Sorry for the long delay... I just didn't have the time to write... So now I commit myself to finish this chapter!
Winry felt somewhat torn between two emotions: happiness and anger. Happiness because there he was standing right in front of him with an uneasy smile on his face and water dripping down his mangled automail arm. Anger because of that same arm, which she has tirelessly worked on a few months ago, is now just a piece of useless scrap.
Thunder roared. "Come in" she said.
Edward took one step into the house; his boots muddied the otherwise clean wooden floor. He took a few more steps and asked "So, how are you today, Winry?"
"I'm fine." She replied as Alphonse came inside and closed the door. "I am a bit worried about you two. You have been through some dangerous stuff to come here without an arm. It's a miracle your leg survived."
"Well, it's no problem at all. I'm here to protect brother" said Alphonse.
"Even so..." Winry looked Away. She seemed to be thinking deeply.
"Is anything wrong?" asked Edward. Winry looked up and gazed at his eyes. They were golden, deep, arresting, but also innocent. How could someone with such eyes survive what danger awaits them in the quest for the Philosopher's Stone, a substance rumored to kill anyone who comes near it?
"Nothing's wrong" said Winry. "Now, should we start work on that arm?" She examined it closely. The mechanism for movement was severely damaged, and only a few screws were holding it in place to his shoulder. Some wires have been tangled and severed, and a lot of necessary gears were missing. She studied it further: looking at every angle, trying to see what could have damaged this arm so badly. Finally, she sighed. "This needs to be replaced"
"So... How long is it going to take?" Edward asked.
"I can remove it right now, but for work to start, we'll have to wait for the storm to pass. Grandma wouldn't be back in a week, so that would mean... around five days"
"Five days? But we're so close to getting the Philosopher's Stone! You expect me to wait that long?" Edward bellowed.
"It's okay brother... We can wait that long... besides, we can't travel east with you in that condition" Alphonse interjected.
Winry chuckled. She missed Edward's choleric temper. It's one of those moments where he still seemed like a child. Well, he was still a young man, but as a state alchemist, he has matured, and this was something she had not been accustomed to seeing.
"Well, shall we start?" asked Winry, holding up a screwdriver. Edward nodded. He lay there on the examination table as she turned the implement she held counter-clockwise, removing the screws that held the arm in place. She smiled as she did this, as she knew she was going to create something again, for him...
The procedure was completed, and Edward was given a temporary arm. And they set off to bed.
But for Winry, whenever automail was involved, she couldn't sleep. And so she took the damaged arm and began to look at it in more detail. Something about it mystified her. Little did she know that Ed was having a hard time sleeping as well...
"This kind of damage..." she said to herself. "Could this be a product of a partial transmutation?" She laughed at herself. She sounded like Ed talking about alchemy. But then again she failed to resist the temptation to study it further. So much so that she can make an automail that would be virtually indestructible.
She drew a circle on the floor, and dropped the scrap metal into the center. Placing her hands at two sides of the circle, she concentrated.
And yellow sparks flew.
"Winry? What's going on here? I can't sleep and I—" Ed opened his eyes as he rubbed them. Winry was on her hands and knees, beside a circle. A circle in which the things inside began to glow, and which sparks were flying...
Ed rubbed his eyes again. This was no dream. Winry was performing alchemy right before his very eyes.