Edward forgot she didn't know. It had been a while since it happened, after all. A month of healing, a couple more on the run, the final showdown on the Promised Day, and two more months of Al regaining enough strength to travel. The 'H' shaped scar on his stomach and the matching one on his back had slipped his mind completely. He'd only briefly told Al that it had happened, so when Winry wanted to look at his new flesh shoulder (she was worried about metal fragments, even though he told her that the doctors in Central had already taken out what was left from the port) he pulled his shirt off without a thought.

Her eyes went straight to his stomach, and then widened to the size of dinner plates. It was a nasty scar, after all. It had jagged edges, and raised ridges that spoke of messy healing. His alchemic fix hadn't held for longer than it took to get him to a doctor, and the ones in that sketchy clinic Darius and Heinkel dragged him to had opened him up again to line up his organs where they should be. It still ached occasionally, but not ever close to his leg, and so he'd forgotten.

"EDWARD ELRIC! WHAT HAPPENED?!" Winry shrieked, and pointed at his midriff. Ed flinched backwards on the exam table. He really shouldn't have forgotten.

"Um," He started. "It wasn't that big a deal?" It was a blatant lie, even if she couldn't see the evidence right in front of her. "It only went through my side-"

"Through!" Winry grabbed his left shoulder, and manhandled him around so she could see his back. The scar there was slightly less ugly, but no smaller. It had obviously been a terrible wound.

Winry stepped backwards, and Ed saw that she'd gone pale as flour. She met his eyes, and Edward wanted to erase those last few moments, if only to erase the fear in her eyes.

"When did this happen?" Her voice was quiet, quivering and young. Ed felt sick with a terrible fear that she'd never forgive him for making her cry again.

"Briggs." He whispered the truth. "After we were separated, I fought Kimblee. His explosion sent me down a mine shaft, where I got hurt. The two chimera I'd been fighting got me out, and to a doctor."

Winry wobbled backwards, and then her knees gave out, sending her down to sit heavily on the ground. Ed shouted in alarm, but wasn't fast enough to get off the table, and catch her. He followed her down, instead, kneeling in front of her.

"Winry, are you alright!"

Her eyes were brimming, and he felt a surge of anger at himself. He promised her she wouldn't have to cry over him again. He'd said it in the mine shaft, that she couldn't cry over something as stupid as falling on a pole, and it was doubly stupid now that he'd survived.

Moving slightly closer, he tried to tamp down his self-loathing, and comfort her.

"Hey, I'm okay, Winry. Don't cry!" Maybe his voice was a little demanding, but it was the thought that counted. She sniffled, and two tears dropped down her face.

"You could have died." She whispered, and she reached out to place her fingers against the new scar tissue. "I would have never know what happened to you…"

Ed moved his hands to cover her's, where he could feel her fingers trembling against his side.

"Winry, it's okay. I promise, I'm fine." He softened his voice a little, and watched her shudder before pulling out of her fear a little.

"What if you'd died, and no one ever found you?"

Ed pulled her hand away from the scar, and held it in both of his. Except for the flesh where automail had been, it could have been months -a year?- ago, when he'd pulled a gun from her hands. Why did he keep making her cry?

"I didn't die. Okay? I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere. And, even if I had...you would have been fine. You would have been just fine!"

Winry looked down at their hands. One was tanned and weathered. The other one was thinner and pale still from years within the Gate. Between them was a smaller hand, calloused and lined with metal scars, strong with work. That hand didn't need to be enclosed in his mismatched set. She would have been fine without him. It was he who wouldn't have been able to go one without her. Edward wondered if she knew what he saw when he looked at their hands. He wondered what she saw.

She swallowed, and in the last of her tears, whispered out the shaky words.

"I'd have missed you so much, Ed."

He pulled her forward into a fierce hug, squeezing both arms around her shoulders, and tangling his right hand in her hair. Winry hugged back just as hard, her loose hair and hitching breath tickling his bare shoulder. Her face was pressed against his skin, and he could feel the dampness where her tears had been. Overwhelmed, hiding the tightness in his throat, he pressed his own nose into her shoulder, and wished she could be happy-that he could stop making her shudder in fear, or push back tears. He wished that holding her like this in his arms could protect her.

"Ack, my eyes!"

At Alphonse's sudden shout, Ed and Winry jolted back from each other to see his brother staggering back from the doorway dramatically, a hand over his eyes, and a grin on his face. Abruptly, Ed realized that he was shirtless, and he'd pretty much had Winry on his lap, and her face was buried in his neck, and it probably looked like-

"Al, this isn't-!"

"We weren't-!"

He and Winry cried out together, scrambling backwards from each other, faces flaming. Al, the traitor, burst into laughter.

"You guys are hilarious!" He crowed, before basically skipping off, and Ed sent a few choice insults flying after him. Then, alone again with Winry, he breathed in and willed the blush from his face.

"Why do I get the feeling he's not going to let that go?"

Winry made a face, and put her head in her hands.