The Same Coin

Her Spine Sang

It took a moment for the depth of her alarm to fully register, and the danger of the situation she was in to process. Her breaths were panted and shallow as she snapped the box shut and buried it in the calf pocket of her pants. She could hear her heartbeat slamming in her ears. She was barely aware of sealing the crate again. Winry sank down to the flor, wrapping her arms around her legs and rocking back on her heels, holding her breath. Her pulse was thunderous.

Why.

Kimblee had known she didn't use alchemy. What use would he have thought the stone would be to her?

When she finally pushed herself back up, she danced her way around the other crates, glancing over the meticulous labeling of each as she held her breath. Office. Winry cracked it open and found, to her dismay, it was packed tight with boxes of paperwork. If there had been a letter that had come with the Stone, her grandmother would have had the good sense to hide it — if not burn it. The task of looking through each slip was so monumental that her head sank down to rest on the splintering wood before she drew herself together to face her undertaking.

She was unaware of the passage of the shadows on the floorboards under the window as she leafed through. Billing statements, patient records, manuals. Winry leafed through each as quickly as her nimble fingers would allow, not even sure that what she was searching for still existed. It wouldn't have surprised her if her grandmother had destroyed it, if any note had come at all. She wouldn't have recognized Kimblee's Sun and Moon seal. Maybe she'd thought it was from the Elrics and they were sending it to them for safe keeping. Maybe that was why Pinako had been so angry when Illumi had gone to Resembool in Winry's place; because she wouldn't entrust the transport of the Philosopher's Stone to anyone else if she didn't absolutely have to. And it wouldn't have been safe to communicate it through mail or telegram.

Winry plucked through paper after paper, chewing on her lower lip until it was raw and she tasted blood. Her fingers opened a folder, and something made her pause. She sucked in a breath as she sat unmoving, waiting for the realization to show itself now that instinct had stilled her. What was the folder? Order forms for chemicals.

They weren't chemicals used in the fabricating process, she could see that much from a cursory glance. No, these were chemicals to alter hues. They very seldom had requests for colored automail; most people preferred the natural look of steel, sometimes dark grey or black. There was occasionally someone, however, who wanted to change the tone of their automail. These were the chemicals used to do it. Winry flipped past the forms to a thin manual attached behind them; it listed the chemicals to use on specific metals to achieve a desired color. The first page was shades of grey; pearl, gunmetal, soot. Blues; cobalt, navy, lapis. Greens; emerald, pea, sage. She turned to the next page and swallowed hard.

Reds; scarlet, maroon, carmine. And a folded paper.

The vermillion seal of the State Alchemist offices was unbroken on its seam. If this was all her grandmother had received she undoubtedly would have believed it to have come from Edward or Alphonse.

She broke it now.

At first she didn't understand what she was looking at. For all her medical and mechanical prowess, the document was fill with jargon that, at glance, she didn't know at all. Winry leaned into the moonlight and read it from the beginning.

I, Zolf Kimblee, being of full age and sound mind and memory, do make, publish, and declare this to be my Last Will and Testament—

He left her everything. Winry gaped as she read over the document. He had left her a house in New Optain, and the profit from investments in the mining town of Youswell and his — her stomach knotted — service to the military. Blood money, all of it, she knew.

This had been the confirmation she hadn't received though that Kimblee was, in fact, dead. She hadn't heard what happened to him after The Promised Day, and she had known better than to ask. In a superficial way, she wasn't sure what Kimblee had looked at her and seen to earn her such trust...Yet she knew what it had been.

She'd given him the reaction he'd wanted, without even realizing she was doing it.

Acceptance.

Winry pulled the box from her calf pocket, and cracked it open, daring another peek. The Stone gleamed at her.

"What's that?"

She could feel all the color draining from her face at Hisoka's voice. Her eyes rose to see him standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. Her thought processes suddenly slowed.

She had a Philosopher's Stone.

Hisoka had alchemy.

Hisoka had alchemy.

He took a step inside, his eyes lowering to the box in her hands. He wouldn't be able to see what was inside from that angle, but if he came closer—If he knew—

Winry snapped the box shut and laid it inside the crate of paperwork, and returned the lid to its place. If Hisoka got his hands on the Stone...

"Have you no decency?" she snarled as she straightened her back and let her hands close into fists. It was hard to breathe. Winry had never deliberately made herself cry before, but she sank herself into the pain she harbored to harness tears. Hisoka's eyes widened at the unexpectedness. She had caught him off-guard. Good. It would distract him from the box.

"Can't you let me even grieve in peace?" Winry snapped, storming toward him. If she wasn't so frightened, so deeply terrified of what would happen if he found the Philosopher's Stone, the expression on his face would have been comical. He hadn't expected this. His amber eyes began to rove around the room, taking inventory, as though trying to assess what he had walked into. That was bad, too. She did the only thing she could think of.

She shoved him.

She focused her Nen into her hands and pushed him with all her might, flinging him backward out of the room and sending him slamming into the hallway wall behind him. The startled, confused expression on his face was gone. His eyes were narrowed and his attention was focused entirely on her. She needed to keep it.

"I warn you—"

Winry slapped him.

He seized her wrist. His nostrils flared. She moved to backhand him with her free hand, but he was faster. He raised his automail and her forearm slammed into it, deflected. Pain shot past her elbow. She hissed with pain and now the tears and anger were real. Hisoka slammed his arm into her chest and she stumbled backward. He was moving too though, yanking the door to the last bedroom shut and crowding her against it. A tightness in her chest released — the door was shut. But now she had put herself in this corner, and the only way out was forward.

Her arm hurt, but she elbowed him in the gut as hard as she could. A puff of air came out of him, but he didn't seem to be affected at all otherwise. Hisoka grabbed her by her hair, receiving a shriek of surprise and pain from her, and put her facedown on the floor. His knee dug into her spine, and he pulled on her hair, yanking her head back painfully until her spine sang. Winry let out a cry of agony.

"You're testing my restraint," he hissed, and she felt the heat of his breath on her ear. She sucked in a loud gasp as Hisoka flipped her over onto her back effortlessly and leaned his knee into her stomach without mercy. Winry could feel his arousal against her bent knee. She cried out again, reaching for his leg, but he gathered both her wrists together in one hand, pinning them to the floor.

Hisoka's tongue snaked out the corner of his lips. His body was trembling with the effort of holding himself back. She wasn't primed for the pain he elicited the way she had been that night they had killed Scar, but she had to protect the Stone.

The only way out was forward.

Winry spat in his face.