"I can't go back there tonight," Winry had found herself saying, and Panina had looked at her evenly, nodded, invited her home.

She had a good excuse to go - if she was going to test Panina's automail against her own handiwork, then she needed to tune Panina's arm up as much as she could - with a cylinder bent, it'd need to be disassembled and have a new one put in, but while the parts were easily available, that took time, and Panina declined.

Winry suspected that the limbs were Dominique's enough that she didn't want anyone else to replace them, and that was fine. If anyone else worked on Ed's automail-

She rolled over in bed, looked at the line of Panina's back in its tight black shirt which she'd worn to bed. "Hey," she asked, quietly. "Do you-"

Panina rolled over, blinked at her. "Mm?"

She found herself changing what she was going to say, and wondered if Panina heard the pause. "...have any siblings?"

Panina's face didn't change. "Not any more."

"Oh." Winry swallowed the words Neither do I because they weren't true - she was angry, yes, but it wasn't true. And it wasn't fair to Panina to compare Ed cheating her automail to a train accident.

"Why?"

She curled a little under the covers. "I - Ed drives me crazy," she said, and Panina seemed to accept that without even knowing who Ed was. "I pour so much of myself into giving him something he needs, and he never notices, or cares. It's like - he's short, but his gaze is so high that he can't see anything under it."

Panina listens.

"You understand," Winry said, voice tiny. "Right? You wanted Dominique's automail to be proven as good as it is. You know how important mechanical pride is. And he gave it to you because-"

"Because I needed it," Panina said, and nodded. "He might not give anyone anything more, but he always gives what you need."

Winry pressed a closed fist into her forehead, fighting tears. She was crying too often, lately, and hated that weakness in herself; hated her inability to express it through any way but violence or tears. So much had changed, too much. She'd known him for eleven years, then not at all for five, and it was too different. She'd expected it to be the same, and she was walking, talking, travelling with strangers who shared the same pasts as her old friends, but didn't share a present with her. They'd built a silent communication through four years that didn't include her any more, and she didn't know how she could speak out against it, because perhaps she'd had the choice to go with them, before, but she hadn't taken it.

It was too easy to blame it all on them, to cheap, and they were both alive, they were both striving for their sakes, and that was good. And she'd thought she could be something new to them, if not best childhood friend then mechanic, but if even her mechanical work went unnoticed-

"Is it wrong to grieve?" she asked aloud, fighting tears. "Is it wrong to want back something you lost, even if you've got something new to replace it?"

Panina's limbs clinked and creaked as she moved closer, wrapped a cold metal arm around Winry. "It's not wrong," she said, and, "I did."

Winry wept.