry feel jittery. In an effort to return her life to some sense of normalcy, Winry decided to go back to work.
It was quiet in the Temple today, as though everyone were holding their breath. Even her typically cheerful and talkative mentor wasn’t much for conversation, instead welcoming her back with a quiet smile. The hours passed quickly, Winry diving back into the project she’d previously abandoned in order to drown out her worries about the war.
And suddenly, the sun was low in the sky and Al was knocking on her door. Winry waved him in with a grin. “Hey, Al!”
Over the last couple of years, Al’s visits had turned from an occasional surprise, to a weekly dinner at her house, to a nightly visit. He normally turned up when her shift finished, supposedly to remind her that she could wrap up for the night and offer to walk her home. She took him up on that most nights – the ones that she wasn’t working late, anyway.
Winry didn’t need someone to walk her home, but she suspected it gave Al something to do, a sense of purpose, as well as a connection to his brother. It had been two months now since Ed’s last furlough.
They both missed him. They both worried. They both pretended everything was fine.
Tonight, though, Al seemed… different. Anxious. She tilted her head, trying to read him, but then he smiled and she thought maybe she’d imagined it. Smiling back, she wiped her hands on a grease cloth and tossed it towards the laundry. It would have missed, but Al waved a hand and it shifted directions to land neatly in the bin.
“Hey Winry. Finishing up for the night?”
“Mmm, probably not.” She gestured to the prosthetic hand she was working on, the pieces that were still scattered across the workbench. “I’m right in the middle of this idea, so it might be a bit of a late one.”
“I think you should go home.” Al teased her about it all the time, how she couldn’t keep burning the candle at both ends.
“Go home? You know Granny’s workshop is smaller, and with less resources. Besides, this chair is pretty comfy.” Winry let out a laugh, but it died out when she looked at Al’s face. He was deadly serious, and the anxiety she thought she might have seen earlier was definitely there on his face. A chill ran down her spine. “Al, what is it?”
“I’m not sure exactly.” He rubbed the back of his neck, the way he did when he was thinking. The fidgeting was a trait he shared with Ed, except Ed tended to fiddle with the end of his Padawan braid. “I just have this feeling, like something bad is going to happen.”
“What kind of bad thing?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded frustrated at his lack of detail, as if this was something he’d been trying to figure out all afternoon. “All I know is that something bad is going to happen, and you need to be at home.”
I need to be at home. She was trying to think of what could happen that could cause her to need to be at home, a sick feeling churning in her stomach. “Is something going to happen with Den? Or with Granny?”
“I can’t tell. I can’t see what it is, just that it’s bad!” Al abruptly stopped talking, as though even he was surprised that he’d raised his voice. That alone was enough to tell Winry that something was very, very wrong. Unlike his brother, Al was typically calm, good with social situations, and while he could be argumentative at times, he was generally in control of his emotions. Winry hadn’t heard him raise his voice in ages, and never with anyone other than Ed.
“Al, you’re scaring me.” Winry caught his arm as he paced past her chair. He met her gaze, blatant fear in his eyes. The last time Al had looked that scared was when Ed had lost his arm, and only when he’d thought no one could see him.
“Please, Winry. Go home. I’ll walk with you.”
“Okay.” She started shoveling parts into her workbag, preparing to get this finished at home instead. Al gathered up things from her desk and tossed them in her other bag, working fast and wrapping up around the same time she did. Winry held her hand out for the bag only to have Al roll his eyes and sling it over his shoulder.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” Winry agreed, leading the way up the stairs and out of assistive technologies, running one hand fondly against the wall as she went. Al waved to a gaggle of Younglings as they walked past – not the same group as last time, Winry thought, these ones were older – and one of them broke from the crowd and launched herself at Winry.
“Hi, Ashla,” Winry said when she’d recovered her breath. The young Togruta grinned up at her, revealing a missing tooth. “Hi, Miss Rockbell!”
Someone at the front of the group yelled, and Ashla huffed. “Bye, Miss Rockbell.”
“She’s my assistant,” Winry explained at Al’s puzzled look. “Kind of. Ever since the war started and I took on more work, she’s brought me messages, updates, occasional breakfast pastries, and generally makes sure I don’t go insane… Sweet kid. Also the reason I keep candy in the workshop.”
“And here was me thinking you just really liked sweets,” Al teased. Winry swatted his arm as they left the Temple and headed for the train station. Al had apparently never taken the train before meeting her. Winry didn’t know how that was possible on Coruscant, to have lived here most of your life but not use public transport, but she supposed Al had spent most of his life at the Temple with no need to leave.
So whenever Al walked her home, Winry always took the train, if only because it sparked a little extra light in her friend’s shadowed eyes.
The streets were still a disaster. Clean-up crews had been at work over the last two days, so most major streets and the public transportation was open, but the walk from the train station to Resembool Cybernetics was full of debris. Winry climbed over the wreckage of a star fighter that had tumbled from the planet’s upper levels as she reached the door of her and Granny’s apartment.
Like many businesses in this area of Coruscant, Winry’s home was two levels of a building. The upper level was the private residential area, where she lived with her grandmother; the lower level was the storefront and workshop. Located on Level 3988, it was far from the worst things could get on Coruscant. Not fancy or upperclass, by any means, but less crime-ridden than the lower levels.
Winry swiped her key card and unlocked the door, throwing an arm out to hold it open for Al and adding “reprogram the timer for the front door” to her mental to-do list.
“Granny, I’m home!” Winry had long learned that if she wanted to be heard in this house, she had to yell. Al winced at the volume of her voice but didn’t say anything, opting instead to set Winry’s bag down on the table. Winry dumped her workbag unceremoniously on the floor and stuck her head into the kitchen, where something smelled delicious – topato stew, by the looks of the pot simmering on the stove.
“Stay for dinner?” She turned back to Al, half expected him to agree just on the basis of the smell, but he sighed and shook his head.
“Thanks, but I’m expected back at the Temple.”
“Al.” She darted forward and gave him a brief hug, unsure why it felt so much like a goodbye. He froze for a second, seemingly startled, then returned it. After a moment, she stepped back and gave him a wave. “See you tomorrow!”
—
“Winry.” Strong hands on her shoulders jolted Winry awake, her grandmother’s raspy voice laced with a despair that scared her. Winry squinted in the darkness of her bedroom and found Granny standing next to her bed, staring out the window with an unreadable expression. “Winry, the Temple is burning.”
Winry’s brain launched her out of bed before her body could quite catch up, tangling her legs in the blanket in the process so that she sprawled haphazardly across the floor. Kicking violently at her bedsheets, she scrambled to her feet and snagged her jacket from where she’d dumped it on a chair and headed for the door, the voices on the Holonet a faint murmur as she bolted past it on her way.
It wasn’t until her bare feet hit the cold duracete of the sidewalk that she realized she’d forgotten her shoes. She stood, frozen, watching the billowing smoke rise from the direction of the Jedi Temple, paralyzed with indecision. Should she go back and get her shoes first, or go directly to the Temple to try and help?
Her grandmother’s iron grip around her arm made the decision for her. Her voice, normally gruff, had gone hard and insistent. “Get back inside.”
Winry gave her a pleading look. “Al’s still there, Granny, I have to-”
“No, child.” Granny pulled her back towards the door, Winry following her in sheer shock. Granny must have seen her face, because her next words were softer and accompanied by a gentle sigh. “The Jedi- The Chancellor- It’s all over the Holonet. Come, sit, listen.”
Winry’s head buzzed with fear, and it gave everything a distant, blurry feel, as though she were moving through water as Granny led her to the living room. Numbly, she sank onto the sofa, holding Granny’s hand as the news played over the HoloNet.
It was Chancellor Palpatine speaking, but he looked… wrong. His voice set Winry’s teeth on edge, but it was the words he was speaking that pierced her heart.
"The Jedi hoped to unleash their destructive power against the Republic by assassinating the head of government and usurping control of the clone army. But the aims of would-be tyrants were valiantly opposed by those without elitist, dangerous powers. Our loyal clone troopers contained the insurrection within the Jedi Temple and quelled uprisings on a thousand worlds.
"The remaining Jedi will be hunted down and defeated! Any collaborators will suffer the same fate. These have been trying times, but we have passed the test. The attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed, but I assure you my resolve has never been stronger. The war is over. The Separatists have been defeated, and the Jedi rebellion has been foiled. We stand on the threshold of a new beginning. In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society…”
Winry couldn’t take it anymore. Leaning forward, she smacked the button to turn the news off and stared at the blank space it left on the wall. So many thoughts and accusations and questions and pleas, swirling in her head with no way to come out, bumping up against her sealed lips. It was suffocating.
“This isn’t right.” The words were choked on the way out, and far too simple for everything that was happening, but they were the only ones she had. “Granny, this isn’t right-”
“‘Course it’s not right.” Her grandmother’s fists were clenched in her lap, shoulders hunched. Right now, she looked every one of her seventy years and then some. “But it’s official.”
Winry needed to move. Lurching to her feet, she paced around their little living room; when that wasn’t enough, she strode into the dining room and then the kitchen and then back out into the dining room. Her hip hit the table and sent her bag tumbling to the ground, spilling everything across the floor.
Eyes pricking hotly with what Winry suspected were tears, she knelt and began slowly collecting things. Vision blurry, she found her comm unit and datapad with ease, but then her fingers landed on a small disk. Frowning and swiping at her eyes, she pressed the button.
A holophoto flared to life: herself as a young child, held between her mother and father. It was a photo she typically kept on her desk – and it was the only copy she had. Al must have put it in her bag before they left. Well and truly crying now, she found another one of her desk holophotos, this one of herself, Al, and Ed. Then there was a rock shaped like a star that Ed had brought back from one of his missions, and one of Ashla’s drawings on a piece of rumpled flimsy, and the index finger from the first cybernetic she’d built with Granny.
All of them were precious, irreplaceable keepsakes. Al had purposefully packed up all her personal things from her desk before they left this afternoon. Somehow, something in Al had known she wasn’t coming back.
The sobs built in her chest until she was screaming. Screaming for the death of her Republic. Screaming for Al, trapped in the burning Jedi Temple. Screaming for Ed, out there somewhere alone and very likely dead, killed for a crime he’d never committed. Screaming for all the Jedi she’d ever met, who’d smiled at her and talked with her and been so wonderfully human despite everything that they could do.
Screaming for Ashla, her Youngling assistant who never stood a chance against the full force of Coruscant’s military might, whose bright eyes and curious smile were gone forever.
Winry’s throat was raw when Granny eased herself down to the floor and pulled her close, letting Winry curl up in her lap as she cried. One wrinkled hand smoothed the hair back from her face as she murmured, “Hush, child. Whole neighborhood will hear you soon, and we’ve got to be careful now. Things are changing for the worse, and if we want to survive it, it’ll start with quieting those cries.”
Pressing a hand to her mouth to muffle her sobs, Winry nodded and tried to get herself back under control. She focused on Granny, the feel of her calloused fingers against Winry’s temple, the smell of grease on her clothes, and gradually felt her breathing even. Her chest was empty, a hollow void where her heart normally resided.
When she trusted her voice to speak again, Winry whispered, “What do we do now?”
“What we can,” Granny said, helping Winry sit up. Winry scrubbed the remaining tears from her face and took heart in her grandmother’s quiet, confident voice. “Keep caring. Help our neighbors. Organize with like-minded people. Protect those we can. Grieve those we can’t.”
Winry squinted at her. “Have you done this before?”
“Well, I didn’t always live on Coruscant, child.” Granny arched her eyebrows at Winry over the top of her glasses. “I’ve had my share of experience with this kind of thing. Not on this large a scale, mind you, but the basic principles are the same. So tonight, we’re going to go to bed. And tomorrow, we’re going to check in with the other people on our street. I’ll try and reach an old friend of mine, see where our particular services can help most.”
“And what can I do?” Winry was clinging to the part of herself that felt angry and determined at the moment. It was a steadier part than the part that was afraid, or the part that was grieving, and if she clung to it with a purpose she might still see her way through.
She couldn’t give up. She couldn’t fall apart. She owed it to Al, and Ed, and Ashla, and all the others to do something.
Granny gave her a steady look. “What do you think you can do?”
“Bake,” Winry said firmly. “And then take it to neighbors with the excuse that the war is over, and see how they respond. Then we’ll know which ones we can trust.”
As Winry went back to her bedroom, she took her holophotos and the little things from her desk and set them next to her bed. Tomorrow, she could go down to the workshop and make a little shelf to keep them in – depending on what happened next, it might not be safe to have them out in the open.
But tonight, she took the holophoto disk of her with the Elric boys – her brave, stubborn, caring boys – and slipped it under her pillow, just to keep them close. Close enough to make sure that, even though they were gone, they would never be forgotten.