"Hey!" Ed cried out a little as Winry felt his newly restored arm. "What the heck are you doing?"

"It still feels really scrawny. Are you doing your exercises right?"

"Of course I am. Why do you never ask Al about his exercises?"

"Because Al's Al and you're you."

"What's THAT supposed to mean?"

Winry knew that he knew exactly what it meant, so she ignored the question. She let go of Ed's arm and leaned against the kitchen counter, examining Ed thoughtfully as he "hmmph"ed and continued to chow down on his sandwich.

"Y'know, I have a question that's been bugging me. When you got your arm back, did the automail embedded in your shoulder magically disappear or something?"

Ed paused in his eating. "Ah, no. They removed it at the hospital though."

"Really?" Winry bit her lip in concern. "Okay, take off your shirt."

Ed spat out a mouthful of sandwich, spraying it all over the kitchen table.

"WHAT?" he gurgled.

"Eugh. Clean that up. I want to check to see if they removed the automail right, stupid."

"Of course they did it right, what are you talking about?"

"Don't give me that. It was a military hospital in Central right? They don't even know how to deal with automail over there. We have horror stories about Central surgeons in Rush Valley. A customer had to get her automail removed by one of them, they did it all wrong and she got a BAD infection. For all I know, they missed a piece."

"You're so paranoid," Ed grumbled.

"Yeah, because knowing you, you wouldn't even notice an infection until it was too late."

"You just want to work on my arm even though it's not automail anymore," Ed snapped. He slapped his knee. "Look, I've still got an automail leg right here if you need to satisfy your perverse desires."

"Perverse- okay, whatever, just stop whining and take off your damn shirt. It's only going to take a minute."

Ed looked away. "I don't want to."

"Are you kidding me? It's nothing I haven't seen before. Look, it's not going to hurt or anything, I'm just taking a look. It was my automail, so it's up to me to make sure it's removed properly."

Ed shook his head, still not meeting her eyes. Winry's stomach dropped a little.

"Ed…are you…hiding something from me?"

"What?" Ed shifted his weight side to side. "I…"

Winry put her hands on her hips. "I thought we'd decided to be honest with each other."

Ed froze in his seat at this. Then his shoulders slumped and he let out a sigh. "Okay. Um…look, I haven't bought it up because it's kind of awkward but… a while back something happened to my stomach….uh, please try not to make a big deal out of it okay, it's not as bad as it looks…"

Winry felt her own stomach tie itself up in knots. "Take it off. Now."

Ed let out another huge sigh and jerked his sweatshirt off like he was ripping off a bandaid.

Winry let out a yell. She couldn't help it.

It was a huge scar. As big as the scar from his automail surgery, if not bigger. She could tell from way the wound spiraled that it was some sort of puncture wound- but bigger and messier than a knife wound. A…spear maybe? She shifted her weight shakily and saw there was one on his back too. Something had gone all the way though.

"Ugghhh…" Ed rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Shoulda told you not to scream…"

"What's going-" Al hobbled into the kitchen, his face tauht with concern. His eyes widened when they fell on Ed and then his mouth dropped open. "BROTHER? WHAT… WHAT HAPPENED?"

"AL didn't know about this EITHER?" Winry screamed at Ed.

"It…never came up…" Ed murmured weakly."Look, you guys, I'm fine now, so it's really not a big deal."

"Not a big deal…" Winry said with a hollow laugh. She felt like she couldn't keep standing, so she jerked out a kitchen chair and collapsed in it. She pulled out the chair next to her for Al. He too did the best huffy collapse into a chair he could manage while holding onto a cane. " just got impaled. Not a big deal. Telling us just slipped your mind."

"When did this happen?" Al demanded. "It had to have happened when we weren't together…" he trailed off.

"It was right after when you did that crazy plan where you made it look like Scar took you hostage, Winry. You had just left to warn her and the rest that they couldn't go back to Briggs, Al."

"That's…that's why you went missing…" Al rubbed his temple with a groan.

"Yeah, I was healing up," Ed nodded.

"Tell us exactly what happened," Winry told him, clenching her fists to prevent her hands from shaking. The shock was going to take a bit to wear off.

Ed sighed for like the fifth time. "I confronted Kimblee. I thought I could subdue him without killing him…I cut through the transmuation circle he has on his hands. But he had a philosipher's stone in his mouth.„and he caused a huge explosion. I got caught up in it and uh…kinda got impaled by some fallen rebar…"

Winry inhaled sharply, pressing her hand against her mouth.

Al rubbed his forehead with both hands, his entire body sagging a little."How on earth did you survive? I mean, you obviously weren't rescued by anyone at Briggs, and it would've taken a while to go find a doctor outside the area…and you wouldn't have been able to move…"

"Ahhhh…" Ed said. "Well, Mr. Gorilla and Mr. Lion were down there too, and they were annoyed with Kimblee for exploding them and all…I got some rubble off them with alchemy so they decided to help me out…"

"The lion-man's name is Heinkel," Al interjected. "And the gorilla guy is…uh…well, anyway, you ought to know both their names after working with them so long, shame on you."

"Look, do you want to hear the story or not?" Ed snapped.

"I want to hear it, go on…"

Ed hesitated. "Actually, you know what, it's perfectly fine with me if you don't want to hear the story, so-"

"Ed," Winry said dangerously. "Tell us what happened."

"Fine," Ed grumbled. "Well, they were both there, so I got them to pull the rebar out of me, sewed myself up with alchemy, then they took me to a doctor, I got all better, the end."

"Thank goodness they were there…" Winry slumped back in her chair. "That must have been really painful, though. I really can't believe you didn't tell us something this important-"

"Wait," Al said suddenly, his brow furrowing. "May's the only person I know who knows how to use medical alchemy properly. You don't know it at all. That takes way too much power…"

"Oh yeah…welll….I kind of figured out I could use my own life energy to give myself a boost, so I sort of used myself as a philosopher's stone," Ed said with a nervous laugh.

There was a heavy silence. Winry wasn't sure she understood exactly what was going on. "Wait, what does that mean?"

"It means he shaved some years off his life to get power to heal himself," Al said softly, almost disbelievingly.

"Just a couple, I'm sure," Ed said quickly.

"Y-you what…? Winry stared at Ed, who once again couldn't quite bring himself to meet her eyes. "No…you didn't really…"

"Dammit…" Al whispered to himself. He bought his first down on the table. "Dammit!"

"I'm sorry I had to do it, but I really didn't have much choice…I seriously doubt anyone will notice the different anyway, it isn't…"

Al shook his head, ignoring his brother. "You had to deal with all that by yourself…"

"I wasn't technically by myself, come on…" Ed said with what he probably thought was a reassuring smile, but looked a lot more like his usual panic over people feeling unhappiness in his presence.

"It's my fault…" Winry squeaked. She could feel tears starting to burn in her eyes. She closed them, desperately trying to ward a sobbing fit off. "Al would have been there to stop you from doing something stupid if he hadn't had to warn us…it was because of my crazy plan that he had to leave…All those months, we didn't even know you were hurt, we weren't there for you…"

Winry felt something warm and soft cover her hand. She opened her eyes and saw with surprise that Ed had leaned forward and put his hand over his own.

"Winry. You did what you had to do. And I did what I had to do, okay? None of us should feel sad about that."

He looked over at his brother, whose face was still twisted in sadness and frustration, and reached over with his bony right hand and ruffled his brother's mop of hair.

"You're the one who told me never to give up, Al. So I don't want anyone to cry." He moved his hand over to Winry and ruffled her hair too. "The whole reason I told myself I wouldn't let that stupid mistake kill me back then was because I didn't want anyone to have to cry over me…unless it was those tears of joy I promised."

Al blinked at his brother, his clenched fists relaxing. Winry stared at him too, her lip trembling.

"Look," Ed said with a sigh. "I really don't care how long I live. That's not what matters. Look at dad. He lived for such a long time, but he was unhappy for most of it, right? But Granny said he died with a dumbass-lookin' smile."

Ed leaned back with a simple smile of his own, squeezing Winry's hand hard. "Okay, it's kinda hokey, but I feel like…as long as my whole life, I have you guys, and we're all happy together as a family…if that's how it is, I'll have lived a full life. And it won't matter when I die, like Dad, I'll die with a stupid smile on my face."

There was a short pause.

"Brother…" Al said, looking awed.

Ed suddenly flushed, as if he's just realized what he said, and quickly let go of Winry's hand. "What? I'm just saying you guys need to stop being such losers about this okay? You're both stuck with me for a long while either way, so get used to it, dammit! Anyway! This was all none of your business! Can't you let a man eat his sandwich in peace! And—-!"

Winry gave a burbling laugh, hot tears streaming down her cheeks.

"I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO CRY!" Ed screeched.

"Tears of joy, dumbass," she said, wiping at her eyes and standing up. "I'm just glad we'll have quality entertainment around for a while yet. I think I'll probably die with a smile on my face too, because I'll be thinking about your stupidity."

"Seconded," Al laughed. "Brother's far too idiotic to die when he's supposed to, I don't know what we were worried about."

"You two-!" Ed sputtered.

Winry impulsively leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. The simple action had the effect of making it look like she'd set his face on fire.

"Thanks, Ed," She said softly, ignoring Al's soft whistle of approval. In a louder voice she said, "Now, if you really DO want to live a full life, you had better let me take a look at that shoulder."

Ed was too flustered to give a smart-ass comeback. It was a nice change.

Winry gave her own little smile as she inspected the scars, running her fingers gently over them. The healing skin was rough and bumpy, but it was holding together. And it was going to hold together for a long time, if Winry had anything to say about it