Disclaimer: Don't sue me because I'm writing about a story I didn't invent... love me because I can!

Chapter 3

Ed looked out the window for the fifth time since he had gotten home with Al. He turned to Pinako, "does she usually leave notes when she's going to be gone for this long?" He looked up to the house clock; it was nearly 5:00!

"Mmm… if she remembers to."

What kind of answer was that! That did nothing to satisfy his nerves, why was no one else worried about this? Al was playing carelessly with Den, and Pinako was smoking her pipe as usual, as if nothing could possibly go wrong in the world. He balled his fists and gritted his teeth, he was just overreacting, and that was all. He just needed to take a breath; Winry went to take care of other clients all the time! He started to chew on the inside of his lip, then why did he feel so nervous?

Winry tried desperately to keep her hands from shacking as she rested a clean warm cloth on the woman's head. Winry had been trying to effectively stop the bleeding for a while now, but the woman's leg had been severed at such a difficult section right at her knee, that all attempts seemed futile unless she had a way to burn the woman's wound.

When she had stepped into the room and saw the woman lying on a bed of bloody sheets with a young servant girl at her side trying to wipe the sweat from her face, Winry hadn't known what to think. Who in their right mind wouldn't take this woman to the hospital?

When the girl had seen Winry she had immediately introduced herself as Lin, and tried to explain to an extent what had happened. Apparently the woman had had an accident with some farming machinery, and had lost her leg in the shuffle of everything. She had gotten the information from the woman's husband though, since the woman herself refused to speak a word. Winry also learned that the man and his wife were Mr. And Mrs. Leaning, Mrs. Sheryl Leaning to be exact. The girl said she hadn't learned the man's name, since she had just been hired two days ago, and he refused to give it.

Lin had also said that she didn't think the accident had been caused by machinery of any kind, because the wound was far too clean cut.

Everything kept playing over and over again in her head as Winry tried to prepare Mrs. Leaning's leg for Auto-Mail.

She smiled when the woman finally eased into a restful sleep after Winry had managed to stop the bleeding, she would have to work quickly though if she wanted to make all the proper connections to the woman's nervous system so she would be able to walk later. She would connect a metal docking port of sorts attached to the area the leg that had been severed, once that was in place connected to all the right nerves, she would be able to connect the actual leg.

Winry wiped the sweat from her face as she performed the surgery without any painkillers for the woman. The only thing she had been able to do was tie an extremely tight rope around Mrs. Leaning's thigh, until she lost all feeling in what was left of her leg.

When she had finally finished the most difficult part, she let the woman rest a while as she made the necessary adjustments to the Auto-mail leg before having to attach it.

In her lucid state of pain the woman reached out to Winry and strained against her body, "You must… find someone to stop him. His brother was never worth such a sacrifice…" her words were soft and forced but she managed to keep them together smoothly. She looked down slowly and let the tears slide, "I should have never tried to leave…" She seemed to be talking to herself at this point, "it was just his gluttony that made him do it anyways… there was no money without Charles, even though the man was not… completely himself, they still gave it all to him…" She sputtered a soft laugh that turned into a snarl, "Why? Why did they give it all to him?"

Winry frowned, trying to grasp what the woman was trying to tell her. It seemed like she was just delirious from all of the pain.

It was then that the woman's husband decided to enter the room to check on how things were going.

Winry swallowed her questions, not sure if she really wanted to know what was going on.

"When will you be able to attach the leg?"

With her head down she answered the man, "I won't be able to until she regains some of her strength, she lost a lot of blood, and probably won't be able to take the pain of the attachment." She had a flashback of the night Al had brought Ed back from their mother's transmutation. He had lost so much blood, he had been so weak, and it had taken him at least a week to come back to the strength needed in order for them to give him his Auto-mail. And this man probably wanted her to give his wife a leg within the night. (a/n ok, going back in episodes I couldn't figure out if they had given Ed his auto-mail the night of the incident, or if they had just given him is little docking ports. So to be logical, I'm saying it was just the docking ports.)

The man gave his wife a quick glance, then quickly cast his glare back on Winry, "What has she told you?"

She paused for a moment, "nothing…" which was true as far as she was concerned, she hadn't understood a word of what the woman had told her.

Apparently the pause had been enough for the man to figure that that wasn't the whole truth, "You're lying. What did she tell you?"

Winry dug her fingers into her legs and ground her teeth, "Nothing." Her words were stronger.

"Call me when you've attached the leg," the man turned on his heel and left the dark dimly lit room.

As Winry turned back to the sleeping woman, she wished Lin were still there with her. The girl had left shortly after she had arrived, and now, the loneliness weighing down on her seemed nearly unbearable. What was she doing? What was going on?

"I'm going out looking for her." Ed grabbed his red coat from one of the hangers and swung it over his shoulders. 7:00 and 8:00 had passed by with painful slowness, and now, as the hands of the house clock were slowly making their way to 10:00, Ed couldn't take it any longer. Something was wrong, something was defiantly wrong.

"I'll go with you brother." Al quickly followed his brother out the front door.

Pinako sighed, and let the smoke from her pipe linger in the air around her, "Be safe, Winry."

Mrs. Leaning's deafening scream could be heard echoing throughout the walls of the mansion.

Winry forced her way through tears as she made the finale attachments to the woman's new leg. She had never done anything like this on her own, and she now found herself thanking Ed for his forced silence whenever they had to reattach any of his Auto-mail. She wasn't sure if she could handle him crying in pain like this. And even though she had worked on other clients who screamed, Pinako had always been there with some remedy to ease the pain or give comfort in a way only a doting mother could. She gave stability in a time of chaos.

All Winry could do was hold the woman's hand and give her a piece of thick fabric to bite against the pain. There was no remedy awaiting her tonight.

Her husband was quick to arrive on the scene though, hardly giving his wife a second glace as he hoisted Winry up by her already bruised arm and told her that her job was finished.

"But I can't leave her like this! I have to stay and make sure her body accepts the new parts!" Winry pulled back from the man and instantly regretted it the moment the man's fingers dug into her arm harder.

"You will leave this house, and if you ever breathe a word of anything you have seen here tonight, you will lose more than just this arm."

Winry bit her lip and tried to still her shaking, there was nothing she could do… this man already knew where she lived, and she didn't even know his name.

"So this is where you were born?" A tall and dark woman stood admiring the structure of a beautifully built house, as the few lights from the open windows cast shadows down on her and her companion.

"Heh…" a hint of drool slid down the face of a man sitting billow the woman, as he looked up at the building as well.

The woman seemed to take this answer as a 'yes' and merely smiled in response, "You must have done well for yourself…"

They watched as a young woman was thrown out into the night, and stumbled into the driveway.

"But when I came here you didn't want me to see the way!" She shouted at the retreating man.

He paused for a moment with his back turned, "You'll find your way, and when you get where you're going, the land changes at night, I doubt you'll be able to tell anyone the way you came, much less find the courage to do so." He laughed as he shut the door on her.

In the trees the two figures watched with indifference, although one seemed a little infatuated with the site of the girl.

He looked up to his companion, "Can I eat her?"

"You wouldn't want to rune your appetite."

He looked down with his finger in his mouth and whined a soft complaint.

With her legs too weak to carry her properly; Winry limped down the dirt road, holding the arm that had been abused so much that day as she tried to pay attention to where she was going. Her sight clouded over every now and then, as the shadowy moon-cast world swirled before her, distorted even more by her own thoughts. She was determined to make it home… no mater how far away she was… or even if she was going in the wrong direction. Every fork in the road felt like it was taunting her "getting closer? Or going further away?" the road would laugh. She picked up a rhythm though; head straight, and every other turn go right. She figured her luck would have to catch up with her at some point.

She felt weak though, so exhausted by her day, she felt like her bones were quickly giving way, and her muscles weren't going to be far behind. Her legs felt like jelly, numbed to the touch, but aching painfully with the rest of her body. It was amazing what that kind of stress could do to someone.

She didn't know how long she had been walking in her state. Everything seemed so dreamlike she started to try and think of it as if it wasn't really reality.

Stubbing her foot on a rock, and falling to her face, did nothing to help any of her conditions, but only assured the fact that she was really not dreaming. She wasn't so sure after the fall though, that she would be able to get up again.

"Winry!"

Through blurry vision, and muffled hearing, she could have sworn she heard Ed's voice. But almost found the strength to laugh when she thought about how incredible that would be… she wasn't that lucky, not by a long shot.

Then she heard shoes scrapping along gravel, and the sound of clinking metal.

"Winry!"

She lifted her head just high enough to see Ed kneeling down beside her. Tears started to roll down her cheeks as she reached out for his shirt and nearly clawed her way up to a sitting position so she could wrap herself as tightly around him as she could manage. She didn't want to let go of the reality that he was there, and the feeling of how safe that made her feel.

After the shock of the situation sunk in, Ed tried to comfort the sobbing Winry the best he could. What had happened to her?

"Brother?"

Ed didn't answer, afraid that speaking might jolt Winry too much, considering her head was glued to his chest. But he knew Al would understand the silence.

"There's blood…"

Ed's eyes opened wider as he took in the state of Winry's overalls, she was covered in blood.

"We need to get her home, brother. Auntie will be worried…"

Ed nodded and decided to pick up Winry so that she could continue her clinging, but found it difficult with the position of her arms.

"Winry?"

She trembled.

"You're either going to have to let go, or move your arms higher…" He was trying to speak as softly and slowly as he could, because until he knew what had happened to her, he was going to treat her like glass.

She nodded slowly into his chest, and wrapped her arms around his neck, letting her head rest on his metal shoulder. She didn't want to open her eyes, so she shut them tightly and let her tears of relief and trauma sink into his coat.

Picking her up from a kneeling position was harder than Ed had planned, but he managed. Considering that Winry was actually… taller than him, he was surprised by how light she was.

By the time they got back to the house, Ed was taking back his judgment of Winry's weight, considering that both of his arms felt like they were about to fall off. She had gotten heavier by the time she had finally stopped crying and fallen asleep, and even though Al had offered to carry her, Ed wasn't sure if they would be able to pry her loose. Besides, he had no intention of waking her up.

Coming through the door, Pinako had barely batted an eyelash (a/n is it just me or does she almost never show emotion? It's always as if she expects everything to happen.)

Ed had taken Winry to the couch, figuring that she probably wouldn't want to get blood on her bed, and found –since she had fallen asleep- that it was much easier to detach her than he had first thought. But when he tried to move away she moaned and reached out to grab his coat.

Without opening her eyes, she whispered, "Don't…" She couldn't be left alone; she knew that for a fact. That man knew where she lived, she wouldn't be able to sleep with the knowledge that at any moment during the night he could walk through the door and take her again if anything had gone wrong with his wife's Auto-mail. She needed Ed to be there, just as much as she wanted him to be.

Al walked up behind them and rubbed the back of his neck, "auntie and I are going to sleep… wake us up if anything happens." He clanked away and into the darkness of the brothers' room, while Pinako had already disappeared into her own room.

Ed turned his attention back to the barely conscious Winry, and sighed. What did she expect him to do? Sleep on the floor like she did?

Winry pushed herself up to a sitting position and gestured for Ed to sit down. Her jaw felt locked and numb, she didn't want to talk again. Besides that, at this point she felt like she was merely sleep walking.

As Ed leaned back on the couch with a yawn, Winry shifted into a lying position again and rested her head on his lap. She was asleep within seconds.

Ed was a little rigid with the odd situation. But he quickly decided that Winry was in no way herself at this moment, and he wasn't going to argue with her actions. He let his head fall into the cushions of the couch and roll over to his shoulder limply. They would just get through the night, and he would ask questions tomorrow. Other than her exhausted appearance she seemed fine, and Ed didn't think any of the blood on her clothes was actually hers, since she wasn't really acting like she was in pain.

He opened one of his eyes to peer down at her, and noticed that the arm resting in front of her was darkened with a deep bruise. It was her left arm and he cringed at the sight of it, asking once again, what happened to her?