A/N: This occurs within the same time frame/time line/whatever that I established in "Pieces." Came out of nowhere, but then most things do, so it's better to just roll with the punches, and this was the result. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: If I owned this, you wouldn't see my lazy ass here ever again.
"Home"
When Edward and Alphonse were born, they came into the world in their family house. It was a rather ordinary place, with everything that came standard issue in a house: a roof, a floor and four sturdy walls.
Nothing special, really. After all, everyone else in Rizembool had one just like it, at least basically. And the house where they were born would have been little more than an afterthought if not for their mother—Trisha Elric made a roof, a floor and four sturdy walls into a unique world called "home."
When the brothers thought of home, they thought, first and foremost, of Trisha. And in time, the place of their births and the woman who had birthed them became synonymous, one and the same. The same.
When Trisha died, Edward and Alphonse told everyone that they had no home, which for them was true, because home wasn't a place for them but a person, and now that person was gone. So, at least to them, it made perfect sense to say they had no home.
When they burned down the house they'd been born in, they paused long enough to make sure it had caught fire and would burn. Then, Edward picked up his suitcase and turned and walked away without a backward glance, and after a moment, Alphonse followed suit.
After all, it was just a house to them.
They were careful, during their years searching for the Philosopher's Stone, not to designate any particular place their home.
But Winry had a way of pushing an issue, and she told them they were being stupid, that they'd always had a home with her and Pinako. Except that they hadn't, but they knew better than to say so.
So they made Winry happy and called her home theirs, even though it wasn't true, because for them home wasn't a place, it was a person, and they were each others' "home." But then a funny thing happened: they started to believe her, and despite themselves, Winry and Pinako became "home" too, another part of "home" that they hadn't ever noticed before.
When Edward came back through the Gate, he didn't, at first, call Winry's "home." Alphonse did, and often, but never Ed.
The first time he did, he'd absolutely ruined his arm and had been knocked around quite a lot. He wasn't entirely lucid, and when Al worriedly asked,
"Brother?"
Ed's reply was a murmured, slightly slurred,
"Let's go Al—home's waiting."
"Roof's leaking," Edward murmured to Winry one night as they lay in bed.
"It is?" she asked, sounding surprised.
"Yeah, I hear it."
"Where?"
"Corner."
"Oh hell," Winry grumbled, sitting up.
"Forget it. You can't do anything about it now." Ed said. "Worry about it tomorrow."
Sighing, Winry lay back down beside him. They listened to the faint, steady drip in silence for a while. Ed wondered if Al and his wife, who were visiting and had a room a few doors down, were being kept awake by a leak in their room. He silently decided he was going to find someone to look at and repair the roof tomorrow. An irritated sigh from Winry drew his attention back to her.
"What?" he asked, not unkindly.
"This creaky old place!" she complained. "If it's not the roof leaking, it's the porch falling all to hell or the windows getting stuck or the pipes bursting! It's a money trap!"
There was a long pause, and then Ed said quietly, thoughtfully, his automail hand taking her warm one and his gaze finding hers in the dark room,
"Maybe. But it's not so bad—we're all home, right?"
Winry's heart leapt into her throat and she stared into his eyes, shocked, for a long, breathless moment before squeezing back and murmuring,
"Right. We're all home."