The knock at her door comes when she's busy threading wires through the delicate forearm of a new design she's been working on. She has to hook them up to the wrist before she can take a break, and she calls out without looking up, "Busy right now. Unless it's an emergency, you'll have to wait."

The voice that comes through the thickness of the door is familiar and a little wry. "It's okay, Winry, I can wait. Is Al in the fields?"

Fuck the wrist; excitement hammers in her throat. She puts the new automail carefully back on the table, spreading the wires out so she'll remember which goes where, then flings herself from her chair to open the door. "Ed-!"

As always, he seems a little startled to find an armful of woman and it takes a moment before both arms wrap around her. He's warm, strong; all hard muscle and nervous tension. She inhales his scent, feels the buzz of his throat against her lips "Hey, Winry. I thought you were busy?"

She wets her lips with a tongue and pulls back. "Busy working on a new arm for you, you ass. I got a shipment of parts in this new alloy in -- it's light and it doesn't rust, so I thought..." She pulls back a little more, cutting her own nervous babble off, tilts her head down to look at him, manages to grin, cheeks flushed. "At your age, you're not going to be growing anymore, so it'll be ready whenever you manage to trash this one."

He is twenty-three and has filled out. He curls his fingers around his current arm, wryly. "Starting to plan ahead, huh?"

"I should kill you, the way you always bring them back to me in ruins." She shakes her head and sighs. "At least you give me the chance to try a new thing or two."

She didn't mean it like that - she hadn't - but she feels her cheeks head again. More. He does give her that chance, and she used to worry Al would mind, would hold herself back, remind herself of her choice: Alphonse Elric, who she loves.

Al had laughed and kissed her. "But you love him too."

"So? I married you."

"And you want him."

"No, I - yes, I do, but I want you too, and-"

"It's fine," he'd said, and kissed her again, gently. "Sometimes people need different things, and love isn't the type of thing that you have to ration to one person or another. I don't think he'll come home. If you want to, when he's here, though, then you can. I mean - you choose who you love, and you choose what you do about it, and as long as it's what makes you feel good, then I'll be happy." His nose wrinkled with a smile. "I want you to have everything in the world."

She'd leaned her head against his. "I love you," she'd said. "And I want you. And I love him and want him. I've always - it's always been both of you."

"Don't use me as a guinea pig," Ed snaps, but there's no heat to it.

Winry remembers the automail, coughs, and runs a hand through her hair. That had been years ago, and things worked out, but Ed never stays after his visits and so she worries that next time, he'll be offended that she'd offer. If not this time, next time. "Who else gives me so many chances to try different ones on the same person, huh? So, how long are you staying?"

He enters, walking over to the table and looking at the new arm. He touches a cord with one fingertip. "I can't stay long," he says. "I'm on my way to New Rok on a mission, but I can stay the night at least."

She shuts the door and leans against it, smiling. "Good," she says. "Al's in the fields, yeah, and he'd just about die to see that you actually came by again. I've got an appointment in an hour, so have a cup of coffee with me then head down there for a bit."

"...I see you have my night planned already."

"With luck," she says, and he looks at her sharply. Finding herself flushing, she turns away, heads into the kitchen quickly. "Ah - You still take it black?"

"Yeah."

***

He goes down to the fields after having coffee with Winry and finds Al out there, a sickle slung over one shoulder. It's still strange to imagine his genius alchemist brother as a farmer, but Al's burned bronze by the sun and smiling, utterly relaxed. These are the things his brother needs, he thinks, a home, a past he can live in, Winry who he'd loved since he was five and life in his hands again.

"Al," he calls, and Al drops the scythe, weaves a fast path over.

"Brother," Al says, and there's joy in his voice as he sweeps Ed into his arms. "Do you have any idea how long it's been?"

Ed coughs, rubs Al's back with one hand. "Uh, four months."

"You promised to visit once a month, Brother," Al says, chiding, and Ed reddens more.

"I've been busy," and it's a weak protest, even between them. But Al just smiles, and Ed knows it's because he knows that Ed hates the military but loves field work, will spend time between missions just touring between cities and delaying on handing his report back to Fuhrer Mustang. He's got a lot waiting at home, his brother and Winry, but there's an entire world out there.

Al holds Ed at arm's length and says, "Well, you're back now. How long are you staying?"

"Just the night."

"Ah," Al says, and Ed can see him making plans, eyes calculating. Ed flushes and strangles on a protest. He's torn between want and guilt. He's taken so much from his brother that he never likes feeling that he's taking more.

"Look," Ed says, roughly, "I can stay in an inn back in town. I don't have to-" His cheeks redden further and Al's own start in sympathy. "She's your wife."

Al shrugs. "We both wanted to ask her to marry us, that long ago," he says, and smiles faintly. They'd had reason to. "Besides, we share everything, don't we? So if she wants to and you do, why should it be a problem?"

"Al..."

"Stupid Brother," Al says, voice a mixture of amusement and embarrassment. "I don't mind. If I minded I'd ask you and her not to, you know that."

"She's your wife," Ed says again, awkwardly. "Look, I don't want to argue with you about this, but-"

Al's response was instant. "Then don't. You never win arguments with me anyway. Marriage is good," he adds. "But it should be a reason to be happy, not to hold ourselves back as long as it's okay with everyone."

Ed looks down. "You say it's okay with you, but-"

"It makes me happy," Al says, and his tone's gone quiet, peaceful, and though he's still blushing, he's smiling anyway. "I always wanted to be happy with her, and always wanted you to be happy with her. I have a home, I have Winry loving me, I have-" he gestures, "this. Rizenbul, I have Rizenbul. It may be our past, but it's what makes me happy. You don't - you're not like me, Brother, but that's okay, it's our strength. You don't want to live in the past, but it's okay to visit it, now and again." Abruptly, he frowns. "Actually, the only thing I *don't* have is you visiting as often as you promised to."

The tone was designed to incite guilt and Ed groans. "Okay, Al, okay, I'll visit twice a month. How's that?"

"Wonderful," Al says, face lighting up. "Give me a hand with this, then let's get back to the house."

***

Al kisses her at the door before he goes out. She's soft against him, loving, and he doesn't keep himself from smiling into the kiss. "Have a good night," he murmurs to her, and she flushes, punches him in the shoulder, sends him on his way.

He wouldn't mind staying, but he'd done it once and his brother had been nervous, too nervous, and that wasn't fair to him. Everything that Al can, he would give his brother and to Winry, but it's hard to express that to them, how it doesn't bother him. Winry understands, he thinks, because she knows that love is defined by love, nothing else, just because she'd spent so many years loving them both. Ed, though, Ed's never been very in tune with his feelings.

"You're so different in bed," she'd said once, red-faced. "With you, it's slow and content and ...and sensual, like you give me time to take in everything that's happening. He's... wild, uncontrolled, a bit desperate. It's wonderful, and I want it, but I couldn't live with that. It's too much and not enough for an all-the-time thing."

Somehow, it fits his brother, he thinks, that sort of description. He'd nodded to Winry at the time, kissed both cheeks, kissed her lips, kissed the marks his brother's fingers had left on her shoulders, and she'd sighed, eyes closed and smiling.

He'd thought, at that time, that they were like an array. You needed the ground to support it, and the circle to mark its edges, and the inner design to designate it's purpose, and with all three, something incredible would happen.

On the inn bed in Rizenbul proper, he folds his hands behind his head and closes his eyes. He thinks of them like that, thinks of his brother sprawled out on and contorted with Winry, of Winry wrapped around him like she's always been, thinks of the sounds they'd make, of the expressions, of where hands might touch, and he wonders when his brother will truly understand that it is okay, that he has a home here, that it is okay. They've always needed all three of them, even if they sometimes forgot it. With the three of them, they could do anything.

It starts to rain over Rizenbul, a light spatter that runs down the windows and wet the ground. Not far away, another man hears it shortly before he falls asleep, worn out. It's a farmer's rain, just enough to provide for the crops without drowning them.

Perhaps it will be soon, he thinks, drifting off to a peaceful sleep. Perhaps it will be soon, and then we'll all have exactly what we need.