A/N: I feel all warm and squishy from the reviews... well, that or I wet myself again. To Terrasina Dragonwagon for having the most fun to pronounce pen name ever.

VII. Another Day, Another Siege: Dissection

He was shadow boxing in the yard. I would have thought one-armed boxing rather humorous if I weren't already entirely occupied with feeling guilty. And somehow, he made one-armed boxing really attractive—or maybe I did.

He landed a high kick in the face of someone I couldn't see with his left leg, my leg. When he returned to a neutral stance, he faltered and nearly fell. Once he recovered, he glared down at his right leg like it had betrayed him. I could see that his automail leg was shorter than his natural leg, if only by a fraction of an inch. It was enough to unbalance him, and I winced a little at the thought of him blaming his awkwardness on his leg when I was my leg's fault.

I saw him coming up on the porch, storming toward the front door with a deep frown on his face. I darted away from the window and busied myself with tidying up the front room and pretending like I had not been watching him.

I should have kept my mouth shut, but I didn't. "Have fun?" I asked, stacking newspapers.

"Time of my life," he replied succinctly. He brushed by without looking at me and moved up the stairs.

I started dinner—actually I continued dinner; I was reheating stew from the night before. By the time I was satisfied with it, Edward was thumping down the stairs, freshly showered and still pissed. He flopped into a chair at the table and brooded. I assumed he was waiting for me to serve him, so I ladled a serving into a bowl and passed it his way.

"Sorry to re-meal," I said, sitting down with my own bowl.

"It's fine," he said. I could tell that he didn't really give a damn about dinner. I thought was still angry about his blundered boxing, but the creeping sensation of impending reprimand had me figuratively inching toward the door. Of course, I deserved anything he had to sling at me. I knew that.

I smiled because I was scared and decided to fill the silence with myself. "You're starting to look scruffy again." It had been a few days since I had played barber.

"That happens," he muttered, stirring his stew. I thought he looked a little awkward handling the spoon with his left hand.

"If you need me to help you out again, I—" I began. I sounded like an idiot to myself; I can't imagine what he thought I sounded like.

He looked up from his stew. "What I really need you to do, Winry, is fix my damn arm." He cut me off firmly.

I sat back like he had pushed me. I blinked, too weighed down by the voice given to my culpability to actually put together a reply.

"I appreciate your hospitality, but I have things that I have to do now that I'm back."

I could tell that the last thing he wanted was an excuse, so I was quiet.

He watched me, undoubtedly expecting me to defend myself, to at least attempt to defend myself. When I didn't say anything, we sat for a wrung moment, just looking at each other. His gaze was so heavy, I could feel myself pressing backwards into my chair. I'm sure I looked pathetic.

His expression abruptly softened; something twisted sharply in my chest. He could tell I felt guilty about it.

"I know why you've not finished the work, Winry, and all I can do it apologize for that." I could feel him searching my eyes; I was probably a picture frame, with little adolescent me pressed up against the glass for his scrutiny. I always had been. "I had to go… all those times. I had to go."

"I know," I said. "I understood that."

His shoulders dropped slightly. "Then why haven't you finished my arm yet?"

I thought that was insensitive of him. "Just because I understood doesn't mean I had to like it." My voice seemed a little harsh to me until it occurred to me that I was hurt. Damn it, I deserved to be harsh, didn't I? But he didn't really deserve to be on the receiving end. It wasn't his fault he had to leave. At least, in the past it hadn't been. But I didn't know what he needed to do now. I grew angrier when reminded once more that he never bothered to tell me anything.

"You're being selfish, Winry," he stated, looking away from me.

I stood up suddenly, knocking my chair down. "You're damn right, I'm being selfish, Edward! I've been waiting for four—yes, I'm being selfish! People do that when they're hurt!"

"Well, I didn't hurt you, so knock it off," he bit back. He remained seated like the sagacious adult he was. "We're not kids anymore, Winry. We haven't been for a very long time."

"And I'm trying to catch up to you, old man! Give me some time, and I'm sure I'll be just as disillusioned and wise as you. Until then, I'm going to be selfish and hurt and… and desperate. So you can just wait for me."

God, those eyes tore me down so quickly. I could feel a hugely misplaced declaration of love hovering near my surface, but I shoved it away into the same compartment where I had been keeping my tears. I could let them both out, the tears and the love, when he wasn't around.

"Winry—"

"Good night, Edward," I said, significantly less inflated than I had been before. Whether he meant it or not, he sucked the life out of me. I guess I thought if I could just get him to notice me, to stay a little longer, I could get some of that life back. I would be able to catch up with him then, and maybe I'd be a little better at letting him go. He was leaving anyway.

I bent over and picked up my chair before leaving the kitchen, but I didn't go to bed. I didn't even go to my room. I cut a direct path to my workroom. At my bench, I flicked on the lamp and found his arm—my arm—strewn lifelessly in the center of the pool of yellow light. I began to disassemble it feverishly, like somehow tearing him apart would put my back together. Or maybe I was being dissected vicariously, and if he found me in the morning, open wide with labeled pins in me, he might be a little more empathetic. Either way, I spent the entire night working away, treading water in the wake of Edward like always.
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I had a dream that we spooned on the sidewalk outside of central. People walked by like we weren't even there. Only one woman stopped, one that I recognized but could not name. She had blonde hair, darker than mine, twisted and bound back. She paused, looking down at us with a disdainful expression. She pulled a quarter out of her pocket and flicked it at me. "Get a real job, sweetheart," she said before walking on.

In the shifting, wavering space between dreaming and waking, the part where I always stopped and tried to retreat back into the dream, I felt my cheek resting against his metal arm. The sensation of his breath against the back of my neck faded away; his legs untwined themselves from mine and dissipated. When I opened my eyes, I was slumped over my work bench, face pressed to the partially disassembled clockwork of what stood in for a biceps brachii.

I sat up slowly and rubbed my face. I knew I had the angular imprint of the seams and bolts of the arm on my cheek. I scrubbed at my face even thought it wouldn't make a difference. From past experience, I knew those impressions only faded with time.

"That couldn't have been comfortable," a voice said from behind me.

He was quite possibly the last person I wanted to hear, but the sound of his insouciance filled me with so much relief. I felt the tense muscles in my neck and back slacken.

"Hazard of the job," I replied before a long yawn and an even longer stretch. My lower back popped loudly. Edward laughed. I heard him enter the room, and then he appeared in the right of my vision, leaning a hip against my work bench.

"Good morning, Ed," I said, watching him for a sign.

He skipped the pleasantries. "I thought we owed each other an apology."

I considered saying that I didn't owe him anything, but I realized that I knew better. "I agree," I replied, trying to sound diplomatic.

He smirked and let out a terse chuckle. He was laughed at me, I knew. But that was okay. "You are being selfish, you know."

"And you are being insensitive."

"You're being immature about the whole thing, too."

"Well, you're being old about it. I think we're even."

I was surprised by how calm he was being about it. He wasn't argumentative at all. In fact, he sounded like he was negotiating, like we could make a compromise on who was more to blame. I thought about asking him for what we were blaming each other, but that question had so many answers, I thought it safer to leave that can tucked away in the pantry until the next time we locked horns. Of course, by that time, the can would probably be a tub, maybe even a vat, but negotiations seemed to be going so smoothly. I didn't want to ruin it.

"I'm being old?" he asked, cracking a grin.

"Yes," I replied. Feeling the tension begin to slip away, I risked an upturning of my nose. "You're being old."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not sure what I can do about that one."

"Grow down, Ed. Act like the nineteen-year-old boy you are."

Edward laughed. "Close."

"What?" I asked.

"I'm twenty."

"Oh." I sounded a little disheartened.

"Oh, what?"

I looked to our arm on the table for a moment before meeting his gaze. "You are old."

He pouted, and I thought, Babies, anyone?