Created Feelings

Edward comes to in a hospital bed and hears from Ross and Brosh that Laboratory 5 was leveled, erasing the evidence he had nearly reached. He calms only after Ross slaps him for rushing off alone, then realizes he must call Winry to repair his ruined automail. Guilt-ridden over the bolt she forgot, Winry sets out for Central at once. Alphonse, meanwhile, broods over Barry the Chopper's claim that he was never truly human. When Winry arrives and sees how badly hurt Ed is, she apologizes for her workmanship, but on learning Ed blames only his own recklessness she quietly lets the missing part go unmentioned.

Hughes drops in to say the brothers' guards will soon be relieved, and when Winry presses Ed about the danger they are in, he clams up, souring her mood. Hughes coaxes her to stay the night with his family, where she is swept into the third birthday of his daughter Elicia. Confiding her frustration that the Elrics never share their burdens, Winry hears Maes explain that men like Ed and Al bottle up their troubles to spare those they love, and that they will speak up when they truly need her. The next morning Alphonse erupts, accusing Ed of hiding that the boy called Alphonse never existed. Ed storms out, and Winry beats and scolds Al, revealing that Ed's buried guilt is over trapping his brother in cold metal and his real fear is that Al hates him for it.

Al finds Ed on the roof, but before he can apologize the two fall into a sparring match that Ed wins with a hospital bedsheet. Worn out, the brothers laugh over childhood brawls, and Al affirms that his wish to reclaim his human body is genuine as they renew their shared vow. Far to the east, Scar dreams of Ishval's destruction and wakes in an Ishvalan slum outside East City, tended by a young boy and an old man who found him drifting in the sewers. He marvels at Scar's arm and its sprawling tattoo, which Scar says was a gift from his family.

The episode adapts Chapters 13 through 16: Fullmetal Body, An Only Child's Feelings, Fullmetal Heart, and Separate Paths. The blood rune on Alphonse's armor forms the title card's array. Izumi Curtis and Sig Curtis can be glimpsed in the background when Winry reaches the Central train station. In the manga, Scar's dream and his awakening in the refugee camp occur only after Maes Hughes's death. The interior of the Central rail station closely mirrors the real Grand Central Terminal in New York City, though whether that was intentional is unknown.