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Pacifier in his mouth, Alexander’s big blue eyes observed his mother. She smiled, leaning against the wall with the phone pressed over her ear.
“Hi, honey. How is Creta?”
Muffled vibrations reminiscent of his father left the speaker. The child reached out with round hands at the sound.
As Winry listened, she toyed with a screw that was pinched between her fingers. She absentmindedly rolled it back and forth, appreciating the feel of the uneven, sharp texture of cool metal.
“Mhm,” she replied. “Well it’s nice to hear from you… the kids miss you. I miss you. We can’t wait to see you, this weekend right?”
No response. The man’s voice cut through white noise, “About that…”
There was a long silence on her end. Her shoulders slowly dropped. She clenched the screw with her fist.
“You said that last week.” Warmth left his mom’s voice.
She was being given an explanation. Her back went to the wall, then the back of her head. Her eyes shut.
“Ed, you—” she interrupted. “You’ve been gone for months. Do you know that Alex tried to walk the other day? Theo got into a fight at school. And Nina flushed her shoe down the toilet, and—”
The male muffles sped up apologetically.
Winry could feel her throat closing up but pushed herself to speak anyway, “I know you have obligations to your work, I know that! But I do too, and taking care of the kids while doing my mine isn’t easy!”
Now his father’s voice was defensive. Their volumes were climbing over each other.
“Then turn it down!” she said. “Tell them you need to come home to your family and that they need to find someone else!”
She was red in the face. Frustrated tears lined at the rim of her eyes. When her husband picked up on the threat to cry in her voice, she shrieked into the phone, “Because I’m mad!”
Her lips were firmly pressed at his words. “Stay there then, we’re fine!”
She slammed the phone into the receiver. Alexander watched her stand there, fists balled. When too much time passed, he lost interest and went back to clashing toy blocks together.
The phone rang. Winry marched off.
In the kitchen, she leaned against the sink, sick to her stomach.
Getting into fights over him leaving or not coming home was nothing new. This fight felt worse than the others, however. Tension has been building in their relationship before he left. Everything has been going wrong. She felt like she was failing as an engineer, mother, and wife. She was sure he felt like he was failing, too, but they couldn’t communicate effectively beyond the fog of their emotions.
It all started when he casually suggested that they move back to Resembool.
She knew he didn’t like the heat in Rush Valley. She understood he wasn’t a fan of the quick-paced lifestyle of a bustling automail town. They rented the space for her automail shop from Garfiel, and it wasn’t cheap. He wanted to build a house, he wanted their kids to grow up the way they did.
Winry understood the desire for a house they could own, but she assured that they did have a home, at Granny’s. That was the roof over their head when they had their first child. It was a peaceful time, and the perfect place to begin their family.
They didn’t need to spend the money to build a new one, because one day they would return to their family home… but not now, at such a crucial point in her career. There was social mobility in Rush Valley, better money, and vast clientele that her work could be exposed to. For the sake of her career, it wouldn’t make sense to go back to the country.
Ed supported her, he absolutely did, and when Winry was pregnant with their second child, he was excited to move to Rush Valley for that reason. He could pursue alchemic research at home and abroad, knowing that she was following her dreams as well, reaching new opportunities she could never get in Resembool.
A few years have passed as well as a third child. One day, they got a call. Pinako had fallen down the stairs. Beyond the fractured hip, she was fine, but it did serve as a reminder. Pinako wasn’t getting any younger.
Ed knew they were both homesick. He knew their priorities were beginning to shift in similar directions, but he could see that Winry was clinging to the idea of what she felt like she had to do. He tried to convince her that she had the talent to succeed whether she was in Rush Valley or not, but she didn’t see it that way.
Besides his children, his only family left was Al. Winry’s only family left was Pinako. He knew she would regret the decision not to live near her for her remaining years.
That is why he was blind-sided when she insinuated he was being selfish for wanting to move back to Resembool.
The first wick had been lit.
The second touched flame when they visited his father’s grave.
Hughes said it first, Ed has never been a man of words. He was a horrible communicator, it was a flaw Winry had long accepted, but sometimes, it just pissed her off. He shut the world out when it came to things that hurt him, especially the topic of Hohenheim.
She could imagine the pain she felt. There were nights she could see it etched into his face, and at the graveyard, he wore that same look. She wondered if he felt guilty, for using the time he knew Hohenheim to hate him, or angry, for not getting more time with Hohenheim after he forgave him.
Ed was perfectly stoic. When she tried to push, he snapped in fierce defense of the walls his built around him.
“I’m fucking fine,” were the words he said that branded Winry’s skin.
She flinched away from his aggressive body language. The icy-hot hatred left his body and he knew he made a mistake.
He couldn’t have picked a worse time to tell her he was leaving the country to present his findings of his research.
Bright sparks leaped from the searing friction of metal against metal. Protected with goggles, Winry could zone out and focus on her work. Automail engineering took methodical thought and calculative precision, but at times, she could let her mind relax. She hardly heard Garfiel’s calls from the hallway.
“Dear!” he called for the fourth time, this time from the doorway.
“Oh—” Winry turned the machine off and lifted her goggles. “Sorry, what is it?”
“You have a customer,” he said, with a tone that made Winry suspicious.
She started to peel off her gloves. “What are they here for?”
“Their leg is rather stiff,” he said, twisting his ankle in his usual animative gestures. “They walked a long way to come here and see you.”
“Okay, tell them I’ll be right out,” Winry said, beginning to clean her work station.
As Garfiel strutted back down the hall, she finished locking up her toolbox. She hung her goggles up and left the room. The laughter of children echoed throughout the building. With the customer visiting, she would have to tell Theo and Nina to play outside.
Winry turned the corner and entered the front room. There he was, her husband, standing there before her with his arms full of their kids. They had his genes, that was for sure, as they all shared that same ear-to-ear grin. The little ones couldn’t compete with their father, who wore the biggest grin of all.
“Hi babe!” Ed greeted.
“Ed?” Winry was dumbfounded. “You weren’t supposed to be here for another week. How did you…”
Her eyes widened at a thought. Then, her eyebrows knitted together and her knuckles pressed into her hips. “Did you do something to your leg? Is that why you’re home early?”
“No!” He tried flailing his arms at the accusations, but with a nine-month-old in one arm, a six-year-old in the other, and a four-year-old hanging over his shoulders, it wasn’t an easy feat.
“Garfiel said—”
“I just had to say something so I could surprise you! My leg is fine!”
Her arms crossed over her chest. She glared at him through her eyelashes.
His mouth twisted into a frown. She was still mad.
“Okay, guys,” he said as he let each child down.
The tension hadn’t fizzled out like he hoped. The bartender was right when he told him he needed to fix things, and he couldn’t just do so by ignoring it.
“We’re going out,” Ed stated.
Winry’s eyebrow quirked. “Where? For what?”
“Like, you know… on a date.” With his voice low and his eyes averted, he seemed embarrassed as he said it. He was the worst at being romantic.
Her mouth opened in silence. This little interaction reminded her of the early days of their relationship, which made her want to laugh, but she resisted.
“What about the kids? The shop?” she questioned.
“I’ve got you covered, dear,” Garfiel intervened. Winking, he added, “Go have some fun.”
Ed smiled, hoping to win her over. She took in a breath and let it go.
“I have to get out of these clothes and shower…” Winry said, turning toward the stairs. “Give me a minute.”
Ed nodded obediently. As he watched her walk up to their bedroom, worry set in. He didn’t want to fuck things up more tonight.
The moment the door shut behind her, an odd stirring began in her stomach. It was a mix of fear and excitement, something she hadn’t felt for a while. They both had become so complacent.
Ed and Winry were ambitious people; they admired each other for the extent that they were driven by their passions, and it was one of the many reasons they worked well together as life partners. But it also meant they became fixated on their passions, to the point of prioritizing their relationship after. They hadn’t been on a true date since they first moved to Rush Valley.
After over an hour had passed, Winry looked in the mirror. She only owned a few dresses, but this one she remembered Ed saying he liked. She smirked. It was colored a brilliant red, which was probably why he took a liking to it. The dress was a simple garment, ending at her mid-thigh. It had a conservative high neck that covered her entire chest and collarbone, but where cleavage was lacking, the dress made up for in hugging every rounded part of her body. Her female figure was by no means concealed, another reason for Ed to secretly appreciate it.
Garfiel once told her red looks great on blondes, so she let her blonde tresses fall. She smoothed on a sheer lipstick, then headed out the door.
Making her way to the bottom of the stairs, Winry found Ed, crouched on the floor, holding their youngest up. Alexander made a few clumsy steps forward, supported by his dad to keep from falling. She was finding it hard to stay mad at Ed while watching him like that.
“Doin’ good, buddy,” he encouraged.
Ed looked over at his wife. Red. Awesome.
“Ready to go?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, tugging at his collar as his son rested in his lap.
Theo was busy dropping crackers for his brother to “follow”, which Ed kept reminding him to stop doing. Nina was busy talking Garfiel’s ear off. Heading to the door, Winry picked up Alexander and called to the other two. She bent down and collected them into a tight hug.
“I love you. Be good, and don’t cause Garfiel trouble,” she said.
“Dad!” Theo pulled on Ed’s trouser leg. “You’re coming back soon right?”
Ed smiled, but the smile didn’t carry up to his eyes. He was full of guilt for being gone for so long. He got to eye level with his son, setting his large hand on the crown of his head.
“You bet,” he said. “And when I get back, we can look for caterpillars in Mr. Jenkins’ garden.”
Winry’s head turned. “You do what?”
Ed stood up straight. “Alright, we’re off!”
The couple walked silently. Rush Valley’s streets were always full of life, so a lacking conversation wasn’t as awkward as it could have been. The sound of steel against steel and hollering men surrounded them.
Ed’s hands were stuffed in his pockets, face vexed. He had rolled his dress shirt sleeves up to deal with the heat. In hindsight, it was early September and the sun would set in a few hours, so Rush Valley could be far worse, but coming from a higher altitude made him need to readjust to the desert climate.
“Where are we going?” Winry finally asked him. She was starting to think he didn’t have a plan and they were just going to wander aimlessly past automail shops.
“Well, uh…” Ed stopped to think. “Did you eat?”
“Yes, actually…” she said. “If I had known you were coming, I would have waited.”
He uncomfortably swallowed the dry air. “It’s fine, when it’s hot my appetite shrinks up anyway.”
More silence.
Come on, you idiot, he thought. Think of something. At least talk to her.
His eyes searched through the shops. Automail repair, welding, bar, automail repair, jewelry, restaurant, automail repair…
Their date had to be in Rush Valley. She was a mechanic and all, but what was he supposed to do, take her to look at metal scraps?
He cringed and thought, Actually, she might like that. Weirdo.
His eyes landed on a convenience store. He didn’t think much of it until they walked past. Letting Winry walk ahead of him, he turned and looked back. A smile tugged on the corner of his lips.
Winry gasped as a hand grabbed hers from behind. “Wha—Ed?!”
He marched into the store, pulling a complaining Winry in tow. She had questions, but he was too busy looking through the aisles to answer.
He picked out a bundled towel. “This should work.”
Winry watched curiously as he walked over to the fridge. He pulled out two tall cans of orange soda, then glanced at her heeled feet. Turning around, he searched through the aisle until he found a pair of cheap flip flops that looked about Winry’s size.
Dangling them towards her, he said, “You’re gonna need these.”
Crack.
Bubbles of carbon dioxide fizzled over his tongue. Ed could feel the cold burn as they made their way down his esophagus. Satisfied, he exhaled. There was nothing like an orange soda in the heat.
Winry dug her nails into the metal piece of the can opening. She knew she shouldn’t play with the sharp edges around it, but her stomach was unsettled. She looked at Ed as he looked out onto the canyons carved into the landscape.
They sat as far apart from each other as they could on the towel. Their uncertainty repelled them like negative charges.
She had followed him out of the town, heading in the direction of Dominic’s home. She thought he was taking her to visit him, which seemed like an odd choice for a date, but she wouldn’t mind seeing the grumpy engineer and his granddaughter who had grown so much.
Until Ed stopped. They made it to a high point of the mountain. He gave the view a deciding look, then threw out the towel in the middle of the dirt path.
Now, here they were. Ed didn’t explain why he was doing this, and Winry didn’t ask. They sat quietly, mouths on the rim of their cans.
She kept glancing at his profile. Something caught her eye, poking out from behind his collar. A pink mark cut across the side of his neck, as though someone had slashed a blade there.
Anger gave her gut a twist.
Winry clenched her fists, pushing herself to her feet.
“No, not again, you’re not doing this,” she said.
He watched her stand, stunned. The hurt waver in her voice was all too familiar.
“You’re not going to expect us to move on without talking about anything.” Winry turned her head to him, piercing him with her blue eyes.
Ed’s mouth opened to speak, but words didn’t come to him. This was a fundamental problem between them, even before their relationship became romantic.
Winry turned her head away.
“I don’t know if I can do this right now...” Winry’s eyebrows pinched. “I’m too tired to deal with this right now. I need to go back to work.”
As she began to move forward, a hand caught hers, holding her back. She looked back at Ed, who was now standing too. His expression weighed heavily on her.
With rasp, he said, “Winry.”
The sun’s light refracted off his eyes, highlighting his gold flecks.
He told her, “I brought you here to talk, fully, everything, I swear... I promise.”
Those final two words took Winry back. For most people, promises were empty and declarations of them hollow. For Ed and Winry, promises have historically been a show of appreciation for each other. Winry understood now that when Ed was a frustrated teen, it was his way of telling her he loved her without having to say it.
Ed squeezed her hand. “So could you sit with me, please?”
Winry silently agreed, lowering onto the towel beside him. She had to admit, between the view and the orange soda, Ed managed to do something romantic, albeit silly. Ed couldn’t accomplish one without the other, after all.
The sun dimmed as it touched the horizon. Blue was beginning to flush blood orange. Ed felt that was his cue to speak, though he wished his voice didn’t crack.
“The desert sucks, but I’ve gotta admit, its skies are pretty cool,” he said. “No matter where I go, nothing beats the sunsets here...”
Winry was taking it all in, the red light sunburned onto the lava buttes, the millions of years of wear imprinted on rock, the shadows that brought contrast and dimension to the landscape. So she was taken aback as a pair of strong arms took hold of her. Her husband brought her into an embrace that was almost crushing.
“No matter where I go, nothing brings me greater happiness than being beside you,” he said to her ear, softly. “I’ve never been good with words, you know that. But I brag about you and the kids all the time. I get sick to my stomach missing you guys so I make sure to keep pictures in my wallet. The only thing that keeps me going in research is wanting to be the best man for Theo, Alex, Nina, and you.”
Winry’s eyes clenched shut. She felt guilty for being angry with him; she knew being away was just as hard on him as it was on her.
“I know,” she whispered, roughly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, it just is so much sometimes, and I don’t know what I’m doing, a-and I don’t know how you’re feeling, you shut me out...”
Winry leaned back, loosening his grasp. She placed her hands on each side of his face, sucked into the depth of his pupils as she made eye contact.
“You’re my best friend, you’re supposed to feel comfortable telling me everything,” she said. Her thumb stroked the skin on his cheek. “I know you’ve had lot of pain in your life, and you are used to dealing with it on your own... but you have someone to support you, now. Don’t be ashamed to talk about things.”
His eyes lowered. She was right, he knew. But no matter what she said, he couldn’t shake the feeling of shame. It was easier to swallow down the bullshit and keep on moving. However, for the sake of his marriage, he knew that wasn’t the right thing to do.
“What do you want me to tell you?” he earnestly asked.
“Well, for starters...” She dropped a finger to the rough line of skin on his neck. “How you got this.”
Ed held his breath. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her down with him. His fingers played with her hand, beginning to break down the story in the most delicate way possible.
The ominous fog between them in the past months was thinning. Through the fog, she could see her best friend. The brash boy who unexpectedly made her fall for him, who caught her in a trap he hadn’t been trying to set up. And his pleased surprise at the love waiting for him under his nose.
Her eyes were smiling, even though what he was telling her pissed her off. Their fights made her reflect on their relationship, and not once did she forget the boy yelling at her from across the train station.
When her eyes watched the ground soar outside the train window, cheeks stinging. Looking back on that time, their love for each other wasn’t a passionate flame. No, it was better than that, it was more like a slow burn. The wait was far more rewarding, and once it set in, it would last for a lifetime.