Day 04: Nerds
The day Edward quits his job, he leaves work humming to himself because he couldn't be happier. He thought leaving a job he had grown to love so much would have been harder, and it was a hard decision to make, but a million new pathways have just opened up to him now that he is—as the headmaster had put it—a free man.
Ed practically skips down the steps of the school as he heads towards the bus stop. It's a warm day, even for April, but Ed ignores the fact that he sweats in his shirt and slacks because even that won't deter his sunny mood.
There are still a couple weeks left of work, of course. He isn't quite as big of an asshole as to just to quit halfway through a semester, he's pretty sure that has to be illegal or something anyway, but there are only a few weeks left. He will finish out his teaching position until June, when classes end and his students take their exams, and then he won't be back in September when the next school year begins.
For the past three years, Ed has been working as a professor of theoretical alchemy at Central University. It had been a tough decision for him and Winry to make the move out here for him to teach. Their oldest at the time had only just turned one, and he and Winry didn't plan to stop there as far as kids went. There was also Winry's automail business that she claimed she was fine running out in Central, Granny was back in Resembool to hold down the fort there anyway. She wanted Ed to accept the teaching invitation at the university, said she wouldn't have it any other way.
Ed knows homesickness ate away at her from time to time, especially in those first few months. She missed Resembool—and still does—because it was the only home she had ever known and she didn't have the same roaming spirit as Ed, but she never complained about it. Not to Ed's face anyway, but he could still see how that façade would sometimes slip when she didn't think he was paying attention.
But that was when they had first made the move to Central three years ago. Since then, life has changed. They have given birth to a second child, a beautiful baby girl, and now Winry is just about to enter her third trimester with baby number three on the way.
The bus lets Ed off about a block away from their house. On most days he would have grumbled about it, slogging through the walk home, slightly annoyed, but this afternoon he hardly seems to notice.
All the trees that line their street are in full bloom right now. They make his allergies go berserk, but they're nice to look at. Last April, when the leaves of the trees had turned their vibrant shades of green after winter had receded for the next few couple of months, Ed had hung a swing on the oak in their front yard for the kids.
"If I remember correctly," Winry had teased, watching the kids argue over whose turn it was to push who, "your father did the same thing for you and Al when you two were just kids."
"Oh shut it. I'm not anything like that bastard."
Winry had shaken her head. "No. You're not."
Ed walks up the sidewalk to their house, picking up the newspaper which lies in their yard and brings it up to the front door with him.
"Papa!" shouts two voices that come barreling down the stairs and straight into Ed as he swings the front door open. Ed scoops Genevieve up in his arms, swinging her around and positioning her on his hip. He gives Nicholas the best hug he can manage with the boy clenched around his leg.
"I'm glad to see you two are both doing just fine," Ed greets his kids with a laugh, ruffling Nicholas's hair.
"Yeah! And Nick lost—"
"Shut up, Gen," Nicholas says back to his sister when she tries to tell Ed something from his arms.
"Now Nicholas," Ed starts, trying to be stern with his son, but a smile slips from his lips. Winry's better at this whole scolding thing than he is. "That's no way to talk to your little sister."
Genevieve sticks out her tongue down at her older brother from her high position and Nicholas just ignore her.
"But Papa, look!" Nicholas grins up at Ed with all his might, the new gap in his front teeth as plain as day. "Do you notice anything different about me?"
"I can't say that I do, kiddo," Ed teases, setting Genevieve back onto the ground.
"He lost a tooth, Papa!" Gen shouts and Nicholas turns on her with such rage that Ed thinks for a moment that he's going to have to intervene.
"Genevieve!" Nicholas shrieks and his little sister just giggles.
"It's okay, Nick," Ed places a hand on his son's shoulder. "I'm only joking with you, I see that your front tooth is gone."
That makes Nicholas beam. "Isn't it cool? And Mama says that if I place it under my pillow tonight then the tooth fairy will come by and leave me a few cenz!"
"Is that so?" Ed says, an eyebrow raised. He doesn't remember anything like that from when he was a kid, though he doubts he wouldn't have believed it even if he was told about this tooth fairy, but he isn't about to contradict Winry now.
"Yeah!"
"Well good. I'm happy for you, Nick. You're getting to be such a big boy."
Nicholas stands up on his tiptoes as Ed ruffles the smaller boy's blond hair. Damn, his kids really are growing up so fast. He never realized time could fly like this.
"Speaking of your mother, where is she?"
"Workshop," they say in unison and Ed thanks them, turning into the kitchen and heading for the workshop.
The workshop was at some point a sunroom. Ed knows at exactly what point it went from being a sunroom to a workshop, the day they moved in, but that is irrelevant. For all he knows, the previous owners could have had an automail genius in their family too who preferred to make practical usage of the well-lit space and turn it into a fully functioning workshop.
Ed finds Winry sitting on the stool hunched over a metal arm, one hand on her belly and the other pulling apart different colored wires. The phonograph is going in the corner, playing some familiar jazz tune that Ed recognizes but can't name.
Winry doesn't even notice him as he walks in. With her back turned to him and all her attention poured into her work, she's in her own little bubble that nothing can seem to get in through. Ed often teases her about it, saying the whole city of Central could be on fire she'd never even notice if she was working on automail.
The afternoon sunlight glistens off her hair, shimmering down it in waves of gold. It's pulled back into a long ponytail which cascades down her back like the flow of a river and is secured with a bandana.
Her face is scrunched up in concentration as she moves her delft fingers through the wires with a practiced vigor. Ed always thinks she looks prettiest like this, with blotches of grease smudged on her cheeks and in her work coveralls while concentrating on her automail. It isn't anything in particular about her appearance that he can identify to be the source of that feeling, he just thinks that perhaps she just looks more beautiful when she's doing something she's passionate about.
She dedicates so much love to the work she does that it can't help but make Ed smile. Since the time she was as young as Nicholas is now, she's known her calling, her passion.
Ed wasn't always her biggest fan. For much of their childhood, he and Winry would tease each other mercilessly about their respective passion, Ed calling her automail freak and Winry calling him alchemy geek and Al in the middle trying to play mediator. He spent those early days turning a blind eye to automail, focusing solely on alchemy.
It wasn't until he was a bit older, a bit more mature, when he really saw what it meant to her. She was the one who put him back together when no one else could after the attempt at human transmutation. She was the one who taught him how to stand again, showed him how to walk on his own two feet—one of them being the foot she crafted just for him. They weren't just metal limbs or machines, they were a second chance at a normal life for people, a second chance for him.
She's so much more capable than she realizes. She can shape lives, teach those to live who have forgotten how to do it for themselves. To Ed, she is the very star he orbits around.
Ed comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her shoulders, pulling her into a hug. Sometimes he just has to take a moment and think wow, I'm actually married to this incredible woman.
"Ed," she groans, "I'm trying to work."
Ed presses his face into her hair and breathes in her scent. "Are you almost done? I have things I want to talk to you about," his voice muffled.
"Oh? That sounds worrying," she doesn't look away from her work, but Ed knows her well enough to know the exact expression she's making. The one where she cocks and single eyebrow and angles her head ever so slightly to the left.
"It isn't. I just have a surprise for you that I think you'll like."
"Give me fifteen minutes. Go get dinner started in the meantime."
Ed over dramatically groans, but does as he's told, making his way out from the workshop and busies himself in the kitchen with pulling out the ingredients for chicken and rice. He sets the water to boil on the stove when she stalks in, definitely less than fifteen minutes later, and take a heavy seat in one of the chairs at the kitchen table.
He snickers to himself, knowing she's just as impatient as he is when it comes to finding out little secrets.
Ed sets two cup in front of them and pours them soda in their sparkling glasses.
Winry raises her eyes at it. "We're going fancy tonight, huh?"
"Since when is soda considered fancy?" Ed asks.
"Ever since we had kids."
"Well we didn't have anything else to drink, so this will just have to do. Besides, I don't think you should be drinking anything fancier." He nods to her heavily pregnant belly and she just ignores him.
"So," she starts, taking a long drink from her soda, "what's got you in such a good mood?"
"Well," he smiles, excited to see her reaction, "I quit my job today."
She blinks. "You what?"
"I left my job. I won't be teaching next year."
"Why would you do that?" she stands now, looking down at him where he sits and suddenly Ed realizes this might have the opposite effect of he was intending. He thought she would be happy.
It isn't like had rushed into this without a plan. He had spent extensive time looking over their finances and bills and understood that the contribution she brought in from her automail business was significantly higher than what he made from his job as a professor, and that him quitting his job at the university wouldn't do anything to hurt them. In fact, he did this because he figured this way he could help her out even more around the house. He didn't want to see her have to take care of the kids during the day while he was at work and she is having to juggle her work with taking care of Gen and Nick and the newborn on the way.
Maybe he should have consulted her on this one first.
"Winry," Ed stands up beside her and guides her back down to her chair, "hear me out first."
Winry crosses her arms on top of her pregnant belly but doesn't protest.
"I did this because I thought it would be good for the family. I thought that maybe with Nick starting school next year and the baby on the way it would be helpful. I know how stressful things have been on you."
Her face softens. "That's very sweet of you, Ed, but you don't have to do that. Really. You love alchemy and that job, I'm not going to take you away from that."
"Winry, love, I thought I made it clear long ago that there are always going to be things that mean worlds more to me than alchemy." He says that last part like he's scoffing at the word. He loves alchemy, he loves the study and the science, the exhilaration of it all, but that always comes miles behind those who he cares about.
"Ed…"
"And I figured if I quit, then we could move back to Resembool. You always talked about wanting to raise the kids out there and now we can!"
She blinks at him at a loss for words.
Winry leans forwards and Ed pulls her into a hug.
"Ed, your passion is alchemy. Seriously, I'm not going to drag you away from that."
"Winry, you're not dragging me away from anything. I made this choice on my own," he brings his hand up to her head and runs his finger through her hair. "Besides, you're my passion."
Ed listens are she chuckles. "You really are quite the romantic."
"Thanks, I've been practicing."
She laughs and Ed blushes at the sound. He's been married to this incredibly talented woman for six years now and she still gets him flustered. God, he loves her.
"You know, if you're going to be home from now on, then I'm going to get you to help me around the workshop while Nick's at school."
"That's fine," he smiles coyly, glad she's settled down. "I definitely don't mind hanging around and watching you while you work during the day. In fact," he sends her a devilish smile, "I think I'd quite enjoy that."
She smacks him on the head and groans, breaking their hug. "I take it back, you're not the romantic I thought you were."
Ed winks at her and helps her out of her chair.
"The water's got to be boiling now so I better pour in the rice," he stretches out his legs and walks over to the pot, pouring in the contents and stirring. He expects Winry to leave and go find the kids to tell the dinner is going to be ready soon, but she stands there behind him unmoving.
"Hey, Ed?" she says after a moment when Ed realizes she doesn't plan on leaving.
"Hmmm?"
"I love you."
Maybe he made the right choice after all.