Winry suspected discharging Ms. Durden would be an unpleasant experience. The woman might not have been accustomed to having things go her way, but she sure made a stink about them when they didn't. She'd expected the surgery table to be better cushioned, and had no inhibitions about letting the Rockbells know it. She ate the potato Winry thrust into her hands that morning and commented that she thought the produce would be fresher "out here." As if it were practical to have a surgery table with give to it or for Winry to grow her own potatoes.

So Winry had no compunction to be gentle when she broke the news to her. "You're leaving today," she said. "You're going to finish your recovery with our local doctor, and then you'll find another mechanic to install your prosthetic."

"You've got to be joking. You're kicking me out just because your husband had his fun with me all those years ago?"

"You call rape fun?" Winry snapped.

"Good God. Is that what he told you? And you believed it?"

"Of course I -" Winry bit off the rest of her reply. She didn't have to explain herself to this woman. She just had to get her out.

Thinking she'd gotten a little victory over Winry, Ms. Durden said, "You should know by now not to expect so much from men. They'll do what they want with you, then leave you with nothing but another mouth to feed."

Winry's retort came out strained - she didn't want to shout and let that woman know she'd gotten to her. "You don't know Ed. He's better than that."

"Oh please," said Ms. Durden. "He's already done it to me. He stayed one night and left me with one baby. He might get a few more babies out of you, and then he'll divorce you for someone younger and prettier. That's how it works."

Winry froze. "You have a kid? And it's Ed's?"

"What's it to you?"

"Is it true?"

Ed stepped in the doorway, and Winry's eyes widened as they fell on him. She didn't know he'd been listening.

Ms. Durden seemed surprised too, but she covered it up with a smirk. "So you do care," she told Ed. "Or at least you pretend to. You want to know about your daughter?"

Ed took on that same stony manner he'd had at the train station. He asked, "Where is she? Who's been taking care of her?"

"I have," said Ms. Durden, and then, "Oh, you mean since I got sick? Not that I'd expect you to care about that, either."

Winry fumed at the obvious guilt trip. "Just tell him where she is," she spat at her.

"You already know!" Ms. Durden shot back. "Or at least I assume my home address is included in my medical records."

"And she's there by herself?" asked Ed.

She shrugged. "Peder might still be there. But Annaliese can take care of herself all right."

Winry didn't really want to know who Peder was. But if he was Ms. Durden's boyfriend, did that mean she expected him to leave her like she said all men did? Or had she just been manipulating Winry when she said that?

The important thing was, Ed had another daughter. Annaliese was a pretty name, it would sound good next to Elric - but Winry was getting ahead of herself. Annaliese wasn't guaranteed to take on Ed's name. She didn't even know him. And that had to be killing Ed, since he'd always made such a point of being there for his kids.

Ed said, "She's going to be staying with us now."

"All right, then," said Ms. Durden, sinking back against her patient's bed. "Glad that's settled. Dr. Rockbell, could you get me my -"

"Your bags?" Winry finished. "That's right, you'll want to make sure you won't be leaving anything behind." In response to her shocked expression, Winry added, "Ed said we'd have Annaliese stay here. Not you."

"But I'm her mother!"

"And Ed's her father. You've had her to yourself all these years. Now it's Ed's turn."

"You can't separate us like this!"

"You were going to be separated during your recovery anyway. And you didn't even care about that until you tried to use her to keep your place here."

"I didn't have a choice!"

"Doesn't matter. We're not keeping you."

Before Winry left to drop her ex-patient off, Ed took her aside and asked, "Are you sure we're doing the right thing?"

"With what? Turning that woman out?"

Ed nodded.

"You can't really want her to stay."

"I don't, but - I got her pregnant, Winry. It's the least we can do."

"She got herself pregnant, Ed. She didn't give you a choice in the matter. You don't owe her anything."

Ed had been starting breakfast when he'd overheard the conversation in the surgery room. He'd considered staying upstairs until that woman left, but he wasn't about to let her keep him from going where he wanted in his own home. When she finally did leave, the kids were up and Granny was feeding them the breakfast she'd taken over from him.

Granny's relationship with Ed and Winry had changed some since they'd brought their family to live with her. She had raised them after all their parents had gone, and was used to being their teacher and nurturer. But things came to a head after a few months of living all together. "We know we learned parenting mainly from you," Ed and Winry had told her, "but we do things differently than you sometimes, and our kids need to know we're the ones in charge of them. It's hard to keep that authority when you treat us like kids in front of them."

It had been a tough conversation, but the three of them came to an understanding. Ed and Winry had sole charge of disciplining their children, except when Granny was watching them on her own. If she had advice on how to deal with something, she would tell Ed and Winry in private, and it was up to them whether they'd take it or not. They came up with a shared plan for doing housework, which they carried out and enforced as equals. And aside from the respect due to Pinako as their grandmother and former guardian, that was their relationship now - equals.

As far as the automail business went, Ed wasn't exactly privy to that. To him, the work Granny and Winry did together had barely changed. They hardly disagreed on anything when it came to their patients. But Winry was Granny's partner now, not her assistant. And though they rarely mentioned it, the reason Winry had declined to set up her own shop in Rush Valley was because Granny was having some difficulty keeping up with the family business. How that affected the decisions they made Ed didn't know. Winry had presented and carried out the decision to become a state subsidized care provider, but Ed was sure it was done with Granny's approval. And this decision to discharge their newest patient was probably similar.

But Ed remembered how Granny had stood between him and Mustang when he'd come recruiting, how she'd probed Major Armstrong and even Ed's own father when they'd come visiting, making sure they were doing right by her young charge. She'd brokered his and Al's apprenticeship to Izumi Curtis, buried their mother and the thing they'd made when they tried to bring her back, then helped Ed dig it up and give it a grave. But now Ed was grown, and when the woman who'd violated him revealed he had another daughter, Granny had let him and Winry deal with it while she cooked breakfast in the other room.

Her decision was probably right. Ed couldn't imagine how the conversation would have gone with Granny there to intervene. She probably wouldn't have done anything Winry hadn't. But for the first time he could remember, Ed found himself wishing for a protector.

It was a completely unfamiliar feeling to him. Ed had always been so confident in his ability to take care of himself that even when he had been vulnerable, even when he had needed a protector, he hadn't thought to ask for it. Even after he'd learned how to ask for help, he'd never wanted it. He'd never wanted anyone to come between him and the horrors of the world, just accepted it when they did.

But now he wanted someone else to deal with that woman, because he didn't know how. He'd never wanted to. From the moment he'd woken up inside her, he'd done his best to get away from her and the memory of what she'd done. He'd gone on to defeat the world's greatest monster, and he'd rather face that all over again than face what one woman had done to him on a cold night.

Ed shook such thoughts off. He'd been afraid he wouldn't be able to beat that father homunculus, but he had, hadn't he? So he'd probably be able to work past this too. And he would, because there was a little girl in East City he needed to do right by.

So he helped Granny feed his and Winry's children, then he sat them down and told them, "I'm going to have to leave for a little while."

"Where are you going?" asked Ellen.

"How long?" asked Henry.

Andar squirmed in his place on Ed's lap, and Ed held him closer. "It's just a couple days," he said. "I'm going to pick up your sister in East City."

Henry's face fell into a pout. "You're taking Ellen but not me?"

Ed laughed. "No, no. This is a sister none of you have met yet."

Ellen, who'd had hopes of going on a train ride with Daddy raised and dashed in a matter of seconds, grumped, "I don't want another baby sister."

"She's not a baby. She's . . . eleven? No, she must be ten now."

"She's older than me!" Henry was surprised.

"That's right. And I'm going to East City to get her and then she'll come stay with us."

"How long is she gonna stay?" asked Henry.

"Uh . . ." Ed's eyes flicked to Granny, who raised her brows and shrugged. "I'm not sure."

Annaliese would definitely stay until her mother had recovered from port surgery and gained some use of her new arm. But once those months were over, it was very likely her mother would want to take her home. Ed could hardly imagine spending so much time with one of his children and then letting her be taken away. It would feel like abandoning her all over again. But would he be able to do what was necessary to keep her in his life?

Ed hoped so.