"Hey! Make room for one more. Come on, Al, scoot over—"

Winry shoved herself and her toolkit into the backseat of the car, and Ed went careening into Al as she claimed a space for herself. Her toolkit went across the brothers' laps.

"What are you doing, Winry!" Ed managed to squeak.

Kimblee advanced on the car, putting a hand on the roof as he bent to look inside. His eyes raked down her once and Winry felt her cheeks warm. Besides that, however, neither gave further indication of the night they'd spent together. Nor the brand of pillow talk they'd shared afterward.

"I'm sorry, Winry," he said, "but you need to wait here at the fort. We aren't going for a picnic."

"And neither am I," she doubled down. "I just performed a complicated upgrade on his automail that I've never done before." That was a lie, but it was the lie she'd practiced with Kimblee. "What if there's a malfunction? It would tarnish the Rockbell name if I'm not there to fix it."

Ed took the bait.

"Do you even realize how obsessed with your job you are? You're a workaholic," he said with a roll of his eyes.

There was a knot in the pit of her stomach, but Winry forced herself forward. She'd made her bed and by God she would lie in it, and just pray she hadn't bet on the wrong horse. She was betraying Ed and themselves into deeper trouble if they didn't come to heel.

"And proud of it, too. This has been my family's business for four generation," she said, turning up her nose.

Kimblee rolled his eyes and let out an exaggerated sigh of annoyance as he pulled the brim of his fedora low; if Ed were to believe the ruse, he'd need to believe Kimblee hadn't wanted her to leave the fort.

"Very well then, you can join us," he said. "I guess I can allow you to."

Winry continued her bickering with Ed until Kimblee walked away from their car and the door was shut. As the car began to drive, Ed spoke to her in a low whisper, "This could turn out really badly for us."

She didn't know what to tell him. That this was a disaster of his own design? She had no reassurances to offer, so instead Winry lowered her eyes.

"Yeah."

Once they arrived at Baschool, Kimblee assigned two of his men and two men from Briggs to supervise Edward and Alphonse during the search. Winry was to stay with Kimblee. Ed didn't even notice — or at least point out — how little sense it made for her to have come along for the sake of his automail for the expedition, only to then be kept from him.

It didn't take long. They'd been in Baschool for maybe twenty minutes, with Winry nearby while the squads radioed in updates, when the news she and Kimblee had both expected came in. Ed and Al had somehow become separated from Kimblee's men. Kimblee gestured discreetly with one hand, and Winry began to distance herself from him and his squad before finally sitting down in the shadow of a building.

Even if Ed hadn't felt the way she had, Winry knew the first thing he would try to do would be get her out from Kimblee's grasp. Her presence handicapped their decision-making abilities because they wouldn't do anything to compromise her safety. It didn't take long for Ed's automail finger to gently tap her shoulder from behind.

Winry rose to her feet and followed him further back into the alley where Al was waiting. Ed had unfastened Al's chest plate and gestured for her to climb inside his suit of armor. The prospect was less than exciting. Winry abided and, once Ed and Al began retreating so that the sound of their footsteps in the snow covered any noise she might make, she had taken her own radio out from her coat and snapped her fingers three times.

Kimblee would know now that they'd taken the bait.

She hadn't expected to be toted around Baschool inside Al's armor, and it was one of the less pleasant experiences she'd had. She was shorter than Al's suit, and pinched her more times than she cared to admit. She had to keep a constant focus on her Ten to minimize the amount of pain she had to endure.

They were looking for a girl named May, who apparently was traveling in Scar's company. If they found Scar, she might have a second chance and her missed opportunity in Central would be of no consequence. Did she have it in her to kill Scar now? She liked to think so. Ed had apparently overcome his scruples about killing if it meant getting the Philosopher's Stone, but her motives were far less selfish. It wouldn't be an act of merely avenging her parents — she would be saving lives.

"It'd make things a hell of a lot easier if Scar and that girl just came to us," she heard Ed lament.

Winry hardly had a chance to breathe before she was jostled violently inside the suit of armor, flung backward as Al slammed on the floor. She let out a yelp of pain as she landed hard on her back. The radio she was holding went flying someplace in the suit of armor — Shit. Al righted himself, getting back to his feet, and the radio was gone. She couldn't find it anywhere in her reach. Finally she banged her fist on his chest plate.

"Let me out, Al!"

"Oh! Sorry, sorry!" he said, unfastening it so she could tumbled out onto the floor.

"I kept bumping my head," she lamented, kneeling on the ground so she could get her bearings.

There was a young, dark-haired girl — certainly no older than ten — standing in the room with them. A small animal Winry had never seen before was perched on her shoulders. This was May? For some reason Winry had expected May to be an Ishvalan, like Scar. Instead she looked like a native of Xing. There was more commotion as Winry got to her feet, then an old, disfigured man entered the room followed by another man.

"The Elric Brothers are here!"

Ed and Al didn't seem to recognize the disfigured man until he introduced himself as Dr. Marcoh. It was another man who Kimblee had said they were looking for. The other man claimed his name was Yoki from Youswell — another mining town. She tuned them all out for a moment while they became reacquainted, trying to listen to Al as he shuffled uncomfortably in May's presence. That radio was in there somewhere, and the sooner she found it the sooner she could let Kimblee know what was happening.

It didn't take long for the group to settle themselves, pulling crates into a circle in the center of the room. How could they be so calm and social knowing Scar was around? Winry seated herself beside Al and crossed her arms over her chest, trying to mask her anxiety.

"I've learned a lot since we met — like what it takes to create a Philosopher's stone. I know there's something wrong with this country, and there's something rotten with its alchemy," Ed announced, though he seemed to be speaking most directly to Marcoh.

Winry couldn't look at him — he brought everyone else into his inner circle, telling so many others about what his work entailed, but continued to choose to keep her in the dark. She'd barely be able to decipher their conversation even if she wanted to. Even if her life depended on it.

"I decided to look into the possibilities of Xingese alkahestry and we figured she could help."

"You're on the right path. But you aren't the first person to put all of these pieces together," Marcoh agreed. He drew out a hand-bound notebook that had seen much better days. "This book is a collection of his research and theories. It's written in code but we believe that this book contains all the answers we need."

Then this book is exactly what Kimblee needed, too.

"If we can decipher what's in there then Al and I can—"

"Perhaps. I believe so. But they'll be impossible to translate without the assistance of Scar."

"What do we need him for?" Ed shouted.

Winry turned her head away, lips pursed tightly together as the obvious went over Ed's short head. That complicated things then — Scar would need to be taken alive, if this book was as valuable as Dr. Marcoh and Ed believed it to be. She wasn't even sure Scar would ever allow himself to be captured as long as he was still breathing, and if Kimblee didn't know about this book — and the necessity of Scar — then she had to find a way to tell him.

The sound of an explosion made them all turn toward the shattered window, but Marcoh reached it first.

"That's the building Scar was in. You think it's the military?"

"Look, all you just need to stay put and hide out in here. Al and I will find out what's going on."

Winry rose to her feet, staring after them as they turned their backs to leave — racing off into danger yet again, and taking her radio with them. Her eyes narrowed. She'd just have to follow them.

"I need to go with Ed," she announced after Ed and Al left the room, "if something were to happen to his automail he'd need me."

Neither May nor Marcoh protested, and Winry followed the echoing of Ed and Al's footsteps out of the building. The snow was pressed down where they had stepped, leaving behind a clear trail of which direction they had gone — but they were already out of sight. She chased after them as fast as she could, her breath frosting in the air in front of her.

"Winry Rockbell, freeze!" a commanding voice yelled.

She stopped so suddenly in surprise that her feet went out from beneath her in the wet snow, and she landed hard. Winry looked around to see who'd called her, silently hoping it was Kimblee or one of his men, but instead it was one of the Briggs soldiers — Miles. Two more came up behind him.

"We've been looking for you," Miles announced as he came within arms length. "And the Elric brothers. Do you know where they've gone?"

This was probably her best opportunity to get word to Kimblee about what was happening. Kimblee didn't trust the Briggs soldiers, but this was information she was almost sure they would convey.

"Ed and Al found Dr. Marcoh and a Xiangese girl in a building back there — they have a book about alkahestry that they need Scar to translate, so you can't kill Scar," she blurted out. "Marcoh knew Scar's whereabouts, but there was an explosion in the building Scar was in. Ed and Al went to see what happened."

"Which way?" Miles demanded. Winry pointed at the footsteps in the snow, and in return Miles gestured in the direction he and the soldiers had come from. "Straight ahead about two hundred yards, then left when you reach an abandoned bakery. That will take you back to Kimblee."

"No — Scar has already shown he's not willing to kill me unless he's given a reason. You have to take me with you."

"And what? Use you as a shield?"

"Yes."

Winry stood her ground. Part of her would rather go back to Kimblee's side and wait for the fire to die down, but she wasn't willing to leave Scar's fate to chance. Fine, they might need Scar alive now, but when they were done…maybe Kimblee would let her have her shot. And Hisoka, Izumi, and Sig hadn't gone easy on her in training. She was even less afraid of Scar than she had been the first time around.

She didn't give Miles more of a chance to refuse, ducking her head as she followed the footsteps. There was a moment of hesitation on their part where Winry knew they were debating what to do before they quickly caught up, flanking her. Miles was radioing back in to Kimblee — exactly as she'd hoped.

They tracked Ed and Al's footsteps to another building, and Miles put a hand on her shoulder to hold her back while the two Briggs soldiers entered first, weapons drawn. Winry could feel the building trembling — overhead, on a floor high above them, came the distinct sounds of fighting.

"You'll let me do what I need to when we get up there," Winry said to Miles.

"If it'll let us take Scar alive," he conceded.

Then she and Miles followed the other soldiers in.