So, this just came to me one day and I sat down and started writing.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. It doesn't stop me from writing this for fun though.

And much thanks to my wonderful Beta Soliel.

Enjoy~

It all started with a crash.

Winry woke with a start, shooting up in her bed as her door crashed open, cracking her wall and making her heart race. Ever since she had taken in the lost child, Wrath, she had been a light sleeper, noticing when he wandered about the house, or when he was arguing with Alphonse again. Usually she didn't mind it, enjoyed it almost, knowing she helped the child out of his own hell, but tonight, when she had just wanted to sleep, she hated it, and glowered at the small child.

"What, in God's name do you think you're doing?!" She snapped, her head throbbing. The silhouette of Wrath came close,r and she felt a cold metal finger pressed against her lips. Confused, she looked closer at the child, fear seeping into her system when she saw his frantic expression.

"Winry…" he breathed, his eyes wide and blue and brimming with tears, "there's a body on the porch." Winry gulped. Why would there be a body on the porch? Was this just Wrath having a nightmare and mistaking Den for more than he was, just a sleepy dog on the porch? Calmly, she got up, taking the distraught child's automail hand and being lead along. The house was dark and quiet; Alphonse was in Central for the week, going to school. The two crept towards the window, and Wrath pointed down.

There was a dark shape on the porch alright, something bigger than Den and vaguely human shaped. She inhaled. There was no smell coming in, she didn't think they were dead. Would someone really dump a person on the porch of a stranger? She frowned, telling Wrath to stay behind her and heading down the stairs, grabbing a wrench off one of her many work tables along the way. The child followed suit, and she was proud of him for it. But she would have to tell him later. Carefully, with wrench raised, she opened the door, waiting for an attack.

None came.

She breathed a sigh of relief and lowered the tool, bending down to take a pulse, brushing the hood back from the face. Golden hair fell, covering it and she gasped, taking the person by the shoulders and shifting them. Tears rimmed her eyes as the body's chest rose and fell, the face sporting a single cut on the cheek but otherwise unharmed.

After over a year of being missing after going through the gate, it was Ed. In the flesh, whole--unharmed. Human. Aside, of course, from the automail. She cried out in shock, and felt Wrath kneel next to her, looking down at the sleeping Ed.

"It's Edward…" He said, looking at the alchemist. She nodded and tried to pick the blonde up. Wrath, seeing her struggle, lifted Ed by the legs and together, he and Winry brought him in and onto the couch. Ed groaned and shifted in his sleep, but otherwise remained still. Grabbing a blanket off the back, she set it over him, her heart swelling. She would have to call Alphonse in the morning; he would be so happy. She would have to go to granny's grave too, to tell her about it. She turned, starting to tell Wrath to go get some more blankets and paused. He was staring out the window.

"What is it?" She asked, looking out at the ground he was staring at. It seemed to be darker, and wet, but she saw nothing on Edward that indicated he was wet. It hadn't been raining. The small homunculus pointed. The trail headed toward the river. Frowning, she grabbed her coat from the rack and her wrench off the floor.

"Stay here," She said, switching on the light and opening the door, "I'll be back in a little while. If Edward wakes up get him some water and tell him I'll be right back." The child nodded, going over to the sleeping blonde. Den wandered into the room and sat next to him, sniffing and wagging his fluffy tail on the floor, kicking up spare pieces she had dropped. Making a mental note to clean up some in the morning, Winry spared a moment to smile, then went out into the night.

The first thing she noticed was the silence. There were no insects making noise, no night birds singing, not even a mouse skittering on the ground. An eerie feeling crept up on her, chilling her to the bone. She pulled her coat closer and inspected the wet trail on the ground. It turned the green grass a sickly black and her worst fears were confirmed.

"Blood…" she muttered to herself, following carefully. The trail led down to the river in gravitational drops, with small puddles here or there off to the side. But it was the puddles that interested her more than the gravitational drops. The spots were fresh, but small, like someone cut their hand; insignificant. The puddles, however, looked dark and old, but they hadn't been there when she went to bed, that was for sure. It struck her as truly odd when she realized it was coagulated. Dead. Maybe an animal got sick? No, it wouldn't follow the same path… the thought made her frown, worried. There shouldn't be this much of this and it shouldn't be this dark. She glanced back at the house before pushing forward.

About half a mile down the river she stopped, hearing the god awful sound of a person retching. Alert, her eyes scanned the darkness for the source of the sound. The clouds moved and let some moonlight show through, lighting the scene in a pale glow. Ahead of her, maybe a hundred yards or so, was someone hunched over, holding hair out of their face, hunched over the ground, shaking and retching. Sitting back, they spit the remaining out of their mouth before wiping it off, first on their (arm? sleeve? from here she couldn't tell) then on the ground. A violent coughing fit took them and the person hunched again, doing this several more times before they sat back and put their head in their hands, carefully massaging the temples. In what looked like disgust, the person shoved some dirt from the riverbank over the mess, before setting their head on their knees. Winry looked from the person, to the half-covered mess, then back to her house. This had seemed really familiar, and it was right on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't quite place it.

Wondering, she backed up and squatted next to the closest puddle of blood. In the moonlight she could clearly see small, crystalline fragments in it. And then, like a bolt of lightning, it struck her. Wrath had been doing the same thing when his body was expelling the fake philosopher's stones. Alphonse had said that without a constant supply of them, the homunculus was rejecting them. She didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but it seemed to her--and to Wrath now--that the only thing those stones did was cause an imbalance to make them batshit nuts. She glanced back up at the figure, confused.

So this was another homunculus. But Al had told her that the others besides Wrath were all dead. That the little guy living, well, not peacefully but certainly enjoyably, at her house was the last one. That they were all dead. Except…

Except there was one that they weren't sure was dead. The one that went into the gate… after Edward. She could recall that one clearly. He was the oldest, craziest, meanest… and apparently now he was the sickest. Swallowing hard and holding tight to her wrench, she stood, walking over to the homunculus with deliberately louder steps than she had been using. If he was really as sick as she thought, then he probably wouldn't attack. If he did, well, she'd throw her wrench, run like hell and call for Wrath. One homunculus would be able to protect her from another right? Well, here goes nothing…

The homunculus looked up, moonlight catching the emerald-black hair in its beam. So she was right. It was that one. She smiled and waved, trying to show that she was friendly and didn't want to fight. He stood, looking twitchy and on edge, ready to run at the drop of a hat. Luckily, she had no hats to drop. Only her wrench, which she set down in front of her, still about ten feet away from the predatory young man. He regarded her carefully and wiped at his face, looking at the wrench, then her, then the wrench.

"Don't think I don't know what that's for." He said, pointing at it warily. It seemed she was right; he was sick, and wasn't looking for a fight. "What do you want, anyway?"

Winry smiled, and bowed--a small bow of respect. Maybe if she was decent to him, he'd be decent to her. That's how these things normally worked, right?

"You brought Edward back home." She said, figuring that getting straight to the point would be best. He cocked his hip to the side and glared down at her (as much as he could, really, seeing as he was rather like Ed and lacking the gift of height) and crossed his arms. A grin was playing on his lips and she felt that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. He was dangerous, after all. Ed and Al told her enough times: a dangerous, inhuman, shape-shifting psychopath with daddy issues. But maybe the psychopathic behaviour was because of those red stones?

The homunculus laughed. "I wasn't doing you any favours, girl, I was just doing what he asked. He pulled me out of that blasted gate when he didn't have to, could have just left me there to rot. So I did what he asked and brought him home. It's not like I was looking for or want your thanks." He sneered, tossing the hair out of his face. Seeing this go downhill fast and feeling like she was going to lose his attention any moment she gestured back at the house.

"Wrath is back at my house." She said, clutching at straws. Only that wasn't quite right with him. Clutching at straws made it seem like she had something he wanted in the first place. This was more like clutching at air. She hoped that he'd at least like to see his only kin left. His eyes drifted back up to hers and he looked puzzled for a moment, before going back to the same darkly humorous face he had before.

"You took care of the little brat?" He asked, seeming genuinely stunned. She nodded and turned, grabbing her wrench and heading back to the house. She didn't know if withholding information was really what she wanted to do, but it seemed to work when she heard his soft steps following her. She smiled.

"You're welcome to stay too, Envy. As long as you wish." He snorted behind her and strode past, heading to the now lit house. She had a feeling that if he weren't ill and homeless she would have been fish food \ in the river by now, but she felt that if someone needed help, they should always get it. No matter who they were. That's why she had taken in the child Wrath, and that's why she'd let Envy stay for a few days.

She walked up her front steps, and put her hand on the doorknob to go in when Envy's black clad one swung forward and slammed into the door, holding it shut. Confused, she looked over at him. His amethyst eyes were shining and he had a blank look on his face. She opened her mouth to demand he tell her just what the hell he thought he was doing but deflated, the odd look on his face killing her argument.

"Why are you doing this?" He gazed at her darkly, like there was something seriously wrong with her, before backing up and crossing his arms. "I tried to kill your friend in there and his brother more times than once. I even had permission to take you out if it kept those two in line." Winry frowned, thinking. A grin split Envy's face for all of two seconds before vanishing as she spoke, confident.

"Because you helped Ed and because you're Wrath's family. And if I were to just leave you out here, it'd be pretty rude, seeing as you did bring him home." His brow furrowed, and he pushed his way past her, striding into her place like he owned it with something about "stupid humans" being muttered to the air. Winry inwardly celebrated for getting Ed's unusual and unruly savior into the house when she heard a loud squeal. Lifting her wrench above her head, she ran into the living room and prepared to use it on Envy or Edward or both.

"ENVY!" Winry almost laughed as Wrath latched himself onto the last of his kin, much to the disgruntlement of Envy. The older boy was shoving and trying to pry the younger one off. She heard a chuckle from the couch and was delighted that Edward was awake. Den was sitting faithfully next to him and Winry had to pause. Envy had disentangled himself from Wrath and was getting what seemed to be an update on what happened after he vanished in the gate. Sighing, Winry sat down on the couch next to Ed and smiled. He looked older now, kind of. Like a lot happened in a small amount of time. In retrospect, it probably did.

"It's good to see you." Ed said, smiling back. But his eyes weren't off Envy for more than a couple seconds at a time. Knowing what he was going to say, Winry looked over at him and beat him there.

"He's sick." She said, watching with interest as Wrath animatedly told the older boy everything about something collapsing. She wasn't really paying attention to what was being said, but cringed when she caught something about one of theirs called Gluttony getting squashed by a boulder. Wrath slapped his hands together in mimicry of what happened. Edward nodded, bringing her attention back to him.

"He said that might happen." The blonde pulled his hair tie out and let his hair down, rubbing the back of his skull. Winry understood the feeling; her head got annoyed when she had her ponytail in too long. That's why she slept without it.

"It happened to Wrath." She said, watching Envy watch her. It was odd, like he didn't trust her in her own home. It probably wasn't helping any that she still had her wrench on her. She set it down on the table with a clatter, hoping to relieve some of the obvious tension the young man had. Ed, Wrath and Envy winced; eying the thing like it was the devil come to earth. Feeling guilty, she thought maybe she should start trying to be less violent…

"I called Alphonse." Wrath said, looking like a kid in a candy store leaning on Envy's leg. Envy, paler than usual, even for him, looked like he'd rather Wrath be anywhere else, but there. "He'll be here in the morning with Mustang." Winry nodded.

"Ugh, Mustang." Ed and Envy echoed each other. Ed looked over at him questioningly, the sin giving him a look before standing and stretching, walking past them and heading out into the hall. Wrath bounded out and up the stairs to show Envy to the room he and Al normally shared. But not before Winry caught the green haired sin glancing back at her. Just a quick glance, but it was there. Then a tiny, barely perceptible nod at her. She stared at the spot he vanished from stunned.

"That's his version of 'thank you so very much'. I got something close to it when I pulled him out of the gate's clutches." Ed explained, flopping down on the couch again as she stood. Wondering how a gate could have clutches, Winry nodded in understanding of the show of gratitude. It must be hard for the homunculus to admit he needed someone other than himself and his own resources. Curious at the lack of hostility between the two, she glanced up the stairs again.

"Why didn't you kill each other?" She asked, brushing her nightclothes off and heading towards the stairs. She was exhausted and wanted nothing more than her own bed, but needed to know she wasn't going to wake up to a blood bath. Sick or not, Envy was still the dangerous ancient artificial human that hated the Elrics. Ed shrugged.

"He got me out of the gate. I owe him a favour."

"Wha-?"

"Goodnight Winry." She was shocked at the obvious dismissal, but headed up the stairs anyway, looking forward to sleep. She knew she should worry about what they were up to, and find out as soon as possible, but it looked like Edward wasn't going to tell her. Either way, it didn't matter. She was determined to find out.

When the sunlight filtered in her room the next morning, Winry almost turned over and went back to sleep, but a loud bang and an even louder yelp dragged her out of bed, reluctant to leave the comfort and warmth. But she guessed that meant Alphonse was back, and he had found Ed. She smiled to herself and dressed, heading down the stairs, glad to have both brothers back home again. The heartwarming scene of the reuniting brothers made the room radiant. Even Wrath and Mustang, looking rather bizarre standing next to one another, added to the joyous occasion. Wrath was bouncing on his heels, pulling on Mustang's uniform and the older man was smiling in an exhausted, relieved way, entertaining the hyperactive youth. She looked around the room, happy, but… something was missing. Someone, rather.

"Wrath, where's-" She had only gotten those two words when the child bounded up to her, a crumpled paper clutched in the hand that hadn't been pulling on Mustang's uniform. She looked at it curiously before he shoved it into her hands and bounced away, hopping in little circles around the teary eyed brothers in the middle of her hall.

"It's from Envy." He said, smiling and laughing. "I didn't read it. He said it was only for you." He made sure to emphasize the last words and she stuck her tongue out, ruffling the child's hair. Winry nodded and thanked him, unfolding the paper. On it was a map of Central, with a red circle around one of the buildings and a hasty note at the bottom.

Girl-

Bet you can't catch me.

If you do, I'll give you something good.

-Envy

So he wanted a challenge? Winry looked over the map and slid it in her pocket carefully. The sin had caught her interest. What was something good to a homunculus that had nothing? What did he want? Why did he want her, of all people, to come after him? She didn't know, but Winry was going to find out. She liked a challenge. But it would have to wait. Right now she had two very happy young men beaming at her, and she wanted to spend some time with them. Striding forward, she grasped the boys in a hug, laughing when she felt Wrath fling himself on them too, and even Mustang set a white gloved hand on Ed's head.

It had all started with a crash in the night, and now she had someone she had lost back. She had her own small family. And, if she had anything to say about it, her family was going to get one person bigger.

It was off to Central.

Read and review please.

Reviews make me want to write more :3

-PK