Chapter 19: I'll Do It for You Guys!

With the storm still raging, Winry directs the others as the delivery begins. Paninya frets that an untrained girl should not be handling the birth, but Edward insists they trust her, arguing that Winry comes from a family of doctors and will manage it from memory alone. Steadying herself, Winry heads into the bedroom to help Satella through labor while Ridel stays at his wife's side and Dominic rides for a doctor. Ed and Al wait tensely outside, and when Satella's screams start, the brothers huddle together in fear, Ed admitting he is terrified and reduced to praying despite his lack of faith. At last Paninya tumbles out of the room in horror, and the panicked brothers look in to find the newborn safe in Ridel's arms, umbilical cord cut, both parents beaming. Ed ribs Paninya, revealing her collapse owed to a fear of blood, and the brothers erupt in joy.

As Satella cradles her son, Edward gushes about the newborn until Winry teases that he sounds like a child, and he insists it is simply the miracle of life. When he compares it to the centuries alchemists have spent trying to match what a woman does in months, Winry snaps that he shouldn't measure life against science, and he apologizes and praises her work. Exhausted and unable to feel her legs, Winry asks Ed to carry her, needling him for being shorter than she is, and once settled she admits she looked inside his sealed watch. He drops her in a flash of temper, then relents, confessing he keeps the etched reminder to himself and has never even shown Al. Winry weeps for both brothers, one who cannot cry and one who refuses to, and Ed gently tells her to go home and keep the lonely Pinako company. Instead she declares she will stay to study automail and ask Dominic once more for an apprenticeship.

Dominic, transformed into a doting grandfather, and the arriving doctor both praise Winry's first delivery. When Ed asks the old man to take her on, he again declines, but softens at the mention of Pinako, whose name visibly rattles him and hints at the origin of a scar on his chin. Refusing to teach a relative of Pinako directly, he instead offers to introduce Winry to another mentor and to let her watch him work whenever she visits his grandson. The group heads back to Rush Valley just in time to sprint after the departing Dublith train. Winry sees the brothers off, trading affectionate jabs and a promise to steal whatever automail techniques she can from Dominic, then phones Pinako with the news of her plans. Alone in the quiet house with only Den, Pinako reflects that all three children are now walking their own roads. In Dublith, Ed and Al reach the meat shop half hoping to avoid the very teacher they came to find, only for Mason to spot them and go fetch his boss, Sig Curtis, leaving the brothers sweating.

Winry successfully delivers Satella and Ridel's son, revealing that Paninya's collapse stemmed from hemophobia. Winry decides to remain in Rush Valley to train in automail, and Dominic, thawed by the birth and shaken by Pinako's name, agrees to introduce her to a teacher and let her observe his work. The Elrics part from Winry and travel on to Dublith, arriving at the Curtis meat shop where Mason recognizes them and Sig is summoned.

This chapter introduces Sig and Mason, though Sig and Izumi appeared earlier in a Central cameo. Paninya's hemophobia is confirmed here, and Pinako is implied to have caused the scar on Dominic's chin, given how the panel focuses on it. The 2003 anime replaces this storyline with Edward helping deliver Gracia's child during a blizzard, and treats it very differently from Brotherhood, which follows the manga more closely.