Day 02: Scars

Edward knows this moment was to come eventually, but that doesn't mean he hasn't still been putting it off for as long as he possibly could have. They've only been home for three days now, so Al being back in his body is still the main topic on the forefront of everyone's minds, but Ed knew that some of that attention would fall back onto him eventually, and now it is finally doing so.

"Winry," Ed says, his fingers tracing the edge of his shirt, "you really don't need to inspect it, I promise I had the doctors look at it. You can even ask Al when he wakes up, he'll vouch for me."

"Yeah, probably because he was the one who made you get it checked out in the first place," her lips purse when he didn't argue back, knowing she's completely right. "As your mechanic, it is my sworn duty to make sure you are being taken care of properly and as unprecedented as this is, it's still my duty to check over the scars where your automail used to be."

Ed looks up at her with what he hopes is his best sympathetic face, but she only put her hands on her hips and he knew she isn't going to budge.

It's with a heavy sigh that Ed tugs on the hem of his shirt and pulls it up over his head, revealing the skin underneath and sending a swath of heat to his cheeks. He's been shirtless in front of Winry countless times, but never in the past did he ever feel flustered when doing it. There was never any kind of reaction, any kind of embarrassment, but this past year it seems to all come crashing in on him at once.

Right now he's exactly that, flustered. Flustered and afraid.

He's sitting on the pink duvet of her bed, peering out at the sunlit yard through her bedroom window. Usually they do these kinds of automail checkups somewhere more professional, usually the workshop downstairs, but he was up here already when the topic had been brought up. Al had just fallen asleep for his midday nap and so Ed had climbed up to Winry's room to chat with her because right now he was looking for anything to get out of cleaning out the chicken coop like Granny had told him to do.

It isn't the first time they've been alone together since they've come home three days ago, but it's the first time he and Winry have had complete privacy while alone.

They'd sat there talking for a while, Ed sitting backward in her spinning desk chair and her on her bed, the both of them exchanging stories. The past year had been quite the wild ride. Briggs, Greedling's gang, the Promised Day. So much had happened in so little time.

And that, of course, lead them onto the topic of Ed's arm. The arm he had gotten back.

The scar where steel had been seared to flesh is probably Ed's biggest and most prominent. It's pink circles like the rings of a tree that warp his skin in crisscrossing patterns.

Ed knows that she knows that he collects scars like a collector would with vintage coins. Each individual scar shaping up in their different arrays and patches across his skin. He used to have nightmares where his skin would be so scarred and torn from all that he had experienced that eventually his skin would be comprised more of scar tissue than regular flesh.

He wasn't too far off the mark with that one.

But it isn't the giant scar, the most glaringly obvious one that leaves a bright pink ring of jagged lines around his right shoulder, it's the one that's a bit less obvious, the one that is on his lower abdomen that worries him more than anything.

If Winry sees that one then she's going to have a fit.

Ed takes a seat on her bed on the white and pink comforter and Winry sits behind him, her legs folded up underneath her. He peels off his gray, cotton shirt and with her index finger, Ed feels Winry trace the edges of his automail scar and Ed shivers at under touch. It isn't that her fingers are cold per se, but they send vibrations up his back at her touch like she's filled with static electricity.

"It's so interesting," Winry says under her breath.

"Thanks, glad to know that's what you think of it."

"Hey, I've never seen anything like this. People don't usually lose an arm, get automail, and then regain the same arm back half a decade later. I'm one of the only people in the world who gets to see anything like this, so pardon me if I think it's neat!"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Did they get the scraps from the port out? I can see where the incisions once were, but I don't see any screws or bolts or anything remaining in there."

"Yes, Winry, they took everything out," he says, his voice flat, clearly not wanting to do this. He's waiting for her eyes to inevitably travel lower, which is exactly the opposite of what he wants. "Damn bastards put me under for it and everything! Granny hardly wanted to put me down for the installation when I was eleven! The people in the big cities are living with a damn luxury!"

She comes around to the front of him, inspecting it from all angles to make sure they did a good enough job to her liking. When she seems satisfied, Ed makes a move to get up but she puts a hand on his shoulder, guiding him back down to the bed.

"Hold on, Ed. I haven't quite yet finished."

"Can I put my shirt back on yet?"

"No. What's eating at you anyway? Why are you so antsy to get out of here, you have somewhere to be?"

"No." He looks down at his lap, trying to figure out an excuse, but can't seem to find one.

He could tell her he has to go clean out the coop as Granny said, but he'd really rather not.

"Then sit down and be patient for once."

Her eyes must travel from where his scar is on his shoulder down his back as she sits back down behind him. He feels her finger trace from freckle to freckle on his back like she's charting them for constellations.

He doesn't think she's doing her duties as a mechanic any longer, this is something else.

He knows she sees it when he suddenly feels her jerk her hand away from his back with a sharp gasp.

"Ed," she says, her voice weak with a slight tremble, "Ed, what is this?"

"Winry—"

She frantically crawls around to his front, searching for the other half of the scar.

He knows what it must look like, he's inspected it before and he knows it isn't pretty. The scar is an uneven, pink, fleshy mass with a slight discoloration near its center. It's pretty big, steel beams typically are much wider in diameter than one might expect them to be, and the exit wound on the back mirrors the front one perfectly.

"Ed, how—"

"Winry, I don't want you to be upset," he takes her hands in his and pulls them close. "You must understand that I didn't mean for—"

"Ed, what happened?" Her voice has a hysterical pitch to it.

Ed takes a deep breath. He can't lie to her, he wouldn't even consider it, but he also knows that the truth will hurt her just as bad. He remembers lying at the bottom of that empty mineshaft thinking about Winry and how she would react. It was keeping her from crying that was his driving force for what he did, she is the reason he's still alive. Without the thought of her so enraptured in his mind at the time, he hardly believes he could have gotten through that. But now, as they sit here on the bed so many months after, Ed can't help but think she's going to cry anyway just at the sight of it.

"When I was in Baschool, I was fighting with Kimblee and he blew me into a mineshaft where an explosion went off. A steel beam broke and fell through me, pinning me to the ground." It sounds truly awful any way he says it and Ed can't help but wince at his own words. "I'm sorry, Winry. I never meant for you to see this and to hurt you with it."

She nods, her eyes still as round as soccer balls and tears cling to the edges of her eyelashes, ready to spill over at any moment.

"How—" she starts, her words fading out.

"How what?"

"How did you survive?"

Ed looks away. There's the long answer, the one that delves into the theoretics of alchemy, particularly alchemy of the soul and human transmutation, but that's the explanation that he'll give to Al when he inevitably sees the scar for himself. Instead, Ed chooses to give Winry the simpler versions of thing, the one that chooses to focus more on the events and what follows after and less on the theory behind it.

"I transmuted myself."

"You—you what?"

Okay so maybe that was a bit too blunt.

"I used some of my own life force to transmute the wound closed."

Winry gapes at him. "What exactly does that mean? Ed, that doesn't sound very good."

"I'm not exactly sure. I've never heard of it being done before."

"Oh, Ed," she's trembling again and Ed yearns to pull her close and whisper into her hair that it will all be okay. He wants to, he really does, but he doesn't know what this will mean for him either.

She leans forward and Ed pulls her up to him. She places her face in the crook of his neck where his automail scar is and he holds her close. This isn't what he wanted. If it was up to him, he would have never shown Winry the scar, never freaked her out with the reluctant truth.

Against his skin, Ed feels a wet tear drip from Winry's eyes and onto his shoulder, running down his skin.

"Winry, please don't cry."

"But—"

"When I was down there, in the mine, all I could think about was you. I remember lying there in the rubble and snow and being so determined to fix this. I couldn't give up, it was you who kept me going. I told myself I wouldn't let you cry ever again."

Winry pulls her face away from his shoulder, looking at him with her watery blue eyes and red face.

"So please don't cry," Ed brings a hand up to her face and strokes under her eye with his thumb, brushing her tears away.

"I won't."

Ed takes back her hands in his. "Good."

She sniffs, looking away as a blush creeps up onto her cheeks.

"So what does this mean for you in the long run?" she asks, laying back on the bed and Ed joins her.

"I'm not exactly sure, but it doesn't matter. I'm just happy to be here, alive and well right now."

She nods and scoots close to him until she's pressed up against his side. Ed feels himself flush as her hair tickles the side of his chest.

"Have you told Al yet?"

"No."

"You need to. He has a right to know."

"I know," Ed sighs. "But I'm afraid he'll have a similar reaction as you had and I don't feel right putting him under that kind of stress quite yet, not with how weak he is."

She nods against him.

"I'm glad you're alive," she whispers when there's nothing left to say.

It's a funny little statement, and taken out of the context of the situation it would probably sound quite odd, but Ed understands what she means and he can't help but agree. He's glad he's alive too because where he is right now in his life has made all the struggling and pain of the past few years worth it. If he wasn't alive now, he wouldn't be able to lay here with the most incredible girl in the world and hold her so close.

For now, he doesn't care what problems the scar and the transmutation of his own life force as equivalent exchange will bring, he's just thankful for the present and what he does have.