When Winry went up to the attic to get the lanterns she planned to use at her wedding in a couple weeks, she didn't expect to find her groom-to-be. He jumped when he saw her and shut the book he was reading, placing it facedown on the floor. "Winry! I, uh -"

He was acting so flustered, she had to see what he'd been doing. "Whatcha got there, Ed?" she asked, crossing the attic to take his book. He didn't prevent her, just watched her with wide eyes and a worried lip. The shock of being caught seemed to have petrified him to the spot.

She picked up the medical textbook he'd been reading and flipped through it, expecting to find a dirty magazine or something of that nature tucked within the pages. She found none. After checking again, she closed the book. "You're embarrassed I caught you reading . . . Prenatal Care and Development?" she asked, reading the spine.

He didn't answer, but buried his flushed face in his arms, which were folded over his curled-up knees.

She sat down on the floor next to him, flipping through the book again. It wasn't the usual reading for eighteen-year-old boys, that was for sure. But Winry had never expected the usual from Ed.

She smirked as she flipped to one of the diagrams. "Do naked pregnant women bother you, Ed?" she teased as she nudged him.

Ed lifted his head to say, "Shove off. I've read plenty of books with those kinds of drawings."

"The kind with naked people or pregnant people?"

Ed's eyes darted away from her as he answered, "Both. But only in a medical sense!"

She snorted and said, "I'm sure."

He rolled his eyes in response, but had yet to make eye contact with her since she'd come up to the attic.

Winry said, "I remember reading this. I really wanted a little sister at the time." Back then, she hadn't pulled all-nighters working on automail, but reading. After Granny would turn the lights out, she'd fish a flashlight out from wherever she'd hidden it and resume reading. Her first mechanical project had been building a flashlight from scratch after Granny had confiscated them all.

Ed said, "You would've been a great big sister."

"Yeah," said Winry, trying to catch his eye. "I guess I'll have to make do with being a fantastic mother."

He froze, and Winry was sure she'd guessed right. He'd been reading obstetrical manuals with his own babies - their babies - in mind. It was incredibly geeky, but also incredibly Ed.

He shifted nervously. "Only if you want to," he said.

"Of course I do," said Winry. "Did you think my eighty-five percent didn't include having kids with you?"

His flush deepened and he said, "I didn't want to assume -"

"You should've asked, then."

But Winry knew he couldn't have brought the subject up himself in a million years. She sighed. "We kind of needed to talk about this anyway," she told him. "We can't have our wedding night without some idea of when we might want babies." She held back a giggle. Half the fun of being engaged to Edward Elric was testing how often his (adorable) face could handle turning that shade of fuschia.

After spending a few seconds sputtering incoherencies, Ed said, "That's - fine, I - I'm good wi-with whenever, I mean, you're the one who has to . . ." He gesticulated wildly. "It's up to you, I guess . . ."

"Well," Winry began, "I'm going to be spending the next few years finishing up my apprenticeship and getting my medical license and then setting up my own shop, whether it's in Rush Valley or taking over from Granny . . ."

Ed nodded gravely.

"And you'll be doing your research, whether it's abroad or home with me."

Ed said, "But that's pretty flexible, don't worry about m-"

"What I'm saying," Winry interrupted him, "is that there's never going to be a perfect time for us to have kids. I'm pretty sure we can handle starting a family and make time for the other things we want to do."

"So you want to start right away?"

"Uh -" Winry faltered. It hit her then that she'd actually gotten Ed to talk to her about having babies together, and her cheeks took on a little heat of their own. "I don't know about right away, I mean, I'd like to have some time to . . . but yeah, I want to do it soon . . ."

Ed reached for her hand, and their eyes finally met. "What're you saying?" he asked her.

"Let's just see what happens," she answered.

He nodded. "Okay."

"Okay," she repeated. "Good."

"Yeah."

"Right."

Ed looked away again. He still looked flustered but also pleased. He had a cute little smile that was just begging to be kissed. So she took his face in her hand and did just that.

It was gentle at first, but quickly deepened. After their tongues had gotten a feel of each other her mouth broke from his and nibbled its way to a sensitive spot by his ear. He moaned softly and his hands slipped below her hips.

She was surprised when it got to the point where Ed usually pulled away, but he didn't. Instead he pulled her closer, where she straddled his right thigh. It was thrilling to be pressed right up against him. The heat between her legs tempted her to grind into his thigh, but she restrained herself. She exhaled lightly against his cheek and murmured, "You sure you don't want to get started right now?" She nudged his crotch with her own thigh.

Ed's breath hitched as he pulled away from her. "Yes," he groaned, dragging his knees up again as if to bar her from his arousal. "I'm sure," he added breathlessly.

There were many reasons they were waiting for marriage. For one thing, he'd gotten so flustered on the occasions they had been close to having sex that Winry had felt uncomfortable urging him on. He also had issues with privacy and even with Granny's indifferent attitude towards their intimate relationship, he was aware that she could walk in on them at any time. But Ed's main hangup was the responsibility he felt for his family. He had an almost single minded desire to prove his commitment to her, to prove to himself that he wasn't going to be like his father. He wanted to promise her his life before he gave her his body.

(Not that he'd ever told her in so many words. He was getting better at emotional communication with her, but their relationship still depended on her ability to intuit his feelings. In any case, Winry was happy to do for the boy she loved what she did for everyone she cared about. He didn't have to pour his heart out to her; he just needed to let her in.)

So despite her need to jump him at the nearest opportunity, Winry held off. A little waiting was more than worth Ed's peace of mind, and it gave her time to appreciate the inner romantic buried under all his layers of gruff and bluster.

"I love you, Ed," she said aloud.

He stopped his muttering of what she knew was the periodic table to answer her. Hearing Ed tell her "I love you" was her most favorite sound, before even the whirring of finely tuned automail or the sounds he made when she kissed him. She was looking forward to hearing it for the rest of her life.