Winry was laying back against the bed she shared with Ed, the curtains drawn around it to hide the fact that she was completely naked and waiting for her husband to come into the room. She had let her hair down, and while she hoped it wouldn't get caught in Ed's automail, or that he wouldn't pull it, she thought he might think she looked sexy that way.

Of course, she was naked and on their bed, so it probably wouldn't have mattered what her hair looked like.

Ed quickly slipped under the covers next to Winry and curled up against her, eager for warmth. "I hate this time of year," he murmured, burying his face in her neck, "'s too fucking cold."

Once they made it back to their room, Winry was still shaking with anger, but somehow she managed to ask one of the house elves to bring up an ice pack for Ed's swollen cheek without yelling or scaring the thing off. As it hurried away, she closed the door then took Ed by the arm and moved him toward the bed.

"You sit here," she said, pressing him down onto the bed and frowning as she looking down at Ed's swollen cheek. "God, that asshole... I hope that thing in the lake eats him." She grumbled, and pulled away to move toward the bathroom. "I'll get you some aspirin, so stay there."

Winry shuffled wearily through the door into the room she shared with Ed and Al, dropping her bag by the door as she closed it. "I am so tired," she said quietly, and looked over at Ed to smile weakly. "Your new automail is almost done, though. Just a few finishing touches, and then polishing."

She moved toward the bed and dropped down onto it to lay on her stomach, not even bothering to take her shoes off, and turned her head to the side to look at Ed again. "How was your day?"

Ed looked out the window onto the field of tents on the castle grounds, glad that he'd managed to avoid that whole mess. "Hey, Winry," he said to his wife, who was somewhere behind him in the room, "Aren't you glad we got married? Now we don't have to live in a tent or anything."

Winry wasn't really sure how most honeymoons went, but she hoped that everyone in the world could have one as wonderful as hers. Standing on the balcony of their room wrapped in a sheet from the bed, she stared out at the ocean and sighed happily.

Since they had left Hogwarts, almost all of their time had been spent making love over and over with brief interludes of sleeping that were often interrupted in favor of more sex. Really, the only way it could have been improved was with a few more breaks for food.

Winry turned away from the window and moved back to the bed to sit on the edge and watch Ed as he slept. Carefully to avoid waking him, she pushed a bit of his hair out of his eyes and smiled.

After all the guests had left, Edward and Winry headed upstairs, making it to their room in record time. Ed grinned at his new wife when they reached their door and swept her up int his arms before crossing the threshhold.

"Well, what do we do now, Mrs. Elric?," he asked, grinning at the woman in his arms.

All during the night of March 4th, Edward tossed and turned, something nagging at the back of his mind (said nagging sounded suspiciously like Winry's voice). He was sure he was forgetting something.

The next morning, the sun and a startling realization dawned on Ed.

"Shit!," Ed whispered harshly to himself, "I forgot her birthday!" He looked down warily at the woman sleeping next to him. "She's going to kill me," he moaned in resignation, "I don't have a gift or... Hmm, wait, what time is it?"

He scrambled for his watch and looked at the time. "It's only six, if I hurry, I can make it to Hogsmeade and be back before she wakes up..."

At that, he slid out of bed, being very careful not to wake Winry, threw his clothes on, and ran out the door. Ed made the trek to Hogsmeade in record time that morning, though when he got there, much to his horror, not a single shop was open.

After cursing the air blue, Ed pondered aloud, "Well, now I'm really screwed. If I transmute something for her, she'll know I forgot and maim me, but if I don't have a present, she'll kill me ouright. Maybe if I promised to be her slave for the day- no, week, that'd be a good present..."

As he desperately thought of ways not to get killed, something in an alley nearby barked. Ed turned his head, about to tell the damn dog to shut up so he could think, when he noticed that it was not a dog, it was a puppy- an utterly adorable puppy, at that. It was mottled black, brown, and white, and despite being a mutt, had the distinct tailless, pudgy look of a corgi. It was, going by the haphazardly placed box reading "Free Puppies" nearby, ownerless. Ed, being the genius that he is, immediately saw the opportunity presented by this dog.

"Heeeeere, doggy, c'mere," he said carefully, not wishing to chase the dog all over kingdom come. Fortunately for Ed, the dog obeyed and came to sit in front of his feet. Ed picked it up and and slipped it underneath his jacket to protect it from the chilly March morning.

"Alright, dog, don't ruin my coat," he said quietly. The dog only yipped up at him in response.

Ed took his time in getting back to the room, where he sat down on the bed and lightly shook Winry a few times. He set the puppy down on her stomach and whispered, "Hey, wake up."

After Al had finally gotten away from Larsa Solidor, it had been one straight beeline run towards the Ravenclaw dorm room, scrambling into his and his brother's room to the bathroom where the door was slammed so hard it banged from the closure and crept open a little. He undressed, and whirled around, yanking the door shut but completely forgetting to lock it.

Al stepped into the shower and turned the water on ice cold, screeching as ice water pelted over his skin.

A look of confusion crossed Edward's face as he watched his brother run past him and into the bathroom. His eyebrows shot up on his forehead when he heard the shower sputter to life. Ed set down the book he was reading and stood up from the bed. He walked over to the bathroom door, knocked on it and called out, "Hey, are you okay? What's with the shower so late in the afternoon? You get sprayed by a skunk or something?"

Ed paced the room, wondering when his younger brother would be returning. With Winry out of the room for once, Ed could finally ask Al something he'd been wanting to ask for awhile. Heaving a sigh, he flopped onto the bed and stared at the door impatiently.

From a very early age, Alphonse had learned to hide from his elder brother any sweets that he might have. Years later, he was still stashing away chocolates in the back of his closet lest Edward find them. Al had woken up early this morning, as per usual, although Ed and Winry were still fast asleep in their bed. Carefully, Al sneaked over to his closet and rifled through the pile books at the bottom of it, looking for the chocolates he'd procured not but a week before. Making sure that Ed and Winry didn't see, he quickly popped one into his mouth and then hid the box yet again.

About halfway from his closet to the bed, Alphonse noticed that something was wrong.

Very wrong.

He'd felt the same thing before, when he'd eaten a bad cookie and ended up as a three year old child and, lo and behold, when he looked around everything was much higher up than before. Resisting the urge to cry, the now three year old Alphonse climbed onto his brother's bed and slipped in between Ed and Winry.

"Brother," little Al said tearily as he tugged at Ed's nightshirt, "Brother, something's wrong."

Ed, of course, being a heavy sleeper, didn't notice that Al didn't sound entirely right and only mumbled, "Go back to sleep Al."

Ed burst into his and Winry's room, a smile on his face. He'd walked all the way to Hogsmeade that morning just to get access to a phone and had, as a result, spent all morning haggling over the phone.

Saying nothing, he walked over to the desk, where Winry was working with bits of metal, and leaned down to kiss her neck.

Ed had been working fairly late that night and thus when he returned to his room, Winry was already in bed sleeping. Sighing, he undressed and crawled in beside her, careful not to wake her. Tired from a day of writing and research, Ed fell asleep quickly.

Soon, he began murmuring things and turning over frequently, kicking his legs and clutching the sheets frantically. After about an hour of this, Ed cried out, "Give him back!"

He sat up like a shot, a cold sweat dripping from his brow and his breaths quick and shallow.

It had been a little more than a week since Edward and Winry had gotten engaged. They'd talked only a little bit about the wedding- like when they might want to have it, where they'd want it to be, and various other minor issues. Winry had taken the time to look up the one thing she really wanted and the one thing Ed had pretty much promised her for the wedding: a wedding dress. She had spent the morning going over the various dresses from different stores and tailors while sitting at the desk.

Meanwhile, Ed had been exiled to the bed to do his research. He'd hoped to publish something, anything just to get a bit of money for the wedding. He figured he could get some of his old, un-released work on alchemy published back home under a nom de guerre for at least a pittance. However, what was soon to come would cause them both headaches, that was for sure.

Ed looked up from the sea of papers around him and asked aloud, "Winry, when can I have the desk back? I was hoping to get some writing done today..."

The past few days, Ed had kept himself bound up in the library, studying this or that and reading various works of literature. It was cold outside and had snowed a few inches. Neither him nor Winry had much money at the moment, so there wasn't much to do other than hang around the castle. Winry had gotten him away from there for this and that, but not for any long period of time. However, this time she had an idea.

"Hey, Ed...," Winry said to him before he headed out, "Let's go outside."

Ed turned to her just as he was leaving, jacket halfway on and books under his arm. "Outside? Why?," he asked.

Winry tossed and turned in the bed her and Ed shared. She hacked, obviously congested. She wheezed, having trouble breathing. She knew where she had gotten this sickness from. She let out a loud, raspy moan, hoping to catch someone's attention. She didn't feel healthy enough to even roll out of bed, let alone walk around. Ed, who had been sleeping next to her, startled awake.

"Winry?," he inquired quietly, "Are you alright?"

Ed was feeling better that morning, his own cold mostly gone. But, it seemed Winry's was far worse than his had been.

The morning after his date with Winry, Ed did not rouse from bed until the sun was already high in the sky. However, he did toss and turn and grumble discontentedly in his sleep. He would occasionally sniffle wetly. Eventually, unable to sleep or breathe comfortably, Edward rasped, "Winry? Liebchen? Where are you?"

Winry had been not-so-subtly hinting for the past few days that she wanted to go out for dinner. Ed has always demurred, saying that the food in the castle was just fine. He didn't know that she had been implying she wanted to go out, not so much for the food. And so, one night he came back from the library to find Winry dressed to the nines and insisting that he put something nice on and take her out now.

Ed could only oblige by dressing quickly and scrounging for a bit of money.

"That little Italian place in Hogsmeade sound alright?," he asked, as though Winry would know what Italian food was.