Chapter Text
XXX
A storm went wild on that day—ripping the shingles from their roof, making the windows tremble with its deafening roar. There was no way that the Elrics could take a fifteen minute walk to Granny’s house in the face of this storm. Not without catching pneumonia, or risk running into one of Resembool’s famous tornadoes, that is.
Ed hissed under his breath. His taste buds lamented the loss of Granny’s ragout—the best stew Amestris had to offer, diced with tomatoes and mutton, stirred with an assortment of spices, some imported from Aerugo—as well as her special honey rolls… flaky and buttery like a biscuit, yet carrying the perfect amount of sweet, like a spoonful of rice pudding.
Mmmm. Rice pudding. Another lip-smacking recipe crafted by the Rockbell family. It may look like a bunch of milk curds, but it was nothing like milk itself. Even if it did have that stuff in it. He still found that aspect hard to swallow.
Damn! All of this thinking about dinner with Pinako was making pneumonia and tornadoes sound tempting. Ed knew he should have talked Winry into getting a car!
“There’s no way we can leave the house tonight,” his wife observed, wiping the condensation from the window and narrowing her eyes so she could get a good view of the grass planes outside. Despite her efforts, she could hardly see anything. A shadow was cast over Resembool like no other, and the rainfall made everything blurry.
Their second-born pouted, audibly moaning in distress. “But I wanna go to Granny’s,” Wendy whimpered, “I wanna go, mama!”
“I know, sweetie, but it’s not safe to go outside,” Winry explained in a way that her five-year-old could understand. “And besides, we go there almost every night. Won’t it be nice to have dinner here?”
Wendy answered with another pout. Before her mother could try to persuade her, Ed intervened. Reluctantly, sure. But, nonetheless, intervened.
He pulled his hand out of his pocket to lightly pat her head. “We can go tomorrow, Wendy.” Putting an effort into letting the corners of his lips tug north, he tried to look convincing, but even he wasn’t convinced.
It wasn’t until he and Winry scavenged through the cabinets and the fridge, only to realize that they didn’t have crap, that he began to regret that act. Yeah, tornadoes and pneumonia sounded pretty good right now.
“Well, we have eggs…” Winry pulled out the container, but as she started to count them, she realized that there were three-too-many people in this family.
“And ground beef,” Ed added, taking a peek into the cooler that they stored their meat in. “’Though, I’m not sure if it’s any good…”
Theo, who was the only child to make an appearance in the kitchen (and was notably supposed to be watching the twins), slipped between his mom’s legs, reaching into the fridge and grabbing something that sparked his curiosity.
“What’s this?” he mused, poking the purple, oddly-shaped vegetable. “It looks funny.”
“Huh?” Winry blinked down at the seven-year-old, partly wondering how long he had been there. “Oh, that’s eggplant. Put that back, honey.”
“Eggplant?” His face twisted as if he were sucking on a lime. “But it’s… not an egg. It looks more like a plant to me. But plants aren’t purple. Why is it purple, mama?”
While he left it to Winry to answer one of Theo’s many questions, Ed scrambled through the kitchen, finding nothing but a stale bag of chips, a box of cereal, a few cans of tomato sauce, some dairy he would prefer not to touch, a quarter-loaf of bread that they had used for lunch earlier that day, and what was left of the parmesan cheese.
Ed plopped against the chair in defeat. “When was the last time you went grocery shopping, woman?”
By now, Theo was sent off to babysit the twins once again. Winry could detect the irritation in her husband’s voice, which only led to her getting defensive.
“What, like it’s my fault we don’t have anything to eat?” She set a hand on her hip, but continued to search in the freezer.
He shrugged. The irritation did not fade. “Well, yeah.”
She sent a vexed glare his way, but that didn’t intimidate the man, mostly because he wasn’t paying attention to it. She then countered, “If you didn’t insist we go to Granny’s for dinner so much, then we wouldn’t be having this problem!”
Ed jumped a little at her sudden growl, but that didn’t eliminate his empty stomach. “If you weren’t so obsessed with your job, we could have left earlier and been at Granny’s before the storm even started!”
This time, she swung around and fisted both hands in her hips. “I’m not ‘obsessed’, I just want my work to be fine quality! Why is that such a problem with you?!”
“You’re a work-a-holic!”
“You’re an insensitive jerk!”
“At least I’m not the one— oof!”
For once, the woman didn’t have a wrench in tow, so she threw the eggplant instead. It was perfectly heavy—just enough force would give him a bump to the head. Judging from the way his hand covered his forehead, it probably did.
While Winry continued throwing curses and screaming sermons at the man, a light bulb flickered above his crown. An idea was in motion. He had no time to curse back at the woman, no time at all. A smile invaded his frown as he leaped up and grabbed hold of the eggplant.
“That’s it!” He ran out of the kitchen, and for a minute, Winry thought he wouldn’t come back. Just as she was about to follow, he came rushing back in, an alchemy book in hand. He set it on the counter, flipping it open to what seemed to be the bookmark. The bookmark was a folded piece of pink paper, which he appeared to be more interested in than the book itself.
The blonde was peeking over his shoulder, trying to get a clear view of what he was up to. She even attempted to push him aside, but his stance was indomitable. Twenty-six-year-old Edward was significantly tall, too.
“Okay,” he muttered, his restored finger tracing the different things listed on the paper. In a flash, he was going back and forth between the spices cabinet and the fridge. “We’ll need olive oil, onion, garlic, tomato sauce, red peppers—damn, we don’t have red peppers—tomatoes, parsley, oregano, basil, black pepper, breadcrumbs, butter, eggs, mozzarella, ground beef, and of course, eggplant!”
In the meantime, Winry stepped forward and held up the pink paper, ignoring the man’s rambles as she read through the list herself. It was none other than a recipe, written in Granny’s handwriting, titled as Eggplant Parmesan.
She then became nervous. Ed was exceptionally good with breakfast, and could fix up a decent sandwich for lunch, but when it came to dinner food, she would rather leave the serious cooking to her and Pinako. The idea of Ed making dinner—and eggplant parmesan, at that—set an uneasy feeling in her stomach.
“Erm… Ed? Are you sure about what you’re doing?” she inquired, the words coming out slowly.
He was busy getting the pot going and preheating the oven, but that didn’t stop him from answering, “Hell yes! That old hag gave me a recipe a while ago, and I totally forgot about it until now! She said it’s the perfect scrap food. Back during the recession, when she was broke or something, she said. Helped feed her family, she said. An’ I know how much you loved that stuff when we were younger, so…”
She never knew he could multi-task the way he did. He was rushing, too, gathering all of the supplies so fast that he stumbled over the tiled floor and knocked a few chairs over. The flickering light in the kitchen caused by the storm helped add to the chaotic effect.
Sighing, she slapped the paper to her forehead, as if relieving a migraine. Just what would the children be forced to eat? However it may come out, the little ones couldn’t afford to be picky. For the sake of his feelings, she couldn’t, either.
“What’s Daddy doing?” Wendy was suddenly beside her mother, trying to shoo-off her little brother, who stood curiously at the kitchen entrance in that cute four-year-old way.
“He’s…” A sweat trickled past Winry’s eyebrow. “…He’s trying to do something nice for us. I think. Or maybe something nice for himself…” She mumbled the last part, her eyelids dropping.
Amidst the chaos, Ed stopped for a moment. He waved an excessive grin at his wife and attentively kissed her temple. “It won’t take long, I promise. Go tell the kids that we’ll be eatin’ in no time!”
Little Wendy hobbled up and down in excitement, her blonde pigtails following suit. Edward snickered and picked up his daughter with one strong but gentle arm, carrying her over to the stove where he used his other arm to stir the tomato sauce in the pot, bouncing her lightly and humming made-up tunes simultaneously.
Winry smiled at the sight, her heart getting just a little bit warmer, even in the cool draft of the weather. As she headed out of the kitchen, she took little Al’s hand, wanting the company while she checked on Theo and the twins.
XXX
As they gathered around the table, all seven of them, the smell was undeniably alluring. Who could deny the aroma of smoky tomato, oregano, and basil? The kids were just glad to be shutting up their growling stomachs, but Winry remained skeptical. After fastening Aria into her highchair, she took Ezra from Theo’s arms, doing the same. Meanwhile, Ed crept up behind her, wearing two oven mitts that held a baking dish full of the main course. He set it in the center of the table before she could turn around.
The kids would receive a glass of milk, all but Aria, who constantly spat out the opaque substance—something that worried Winry. (Breastfeeding was especially difficult in the months while Aria was an infant. Her solution to the problem was to make a special formula for Aria, one that she took a liking to, and secretly mix some milk in it with the year old being none the wiser.)
Ed surprised his wife with a glass of wine, set aside for just the two of them. After getting the little ones situated, Winry took the nearest spot to Aria, making sure that she was fed properly, while Ed took the nearest spot to Ezra, doing the same job with less work. By this time, everyone had dug in to the eggplant parmesan… everyone except Winry.
“You gonna eat, Win?” Edward spoke, noticing her untouched plate.
The mechanic was in the middle of feeding her daughter a spoonful of tomato, caught off guard by the question. “Uhn… Sorry, I was too busy getting Aria to eat hers.”
“You gotta eat, mommy!” Alexander exclaimed, pointing his fork full of food at Winry. “’S good! ‘S really good!”
Ed nodded in approval, basking in the compliment of his four-year-old son. Quite surprising it was, indeed, to have little Al’s approval, who was the pickiest of the bunch.
“Alright…” Winry gulped. She braced herself, but promised that, no matter what, she would put on a face as if it were good, even if it stroked Ed’s growing ego.
In one motion, she looked it over—which, really, it looked just like the stuff Granny used to make—stabbed it with her fork, and forced it into her mouth. One chew, two chews, three chews…
By the third chew, she perked upright. Her eyes lit up. Huh, well would you look at that. It wasn’t half bad. Actually, it was better than half bad. It was positively delicious! Who knew Edward Elric could be such an excellent cook!
Ed didn’t have to ask her how it tasted. He knew the answer by the way she stuffed her face. Before taking a swig of his wine, an all-knowing grin stretched from ear to ear.
He could provide for his family too, if he wanted.
Fin.