Ed doesn't react when Mustang calls him short. He doesn't yell, his jaw doesn't clench and he doesn't imagine violence. He relaxes enough to release a small smile onto the wild of his tired face. And Mustang smiles back in a symbol of, if not friendship, at least mutuality and respect. In the hard backed chair against the wall Hawkeye sips her tea with a sigh of contentment, happy her boys are finally behaving and hoping it will last.
Today it's cold outside and the snow is predicted to fall during the night. The front garden will surely resemble an old fashioned postcard for all of the first five minutes of the morning before Elysia comes over to play and track her small footsteps everywhere.
Edward sees Winry outside the window hurrying home, but still stopping to let the waning winter sun embrace her upturned pink cheeked face. She's wrapped like a present under her scarf, hat, layers and thick jacket that obliterate her shape and, once inside, when she removes the excess clothing it's the equivalent of a puritan striptease that none the less and rather pathetically attracts his lazy attention. She interrupts the murmurs of conversation with a hasty report of a conversation over crackling phone lines. Izumi wants to see them and is visiting in a week.
"It's like the bloody town square in here," Edwards moans under his breath but Winry doesn't tell him off because they all know he doesn't mean it really. The creased frown is just a habit. Mustang smirks wryly and feigns hurt exclaiming that it's enough to make one suspect that the pipsqueak doesn't want them there especially when he's so indebted to their brave and altogether thrilling heroics in the first place! Such shocking, childish behaviour on today of all days!
Hawkeye comes to the conclusion that the teenager has developed maturity beyond the reaches of her superior officer when his sole reaction is to shrug his shoulders in good humour. But then the excellent behaviour will most probably, she thinks, disappear once this is no longer such an overwhelming situation.
Roy however is perceptive enough to see this is not a new respect for his status but a freshly developed laziness as the boy no longer has to pressure himself to do anything; even get angry. Beyond that he thinks he'd quite like to meet Izumi preferably with a notebook so he can mark down how she created such a holy fear in a boy who blasphemes to make the time pass faster.
Hawkeye decrees the office will not survive without them for much longer and so the pair get up to leave. The uniformed woman gives both Winry and an embarrassed Ed a hug. Mustang salutes.
When the door closes the scene crystallises.
She's collapsed into the kitchen chair. He's standing still by the sink as if about to wash the empty cup of tea but somehow the actions required to do so have fled his mind. The house is comfortably quiet and enveloped in a peace that has not been felt by any of them for years. So when they move towards each other it's natural that it happens as if in a dream. And it's okay that neither says anything nor makes any noise. And the ensuing embrace feels like relaxing into a slipstream they've been fighting against for years.
She holds him with the ease of someone no longer scared of slipping away.
He kisses her like he's taking his first breath.
The only sounds are the rhythmic snores from the back room where Al has been fast asleep all afternoon.
