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Her boys have returned. They’re whole now, a thought that makes her feel giddy like a child. It seems almost too good to be true, but god knows her boys have suffered enough and maybe this time they can have something unequivocally good without having to pay the price.
Her boys have returned, but they’re jumpy and antsy. They carry a faraway look in their eyes and their bodies are a sign of the times passed. Al is marked by atrophy, though Winry can tell he has had enough physiotherapy to return to some form of independence. Ed, the idiot, is marked by every single battle he has thrown himself in without a second thought. She has memorized each and every scar like a map, if only to know when a new one joins the collection. He regained an arm, though the automail he used to have left its marks.
Both of them won’t talk about it. They only share looks in a language she cannot understand anymore and her heart twists at the realisation that it hasn’t been Ed and Al and Winry in a long time.
Her boys have returned. Yet, at the same time, they have gone somewhere she cannot follow. They know every fiber of her being, but nowadays it feels like she doesn’t know more than she does know. When she looks at her own arms, they’re stupidly unharmed and the itch of uselessness awakes from deep within her. All she has ever been able to do was wait; wait for the boys to return beat and bruised (because god knows they wouldn’t write or call her), wait for the boys to share a shred of their stories so she can hope to understand them better.
Her boys have returned. But they’re still protecting her from all that has happened. Ed seems to rather want to die than make her cry and it’s not like she wants to add on to his mountain of guilt, but the alternative of keeping her naively stupid is so frustrating. Sometimes it feels like the Colonel knows them more than she does and it makes her want to pull her hair. Ed doesn’t even like that guy, but wherever the brothers went, the Colonel seemed to have followed.
And she‘d never hold it over them, but doesn’t she burden them more by being left in the dark? A memory of Briggs flashes through her mind: Her, happy-go-lucky, blindly falling for Kimblee‘s lies. And the brothers, too shocked at her arrival, seeing her presence as the threat it is. Ed, warning her, and her, too amazed by northern automail to understand the consequences.
She‘s known for a long time that the brothers went somewhere she couldn’t reach and couldn’t follow. That night on October third, when they joined the military and many other moments she only caught glances of but was never told about. But that day in Briggs, for the first time, it settled deep within her just how naive and clueless she truly was, or maybe still is.
Everyone leaves and she stays behind, protected and unknowing like a lamb. Her parents, who saw endless horrors of war and yet were determined to be good in the world. And her boys, seeing the frontlines when they were only children.
And Winry, who stays behind, in Resembool or Rush Valley, whose worries are only mundane.
Some days she feels detached in a way she’d never dare voice, least of all to the brothers. She sees just enough of the war, of the horrors, to know that she isn’t a part of it, but enough that it feels like a part of her, a part that moves without her. She has read enough literature in her lonely nights to recognize, in some way, the similarity to how veterans feel when daily life trucks right past them without a thought of what they’ve seen. Maybe that’s exactly how Ed and Al feel, which is exactly why she will keep this secret locked up until the day she dies.
It took her some time to understand the brothers yearn for the normalcy the Rockbell house gives them, so Winry devotes her time to playing exactly that role, to bake an apple pie each day in hopes of the boys returning and then never speaking of all the uneaten pies or the fact she has made so many she doesn’t even need to look at the recipe anymore. She only teasingly complains about them never writing or calling her, and the nights she’s spent awake, tinkering just to distract herself, worried to death over her boys, go unmentioned.
A month or two since her boys returned, Winry still marvels each day that they’re truly still here. When they offhandedly mention how frail Al was after regaining his body, she knows their description doesn’t match his looks when he returned, therefore meaning all the time they must have spent at the hospital, they never thought to call her, never wanted to have her with them.
And it hurts, more than she‘d like to admit, more than she‘d ever admit. Some nights, when she is feeling particularly bad, Winry wonders if it ever crossed their mind that she wanted to be there for them. Wonders why they felt more comfortable without her.
Every time Ed breaks his automail leg or just needs simple upkeep, the all nighters she pulls are almost instinctual. Of course, Ed is too emotionally constipated to ever notice, or that’s at least what Winry thinks, until one night Ed enters her workroom, his prosthetic leg clunking awkwardly.
„Why are you still up, gearhead? Go to bed, or else your dark circles will be so bad you’ll look like Mei‘s freaky cat-thing.“
It’s not his fault he doesn’t know staying up with nerves has been her normal for months until they came back. And Winry is too tired to explain that eloquently.
„Shut up, I just have to finish the repair on the joints and then I‘ll be done. I‘ll go to bed right after.“
Ed grunts, but doesn’t leave. Instead, he leans over her shoulder to ponder his own leg. „Can’t it wait, though? It might be a leg but it won’t run away you know?“
How does he manage to hit all her sore spots without even noticing?
„No, but it’s your leg and who knows!“
„Win,“ he starts, and out of the corner she can see him chewing on his lip, „you don’t need to pull all nighters for me.“ The anymore goes unspoken. „Al and I are staying.“
She throws her hands up in frustration, but even that doesn’t get Ed to bite and leave. „You never do, so excuse me if I‘d rather want to be safe than sorry. Just go to bed, and I‘ll join when I‘m done.“
„Winry, I- where would we even go? Never mind that. Even if something happened, I wouldn’t just leave with an unfinished leg, and Al is especially not going anywhere on crutches.“
„You couldn’t tell an unfinished automail from a finished one apart even with a gun to your head,“ bad choice of words. She flinches and she can see Ed twitch too. „You‘d just leave and then, when I wake up, you’d already be too far for me to warn you.“
Ed opens his mouth and she still knows him well enough to know what is about to leave his lips and she just can’t stand it. Abruptly, she stands, glaring straight at Ed, who has gotten annoyingly taller than her.
„Don’t say you wouldn’t ‚just leave‘. That is exactly what you two have always done. You always just leave without even waking me, like it would kill you to say goodbye, just once. You think I can sleep without finishing the damn repairs? Because I can’t. I never know whether you’re there the next day or not, so forgive me if I can’t rest easy until I know that whatever you’re doing, your leg will carry you and not, I don’t know, break and get you killed.“
Most infuriatingly of all, Ed stares at her like this just occurred to him. His mouth opens and closes like a fish and he has the audacity to look completely and utterly shocked.
„Win, I-, I didn‘t-“
„Just forget about it, Ed. Go to bed and leave me to finish this. It’s whatever.“
She moves to sit back down but Ed grabs her by the shoulder. „No, I‘m not just gonna forget about this! Were you… Are you always worried about us leaving?“
This boy.
„Yes, of course I‘m worried. I’ve been terrified for you. What? Were you thinking I just went to bed all comfy and cosy while you were out there fighting for your lives?! Of course not! But, hell, repairing your automail is the only thing I can do.“
From the look in his eyes it’s glaringly obvious that yes, he had in fact expected her to sleep without a single worry. She‘d strangle him, if he hadn’t gone through enough already. Sometimes, secretly, she wishes she didn’t know him this well, so she could just be upset for her sake. But alas, she knows the one irrefutable reason why other people worrying about him is more a conspiracy theory to Ed than anything else. He simply doesn’t believe himself worthy of it, he cannot comprehend why other people would waste a single thought on him.
Worst of all, she can tell the exact moment Ed adds this moment to his endless list of reasons why he is a failure and the worst, most undeserving person in all of Amestris.
„Stop. Stop feeling guilty about this. It’s fine, okay? It’s fine.“
„I- It’s not. I didn’t know I was hurting you…“ Ed takes a deep breath and clenches his fist strongly enough that his new arm shakes. „I thought I was protecting you, but I‘ve been hurting you all this time… I’m truly the worst.“
„Ed, you can’t protect me from everything! You have to accept that people care about you. I care about you! A lot! That means I worry for you. And if I don’t know what’s going on, then I have no choice but to imagine what’s happening! I will never not worry, that’s the simple truth. You can’t prevent that.“
„I just didn’t want to make you cry.“ He drifts off and then looks back at her, a bad imitation of a smile on his face. „But it’s over now, so there isn’t anything to worry about.“
„It doesn’t feel like that! Not for me, and I can tell you and Al feel the same! But I don’t know what happened, I don’t know anything! Everything is unspoken and I‘m not psychic. So what else is there for me to do except try to keep you safe in the only way I can?!“
„Look, a whole lot of bad shit happened. And it‘ll just make you sad! Why would I want that?!“
„So what if it makes me sad! So what if I cry? I’ve always been the more emotional out of us three, someone had to feel the emotions for you when you didn’t allow yourself to. But that doesn’t mean I‘m, like, incompetent! I‘m not a baby that needs to be coddled.“
Ed gapes at her, waving his hands fervently. „No, no! That’s not at all-“
„Well, that’s what it feels like!“ she interrupts. „I’ve tried so damn hard to not cry this entire time. I promised you the next time I cried it would be out of happiness. And I did! No matter what happened, I stayed strong! But apparently that still isn’t enough? And I don’t understand what I can do to make you trust in me!“
„Winry!“ He gasps, grabbing after her hands, but she escapes him. „I trust you!“
„No you don’t! Not with this! And there has to be a reason.“
With a final jolt, he does manage to take hold of her hands, grasping them firmly. He is strong, but all Winry does is work with her arms. She knows she could break free. She doesn’t.
„It‘s ‘cause it fucking hurts to see you cry! That’s why! And you never deserved to be pulled into our shit but we did it anyway!“
„Maybe I want to be pulled into your shit! And you know what? It also hurts to see you injured every time you return, without explanation, but I bear it! Because you’re more important than that! When will you get it through your thick skull that I love you, and Al! And I want to understand you! And I can’t do that right if my only hints at what the hell you’re going through are the new scars I see when I fix your damn automail!“
He might be the one grasping her hands, but she wrenches him closer anyway. „It doesn’t matter if it makes me cry. Me crying doesn’t mean you have failed. It isn’t bad, it just is. All you’re doing right now isn’t protecting me, you’re just pushing me away. Talking about it might hurt and I might cry and that will hurt you too, but that’s okay! Because at the end we will be closer. And maybe you‘ll discover talking about your feelings actually helps you process them!“
Ed scoffs but his eyes soften. „I don’t need help processing my emotions.“
Winry can’t stop the giggle breaking free from her lips, and for a moment everything feels like it used to. „Ed, that’s the worst lie I’ve ever heard! You haven’t processed a single emotion in your entire life!“
„But…“ he presses on, „I don’t want to keep hurting you. It‘s just, a lot has happened. I wouldn’t even know where to start and it all…“ he stumbles over his words, staring at her helplessly.
It all still hurts too much.
Leave it to Ed to struggle voicing even the simplest admission of his feelings. But despite the rot of feeling excluded whispering to her, Winry knows him better than anyone (except Al). She knows how wrecked by guilt he is, that he blames himself fully for whatever happened, no matter how little it actually was his fault. And maybe he is afraid that if Winry would hear the truth, she too would blame him. She would never, of course. And if he would even so much as suggest this to Al, he would have been shut down immediately and called an idiot for good measure. But he doesn’t ask, and they all learn how to read between the lines anyway.
„You don’t have to share it all at once, you know. We can start small. The important thing is that we start.“
„I’ll consider it…“ Ed grumbles. „For now, let’s just go to bed, okay?“
It’s not an outright denial, and Winry knows he will genuinely think about it. He‘ll probably toss and turn the entire night thinking of what to tell her first, what is acceptable to share, and at the same time considering all the ways in which he could escape this responsibility. But, call it pride, Winry won’t settle for this. He may not have his alchemy anymore (Winry deduced that much, even if it is one of the many unspoken truths) but she knows his heart will always beat for it, like hers does for automail. Therefore:
„Equivalent exchange. I‘ll go to bed without finishing your leg, which means I trust you‘ll be there in the morning, even if it scares me. In return you will tell me one truth, one story that happened that you haven’t shared. Okay?“
Edward pouts, he actually pouts, and that’s how Winry knows she’s got him. „Using alchemy against me, that’s not fair!“
Winry sticks out her tongue, warm hope blooming in her chest.
„Well then, it’s time to dream of automail, or whatever a gearhead like you does.“
They interlink arms and Ed pulls her out of her workroom. The light is left on, Ed didn’t notice and Winry finds she doesn’t particularly care about that right now. She looks back at the automail leg on her desk, then at the clunky prosthetic leg Ed always complains about wearing except this once, then back at his face. It’s all intimately familiar, like the mischievous sparkle in his golden eyes as he pulls her upstairs like a man on a mission.
In the room right next to hers, Al sleeps soundly, faintly snoring the same way he used to when they were children. Sometimes, she wonders if the Rockbell house ever felt like home to them, if that is why they left and so rarely returned. If they had to turn away from Winry and their Granny the same way they burned their old house, so that they wouldn’t look back and falter. If they allow themselves to feel at home now, for once, because god knows nobody deserves a home more than her boys.
Her boys…
Ed pushes her into her room, glancing around and blushing ever so slightly in the darkness, before hurrying off.
Sometimes she still doesn’t understand him, especially in moments like these. But with the promise of tomorrow, when they will sit down and bear their heart for her to read, Winry can slowly allow herself to believe it too.
Her boys have returned.