Umm...I think this is an AlWin drabble...originally the idea was for AlWin, but I suppose you could take it as EdWin if you want ; P

Perfection

Slight spoilers for some things that've been said in the later chapters of the manga, but you won't even notice them if you haven't read it, lol.

When Ed came back with his arm broken again, she'd throw things at him, yell 'til she was hoarse and generally make him rue the day he thought he could get away with destroying her masterpiece. A wrench to the head here, a verbal assault or two there and they would be back to normal, narrowly skirting the awkwardness that comes with friends who've grown up and away and never see each other anymore.

And that was the way it should be. Ed needed someone to take him down a peg, someone with the sheer stubborn will to knock heads with him. She might even concede that the constant warfare between them kept her on her toes, stopped her from getting, well, old. No one brought out the immaturity in others like Edward.

So when he decided to waltz back to her and her Gran, she'd bemoan the damage to the latest perfect replacement she'd sent him off with, deftly dodging the guilt – that maybe it was her arm's fault that he had returned with an ever-increasing number of scars – with ease that only came of practice. Then she'd go on and on about whichever new, top-of-the-line technological automail feature she had decided to install in his limb, ever the enthusiast, drooling over her precious mechanical gadgets.

Because they were perfect.

Because if she could believe they were perfect, she could believe the strong, unwavering young man who came to her for mechanical aide was just that…a hero out to save the world, not a poor crippled boy who had lost everything he had and was fighting with all he had to get it back.

And if she could believe that…

Maybe, just maybe, she could believe that that suit of armor was an ideal body, unable to feel fatigue or hunger or pain, housing its owner's soul with all the space and accommodations one could ever dream of. Invincible. Indestructible. Immortal.

Perfect.

Not a cage that trapped the lost soul of a boy who had merely been a victim of circumstance, someone who had never, ever deserved what they got. Not a ticking time bomb, just waiting for the moment to go off and shatter the frail memory of the child entombed inside. No. Not any of that.

Equivalent Trade be damned.

Because Winry just couldn't force herself to believe that those two deserved what they had gotten. Maybe Ed could. Maybe even Al could. But Winry wasn't an alchemist. She was an automail mechanic. She put people back together when they fell apart at the seams.

She was a girl who still had dreams and nightmares about the little boy who she used to be so close to, but who was now separated from her by a wall, vaguely resembling a suit of armor.

She couldn't ever believe that the automail was perfect.

But even if she didn't believe…

She could pretend.

Because for Ed…

…for Al…

She had to be strong.

And in the end, that was all that mattered.

--Owari--

--Fin--