A/N: Perhaps I am simple, but the image of Winry standing over Edward, glaring and demanding, "Take off your pants!" had me chortling for days. Thanks ya'll.

XII. Another Day, Another Siege: Pride and Humility

I started work on his new leg before dawn. After shoving down a quick bowl of oat meal, I dedicated myself to the task with a sort of vigor I had not felt for a project in a long time. At my work bench, I flicked on the lamp and found his old leg lifeless on the table. My empathy stung for him when I saw it. He had been doing his best, and I felt almost embarrassed to see that there was something at which Edward Elric was not a natural prodigy. Along with the pinch of shame that shouldn't have been mine, I felt a flicker of selfish happiness: he needed me. At least, he needed a mechanic, and he had picked me.

As I dove in, it occurred to me that Edward must have had some kind of mechanic while he was away. Perhaps he had hired a car mechanic to build it since he had told me that he designed both the arm and the leg himself with the aid of his father.

I imagined that must have been a challenge for him, to accept help from his father.

I looked back up at the limp leg and understood what it must have meant to him. No wonder he did not want me to see it. Not only would I be angry, but he was ashamed of it. It was poorly designed in collaboration with a man Edward could not stand, a man whom he would loathe to ask for advice. Even in the steel, it was an embodiment of Edward's humanity, of his flaws, of his humility.

In the dim light of dawn mixed with the incandescence of compassionate epiphany, the leg didn't look so ugly anymore. In fact, when I considered that it was built by someone who knew little about automail, the leg was very good. I found myself shoving the internal wiring of his new leg aside to investigate the old one. I wanted to see what he knew, what he was able to discern on his own.

Upon removing the last screw, I realized how proud of him I was—his leg was incredible. I decided to tell him that when he woke up.

I heard him coming down the stairs about an hour after dawn. The mixed sounds of one foot padding and one foot scuffing moved into the hall then into the kitchen. Of course, he would raid the kitchen first thing. Even something as important as his automail was secondary—or maybe his automail was only so dire to me. Either way, he didn't appear in my work room in his skivvies without buttered toast in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other.

I think he asked, "How's it coming?" around a mouthful. I laughed at him, and he frowned.

"It might take a little while, you know. Grandma could crank 'em out, but I'm not that good just yet. I swear she could build automail in her sleep."

"How long, do you think?" he asked after swallowing.

I looked at the braid of wires I was in the process of organizing and rubbed my chin. "I'd say," I paused and hummed, "four days maybe. It's not going to be cheap."

Edward grinned his most disarming grin. "Can I give you an I.O.U.?"

I balked. "What?" Edward always had money. He was the boy-fountain of cash flow. Not once had he given me anything less than crisp, fresh bills.

"All my money is stowed away in a bank in Central. It might take some time."

"Well," I said, sounding like I might turn him down when I knew I couldn't. "I suppose you're good for it. But don't expect me to go easy on you just because we're friends."

He took another bite of toast and crunched, "Wouldn't dream of it."

I looked back to my work and saw the discarded pieces of his old leg, sitting to the side where I had left them. "So... uh..." There was no easy was to compliment Ed. Unless worded in the form of an insult, he wouldn't accept it, and I really wanted him to accept this one. "That old leg of yours," I began.

"What about it?" he asked quickly, defensively.

Good, he was insulted already. "It really was a piece of junk by my standards." I paused to let him seethe. "But, considering how much experience you have in designing and building automail and what you've told me about the quality of the technology in... that other place, it wasn't half bad."

"It wasn't half good," he muttered.

"But it worked," I added. "And I bet you were the only guy there with animated prosthetics."

Edward shrugged. I supposed that was as good as it was going to get. "So, I was wondering," I said while I separated the ends of the wires and fitted plugs on each one, "How did you manage to trick me with your arm? It could have been my original with a couple of messy fix it jobs."

He shrugged again. "I've watched you build them before. Plus, I've seen you do enough open repairs on it to remember."

"You wrote out blueprints just from that?" I asked, astonished.

Edward and his shrug. That, apparently, was his all purpose answer.

"You really are a genius," I muttered.

"I guess," came another crunchy reply. With that, he turned and left my work room. I could have been offended by his abruptness, but I decided not to be. He had heard what I had to say whether he liked it or no, and it felt good to know that, for once, what I had to say was a compliment rather than a complaint. He probably deserved that more often.- -
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A/N part 2: To Remick, the Lupine Alchemist, I used ambiguous words like "traces" and "signs" to make you wonder. Ha ha. Live in your macabre curiosity! XD