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Winry wakes up to be greeted by the dreadful feeling of something not being quite right. It starts in the back of her head and spreads to the rest of her like ink in water, and by the time she is fully awake, she is in a decidedly uncomfortable emotional state. She sits up and checks her alarm clock. Her eyes widen. She’s overslept by an entire half hour, and her heart is thumping. It should have sounded. She must have patients, customers… There is shuffling in the bed next to her, and she glances down at where Ed is tangled up in the bedsheets.
Ed rolls over, and his eyelids crack open to reveal half a pair of golden eyes. “Winry,” he mumbles. “Y’okay?”
“No,” says Winry, before she can stop herself.
Ed’s eyes open fully, and he pulls himself upright to face her. “What’s wrong?”
“The time,” says Winry frantically. “It’s six-thirty – I must have customers already, wondering where I am.”
After a moment, Ed relaxes, and he gives a soft laugh, dropping his head onto Winry’s shoulder.
“It’s not funny!” says Winry adamantly. “My customers…”
“Hey,” says Ed. “It’s the bank holiday. You turned your alarm clock off for a lie in last night.”
Winry blinks. She did, she remembers. “Oh,” she says.
Ed giggles again, nuzzling onto Winry’s shoulder. “Lie back down,” he says. “C’mon.”
Winry slides back down and lies on her back. The sun floats down through a crack in the curtains, creating a line over the bed and the carpet. She stares at the dust particles floating in the air, then turns her head to switch her focus to Ed. She meets a pair of golden eyes and grins. “I can’t sleep,” she says gently.
“Neither,” says Ed. “I like laying here with you, though.”
“Me too,” agrees Winry. Her eyes fall on the radio. “Oh, I always miss this show in the mornings – the breakfast cooking one. Miss Gracia loves it.”
Ed nuzzles closer to her. “Put it on,” he says.
Winry does, feeling a dull throb of excitement as the radio fizzes into action. It finally finds its signal towards the end of the theme tune, just in time for a voice to cut through the fading music. “Breakfast Radio: Brought to you by your host, Betty McVitie”.
The woman begins speaking with a rather affected brogue, and five minutes in, Winry finds herself giggling at the accent more than she is listening to the cooking instructions. She looks at Ed, who’s biting his lip in an attempt not to snort.
‘Buttered Ladyfingers,’ says the lady, and that is the end of it. Ed snorts loudly, then chokes on it, and Winry bites down on her index finger.
“Buttered Ladyfingers,” repeats Winry in a poor approximation of the woman’s accent, causing Ed to throw his head back and wheeze out another series of laughs.
“She sounds like – Havoc,” says Ed between bouts of laughter.
Winry giggles, forcing air through her windpipe. “Don’t say that to him,” she warns through her laughter.
“Can you imagine his reaction?” chuckles Ed. “I’m gonna have to make him say ‘buttered ladyfingers’ next time I see him.”
When they’ve finally calmed down, Winry slides her head onto Ed’s shoulder, still smiling, and twirls his t-shirt around her finger. “I wish every morning was like this,” she says.
Ed kisses her forehead. “Me too,” he says.
A moment later, the DJ announces that Betty McVitie has finished her programme. Winry gives a sigh. “I didn’t pick up any recipes from that,” she says.
“I don’t think you need to,” says Ed. “In fact…”
Winry rolls her eyes affectionately. “What are you after?” she asks.
“Pancakes,” grins Ed.
Pretending to be reluctant, Winry pushes the bedsheet down to her knees, then looks at Ed. “Come and make them with me,” she says.
Ed’s eyebrows quirk upward. “I’m allowed in your kitchen?”
Winry swats lightly at him. “You’re always allowed in my kitchen,” she says, “you just aren’t allowed to eat the ingredients I’m cooking with.”
“Hmmm,” says Ed. He lifts his hand to his chin and narrows his eyes, apparently deep in thought. “Well,” he concludes. “That’s a risk we’re going to have to take this morning.”
“I think it’ll be worth it,” says Winry.
They tumble out of bed and downstairs into the kitchen. It’s spotless, and Winry cringes internally at the thought of cleaning up afterwards. Ed sidles closer to her and squeezes her hand. “Let’s leave the tidying up until dinnertime,” he says.
Winry grins and squeezes back. “I like your thinking.” She pauses. “Now,” she says, “can you grab what we need from the fridge?”
Ed walks over to the fridge, leaving Winry to raid the cupboards. Soon enough, they have a small display of pancake ingredients on the kitchen counter. Winry glances to the side, where Ed is practically vibrating with excitement.
She gives him a small, knowing smile. “You really want pancakes, huh?” she says.
“Oh, yeah!” says Ed, and Winry worries that if they don’t start cooking soon, he’ll start eating the ingredients raw.
“Fix up the dry ingredients for me,” says Winry, and gets to work on the eggs and milk. After a moment, she looks at the butter and sighs. “It’s not melting,” she says, and begins to cut it up into tiny pieces in the hope that it will melt faster.
“It won’t take long,” says Ed. “The newspaper said we could hit a record for hottest May bank holiday in 10 years!”
Winry glances at the butter. “I don’t think the butter is using the same sources as you,” she says, finally.
Ed is silent for a moment, before glancing down at his fingers and flicking the flour off as if he’s skipping stones. It floats onto Winry’s head like a light dusting of sugar on a pastry. She stares at him, and he giggles.
She sighs and shakes her head. “You really are just a big kid, aren’t you?”
Ed dips his fingers into the flour bag.
“I can take back what I said about you being a big kid,” warns Winry.
Ed pauses for a moment, then raises a hand above Winry’s head and sprinkles flour onto the top of her head.
“Oh,” says Winry. “Okay.” She takes up a handful of flour and sprinkles it onto the countertop.
“What are you doing?” asks Ed.
“Making art,” says Winry, and begins to draw with one finger in the flour. When she is done, she pokes Ed on either cheek with the drawing finger, giving him little dimples.
Ed, dimples and all, peers down at the counter art. He looks back at Winry with a faux-affronted expression. On one side of the drawing is a dot, and on the other is a crudely drawn but rather massive depiction of Winry. He bends down very close to the flour on the side, and blows. A flurry of plain flour covers Winry’s pyjama top. She looks down at it and retrieves her own handful of flour, cupping it in her hands like it’s a baby bird. She takes in the deepest breath she can, then blows out for as long as possible, delighting in the small blizzard now dancing in Ed’s direction.
Ed stands stock still until the flour in Winry’s hands is falling into the centre of the bowl she’s making with them. Then, he gently takes either hand and presses them to Winry’s cheeks. He lets go, and when her hands fall to her sides, Winry has two perfect flour handprints on either cheek. Ed giggles. Winry wrinkles her nose, pretending to be dismayed by him.
“Hey,” Ed says after a second. “Do you remember the prank me, you and Al played on Miss Wellington?”
Winry’s eyes widen with glee. “Yes!” she says. “Al masterminded that one, you checked for snitches, and I set it up!”
Ed smirks. “Free welly,” he says fondly.
Winry giggles. “Free welly,” she agrees. “It was the perfect revenge for her not letting me do the older kids’ math, once she realised I could mirror the words.”
“It was!” says Ed. He stops and looks just past Winry. “Hey,” he says. “Your butter melted.”
Winry turns on her heel to see a small dish of thick yellow goodness. She grins as she skips over to the counter and pours it into the egg and milk mixture. She beats it all together, then presents it to Ed. “The fun bit,” she declares, and watches Ed make a little cave in the middle of the flour. She pours the liquid mixture in.
“A golden volcano,” muses Ed. “If that erupted, you could just have dinner.”
Winry snickers. “The people who live near it could get battered,” she says demurely.
There is a second in which Ed does not respond. When he does, it is by letting his face hit the counter with just enough force to make Winry flinch. He comes back up, and his nose and forehead are covered in flour. Winry starts to giggle, at which Ed looks affronted until he looks down at the countertop and sees the impression his face has made. He slides his jaw forward and blows up, spreading the flour on his nose over his cheeks.
Satisfied, Winry begins to whisk the mixture, catching Ed staring at her biceps halfway through. “Want to arm wrestle?”
Ed recoils. “No way,” he says quickly, and then, covering up his hastiness: “wouldn’t want you to have such an embarrassing loss.”
Winry swats at him with the whisk, then winces when a few drops of the pancake mix fly onto his cheeks and forehead. “Sorry,” she squeaks.
Ed shrugs, wipes a drop off with his finger, and tastes it. “It’s good,” he comments after a second, then pauses. “Hey,” he says, “do we have chocolate?”
Winry feels her face lighting up. “Cupboard above the fridge,” she says, and whisks faster.
Ed’s head pops around the cupboard door. “We have sprinkles as well.” His grin is devious – the kind he used to take on before drawing rude words and the corresponding pictorial definitions on the class blackboard.
“Excellent,” says Winry, almost purring. “Bring those out too.”
They add them to the mixture together, hands brushing against each other lightly with feathery anticipation. When they’re done, they look at each other.
“Let’s get going,” says Winry.
They cut down the prep time by using all three of their saucepans, tossing pancakes onto plates until there’s no batter left and three neat stacks. Ed pauses. “Who’s the third stack for?”
“Afters,” says Winry, grinning.
They take their plates to the table and dig in, Ed running back to the cupboard for a bottle of chocolate sauce shortly afterwards. Once they’re done, Ed looks at the table, then at Winry. “I don’t think cleaning up will be too difficult after all,” he decides.
“Maybe not the dishes,” Winry says. Ed’s face is covered in flour, and she can’t imagine her own is much better.
Ed snickers. “What do I look like?” he asks.
Rather than answering him, Winry takes up a piece of paper and a pencil. When she is finished, there is a stick figure on the page whose face is either very freckled or afflicted with some dreadful pox.
“I’ve never looked better,” declares Ed after a moment, smirking up at Winry. He takes the pencil himself and draws a salt shaker descending onto a nose.
“Do I have a face?” asks Winry.
“No,” says Ed. “Just a nose.”
“I have some concerns,” decides Winry.
Ed leans forward and gives her a tiny kiss on the tip of the nose. “How about now?”
Winry smirks. “You know how to change minds, don’t you? They left that out of the biographies.”
“That,” says Ed, “and my excellent sense of style.”
Winry wrinkles her nose. “Your… excellent sense of style.”
“Architectural brilliance,” Ed confirms.
“Prove it.”
Ed smirks and crosses his arms. “I will. Living room, right now.”
Winry isn’t sure why she goes along with it, but Ed is quickly removing the pillows and cushions from the couch and armchairs, and she is helpless to stop it. When there is a large pile of pillows in the middle of the living room, Ed turns, standing up very straight. “Blankets!” he declares. “Fetch blankets!” He pauses for a moment. “Blankets and a pole!”
Winry frowns. “Where am I supposed to find a pole?”
Ed shrugs. “Climbing plants? I think Lyle next door has one to measure his broad beans.”
“I’m not trespassing and committing theft for you to prove you’re an architect.”
Ed’s shoulders slump. “Fine,” he sighs. “A board of wood or something.”
That’s easier, and Winry returns with several blankets hanging over the flat wooden board she’s holding in her arms. “Got them!” she cheers as she walks into the living room. Ed, who has apparently seated himself on top of the tower of cushions and pillows, leaps up when he sees her.
“Excellent!” he says, clapping his hands. He leaps from the tower, automail making a resounding ‘clang’. “Let’s get started.”
Ed seems not to need Winry’s help at all as he begins to assemble the cushions on the ground, making walls out of the couch cushions and floors out of the armchair ones. “Stick!” he demands after surveying his work.
Winry hands it to him, and he balances it against the back cushions. He spends several moments trying to steady both the board and the back cushions before Winry steps forward with the sort of thin blanket usually kept in children’s cribs. Wordlessly, she moulds them around the bottom of the board, then takes another blanket and moulds it around the top of the couch cushions and the middle of the board.
She turns to Ed, pleased with herself.
“I knew there was a reason I loved you,” says Ed, and pecks Winry’s forehead. “Now for the finishing touches.” He takes one of the blankets and throws it over the top of the board, then throws more around the perimeters, and the extras into the corners of the fort. He steps back, takes a good look at his work, then crawls inside. “C’mon!” he urges Winry.
After a moment, Winry crawls in next to him. It’s a tight space, and she can feel his warmth without touching him. “You smell like baking,” she says at last.
“You too,” murmurs Ed and lowers his head onto her shoulder.
“It’s like being a kid again, huh?” she says. Somewhere between her ribcage and her stomach, Winry’s spirit is falling from somewhere beneath what she can consciously place.
“I haven’t done this since before mom died,” muses Ed.
Winry wraps an arm around him. “I don’t think I have too much experience here either,” she agrees.
They are silent. Their fort is filled with breathing and a gentle warmth that comes only from body heat. Winry recognises the feeling from hours of cuddling with Den, and a lump begins to form in her throat. “I guess we’re grown-ups now,” she says, choked. “There’s nothing left from before.”
Winry feels Ed’s head shift on her shoulder. It’s a warm weight, hard and soft at the same time. His breath tickles her collarbone. “We haven’t been kids for a long time,” he says softly. He raises his head to look at her, and Winry can’t help it when her eyes begin to overspill.
She sniffs and gulps. “How do we know if we’re growing up if we can’t remember when we were kids last?”
Ed pulls her closer, and she lets her head drop down. He starts braiding her hair, and Winry stares at the wall, taking deep breaths. Winry is beginning to try and force herself to think about repainting the walls when Ed tucks her hair behind her ear.
Ed takes Winry’s cheek gently in his hand, thumbing over her cheekbone with hands that are still covered in flour. He closes his eyes and meets her lips with his, and for a moment she lets another tear fall, feeling it drop off her chin and onto the cushion with an audible plunk. Then, she kisses back. They sit in gentle contact for a long while, sometimes simply being still without even kissing. They are a tangle of limbs, and they are sharing every warmth they can muster.
Finally, when Winry thinks her eyes have dried up enough, she pulls away.
Ed’s eyes are watery too, she notices for the first time. He meets her eyes and then, sounding very much like he used to after scraping his knee while playing, says: “we have the rest of our lives to grow up.”