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Hohenheim woke to cold toes against his calves and an equally cold nose pressed against the back of his neck. Resembool’s winters were normally mild, but this one had been unusually cold, and Pinako had been certain that snow would be coming soon. Hohenheim really hoped that this wouldn’t be the case, but Pinako was scarily accurate with her weather predictions.
He tried to move away from the cold toes and the cold nose, but Trisha’s hold on him simply tightened.
“Don’t go away,” she mumbled against his neck. “You’re nice and warm.”
“I won’t be for much longer. Your feet are like ice.”
He received a huff in return and the cold toes dragged up the back of his leg, making him shiver and grimace.
“From now on, you’re wearing extra-thick socks in bed. Is there any part of you that’s warm?”
Trisha laughed softly. “Well… That does depend…” A not-too-cold hand slipped under the waistband of his pyjama pants, but before it could go any further, there was a shout of ‘Al! Wake up! It snowed!’ from the next room, closely followed by a grand commotion as the boys proved themselves to be well and truly awake. Trisha groaned and rolled away from him.
“I swear Ed’s got some kind of psychic energy going on,” she said. “He knows the moment we wake up so we never get ten minutes to ourselves.”
Hohenheim gave a huff of laughter, opening his eyes to the grey light trying to poke its way around the curtains. Less than three minutes later, the curtains were flung open by an overly exuberant four-year-old, who then proceeded to launch himself onto the bed.
“Mom! Dad! It snowed!”
“We heard.” Trisha managed to heave herself upright as Al followed Ed into the room and onto the bed.
“Can we go out in it? Please? I want to build a snowman! And throw snowballs at Winry.”
“Not before breakfast.” Hohenheim felt around on the nightstand for his glasses; whilst he didn’t technically need them, he’d been wearing them on a regular basis for two hundred years and it was habit now. Ed beat him to it, nearly stabbing him in the eye with the stems in his excitement to get the day started and get out into the snow.
“Can we have breakfast now?”
Trisha sighed. “All right. Go and change out of your pyjamas and clean your teeth.”
Ed bounced off the bed and grabbed Al, who had snuggled down under the blankets between his parents and now protested at being taken away from the nice, warm bed with nice, warm Mom and Dad, especially having already been dragged out of one nice, warm bed this morning. The two of them made their way back out of the room, leaving the door wide open and a draft coming in.
“Children.” Trisha sighed. “The most effective form of contraception you’ll ever try.”
Hohenheim raised an eyebrow. “Considering there’s only fifteen months between our two, are you sure about that?”
“Well, potentially not, but we’re definitely not going to be having any more any time soon if they keep this up.” Trisha got out of bed, fishing around in the dresser for clean underwear and thick winter socks, glancing back over her shoulder at him as he finally left the cocoon of bedcovers and braved winter. “I’m still holding out hope for a girl, you know.”
“I know.” He would never admit it, but there was a not insignificant part of him that was holding out hope for a girl as well.
“Maybe if Ed and Al get tired out playing in the snow, we can have a go at making a girl later.” She winked at him in the mirror, then heaved another sigh as there was a crash from the bathroom, followed by Al’s small voice saying ‘oops’.
“I’ve got it.” Trish aleft the bedroom to go and tend to the chaos that was already unfolding elsewhere in the house, and Hohenheim tried to repress a groan. This was shaping up to be one of those days.
X
An hour later, with breakfast made, eaten and cleaned up, and the toothpaste that had ended up all over the bathroom sink now washed away, the Elric family had ventured out into the snow.
Hohenheim was not the world’s biggest fan of snow, nor of cold temperatures in general. He had grown up in the middle of a desert and despite not having lived there for the better part of four centuries, he was still hardwired for heat, much to Trisha’s chagrin when she was melting in a sweltering hot summer and he hadn’t even broken a sweat.
“Even you have to admit that it does look quite pretty,” Trisha said. “We get it so rarely here and yet the scenery’s perfect for it. All these rolling hills and valleys.”
“And shivering bare trees and a few odd-shaped lumps that probably have frozen sheep underneath them.”
Trisha just rolled her eyes and ignored him. “Maybe we’ll have a white New Year for once. That would be nice.”
Hohenheim shuddered, burrowing further into his scarf and watching the vapour rise off his coffee mug. Beyond them, a little way down the hill, Ed and Al were beginning to build a snowman, rolling a small ball back and forth and around and around to make it bigger. Their cheeks were pink with cold and exertion and they did have to keep stopping every now and then to get their breath back as the mound got larger and larger. Eventually, Ed looked over at his parents.
“You know, you could just alchemy us a snowman,” he said accusingly.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Trisha asked. “The whole point of building a snowman is to build it. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as satisfying if Dad just gave you one ready-made.”
Ed looked at the mound of snow beside him - Al had decided that the ball was not going to be rolled any further and was now fashioning snow feet - and then back at Trisha.
“It would be a lot easier though,” he pointed out.
“You’ll be proud of it when it’s done. You can’t rely on alchemy for everything in life, you know. Why don’t you make another smaller ball for the head and Dad and I will help you lift it up.”
Ed did not seem too enamoured by the prospect of more rolling, but dutifully did so, and as Trisha went back inside the house to get a spare scarf and hat for the newest frosty member of the family, Al decided that the feet were sufficient and started looking for twig arms under the tree. On seeing that he had lost his snow rolling assistant, Ed gave up in a huff, folding his arms and glaring down at the snow. Hohenheim was beginning to think that perhaps his son was not quite as fond of the snow anymore, but it would be a shame for him to lose his enthusiasm so quickly. With a sigh, he abandoned his coffee on the front door lintel (no doubt to be forgotten there and not discovered until Trisha realised the mug was missing two weeks later), and went to assist, with Al bringing along two spindly twigs of vastly different lengths.
By the time Trisha returned, complete with knitted garments, carrot nose and coal eyes, the head was well underway and Ed seemed to be enjoying the construction process again. When the boys’ backs were turned, Hohenheim did some surreptitious alchemy to keep the joints steady in case a strong breeze blew their careful building over.
“He’s looking good.” Trisha came over to admire the handiwork. “What shall we call him?”
This took another round of disagreement between the boys until the name Herbert was finally decided upon. Trisha draped the scarf around Herbert’s neck and Hohenheim lifted Ed so that he could finish the face. He was almost getting too big for lifting, and Hohenheim reflected that it would be a shame when that day came around.
Together, the family stood back and admired their handiwork. It was certainly not the handsomest of snowmen, nothing like a picture postcard, but it was theirs, and that was what mattered.
The peace lasted for all of about five minutes before Ed looked up at his parents.
“Can I go and throw snowballs at Winry now?”
Hohenheim just sighed, and Trisha laughed, slipping her arm around his middle and pulling him closer to her side.
“You know, deep down, there’s a part of you that likes snow,” she said. “You’ll admit it one day.”
“Never.”
Although, cold aside, he couldn’t deny that it was nice, this sense of togetherness. Hopefully, soon, he would find a way to become mortal again, and this could happen more often.