The title from this chapter comes from the song "Here and Whole" by Joan Shelley, and I'm gonna let it lead us off.

Go home, you sailors
Go home for awhile
The sea doesn't need you or know you
And push the gulls to their ports and canals
And lay your head on the shore

I need you, I need you
I need you to be here and whole.

There was a lot of crying on that first day back. Mostly from Winry, to be fair, but she was careful to note a few tears from Alphonse, and—since she had to see it to believe it—a few from Edward too. Once the boys had made their way inside, there were a lot of emotions and a lot of explanations, and all three of them were tired. They settled in a heap in the living room, close together on the couch like they were still little kids.

The two soldiers from Briggs serving as Winry's bodyguards stood by awkwardly the whole time, staying arm's-length-and-then-some away from the scene, until eventually the younger one caved and offered everyone some tea. He passed around mugs, and then, satisfied that he'd done what he could, strode out of the room again.

Winry was in the middle seat of the sagging old sofa, with Elric brothers on either side. To her right, an overextended Alphonse was starting to doze off, with an equally overextended Den sprawled across his lap doing the same. To her left was Edward—grinning in earnest, and not seeming at all self-conscious about the fact that his leg was leaning against hers.

The couch really was old—it drooped so dramatically that the middle seat was its own little center of gravity, pulling you in. With that in mind, Ed naturally leaning toward her wasn't a big deal. One of Al's feet was touching her other leg, anyway, and that obviously wasn't a big deal. The three of them were comfortable with each other, and that was that.

"So," Ed said, lowering his voice a little with a glance at his sleeping brother, "what are you gonna do with all your spare time now that you don't have my arm to keep you busy?" He waved his flesh-and-bone right hand in front of her, waggling his fingers for effect.

Winry laughed softly, taking his hand in hers. "I'm sure I'll be plenty busy anyway," she said, smirking. "After four years of trashing your arm and getting it smashed to bits, you really think you're responsible enough for a regular right hand? They're a lot less durable, you know."

"Ugh, don't remind me," Ed groaned, feeling a painful twinge where his left bicep had been impaled during the last battle. Not that Winry needed to know about that, he reminded himself, and continued. "I keep elbowing stuff and whacking my hand on things. I didn't realize it would be so hard to adjust to getting sensation back."

Winry smiled ruefully, holding his hand palm-up and examining it. "There's no real precedent for this," she said, idly tracing the lines on his skin. "So much of what you went through when you lost your arm was really common, even if the way you lost it wasn't. The grief and the phantom pains and all that—that's all textbook."

"Textbook! That makes it sound like it was nothing."

"I—" she sputtered. "No, of course it's not nothing! I know it's incredibly difficult, and I know that because I see it day in and day out, with all of my patients." She turned to meet his gaze and continued. "It's hard, but it's what every amputee has to go through. We know what to expect, and we know how to handle it."

"Right."

"But this—" she looked down at Ed's hand again. "This is pretty much the one thing we can guarantee won't happen."

It really was—so much so that, even though she knew it was what Ed and Al had been working towards all this time, she had never honestly, fully imagined seeing the real thing in front of her. Seeing Al again, definitely—although the older they all got, the harder it was to picture—but seeing Edward's flesh-and-blood arm replace the one she'd built for him, clean and smooth and all at once? It seemed insane.

And it wasn't just his arm, either. Between her time at home and her time in Rush Valley, she'd seen an endless parade of patients grapple with the loss of their limbs. She'd watched them come to terms with the permanence of what they were going through bit by bit, and even as they learned to move their brand-new prosthetics, she could still see them imagining their own body parts moving in place of the steel ones.

She knew it was a process, and one that Pinako had explained to her bit by bit since before she could see over the workbench. She knew there were dozens of different ways to feel about losing an arm, but all of them went hand-in-hand with the same eventual remedy: accepting that the arm was really gone for good.

"What can I say?" Ed replied, laughing a little. "I'm exceptional."

Winry looked him briefly in the eyes then, seeing pure and unadulterated Edward Elric confidence staring back at her, and she rolled her eyes.

"Literally speaking, I guess," she said, smirking as she looked back down to his hand in hers.

Ed started to scoff, but it turned into a yawn, and he didn't bother stifling it.

"Still counts," he said softly, his voice thick and sleepy.

Winry smiled in response, still looking down. She realized she was tired, too.

"You just…" she began, tracing her thumb across Edward's palm. "You really are going to have to be a lot more careful; you know that, right?"

Ed replied with an annoyed but affirmative grunt.

"If you accidentally break this one in a fight, it's going to take a lot longer for me to fix."

She expected to hear something snarky in return, but instead she felt his fingers curl gently around her thumb and squeeze.

"Eh, you can do it," he muttered blearily.

Winry grinned to herself, knowing it was pointless to banter any further when he was clearly about to fall asleep.

"I know," she said quietly.

Seconds later Ed's head drooped onto her shoulder, and his slow, rhythmic breathing joined Al's slightly wheezing exhales and Den's intermittent dog snores.

The Elric brothers were home, they were safe, and they were sound asleep. Winry knew this wasn't the end of the road for any of them—and listening to Alphonse's thin breath beside her, she knew how much hard work still lay ahead—but for now, they were all together on the couch, and that was enough.

She let her own heavy eyelids close as she leaned her head against Edward's, her hand still gently holding his.

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