He couldn't look directly at her, had to look at the wall instead. "I'm sorry. I - didn't know."

Winry seemed to be studiously studying her shoes. "Oh, well. No, of course you didn't... I didn't want you to."

"I, uh, I don't really understand girls," he blurted.

"I'm not 'a girl'!" Winry shouted. He stared at her. "Well, okay, I AM a girl, but I'm not like - I'm not like - DAMN it, Ed!" Her wrench was in her hand and he pondered getting out while the getting was good, especially as her knuckles had gone white. "You know what I mean - you don't need to treat me like a girl!"

Ed relaxed a little. "So you don't, uh, expect - flowers or anything?"

His earliest memories were of his mother and of a closed study door. His mother always had flowers in those days, flowers in her lapel, flowers at her wrist, flowers in vases. He'd asked, once, where she got them, as he held out a fistfull of dandelions to her. "Your father knows what a girl wants," she said and laughed. The flowers stopped when his father left.

He thought he'd learn alchemy to make her some, but in the end, the first gift he made with his brother was a doll for Winry. It had scared her, and looking back, he could see why, the form writhing in flames, eyes glossy and writhing, the first thing to form. At the time it had seemed like a miracle, but Winry had cried. He resolved never to use alchemy to make a gift for anyone again, because it had to be equivalent trade. You have to trade, not give, or it goes wrong somehow. His mother's last request was for flowers, and he didn't think she saw him or Al at all. Not at all.

Their whole relationship had been wrong in some ways. His mother had seen their entire alchemy as a gift, their father all over again.

He went out and picked flowers for her grave, and his brother carefully never said anything about it.

You can't even give gifts to yourself, he knows. He'd tried to give him and his brother a gift, but it wasn't equivalent trade, and that doll had gone wrong too, terribly wrong.

Winry was watching him and he jerked his eyes to her face, saw a startled shock and sympathy there. "No. I don't want flowers."

He twitched the right corner of his lips up, leaned against a wall, stuck his hands in his pockets because he wasn't sure what else to do with them. "Heh. No, I guess you wouldn't. You can't use them to play with machines."

The air itself was uncomfortable.

Winry shifted. "Ed... Look, you don't have to take this so seriously. I just thought-"

"What?"

"I just thought you deserved to know." She shrugged. "You don't... deal with people often. I don't either, I guess - I mean, I do, we do, but we don't. I deal with the machine half, you deal with the... I don't know. Criminal half. The part that needs fixing. I guess we're kind of similar in ... anyway. That's not what I meant. I just mean..." Her gaze searched the horizon. "You don't deserve half information. We know each other too well for that. So I thought I'd just tell you."

Guilt swelled, deep in his throat, and he looked away, blurted, "I can't stay with you. I-"

"Listen!" Winry slammed a fist into the wall beside his head, and he jerked his eyes to her face. "I don't want that! I don't want romance. I don't need romance. I won't be sitting at home tinkering with automail and pining for you, Ed. I don't need an actual relationship to be happy. I'll be doing what you're doing - doing what I want out of life. Neither of us need a relationship all the time, or romance, or fucking flowers. Just come back and visit when you have the time, and when I feel like it, I'll surprise you with a visit too."

He watched her, and felt himself relax.

"Your father has had to go away for a while."

They watched her pine, though they didn't know she was doing it. Everything she saw reminded her of him. Everything her sons did were just memories of things he'd done. The house, the home, everything had been his. His library. His workroom. The room they hadn't been allowed into. Everything in there was never touched unless her sons touched it. Everything had to be put back exactly the way it was. Like a doll, perfectly preserved, lifeless, meaningless, frightening.

Winry's eyes held a challenge. "Are you strong enough for that, or are you gonna fall to what you think I want?" she demanded. "Well?"

Ed exhaled. "Me too," he said. "I'll try to stop by sometimes."

"Good."

He put his hands on her hips, stiffened a little automatically as she leaned against him, arms coming about him.

It was odd, he thought. He'd always thought that if he'd given in and loved Winry, she'd be soft, but she wasn't. She was firm, and muscular, and warm.

Ed leaned his chin on her shoulder and closed his eyes.