N/A: Hi!
We have reached the final part of this mini fanfic. I think it's becoming a habit to have at least one chapter where inspiration doesn't come to me right and in this case it's this one hehe so I have my doubts with this one but hopefully it will serve as a decent closure for this little universe.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and thank you very much for reading :)
Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist is property of Hiromu Arakawa to whom I thank for giving us a fantastic story, amazing characters and beautiful couples.
Moving forward
"Yes, the shipment arrived in perfect condition, well as much as could be expected from someone like you... Yes, the packaging was fine, I have no complaints. The problem is the quantity, I had told you 55 and only 40 arrived." Ed let out a mocking laugh. "You're a mess when Riza takes a day off... Yeah, uh-huh, sure Ling did the order, sure, whatever you say... I say I believe you..." He laughed again. "You think I'm capable of making fun of you, Mustang?... Your monikers aren't funny, you bastard, you know that?" ... I'm hanging up... Oh, admit it, you miss having me there... Fuck you... Yeah, you heard me right fuck-you... Next time I'll be sure to talk to Ling, he's almost as annoying as you but he's just a little more tolerable... Oh yeah? If you're so brave go ask her, I'm sure she'll agree with me... Please, just because she's blind enough to date a guy like you doesn't mean she doesn't notice the rest... Seriously... Winry goes out to lunch all the time with her remember?... Yeah... Even Maes agrees... That's why I'm telling you- Shit! Talk to you later."
Ed slammed the phone's speaker against its base and quickly wheeled his chair around until he reached his target.
"Gee, honey, it's still a little early for you to be skulking around by yourself don't you think?" Ed said as he leaned over his chair to grab his daughter, who had tried to climb over her little playpen and had ended up with the back of her pajamas stuck in one of the boards.
The little girl laughed. "D-Daddy..." She said as she waved her hands as Ed placed her on his lap.
Ed smiled. "Oh, you're trying one of your tactics aren't you?" He said as he pulled her closer towards him to play with her nose with his own. "You want to get me in trouble with mommy, missy?"
For all response, the girl laughed again.
Ed sighed but didn't stop smiling. "This isn't fair, I'm at a disadvantage. It's two against one." He began to lift his daughter over his head and then lowered her repeatedly eliciting more laughter from his daughter. "Wouldn't you like a little brother? You could have a mischief partner like I had your Uncle Al and you'd give Daddy a 50/50 chance of evening things up at home. Sounds like a good deal, don't you think?" He said before pulling her to him to snort on her cheek like he knew his daughter liked so much.
"No using Abby in your machiavellian schemes." Winry said with a smile as she walked into the small office as she removed the bandana from her head.
"Win, a baby is not a machiavellian plan." Ed said with a pouty face.
"Of course not." She said as she leaned over to give him a kiss on the cheek. At that moment Abby started to reach out her hands towards her so Winry held her before continuing. "You're the machiavellian part. You know there's nothing to write to the stork for at least two months."
"Really, Win, what's wrong with calling sex for what it is?" He said as he winked at her.
"Ed!" Winry scolded him as she tried to cover her daughter's ears.
Ed laughed. "Come on, Win. Abby's not going to remember this. She just turned a year old a few months ago."
"She's your daughter, Ed."
"And?"
"I don't intend to risk your words accelerating your genes by making my little girl be known as the youngest child to use swear words."
Ed laughed and Winry couldn't help but mimic him.
"You knew what you were risking when you agreed to marry me."
Winry began rocking her daughter trying to keep her from fiddling with her front locks. "I think you can tell I'm a woman who enjoys taking risks." She said in a teasing tone.
Ed smiled. "So how about some risk tonight?" He said waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Winry didn't respond. She left her daughter in the playpen and then sat on Ed's lap kissing him passionately. Ed was quick to gladly reciprocate the gesture, feeling his body begin to react to Winry's gesture. He had barely begun to caress Winry's buttocks when she abruptly pulled away from him. Ed leaned toward her but Winry stopped him by placing a couple of fingers on his lips.
"That's all the risk I'm going to take today." She told him with a smile.
"Win..." Ed complained without taking his mouth off Winry's fingers. "You can't just provoke me like this."
"Sure I can." Said Winry with a mischievous grin. "Besides you didn't think I was going to give Abby a show like that, did you?"
Ed's mouth dropped open. "You're a wicked woman."
Winry laughed. "No way, Ed, you'll have to be patient. We can't make baby plans until we finish this project and you know well that's going to take a minimum of two months."
"Mustang can wait a few more months."
"If you remember the one in charge of this phase of the project is Miss Armstrong, right?"
Ed visibly shuddered. "Okay, no babies for the time being. But that doesn't mean we can't have some fun in the meantime."
"I agree with you." Winry said as she "accidentally" slid her hand over Ed's manhood before letting it rest on his leg. "But not tonight."
"I'll be quiet."
"You never are." Winry said with a giggle as she stood up. "I don't plan on embarrassing myself again with Al in the house." She said with a slight blush.
"How about we meet Dr. Knox and Al at the Imperial Hotel restaurant and drop them both off there? After all, we don't have room in the apartment for the two of them to stay over."
"What about Abby?" Winry asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I can call Izumi right now." He said placing his hands on the wheels of his chair to start moving.
"Hold your horses, cowboy. Dr. Knox needs to examine you carefully to give you a preliminary diagnosis. How's he going to do it in a restaurant chair?"
"We order a room and then use it ourselves."
Winry laughed. "You're impossible." She said as she shook her head. "I'm sorry, Ed, but you'll have to be patient. If Dr. Knox's preliminary analysis is favorable then you'll probably have to go to the hospital tomorrow for tests and I don't want a dumb, sleepy husband exhausted from his nocturnal activities."
"Our nocturnal activities." Ed punctuated with a finger. He sighed and said. "Okay, okay, I get your point. At least I expect you to give me a big slice of apple pie tonight okay?"
"Gladly." Winry said as she moved closer to him to steal another quick kiss. "You'll see it will be worth the wait."
"Right now you don't know how much more I'm looking forward to a session with my wife than a doctor's appointment with that Knox guy." Ed said, crossing his arms.
Winry smiled, amused. "Come on, Ed. You'll only have to wait a day and maybe the doctor's treatment will be the one we've been waiting for all this time."
Ed shrugged. "Who knows."
Winry's smile faltered. "Ed, honey, don't lose heart. There's still hope."
Ed glanced at Abby, who, noting that she was no longer the center of attention, had taken to playing with her blocks in her playpen, before returning his gaze to Winry. He smiled hugely before replying. "Don't freak out, Win. I'm fine. If the treatment works that would be great and if it doesn't too. As long as I have you and Abby I have nothing to fear or regret."
Winry also widened her smile. "Oh, Ed..." She moved closer to him again and leaned in to kiss him repeatedly. "I love you."
"No more than I do." Ed said between kisses.
Winry gave him one last kiss before pulling away. "I better hurry or I won't be able to finish feeding Abby before the next customer arrives."
Ed placed his elbows on his knees and leaned his face against his open palms. "You can breastfeed her. Believe me that would be a sight I'd appreciate." He said with a flirtatious smile.
Winry blushed slightly and smiled. "I think you're definitely going to be the happiest when we have another Elric getting hungry all the time." With that said she walked over to the playpen to carry Abby. "Come on sweetie, we need to get out of here before your dad convinces me to go back to breastfeeding you."
Ed laughed and waved goodbye to his daughter waving his hand due to Abby looking at him with curious eyes over her mother's shoulder.
Ed sighed and, with a satisfied smile on his face, brought his hands to the back of his neck and leaned against the back of his chair.
The past six years had been filled with new learning and experiences.
Although at first it might have seemed like a mere ploy to win Winry back, Ed continued to work in Garfiel's shop for another year. It was not his area of expertise but thanks to his wife he had always had an admiration for the profession and, frankly, had grown to love being involved in related activities. This had allowed him to spend even more time with his beloved wife and had also helped him to better understand the workings of the automail and the medical procedures involved in its installation.
The knowledge he was acquiring was becoming the echo of an idea in his mind that finally took shape two years later: to form his own business as he had desired before the accident, only this time the focus would be somewhat different and his wife would be his major associate.
Winry had also had aspirations of having her own business in the future so, although it pained her to part ways with her boss and mentor, she embarked on that adventure with him.
The main idea of the business was to have an automail shop but that wasn't all. With the observation and learning that Ed had done and gained over the past few years as well as the knowledge he had of the pharmaceutical field, Ed began to do his own research to create a new line of medications that would specialize in automail users.
Automail users represented a minority compared to the conditions commonly treated in hospitals, so they were treated with regular morphine and no morphine or any type of analgesic was usually given at the time of reinstatement because of the nerve connection that had to be made.
However, Ed had hoped to create a line of medications that would focus on making the pain of automail installation more bearable since, being the husband of one of Amestris' top mechanics, he had seen countless people crying and writhing in pain, not to mention he had even gotten to see some children who had to go through that process and those installations were the ones that always broke his heart.
It was not an easy task but he had the support of Winry and his former co-workers so as soon as he told Winry of his plans, she quickly approved of his idea and was ready to help him in any way she could.
The first few months were not easy considering the amount of paperwork, research and phone calls Ed had to do to gather all the resources and equipment he needed to carry out his project. It was certainly a valuable help to have the support of Mustang, Riza, Ling, Lanfan, Olivier and Havoc, who served as liaisons with Ed's former company to make the proposal and presentation of the project and thus obtain the main source of sponsorship to move the project forward.
While Ed was given the green light to develop his project, the young man realized that it was not one of the company's priority projects because almost all of the research and testing work was falling on his and Winry's shoulders. The resources and supporting information were coming in without fail but every time he went to meet with the owners of the company he could tell that they didn't have much faith that the project would bear all the fruits expected but if they expected Ed to just produce one more painkiller of the bunch, they were wrong because he didn't plan to give up on what he was developing. He had a goal and he was not alone in it.
That's why three months after Ed started managing the project, he and Winry made the decision to sell their house and rent an apartment on the first floor of a building that was right next door to a perfect location for Winry to pursue his passion and with enough space for Ed to do research and testing with the equipment he had borrowed.
When they stopped working with Garfiel, he said goodbye to them in tears but was happy to see them take on this project together, even offering to help with the project if they needed it. Ed and Winry took him at his word and Garfiel became one of the most important collaborators in the mechanical part as well as Winry's grandmother, who every few months would visit them and share her impressions and points of view on the progress they were making with the project (after, of course, on her first visit after Ed and Winry's reconciliation, she gave Ed a good scolding and pipe blows for the foolish things he had done, taking advantage of the opportunity to scold him as he deserved because Ed had refused to open the door when she had gone to visit Winry after learning of the divorce proposal).
The project was taking time as they did not have the huge team that would normally be available for a project of that magnitude, but after years of effort, dedication, many tests and research, 4 years later they managed to bring to the market the first product derived from their project: a drug capable of reducing by 40% the pain caused by the reinstatement of automail. Ed would have liked to achieve a higher percentage but when he saw the first child try the drug when Winry reinserted the automail in his hand and saw that the child was clinging to his teddy bear with tears running down his cheeks but not crying loudly and writhing in pain, Ed was grateful that at least he had succeeded in making that little boy not have to suffer as much as he would have without the drug.
The launch of the first drug was an event that was celebrated in the company of all his loved ones. Al, Pinako, Garfiel, Paninya and all of Ed's ex-colleagues who now, in addition to being his friends, were also external collaborators of the project, joyfully celebrated the event in Ed and Winry's apartment. They were a bit crowded but the good atmosphere was maintained throughout the party.
And when the last guest said goodbye, Ed and Winry had their own celebration and 9 months later Abby came into their lives.
Although his insecurities about being a father on his current conditions had been greatly reduced when he made peace with Winry, Ed would be lying if he said he didn't become a little fearful of what was on the way the closer Winry's due date got but when he held his daughter in his arms for the first time all doubts disappeared because at that moment he became convinced that he would go to great lengths to make sure that little being of light received the best in the world to grow up as a happy girl.
He and Winry had wanted children since before the accident but with everything that had happened between them because of Ed's depression and bad behavior when he became an invalid, they decided to wait a little while while their lives stabilized again. Then came the project and with all the workload it and the workshop brought with it there was no way they could possibly consider bringing a child into the world with all the responsibilities they had on top of it. But by the time the first drug was released, the two had settled into their rhythm and the project, although it would still require time and effort, had the foundations in place to facilitate the next steps, so Ed and Winry decided it was time to fulfill one of their greatest desires.
Also, throughout those years, Winry took it upon herself to find some specialists who could help Ed walk again because, unfortunately, the automail prototype she was developing did not come to fruition for Ed, although it did end up becoming a new type of automail that she began offering to her customers just a few months earlier.
In the end, Ed had ended up seeing a couple of specialists per year but none of them were able to restore the mobility to his legs. Most of them had given him a negative diagnosis before even considering surgery so Ed had only been operated on twice, albeit with no results.
Ed had already accepted his condition, so since Abby was born, the idea of looking for a way to regain mobility in his legs had not crossed his mind again, so this time it was Al who had opened the doors to the world of possibilities.
Within his social circle in Central, one of his friends had told him about Dr. Knox who was a grumpy doctor but with a lot of years of experience in medicine having spent at least half of them specializing in restoring mobility to his patients. He had moved to the west of the country seven years earlier to enjoy his retirement with his wife, but Al's friend had learned that he had not actually left medicine and would be spending a few weeks in Central to visit his son.
Al's friend contacted him, and after much pleading Al managed to convince Dr. Knox to accompany him to East City to evaluate his brother's situation so within a couple of hours the two would be with them for a preliminary review of Ed's condition and, as a good hostess, Winry was taking care of preparing a bountiful dinner in between her chores at the shop.
Ed didn't hold out much hope that the doctor would give him the solution he had previously sought but he didn't want to deny to the enthusiasm of his younger brother, who was even taking a few days off to go see him when in reality he was extremely busy with his activities at the university and preparations for his upcoming wedding.
A warm smile appeared on Ed's lips.
He had been a huge jerk in the past and he didn't understand how he had ended up having such wonderful people by his side but if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that he would never make the same mistakes again because without his family and friends he would be completely lost. Maybe his mobility would never return but that didn't matter to him anymore. With what he had now he considered himself the luckiest man in the world.
"Ed?" Winry poked her head through the vacant space left by the half-open door. "Are you done with your calls?"
"Uh, oh, yeah." Ed said coming back to the present. I can call Mustang later. He thought as he remembered hanging up on his friend.
Ed caught a glimpse of his wife putting her hands on her hips. "So what are you doing here? I could use a little help cleaning up the mess your daughter made with the applesauce."
Ed laughed. "My daughter? She got that from you."
"Bullshit."
"Granny told me the story about the cupcakes." Ed said with a smug smile.
Winry blushed slightly. "All of it?"
For all response, Ed laughed and began to move closer to her. When he was next to her, he took her hand and smiled at her. "Come on."
Winry had no choice but to reciprocate his smile. "Remind me to ask Al about more embarrassing stories of yours."
"We'll see." Ed gave her arm a slight tug to let her know he wanted her to lean in, which Winry did immediately. When he had her close, he kissed her lips before saying. "Thank you."
"Why?"
"You know why." Ed said with a warm smile before depositing a kiss on her hand.
Winry reciprocated his smile. "Thank you for coming back to me."
Ed laughed. "The grateful one is me, don't hog my spot okay?"
Winry let out a chuckle and gave his hand a squeeze before heading for the door that connected the apartment to the workshop to go check on Abby.
Ed followed soon after, eager to continue enjoying the opportunity life had given him.
N/A: I couldn't decide whether to give Ed his mobility back or not, so it's up to you ;)