A/N: still own nothing. Some lines in this chapter are taken from the first episode of Brotherhood.
"Go back to Headquarters, Winry!" Ed ordered, as he ran through the streets to take on a rogue alchemist he knew almost nothing about. (Not that she knew more, really, but it was the principle of the thing).
"No way!" she snapped, all three of her souls in perfect agreement. "You need me!"
The second time she'd gone back, she'd vowed to do things differently. She would never be as good at alchemy as Ed and Al, but she was stubborn, and even when they were four years old she knew exactly what the consequences of failing were. She nagged the brothers into letting her practice with them, snuck into Hohenheim's study, and stayed up pouring over circles and chemical compositions and philosophical texts. She wasn't as creative or intuitive as Ed, but she was good enough to come with them to learn under Izumi, after what happened to Trisha and her parents.
She'd never expected to be able to save them, not really. She couldn't stop plague, and Hohenheim was needed elsewhere, to save everyone else. She couldn't save Scar's family, and there was no way she could convince her parents to turn their back on people who needed their help. She still cried for an hour after she got the news, before setting in to explain exactly what had happened to the younger Winry whose body she shared. She couldn't be distracted by what Scar had done. She had a mission.
"You aren't even in the military!"
"Neither is Al, and you aren't making him stay back."
"You know Al's different. Besides, what if you get hurt and I need someone to fix my automail?"
"If you didn't keep getting it damaged this wouldn't be a problem!"
"He's here," Al interrupted, instantly shushing both blondes.
She couldn't stop what happened to Al, either. She loved her boys, but they were just too stubborn. She'd tried to dissuade them the last time, but they were too set on getting their mother back, and she couldn't get Izumi to tell them the consequences without explaining what she'd done. Instead she stood by and watched as they drew the circle that would end their childhoods, offering only a token argument against it. She watched as they activated the circle, saw the eye open and reach out with shadowy hands to rip them apart. She had never seen it from the outside before; it was somehow even worse when she wasn't the victim. She stood for moments or hours before Ed reappeared, sans leg, and glimpse the creature he and Al had created. He seemed to forget that she was there as he screamed for his brother and reactivated the circle to drag his soul back, although she managed to overcome her horror enough to drag the armor closer, to save him at least a little bit of the physical pain. She had patched up his wounds as best she could once Al was relatively safe, and she had been the one to explain what had happened to Granny. When he healed, she was the one to make his automail (even if Granny raised an eyebrow and asked when she'd found the time to learn), and when he left to join the military she'd packed up her kit and followed. She swore that this time would be different, and ignored the Truth's laughter ringing in her head.
Winry's first assessment of Isaac McDougal was that he was completely unstable. She checked her gloves to make sure she was wearing the pair that let her manipulate stone and iron, rather than the ones that let her knit up blood and bone (her specialty was healing alchemy, focused through the Xingese Alkahestry she had learned from May and Al lifetimes ago, because Ed was always getting into fights and too often it wasn't just his automail that got damaged) and told herself that she was just keeping herself from blowing her cover, not trying to avoid the look in his eyes. McDougal charged, destroying Ed's coat, and Winry glared at him.
"I worked hard on that automail!" she yelled, forgetting her fear. (She'd watched her husband die, watched her friends be ripped apart, watched her world end. This man was nothing). "What's wrong with you?"
"Wrong with me?" he bellowed. "Do you even know what this country is up to? What the people you serve are really planning?"
"Do you?" she snarled, stepping closer and lowering her voice so that Ed and Al couldn't hear her. "If you know as much as you think you do, why are you still alive?"
"Winry, get back!" yelled Ed, and she flipped away as the ground exploded into spikes. She cursed him silently - if McDougal knew what was really happening, he could be an asset later. She didn't like the look in his eyes, but surely Scar had been far worse, and she had grown to like and respect him. Still, it didn't look like she would get the chance to talk to him (because if she knew anything about the homunculi, she knew that he wouldn't survive for long past his capture).
The fight didn't take long, not with three alchemists, one of them the legendary Fullmetal. She focused on throwing up walls and redirecting his attacks, letting Ed take the initiative and giving Al space to get creative. Soon enough (too soon, if Winry was honest with herself; she wanted the chance to interrogate him alone) McDougal was subdued, and a handful of soldiers prepared to take him into custody.
"Can I come?" she asked, while Ed was distracted with fixing his coat. "It's probably safer to have an alchemist guarding him, in case he tries anything."
The soldiers agreed, used to her hanging around, and Winry followed them as they marched to the prison.
"You should probably destroy those circles he was working on!" she called over her shoulder.
"Yeah, yeah." Ed waved her off, but he did as she suggested. She knew that soon enough if McDougal tried again he would have to start all over, and he would almost certainly be caught.
"How was he planning to activate them?" asked Winry's youngest soul. "There are too many for one person to use, unless…" She trailed off as all three arrived at the same conclusion.
"Hand it over, McDougal," she ordered. The guards looked at her in confusion, but kept quiet. She was thankful for that.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I know you have a Philosopher's Stone," she snarled, directly in his ear. "Where is it?" McDougal only smirked at her. "Hold him still," she ordered the soldiers. "And be careful. He still has his transmutation circles, and an amplifier." The soldiers obeyed, and Winry rummaged quickly through his pockets to find the small, red stone. She backed away and stared at it for a moment: other than Hohenheim, she'd never really seen one up close before. This was the thing Ed and Al had spent years searching for, the thing they had sworn never to use after learning the truth. She slipped it into her pocket. "Please don't tell Ed about this. He worries so much." She glared at McDougal challengingly. "If you try anything, I will kill you. Let's go. I have some questions I want to ask you."