Disclaimer: Right... in a way I feel it is necessary for me to inform the masses of my complete and utter lack of rights towards this show, but I think this would be best expressed through interpretive dance. ….frolics onto stage….

…. Bows….

…..music plays…

…………….

……………………………….fifteen minutes later

Well I think that just about covers it!

Chapter 8

"I think they'll be happy that we're coming back so soon…"

Ed looked up to Al and smiled, "Yeah, I don't think Winry thought we'd be coming back at all."

Al laughed lightly, "We don't really stick to our word… do we?"

"Not lately."

They were walking up the dirt road to the Rockbell house, and Ed was feeling quite proud of himself that he was putting otherwise important business off, just to get back and…he thought for a moment… why was he coming back? A voice in his head told him he was coming back to make sure Winry's auto-mail surgery went well. There was another voice though, that said the same thing only with a hint of something else he couldn't quite put his finger on. He reassured himself though that he really needed the break.

They came up to the front porch, and saw Pinako outside smoking her pipe.

Ed waved, "Hey granny!"

She smirked, "Hey shorty."

Ed growled, but kept himself from yelling back, it was probably payback for calling her granny.

Before they could get to the door, Winry ran out to hug the both of them. Which surprised Ed to no end. He usually received a wrench in the head upon his arrival.

"You seem happy…" he noticed that her bear arm now had an auto-mail dock.

She smiled brightly, "I'm getting my auto-mail today!"

Ed sighed, yep, that'd do it, "That's great,"

Somehow her smile managed to grow, "I'm glade that you and Al could come back so soon too…" She looked a bit disbelieving though, like she was suspicious of their motives, thinking that perhaps there work was actually some place near by. What other reason would they have to come back so soon? Even though she was getting her auto-mail, it just wasn't like Ed to put off work.

Ed looked away from Winry's questioning glare to smile at Pinako, "So, what's for lunch?"

She snorted, "If I didn't know better, I would think the only reason you come here is for the food…"

Al sighed, missing the taste of that food more than ever.

Inside Ed shoveled a rice dish into his mouth, trying to avoid Winry's glare, as Pinako enlightened them on a few things that were going on around town; at which point, everyone stopped listening.

Once Ed was finished he stood up with a deep breath, "I think I'm gonna take a walk, I'll be back before you get your arm though" He smiled to Winry.

"In that case… can I come with you?"

His face faltered, "I guess so…" he looked to Al, "You coming too?"

"No, I was thinking about going to Nelly's and catching up." (a/n for those of you who don't remember, she was one of Al's friends that he couldn't remember)

Ed's smile threatened to fall, "oh… then I guess it's just you and me" He turned to Winry with one of these smiles  and rubbed the back of his head.

"And Den" Winry looked down at the dog who had a pleading look on his face.

Somehow Ed wasn't that comforted.

The sun was starting to set and they still hadn't said anything to each other. Walking along the river, it was actually a nice silence; Ed liked it better than having to really talk. But Winry finally broke it with a downcast mumble.

"I wanted to talk to you about what happened…"

Ed had to strain his ears with what she said, "Really? You don't have to,"

"No… I think I should." She took a deep breath, "I can only remember one time I've ever been that scared, I think you know it too."

Ed knew she was referring to the butcher they had both encountered those years ago.

"I was blindfolded the whole way to his house, and when I got there, everything seemed so unreal. Then we went down to the basement and I found his wife… it was horrible Ed…" She swallowed back tears, "it looked like she had been bleeding for days,"

Ed's breath caught in his throat, he hadn't assumed that Leaning would do that to his wife, even though he was probably the one to chop off her leg in the first place. But to let her go without hospital care?

"There was a girl there… but she left shortly after I came, and I had to do the whole surgery on my own." Her eyes glazed over a little, "I've never done anything like that before. I didn't even have painkillers for her," She rubbed her shaking hands and tried not to let the images in her mind get too detailed, "Before I left she said something about money, and someone named Charles. I think…" her voice broke, "I think her husband was the one that took her leg."

A few tears trickled down her cheeks and Ed tried not to look, he couldn't imagine how it had been for her by herself.

"Who would do that to their own wife?" anger laced through her sadness.

Ed scowled, he could think of a few people who would do that, and he realized how many horrible people he had met throughout his life. He decided it was better he not tell Winry about Lin.

He stopped walking and turned to Winry, happy that she was standing on a downhill to him, making them generally the same height, "It's over now, and Leaning got what he deserved,"

With her head down she let her shoulders shake, she didn't know why she was getting so worked up over it now, maybe it was just the release of telling someone. She was nearly shocked out of her sadness when Ed pulled her towards him to hug her in the most comforting way he could manage. He rested his head on top of hers and closed his eyes appreciating that it was probably the only time he would be able to, thanks to the fortunate way the river path dropped down.

She was stunned for a moment; Ed had never tried to comfort anyone like this before, at least not to her knowledge. But once she recovered from the shock she relaxed into the embrace, she should take advantage of a good thing.

After a little while Ed pulled away with a smile, "Under the conditions you did amazingly, Mrs. Leaning looked like she was handling the new leg comfortably."

Winry's smile was the brightest that day, she had been worried about that, "What happened there?"

He sighed and started walking back towards the house, "I went and tried to question him, if I couldn't figure out what happened to you from you, I was going to figure it out from him. He admitted to a few things but his wife stopped us from fighting. Someone else showed up though… they killed him before I knew what happened."

Ed heard the quick intake of breath from Winry, she wasn't used to death and murder as much as he was.

"Oh…"

By the time they got back to the house Pinako was in a huff.

"I thought you two were going to be back by now! We should have attached Winry's arm a while ago."

The both gave her a guilty stare.

She sighed, "Go upstairs to your room and get ready, I'll be up in a minute with the arm."

Winry trudged up to her room and left Ed and Pinako in the kitchen.

"Where's Al?"

"I think he's outside somewhere, he was waiting for you to come back, but I think he fell asleep."

Ed stretched his arms and yawned, "good. I wanted to ask you something…"

She lifted a brow, "Hmm?"

"I was wondering if I could attach Winry's arm?" the idea had come to him on the walk and it seemed right, figures that he should be the one to give her the arm after all the auto-mail work she had done on him. (a/n don't look at me like that.)

Pinako took a long drag of her pipe and puffed out the smoke, "I don't see why not, you know how to do it, she would probably like that." She smiled and shuffled off to get the arm. When she brought it back Ed felt the weight of it in his hands, it looked and felt more or less like his.

He walked up to Winry's room and opened the door slowly. She looked surprised and a little confused to see him.

"Pinako said I could attach the arm," he rubbed the back of his neck with nervousness, and tried not to look at Winry sitting on her bed, "Do you want to go downstairs on the couch? That's where we usually attach my limbs," he laughed ironically.

"No, I'm more comfortable up here. I'll probably spend the rest of the day in bed too, might as well do it up here." (a/n I told you not to look at me like that)

Ed grabbed a stool in the cluttered room and pulled it over to the bed. He set the arm down and another idea flashed through his mind, "Would you let me do something to the arm? If you don't like it I can change it back…"

She looked uncertain for a moment, but nodded.

Ed thought for a few minutes and seemed to make up his mind. He clapped and placed his hands on the steel, and watched as a wave of light transformed it. When he was finished, a steel arm lay on the bed looking so real you would have thought someone had dipped a real arm into quicksilver. The fingers were overlaid plats making them naturally flexible, and since it attached at her elbow it looked more like a glove than anything.

Winry gasped and traced her fingers over the smoothness of it. It was shaped amazingly like her real arm.

"If you need to do any maintenance on it, all of the screws are hidden under plats that will come up with a magnet since I changed those parts into iron."

She could hardly find words for what she wanted to say, she was more confused than anything though, "Why haven't you ever done this to your own arm?"

He shrugged, "You'd kill me if I tried to change it… besides," he flexed his fingers, "I like it. I couldn't imagine seeing you with something like this though, your arms should stay the way they're supposed to look." He smiled warmly, and his eyes flashed, "Wait… one more thing." He tapped his fingers together and traced them through the upturned palm of the hand on the bed, leaving behind the symbol of his teacher (a/n the cross with the snake thingy)

Winry smiled, she had always thought auto-mail was beautiful, but this was different; certainly not auto-mail, but something she almost liked more for different reasons, "I love it."

Ed was more than surprised; he was expecting to be yelled at more than anything, figuring that it would be the thought that counted in the end, "wanna try it on then?"

Her smile was a bit strained this time, "We better get it over with," She took a deep breath and braced herself as Ed lifted the arm.

"I'm sorry,"

Thinking that he was apologizing for the pain he was about to cause her, she couldn't began to explain the shock she had with what came next.

Before either of them had much time to think, Ed caught her in a kiss. For a second Ed was amazed with what he was doing, and the realization of how long he had actually wanted to and had just not noticed it before. He was even more surprised when she returned it; leaning deeper into it he nearly pushed Winry down on her bed. Before he got lost in what he was doing and forgot one of the reasons why he was doing it though, he attached Winry's arm. He chocked on her scream and nearly lost his lower lip when she bit down in pain. She pulled away to continue her scream and bite her own lip. But Ed wouldn't let her linger in her pain for long as he caught her lips again.

Figures that their first kiss would be so painful and soothing at the same time, but at least it had the desired effect; Winry had nearly forgotten her pain by the time they pulled away from each other.

Both of them beat red; they didn't say anything for a while, as their brains tried to catch up to what happened.

Finally Ed stood up and shuffled a bit, "I should go… auntie will want to know how it went…"

Winry blinked and nodded as she starred up at her ceiling; lying down on her bed with her legs over the side, she still felt a little speechless, "mmhmm"

(a/n . )

Downstairs Pinako's eyes followed Ed as he made his way to the front door to go wake up Al, "Well?" she asked

He stopped in his tracks, "Oh yeah, she's doing fine, the connection was easier than I thought it was going to be" in more ways than one apparently.

"That's good, I was hoping you would be able to make it easier on her,"

"Yeah" he really had to leave, "You should go up and check on her though… I'll be outside with Al" with that he was out the door, and in the yard before Pinako had a chance to say anything more.

Outside Ed found Al leaning against the house, his eyes dark with sleep, "Al?"

His eyes glowed, "Hmm?"

"You should probably get inside, it might rain tonight and I don't want you rusting."

"Oh, right." He came to a noisy stand, "Your lip's bleeding, what happened?"

Ed's hand shot up to feel his lip and was surprised to find blood on his fingers when he brought his hand down. He hadn't thought Winry had bitten down that hard, "Heh… you know Winry and her wrenches…" well that was a fantastically crappy excuse.

Al managed to look like he was smiling wryly, "What did you do this time?"

He could hear someone laughing ironically in his head as he desperately fumbled for an answer, until he settled for being as vague as possible, "You know… the usual" Smooth said the voice sarcastically. For a moment he wondered why he felt so jittery about the whole ordeal, until the voice in his head started to laugh again, and he decided not to think about it.

As soon as they walked back into the kitchen, Pinako kicked Ed in the shin.

"What did you do to my auto-mail?"

Ed rubbed his leg, "What do you mean?" then he thought for a second… oh.

"Winry's arm! You've—"

Ed held up his hands to stop her, "Everything's the same, I just changed the outside. Winry liked it…"

"I don't care, you could have at least asked me before you did it,"

"Well, it was kind of an 'in the moment' thing."

Al looked between them, thoroughly confused.

Pinako sighed, "Well what's done is done, if there's any problems with it later on, I hope you know that I'll blame you entirely." She shuffled around and disappeared into another room.

Al twiddled his fingers, "What did you do?"

Ed looked up, "I only performed a little alchemy on Winry's auto-mail, and you would think I had turned it into wood or something with the way she was acting."

"You should know not to mess with aunties things though…"

"I just wanted to do something for Winry. It's her decision if she wants to keep it or not."

Al was curious to ask what exactly Ed had done, but he decided against it. He would just have to see tomorrow.

O,O ok, that's it… THINGY is a word! Who the hell gives this program its dictionary? Ya wanna know the synonyms for it? Of course you do. Thing, Thingamajig, thingamabob, doodad, gizmo, and doohickey! Sorry, folks, just had to let that vent… I always enjoy it when I come across things like that on Microsoft Word. I swear my computer is southern though… it's grammar is absolutely horrible!