I looked at how many of these drabbles are on my hard drive... and decided that moving to 3 updates a week would be a good plan. Expect new chapter MWF.
10. Love or like
"Big Sister, do you like Big Brother?" asked Elicia. Winry smiled at her and set down the doll in her hand.
"Of course I like Big Brothers, they just make me upset when they hurt themselves," she explained.
Elicia shook her head vigorously. "Not Big Brothers, Big Brother, she explained, a finger pointed at the blond boy bent over an alchemy book on the other side of the room. "You always yell at him and throw wrenches at his head," she added with the sage-like wisdom of a three year old pointing out the obvious.
Winry felt a blush in her cheeks. "Like I said Elicia, Ed just makes me scared when he gets hurt," she repeated. "You would worry, too, if you only heard from someone when he was in trouble," she added. The little girl broke into giggles, though Winry hardly thought Ed showing up in pieces was funny. Oh well, she'd editorialized for Elicia's sake. She wasn't sure the littlest Hughes knew about Ed's body, and there was no need to scare her.
"Mommy says if you worry about someone, it means you care about them," Elicia managed to say between giggles.
Winry looked over at Ed quickly- still dead to the world and glued to his book- then back to Elicia. "I've known Ed my whole life, Elicia, it would be hard not to care about him" she explained quietly.
"So how do you know when it's love or like? Mommy says she worries about Daddy when he's gone for a long time, too."
The mechanic felt her cheeks burn. "You just know, Elicia," she whispered.
Elicia whispered back, "So do you love Big Brother?"
Winry bit her lip and glanced at her alchemist- still engrossed- and nodded her head, keeping a finger to her lips. Elicia covered her mouth with both hands and collapsed in a fit of silent giggles.
Had Winry looked more thoroughly at her alchemist, she would have noticed that his eyes were stationary, and he'd been on the same page for fifteen minutes.