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Clack-clack-clackclackclack-ding-whoosh! Clack-clack-CLACKCLACKCLACK-ding-whoosh!
So ended Ed's best dream ever: one where Ling had to pay for his own food for once. His sleep-fogged brain tried to make sense of the racket. Was that damn woodpecker attacking the house again? No, woodpeckers don't ding. Or clack, really.
CLACK-CLACK-CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK-ding-whoosh!
Did the kids find trouble? No, they were visiting Teacher for another week. It's Sunday (definitely) morning (...probably), so Granny was gardening... at her own house. Remembering that he really did have his own home now wasn't always the easiest task when he was still half asleep. The sound was too loud to be coming from outside unless it really was that damn woodpecker. That just left one option.
He leaped out of bed, suddenly wide awake.
Winry found the typewriter.
Something about Pinako's hulking old Underwood 5 inspired a peculiar kind of fury in her. Most of the time, she ranted out loud, almost always to Ed, always about automail, and any pen or paper offered to her would be summarily ignored – they just did not inspire her to enlighten (or eviscerate) the ignoramus that incited her ire in writing. The typewriter, however... he suspected that its noisiness combined with her wrath to form a positive feedback loop, a runaway reaction of rage, that no mere mortal could stop.
So, why keep the mechanical anger catalyst around? Well, after learning to write with his dominant right hand, losing his right hand, relearning how to write with his non-dominant left hand, regaining his right hand, and relearning how to write with his new-old hand, his handwriting was kind of a mess. It was, to quote Pinako, "an illegible eyesore". Al declared it an effective substitute for encrypting his alchemy research notes. Winry made a habit of simply snatching the pen away from him and telling him to start dictating. Ed's written communications were now typewritten communications by necessity.
Okay, fine, when he got bored, he also occasionally used it to send anonymous-but-not-really prank letters to that bastard Mustang. (Once, he sent him some unsolicited and unnecessary advice on how to woo Hawkeye and got an envelope full of ashes in return. Sometimes the easiest targets are the most rewarding.) When Ed wasn't sneaking off to use it to find exciting new ways to make his former commanding officer set things on fire, the typewriter lived at the back of a hall closet behind some heavy boxes that contained nothing of particular interest. Normally, that was enough to extinguish his wife's curiosity about what was concealed back there, but apparently not today.
Dammit, he'd have to find a new hiding place for it after this. First, he was going to lumber downstairs, drink half a pot of coffee, and find out what incited this morning's cacophony of clacking. Hopefully, it wasn't what he suspected it was.
He stumbled downstairs and poked his head through the doorway to survey the scene he would be interrupting, and there she was, sitting at the kitchen table, her shoulders shaking furiously as she hammered away at the poor, defenseless keys. His heart dropped into his stomach when he saw the script "S" on the page of Automail Monthly's latest issue lying open on the table beside her.
"Winry, what are you writing about?" he asked cautiously, scanning the table for throwables. Please don't say Sheinhardt, please don't say Sheinhardt...
Her impassioned typing stopped momentarily. "Sheinhardt." (Dammit!) "They released a new model leg, and it is terrible, as usual. And Automail Monthly is shilling for them again, as usual."
"And you're going to set them straight?" He braced himself for the impending rant.
"Yes." The clacking increased in speed and intensity. "They use inferior alloys and claim that their models are dent-proof. They're dent-proof only because they crack and splinter instead! One good, hard stomp and all of the plating needs to be replaced! They never use long enough bolts, so something is always coming loose!" She yanked her current page out of the typewriter and shoved a blank one in. "And then they have the nerve to think that if they make them look trendy, everyone will be dumb enough to overlook their painfully obvious design flaws! Hmph! Don’t insult my intelligence, Sheinhardt Automail Company!" She slammed her index finger down on the return key. Ed winced.
"And the editors of Automail Monthly should be ashamed for promoting them?" He slowly pulled out a chair and sat down beside her.
"And the editors of Automail Monthly should be ashamed for promoting them. I would not let their automail anywhere near your port, forget letting you leave my workshop wearing it." The typebars slapped the typewriter ribbon as she concluded the body of her letter – with a few more exclamation points than strictly necessary, Ed mentally noted – and added "Sincerely, Winry Rockbell, fifth generation automail engineer" and space for her signature. She signed it and threw it on top of a stack of pages that had to be ten sheets high before grabbing another blank paper to feed the typewriter.
Ed's mouth fell open. "You're not finished yet?!"
"Nope, that was just the complaint letter. Now, I'm going to teach them what makes a good design." She dropped an empty chair from the other side of the table in front of him and pointed to it. "Show me your leg. I need to check a few things."
He propped his automail leg up on the chair and smiled to himself. Maybe that typewriter didn't need to be hidden after all – she just wouldn't be Winry if she weren't so passionate. He gently tugged on a lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail. "Winry. I'm glad you found the typewriter. Quality automail saves lives."
"You bet it does. My automail saved your butt more times than I can count." She blinked and looked at him in confusion. "Wait, found the typewriter? I've known where it was for ages."
Now it was his turn to be confused. "Y-you have?!"
"Yeah, I just wasn't annoyed enough to bother getting it out until today." Ed doubled over and his sides began to shake. "What's so funny?"
"You never run out of ways to knock me flat on my ass, do you? I propose to you, you disprove equivalent exchange. I think that I've hidden the typewriter from you, you've known where it was the whole time. Plus all of the times that you literally knocked me flat on my ass for breaking my automail." He had about a million reasons to love this woman, but her genius was easily his favorite.
"Thank goodness you don’t do that anymore," she sighed, visibly relieved.
He shrugged. "Yeah, well, Scar has sworn off revenge, and there are no more homunculi to fight."
"Do you ever miss any of it? The fighting and world-saving."
"Alchemy, sometimes. The friends I made. Not the rest." He played with her hair again. "Al has his body back, and I have you and the kids. What else do I need?"
She looked at the stack of papers on the table with a sly grin. "More stamps."
"Hey, Winry? Automail Monthly is on the telephone. They want to hire you as a guest writer," Ed shouted from the kitchen.
"On one condition—" she started.
"No more Sheinhardt!" they finished in unison.