Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Brother, I’m done listening to you. Go home,” Alphonse huffed. “You’re too sick to do this.”

Edward threw his arms up in exasperation, simultaneously fighting the urge to bring them back down against his navel. “I am not dragging myself back to East City for a little cold, Al! It’s fine!”

“Ed.” The suit of armor sagged in frustrated defeat, before hovering over his older brother with a glare. “You’ve been holding your stomach for the past twenty minutes— yes, I see you do it when I’m not looking!”

“So what if my stomach hurts? You’re overreacting, Al,” Ed huffed, crossing his arms. 

“You really wanna do this mission that badly?” Al scoffed in disbelief. “I know you hate these missions, Brother! So quit acting like this—I won’t fall for it.”

“You think I can’t do it?” Ed challenged, volume rising. His breaths were coming out in ragged pants, as he fought the urge to soothe the pain by his stomach again. 

“I think you shouldn’t do it, Ed.” 

“Well, I-I…that's too bad! I came here to do this. If that Bastard Colonel finds out that I skipped out on finishing my mission because of a little cold, he’ll tease me about it for weeks!” Ed yelled. “And that pain in the ass is always looking for a reason to push my buttons,” he added with a mutter.

“That’s because you make it so easy, Brother,” Al said, slightly amused, before falling back onto his serious tone. “Besides, it’s not like you’re purposely skipping out on your assignment—you’re genuinely not feeling well. You haven’t been feeling well since we left! What if it gets worse?” the suit of armor asked, worried. 

Ed turned up his nose. “Even if it does get worse, I’ve still been through… worse worse. I can handle a little—”

A cough suddenly tore up his throat, igniting a blinding pain in his abdomen. Before he knew it, Ed’s knees buckled, and he would have hit the ground if it weren’t for a bulky set of armored arms holding him up by the underarms. 

It took a moment too long for the coughing to stop. He groaned at the intense discomfort. 

“—you okay? Ed? Ed!” Alphonse was yelling in his face, Edward realized. 

“Yeah, I’m…yeah.” He swallowed. “Shit.”

Al gave him an expectant look. Even if the helmet couldn’t express emotion, Ed just knew.

“Maybe…” he hesitated, gulping. “Maybe going back isn’t such a bad idea, after all.”

Alphonse didn’t tease him or say anything obnoxious for succeeding against Ed’s impenetrable stubbornness. Instead, he just offered a simple nod. “I wish you could just go to the hotel, but…”

Yeah, not happening. The only available hotel would rather burn itself down than let a military dog back inside. Unfortunately, they had spotted Ed’s silver watch this morning, and proceeded to swiftly throw him out the door before he could have a chance of defending himself. 

“I’ll…I’ll see you tomorrow, Al. If I go now, I should be able to catch the soonest train back to East City,” Ed said awkwardly. 

Alphonse hummed in agreement. “See you then, Brother. Be safe.”

It was a beautiful autumn day in East City. Gentle afternoon light filtered through the windows of Eastern Command, a bright sight with a sharp contrast to a certain Colonel’s stormy mood. 

“Fullmetal returned from his mission early yesterday,” Colonel Roy Mustang noted aloud, arms crossed as his eyes singed holes into his desk. “Yet he still hasn’t reported in.”

Hawkeye looked up at him from her desk against the side of the room, her eyes curious with a glimmer of concern towards his impatient tone. “Sir?” she said curiously. 

“I’m getting tired of this, Lieutenant,” he seethed. “I already cut that boy too much slack in general. All I ask is for the simple order of him updating me on the status of his assignments. Now, he’s hardly taking any of this seriously. It’s unacceptable.” 

“He’s still fairly new at this, Sir,” Hawkeye offered. “Edward wasn’t supposed to be back from his mission until this afternoon. Perhaps he’ll report then.”

“No.” Roy sat up straighter in his chair, eyes narrowing. “He knows the protocol. I’ve drummed it into this thick skull enough times, have I not?’’ He didn't wait for his subordinate’s input, already shaking his head and crossing his arms with a frown. ‘‘Fullmetal is supposed to report to me within four hours of his return from a mission. Twenty-four isn’t merely unacceptable, it is atrocious behavior. Had this been anyone else, they would’ve been reported AWOL.” 

Ed had been especially bratty these past few days, harboring an extra-nasty attitude towards his superior for assigning a routine mission rather than a hunt for the Philosopher’s Stone. 

Fullmetal always did this. He would whine and complain when Roy would give him a mission unrelated to the stone, and it would be two steps back for both of them. The kid would take him even less seriously after that, as if it were Roy’s fault that he couldn’t send the boy on endless lead chases for their entire military careers. 

Couldn’t Fullmetal see that he was trying?

But no. He clearly didn’t care. The kid would curse in his face, disobey orders, and tarnish Roy’s reputation without hesitation. 

Maybe this insubordination is some type of rebellion, he thought. And rebellions must be extinguished as soon as possible. 

“…Perhaps you should give the Elrics a call, Sir,” Riza’s voice brought him out of his thoughts, pointedly looking at the phone upon his desk. “They might be in their dorm.”

Mustang felt fury boil in his stomach at the mere thought of it. Fullmetal, childish enough to ignore his report, and instead deciding to lay around like a lazy slob, doing God-knows-what. 

“If he’s been in his dorm this entire time, I’ll kill him,” the Colonel growled. 

Hawkeye rolled her eyes. 

With too-much practice, Roy angrily stabbed the number of the Elrics’ dorm room into the phone, waiting impatiently as it buzzed softly in his ear. The man counted the ringing tones with closed eyes, feeling his blood pressure rise as a headache began to bloom in his temple. Finally, after what seemed to be an extraordinarily and selfish amount of time to be left waiting, a soft click interrupted the ringing, and his cold black eyes snapped open. 

“Fullmetal,” Mustang said coldly. 

A moment of silence enveloped the room. 

“…yeah?” a small voice eventually crackled over the line. The teen sounded drowsy, which only infuriated Roy further. 

Was he seriously sleeping? 

“—Why aren’t you in my office? Your report was due within four hours of your return, so you better have a good reason why it isn’t in my hands right now.” He tapped his desk impatiently. It took a few seconds for Ed’s voice to reappear. 

“…Colonel?” the boy whispered, sounding uncharacteristically vague, and a bit nervous. “I…s-sorry, I didn’ get back ‘til today…I thought—”

“Don’t you dare lie to me!” Roy barked as raging disbelief coursed through his veins. “I have sources telling me that you returned from your mission as early as yesterday. So, what the hell have you been doing?!” he seethed. 

Another pause. His patience was fizzling down like a dynamite fuse. 

“…Yesterday?” Ed had the nerve to croak. “I…I don’t…”

Mustang slammed his fist on the table. “You know what? I’m not gonna listen to your damn excuses anymore, Elric. If your ass isn’t in my office with a report in hand within the next thirty minutes, I will drag you to the nearest body of water and set you aflame before tossing you into it!” he spat. 

Roy hung up before Ed had a chance to respond, fuming in the sudden silence. Looking up, he noticed Hawkeye’s disapproving look that was digging under his skin like a persistent worm. 

“What is it now, Lieutenant?” he huffed, not in the mood for a lecture. 

Her unamused glare remained steadfast. “Colonel, was that really necessary?” she asked. “Edward is not your typical soldier. He is a child that is still adjusting and learning military protocol.  You sounded unreasonably harsh.”

Roy let out an inpatient sigh, closing his eyes in frustration. “Child or not, he refuses to take me seriously, which is unacceptable. Fullmetal even had the nerve to lie to me over the phone. He tried to tell me that he got back today. Ridiculous. I may have been lenient with him in the past, but this is the final straw. We’re gonna have a very serious conversation when he arrives.”

“And you think he’ll come?” Hawkeye genuinely asked. 

“—He better. If he doesn’t, I’m marching right up to his dorm myself,” Roy promised.

“Yes, Sir…” Hawkeye spoke, disapproval shadowing her tone. 

And so, they waited. 

Roy struggled not to press his pen too roughly against his paperwork as he signed away, hardly making a dent in the growing pile of white file-sheets. With every minute that passed, his grip on the writing utensils became stronger, until eventually he had to put it down to avoid snapping it in half. 

Before long, the thirty-minute mark had passed. 

“—Sir, I’m coming with you,” Hawkeye declared as she watched him hastily slip on his coat with what must have been a scary look on his face. 

“If you insist,” he replied, not even bothering to spare her a glance. 

Roy fumed as he marched out of the office with Hawkeye in tow. Together, they the ignored confused expressions from the rest of the team as they departed from the building. 

The car ride was silent and tense. In his peripheral vision, Roy could feel the disapproving glances that were being painted on the side of his head by Hawkeye, but he refused to outwardly notice them. Internally, his mind boiled, preoccupied by his frustration with Fullmetal’s behavior. 

The kid had left early without reporting, returned without reporting, and was currently in his dorm, napping of all things. And, the brat had the nerve to lie about it, on top of it all. 

Whatever excuses Ed barreled in his direction, Roy’s opinion was already set in stone. There was no justification for this behavior, and he would make sure Fullmetal would be aware of this. 

Before long, Hawkeye and him had arrived at the dorm room. The pair stood in tense silence, and Roy finally raised his arm to the wood. He knocked thrice on the door with hardly-contained fury. 

“Open up, Fullmetal. I’m only asking once.”

A quiet shifting was heard through the door, along with a brief squeak of old bed springs. Then, nothing. 

“I can hear him in there, but he’s not coming to the door. Unbelievable,” Roy said to Riza as he laughed to himself at the absurdity. This kid was going to be the end of him. 

“Maybe he’s sick, Sir…” Hawkeye said quietly. “This doesn’t seem like him, to act like this.”

“…If he’s well enough to travel home early, he’s well enough to give me a call. There’s no excuse,” Roy settled on, before removing a piece of chalk from his pocket. He quickly sketched an array on the door, pressing his hand against it. “I’m coming in, Elric,” he announced. “You better be decent.”

A flash of blue, and the door creaked open. 

To his surprise, the room looked the same as all of the other times he’s seen it, aside from the occupant on the bed against the farthest wall. 

Edward Elric lay asleep on his back, his face scrunched in discomfort as his flesh hand slipped under his shirt, cradling the soft flesh of his belly. The kid was still fully clothed, shoes and all, and his ghostly face was covered in a sheen of sweat. Roy could clearly see his uneven breaths from across the room. 

Shaking away his surprise, Roy’s eyes narrowed as he stepped forward, Riza trailing behind him. 

“Wake up, Fullmetal.” He loudly snapped his bare hands several times, watching Ed’s eyes flicker and flinch behind their lids before they slowly cracked open. “Nap time is over.”

A congested groan escaped from Ed’s lips. “…Wha…?” he asked, trying to sit up, before going rigid with a gasp, his hand pressing against his stomach with clenched eyes. “Ow…” he complained aloud. 

Roy ignored the pitiful display. “Feeling unwell is no excuse to leave me in the dark, Fullmetal. Let alone lying to your superior officer over the phone,” he growled. “You better start explaining yourself.”

Ed’s eyes reopened slowly as warm gold slid over to meet with cold onyx. “ …Colonel? What are you… doing here…?” he asked, voice soft yet hoarse, as if trying not to cough.

Mustang tried to keep his face calm as impatient fury gripped at his throat, begging to be released as a scream. “Don’t you ever listen to a word I say?” he asked through bared teeth and clenched fists. “I only called you half an hour ago.”

Ed only stared at him with eerily blank eyes. “…Call?”

“—Where the hell is your brother?” Mustang bit out in exasperation, deciding to change topics. Fullmetal was clearly useless to fight with, like this. 

“…Al?” Ed repeated, before swallowing. “He’s… th’mission…” Ed waved his hand in a quick explanatory motion, before quickly returning it to the soft skin of his stomach with a hiss.  

“Your brother is doing your mission?!” Roy roared, ignoring Edward’s sharp flinch. 

“Sir,” Hawkeye intervened, placing a hand on his shoulder. 

Roy shrugged her off, taking a step closer to Fullmetal. “You need to tell me these sorts of things, Elric!” he hissed, eyes burning. “I’m sick of your insolence. Your inability to take things seriously—to take me seriously—!”

“Stop… yelling…” Ed pleaded, his face tight in agony as it turned to face the wall instead. “…annoying… bastard…” he gasped. 

Roy threw his arms up in the air. “This is exactly what I mean!” 

“Sir!” Hawkeye snarled at him.  

Roy spun on his heel. “What?” he hissed back. She was starting to piss him off. 

Riza stared at him with a hardened glare. “You’ve said enough. Let me handle this,” she huffed, before walking past him. Her demeanor screamed at him, ‘you’re not helping!’

Roy felt annoyance bubble in his gut at the general lack of respect in this room, but he swallowed it down. “By all means, Lieutenant…” he muttered, stepping aside with his arms crossed. 

He watched as Riza walked up to Ed, pressing her palm against his forehead. In an instant, the woman went rigid with a small gasp of surprise, gently pulling away before flicking her gaze back at Roy with a concerned expression. 

“Ed, how long have you been feeling sick?” she asked the boy. 

After a long moment of processing her words, Ed turned his head back around and spoke with a gravelly voice. “Al sen’ me home earlier t’day…I started feelin’ off yesterday, I think…”

‘Still standing by that lie?’ Roy wanted to say. 

“…Edward. According to other people, you got back here yesterday afternoon,” Riza said, a lot more gentle than Roy would have spoken. 

Ed’s brow furrowed. “…B-But… wait, tha’ doesn’t…l…” He paused, trying to chase his breath. Then, the boy hissed. “…Somethin’s wrong…” he moaned. 

“Helpful,” Roy drawled. This was pointless. 

“—Edward, you need to tell me what’s wrong,” Hawkeye insisted, her voice growing worried. 

“What’s his deal?” Roy asked his Lieutenant with a lazily raised brow. Hawkeye may be falling for Ed’s pity party, but he refused to do the same. 

“He has a high fever, Sir. Slight delirium as well. He thinks it’s still yesterday—he must have passed out at some point,” she said with frustration. His Lieutenant clearly didn’t appreciate his aloof approach. 

Roy strode forward, wanting a closer look for himself. “Fullmetal?” he asked, a bit more warily this time. 

Ed inhaled to say something, before his eyes suddenly went wide and he lurched forward with a painful sounding cough. Both of his shaking arms quickly wrapped around his abdomen, squeezing it tightly as the coughs shook his body one after another. 

“Edward!” Hawkeye yelled in alarm as the boy let out a pained whimper between his coughs. Ed only let out a soft keening noise as he cradled his stomach, trying extremely hard to smother the spasming of his lungs. 

“What the hell is wrong with him now?” Roy said, slightly annoyed. Ed’s coughing had startled him, but he still had a feeling that the kid was playing it up.

“I don’t know! Maybe a wound? He keeps holding his stomach,” Riza hastily explained, before putting her hands on Ed’s shoulders. “Ed, move your hands. I have to take off your jacket to see what’s wrong.”

“N-No, no…hurts…” Ed whimpered desperately, avoiding her touch. 

“Quit coddling him, Lieutenant. I’ll handle this,” Roy strode up, nudging Hawkeye away and paying no mind to her nasty expression.

The Colonel easily peeled Edward’s arm away from his torso and undid the center of his black jacket, deflecting Ed’s weak attempts at resistance in the process. With a clinical hand, Roy moved the leathery flaps apart, before lifting up the soft cloth of Ed’s black tank top underneath it. 

Soft, rippling skin was exposed to the air, rising up and down in tandem with Ed’s uneven breaths. There was no wound in sight. Just a dramatic display from a sick child, like he suspected. 

“I see no wound. Looks like our fearful alchemist just has a killer tummy ache after all,” he teased, giving a careless, light smack to Edward’s abdomen. 

Roy hadn’t expected to feel a strange bump under his palm, nor for Ed to cry out with a raspy yell. 

“Edward!” Hawkeye cried out in concern, racing to the boy’s side with an outstretched hand. 

Ed’s exclamation suddenly died into a whimper as he curled himself away from her. “… No, no…not again, don’t…d-don’t touch …” the boy babbled quietly, eyes shut tightly.   

What the hell was that…?

Roy hesitated, stepping closer again, before Hawkeye pushed him back with a serious look. 

“With all due respect, Colonel, you’ve done enough. Let me take it from here.”

“I barely touched him!” Roy defended. 

Riza didn’t bother to engage him, turning to Edward instead. “Ed, please, let me see. I’m just going to look for a moment, alright?”

Ed gave a shaky swallow, still gasping from pain. “Somethin’s… goin’ bad…” he rasped—not a yes, but not a no.

Much gentler than Roy, she rolled him over as smoothly as she could, before peeling his top layers to the sides again. 

There was no wound in sight, however, Roy now noticed some strange swelling on the lower right side of his abdomen—the same place where he had touched. It looked…wrong. 

When Riza gently brushed her fingers over the surface of the swollen area, Ed cried out again, hissing and weakly pulling away. After uttering hasty apologies to the boy, Riza faced her superior with a serious look. “He needs a hospital, Sir.”

Roy sent her a curious look. “…Are you sure?”

Before Riza could answer, Ed suddenly lurched forward with a loud retch, spitting up red onto the bed sheets. 

When Al had insisted that he could finish the mission himself as he ordered Ed to go home, the older Elric had been furious at the dismissal. 

But, as the pain in his abdomen and the fever under his skin both continued to rise like the pressure in a tea kettle, Edward became thankful that he arrived in East City when he did.

The train ride back had been horrible. Over and over, he’d empty his stomach into the toilet in the bathroom, until nothing came up. Even when there wasn’t a single stringy spittle of bile left, the nausea refused to back down, alongside the stubborn pain below his navel. 

The walk to the dorm room had been a blur. 

All thought had been lost in his mind as he crawled into bed and helplessly laid there, like a dying prey animal waiting to be carried off by a predator. The “predator” in this case being the pain and exhaustion that had him in a death grip as he panted and curled on his bed, begging for it to stop. 

The light coming through his window changed shades several times as Ed felt himself occasionally zone out, before he’d be jerked back awake by a particularly harsh throb in his core, right below his navel. He brought a shaky hand to slip under his shirt and cradle the lump on his right side, while being extra careful to let the warmth soothe the pain without applying too much pressure.

At some point, the phone by his bed started to ring. It took Ed several moments just to process the noise and its source, before he weakly reached to grab it. 

The room was swimming at this point, and it took tremendous focus to keep down the nausea in his throat, as his shaky arm reached out to grasp the phone off the wall. 

The blond teen took a few moments to breathe, but not too deeply, because his abdomen sent a warning pang of pain anytime too much breath pooled in his lungs, like a feral dog growling when someone gets too close. 

Pressing the phone against his ear, he heard a deep voice call his codename.

“…Yeah?” Ed responded emptily, as his thoughts seemed to slip through the cracks of his mind like wet sand. 

The deep voice rumbled inside his ear, the sounds and syllables running into each other in a sequence of angry-sounding noises that were too fast to grasp completely. The voice itself sounded familiar though, so he guessed aloud at who it sounded like. 

“…Colonel?” Ed managed to groan out, before the speed of the room’s rotation seemed to double. Some of the sounds and syllables from earlier then clicked into place in his mind, somehow piecing together that the Colonel was asking about the mission. 

Ed took a rasping breath. “I…s-sorry, I didn’ get back ‘til today…I thought—”

The Colonel began to yell again, talking too fast to immediately keep up with. Groaning, Ed felt his head and his abdomen pulse uncomfortably in a combined rhythm, before the Colonel’s voice fizzled into focus a bit more. 

“…telling me that you returned from your mission as early as yesterday. So, what the hell have you been doing?!” 

“…Yesterday?” Ed croaked, mentally pleading for the room to stop spinning. “I…I don’t…” 

Edward felt entirely lost as his superior continued to yell at him, way too fast and loud for him to care.  It was all starting to hurt. Everything hurt so much—his head, his stomach, and his automail, all the agony pooling in his body as he could do nothing but lay down and take it. 

Pulling himself out of the quicksand in his mind, Edward noticed that it had become quiet in his room again. The phone was a forgotten weight in his hand, and he let go of it, letting it swing into the wall as it hung from the cord. 

Breathing was now a competition as he tried to stay in the golden range of how much air to take in with each gasp—not too much, not too little. The standards were exhausting to keep up with, but he’d take it over the pain of messing up. 

Something inside of him was going bad. He could feel it. 

Ed suddenly jolted back into awareness as he heard a knock at the door, startling him from his stupor. He would have gotten up to answer it, but he needed the room to stop spinning first. 

Thankfully, there was a flash of blue and the door opened on its own. As the sight of the room flickered in waves of static behind his vision, he noticed that the Colonel now stood in front of him. 

He must be dreaming. That had to be it. 

Sometimes, he would dream of having his mother’s illness, and dying in her place. Reality would shift in and out of focus as different people came to visit him on his deathbed. Most often, his visitors would subject him to expressions of disappointment and anger, if not cold indifference—and that’s what it looked like, here. Mustang had come to shout at him for being so pathetic, as Hawkeye would give  him an indecipherable look from the doorway. 

He stared blankly as Mustang kept talking to him, and the responses would fall out of Ed’s mouth before he could think very hard about what he was even saying. His brain, ears, and mouth seemed to have some sort of disconnect, as he couldn’t even remember the words he was speaking after he said them. 

Something about Al, something about yesterday, something about a phone call…

Then, Hawkeye was touching him. 

Her cold hands were on his face, and a moment later, a spark ignited in his lungs. The pressure forced him to cough, and the wrongness in his abdomen multiplied. The pain only made him cough more, and he could only whimper as he got stuck in an agonizing cycle of coughing. 

The Colonel stepped closer. He looked angry, Ed thought. The man’s tone was flippant and carefree, and before Ed could process it, a soft pat to his abdomen tore a scream from his throat. 

A whole new pain erupted from deep within, and Ed felt his insides burning apart. He begged the Colonel to stop, tried to push him away, wanting the man to leave him alone.  

Even when he tried to curl away from the touch, everything just felt like it was sinking. They never touched him like this in his dreams—it never hurt this much. What was happening?

He noticed that something hot was simmering in the pit of his gut, threatening to crawl up his throat. Someone was pulling at him again, and he felt his lips babble incoherently in protest, but he was too weak to resist it. 

Suddenly, Hawkeye was touching him once more, rubbing his stomach, brushing against the source of his wrongness.

The burning in his stomach surged upward through his esophagus, leaking into his mouth. It tasted sour and metallic, making him cringe—so he spat it out. 

It was red. 

Chapter Text

‘‘Edward – Ed. It’s okay, you’re okay…’’

The words left her in a soft chant, uttered without thought and running on instinct alone. Riza Hawkeye, the renowned sharpshooter, was used to being led by instinct. It was what had kept her and many others alive in Ishval, including the colonel she was an adjutant for, post-war. However, this time, she internally winced at her thoughtless utterances of poorly delivered comfort: Nothing about this situation was okay.

Between watching the Colonel blanch at the turn of events, his foul mood swiftly replaced with uneasiness, and witnessing Edward’s rapidly deteriorating state, Riza was at a loss. In spite of her calm and collected façade, her heart lurched with panic at the sight of Edward. The child had been in a pitiful state upon their arrival, looking bedraggled and flushed in a way that went unnoticed by Mustang due to his mind being fogged with anger—but not her. Never her. Riza’s gaze had been subtle but assessing, her attempts of interrupting her superior’s seemingly unstoppable tirade falling on deaf ears until Edward expelled a mouthful of bile-tinged blood.

She shuddered. 

Blood from an unknown source was never a good sign.

While Riza had a creeping suspicion as to Edward’s possible ailment, she couldn’t be certain. Internal bleeding was a tricky and unpredictable foe; it could kill a person in a matter of minutes or drag on for days. Frothy pink sputum, vomiting something akin to coffee grounds, hacking up bright red – the list went on, she’d seen a handful of soldiers suffer from a variety of internal injuries in Ishval until it was discovered too late or death came for them too quickly.

The small amount of blood Edward expelled, when coupled with significant swelling of his abdomen, concerned her. As much as Breda and the others in the office liked to think her eyes had X-Ray vision, she did not. Still, the notable lump she felt gave her little relief in the grand scheme of things, keeping her level-headed given its location. However, the same couldn’t be said for Roy…

Roy, who had been frank regarding her father’s last living moment. Roy, a man whose only experience of blood being vomited involved the trauma of Berthold Hawkeye’s demise as Roy held the man as he coughed up copious amounts. Roy, a man who wasn’t as unshakable as he liked to appear to be, was currently looking as if he had seen a ghost as he stood wide-eyed and horrified.

Riza could see the panic percolate into the Colonel’s system, be it the stuttered inhale, or the way his body tensed up…

‘‘Hawkeye, he’s – !’’

…and the sheer increase in bellowing volume as he barked angrily.

The Lieutenant cursed when Edward whimpered at the increased volume, shying away. Riza did not need avoidable stress added to the situation. Time was of the essence when it came to internal injuries of any variety, and this drama would only eat up precious time.

‘‘Sir,’’ the sharpshooter interrupted in a bid to cut his panic short, purposefully catching her Colonel’s eyes. ‘‘I know,’’ she stressed, locking her gaze with his, ‘‘I know . We need to get him to a hospital. Quickly.’’

‘‘Fullmetal,’’ Roy waspishly addressed the boy, failing to hide his panic. ‘‘Hey F – Edward , how long have you been throwing up blood? C’mon, kid — This is serious. Hey, listen to me, Ed. Focus.’’

Edward groaned and shuddered as he gargled out a reply. ‘‘Wah-hut?’’

‘‘Answer me,’’ Roy snapped with urgency. ‘‘How can I possibly help you if you don’t – ‘’

‘‘The sooner we get him to hospital, the better,’’ Riza firmly reminded the man, trying to set him back on track.

Thankfully, that seemed to knock Roy into less of an irate and frazzled state, whilst also spurring him into action. His hands were strangely tentative in reaching for the boy, seemingly treating him like glass as he flanked Edward’s right side, while Riza took his left. Together, they attempted to coax the glassy-eyed child into standing under his own limited power.

‘‘Easy does it,’’ she coaxed, wishing that words alone could help.

Even with her and Roy’s hands giving him support, it was a fruitless endeavor. The sharpshooter had seen newborn deer with steadier legs. Edward was hunched and gasping, trembling hard enough that his automail rattled, his eyes glossed over with pain. Like this, spasming in agony and borderline delirious with fever, the boy was barely capable of standing, let alone walking to the vehicle — yet, that didn’t stop him from weakly protesting, not that he understood the severity of his situation.

‘‘Nuh. N-No.’’

Ed’s pitifully weak protests were ignored for the greater good. Meanwhile, over the top of his golden-haired head, charcoal eyes briefly met russet. It wasn’t Riza’s imagination that guilt swam within the Colonel’s dark depths, undoubtedly from his appalling behavior towards a seriously sick child.

‘‘C’mon, kid.’’ Roy’s gruff voice ebbed into something uneasy, yet soft.

A particularly intense wave of pain visibly surged through the boy, his entire body stiffening. He cried out with an awful rasping noise, very nearly toppling forward into a nose-dive had it not been for her slipping an arm over his chest. If the utterly heartbreaking and hoarsely hiccupped sob hadn’t punctured her heart, hurting her in ways she didn’t know such a noise could, then having Ed desperately anchor himself to her did. It wasn’t every day you had your forearm seized by two small yet strong arms.

The boy sucked in a shaky breath, one arm wound around her own, while the other bunched in the sleeve of her captured arm. 

Roy hovered about, one hand gingerly grasping Ed’s elbow to assist, looking as if he was ready to scoop the sickly alchemist up. 

‘‘Enough, Ed,’’ Roy snapped, sounding more like his typical, commanding self. There was a bite to his words, again. He always got snappish and overly assertive when concerned.  ‘‘Give Hawkeye her arm back. I’ll carry you to the car. Consider this an order, Fullm – ’’

A sharp gasp was the only warning they had that Edward’s progressively worsening state had reached new heights. 

Roy paled. 

Riza watched Ed curl up and around her arm, burying his burning face into the crook of her elbow. Puffs of hot breath were easy to feel through the thick fabric, especially when the wool quickly grew damp.

Oh. Muffled sniffles were audible. He was not going to let go, that was clear. For reasons unknown beyond his twisting pain and creeping delirious state, he pawed and clung to her tightly. Oh, Edward…

‘‘I’ve got you,’’ Riza said, the words spilling out as her body fell into what felt wholly natural.

Roy frowned. ‘‘Lieutenant, I can – ’’

‘‘Colonel,’’ she smoothly cut him off,

‘‘It’s fine. I’ve got him. Haven’t I, Edward?’’

It was a rhetorical question; the child was too far gone for answers, eerily silent in his tears and blinking sluggishly. Edward’s dazed state made it easy for her to slip her arm free given

Ed’s dwindling strength. Although, she instantly felt a wave of regret after seeing a fleeting look of betrayal and raw hurt on that teary face, his small hands subconsciously clenching and unclenching at the loss. In order to make up for it, Riza gave what she hoped was a tentative smile, before slipping one arm around Ed’s back and the other beneath the boy’s knees. She gingerly lifted him up bridal style, managing not to buckle under the surprisingly heavy weight of such a small being.

She didn’t linger, not even long enough to refasten the boy’s jacket, leaving his sweat-drenched tank top exposed. Riza partly wished she had the forethought to do so, given the stream of whimpers and increased shivering it caused. At least, until his scorching forehead brushed against her neck. 

He was hot. Too hot. 

She quickly strode out of the small room and into the hallway, keeping her steps careful and measured when toting precious cargo.

The Colonel followed suit, closing the door behind him with a rushed slam. A fleeting thought entered her mind to tell him to lock up, but as quickly as it came, it left. Riza’s attention was solely on the child suffering in her arms. 

Edward’s head was lolling against her shoulder, eyes half-lidded and unseeing, his breathing labored and a smear of crimson spittle caught in the corner of his mouth. If she had a free hand, she would’ve thumbed the smear away. There was something jarringly wrong about seeing blood, no matter how minimal, on Edward. 

She let out a slow breath and briefly eyed the boy. The only sign that he hadn’t passed out was the flesh hand weakly clutching at the front of her uniform. Riza counted her blessings as she stepped out into the warm air, feeling strangely off-kilter at how such a cheerily pleasant autumn afternoon clashed with her current situation.

Upon reaching the vehicle, the fact that Ed wouldn’t let go of her presented a dilemma.

Riza could pry his little fingers off with ease—his digits were nothing more than fragile hooks curled into blue wool. However, she didn’t have the heart to deposit him in the backseat, alone. Likewise, she lacked the willpower to transfer him into the Colonel’s arms, especially after the man’s careless actions and flippant attitude that occurred in the dormitory. Now, however, it truly spoke volumes as to how guilt was trickling its way into Roy’s system as he stood next to her, arms open and expectant.

She wouldn’t lie to herself. As tempting as it was to latch onto reasons for why she shouldn’t slide Ed into Roy’s arms, she didn’t. It would’ve been easy to hold a grudge over Roy’s previous gruff actions toward the boy, and simply reject him. The same applied to how Edward was clinging to her and using that as an excuse, how it was best not to disturb him and it was efficient to not fumble with swapping positions…

In all honesty, with Edward’s burning hot face burrowing further against her neck, a stream of low whines escaping his throat as tears dampened her skin, Riza allowed herself to be selfish. Her arms were locked and her heart was stuttering. There was a lack of hopelessness she felt upon keeping the child close, heavy automail be damned, and it was that selfish desire alone why she didn’t hand him over to Roy. 

‘‘Right pocket,’’ Riza said, her tone clipped.

Roy startled, confusion creasing his brow for less than a nanosecond, until he noticed the way she angled her right leg. ‘‘Ah. Okay.’’ He sounded noticeably dejected.

‘‘You will get us there in one piece,’’ Riza quietly ordered, hoping her trust was not misplaced.

A sharp nod from him told the sharpshooter her trust was not misplaced. Roy hastily reached forward and slipped a hand into her pocket, quickly locating the car keys. 

With a jingling sound of metal, the car was unlocked, and Roy flung open the back passenger door, granting her entry. Roy’s desire to help and fix was evident to anyone with eyes, the natural compulsion overriding sense, his hands thrusting forward against his own volition out of sheer need. One of the Colonel’s hands had darted beneath the middle of Edward’s back, an attempt to briefly lighten the load, while the other tenderly cupped the back of the boy’s head in case he bumped his head against anything.

The assistance was counterproductive. Riza didn’t say anything, given the fast pace it happened, and the choked cry Ed emitted. Ducking in the vehicle had caused a jostle just light enough to disturb the delirious boy, and she found herself at a loss as Roy slammed the door shut. She was faintly aware of her superior clambering into the driver’s seat and the engine roaring to life, yet Riza was distracted by uttering apologies to Edward, not wholly sure if he could hear her given his poor state.

‘‘You’re going to be okay,’’ she hoped aloud. Oh, she truly hated that word but it kept creeping past her lips. Okay, okay, okay … she was going to banish it from her vocabulary after all this. ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ Riza whispered, truly meaning it.

Face hidden, Edward did nothing but squirm uncomfortably, fingers scrunching spasmodically in her uniform. 

All she could do was keep him secure, allowing the side of her head to rest against his sweat-drenched hair, hyper-aware of every bump in the road Roy tried to avoid. She caught his dark, guilt-riddled gaze in the rearview mirror several times, signaling an unspoken apology each time he took a corner a bit too sharply and caused Edward to let out a gasp-like, near-silent cry.

If Riza had found the previous journey to the dorms (with Roy’s anger brewing to volcanic levels) stifling and lengthy, then it was nothing compared to the current car ride to the hospital. It was thrice as bad, now. 

What should’ve been a ten-minute drive dragged on as if it were ten hours, the thick silence broken only by her own murmurs of reassurances – that felt so paltry – to Edward’s broken and weak sounds of pain.

By the time Roy pulled up outside of the hospital, the small body in her arms wracked with tremors had grown silent and limp.

‘‘ – need you to fill out this paperwork, Colonel Mustang.’’

Roy barely heard the gently spoken words from the nurse that seemed to be endlessly talking. He was distracted and irritable, his brain still processing the chaos of their entry into the hospital, and the terrifying stillness of Fullmetal in his Lieutenant’s arms. After a quick bombardment of initial questions and a flurry of activity, Edward had been placed upon a gurney and swept away by a trio of medical professionals.

Watching the kid leave his sight, disappearing behind a set of scuffed double doors that separated the waiting room from the maze-like corridors of the hospital itself, had been gut-wrenching. Such a feeling had only worsened when he hadn’t been able to follow. An older nurse – a plump woman that was shorter than Fuery – had stepped in his way, ordering him to stay as she sprinkled her words with what he supposed was meant to be words of comfort to keep him calm.

In reality, the woman had blocked him and became an unmovable force with a benign smile. Roy knew she was doing her job, but that didn’t smooth his face into something that wasn’t a scowl. He remained compliant – for now – as he stood in the waiting room, charcoal eyes glued to the double-doors Edward had vanished behind.

‘‘Colonel? Sir?’’ the insistent cheery voice continued.

Reluctant, Roy sucked in a sharp breath, forcing himself to come back down to earth. He ripped his eyes away from the doors, and did his best to not glower too harshly at the nurse. Given the raised eyebrow he received from Riza, he continued to look as furious as he felt, yet the nurse remained unfazed, holding out a clipboard and a pen.

‘‘I’ve filled in what I heard you and your lieutenant inform staff upon your arrival,’’ the nurse explained. ‘‘I understand our reactions might’ve been alarming – ’’

It had been fucking terrifying: talk of appendixes, possible perforation, and another nurse stating Edward’s pulse had been thready.

‘‘ – but I only need you to complete the rest, sir. ’’ the nurse continued. ‘‘I know it seems like a tedious thing during this moment, but it’ll be a great help. The more information we have, the more we can help get your little lad situated once he’s out of surgery.’’

Surgery.

It wasn’t the first time Edward Elric had surgery. The kid had two automail limbs. Yet that word – surgery – made the uncomfortable pressure in Roy’s chest swell to greater proportions. He was so focused on that word that he didn’t even notice her affectionate way of addressing Edward as his .

‘‘How long will he be in surgery for?’’ Roy curtly asked.

The nurse’s smile was patient and practiced to perfection.

‘‘The length of the procedure can vary. You’ll be informed once he’s out. Just know he’s in good hands, sir.’’

Roy didn’t like her vague answer.

‘‘Until then, take a seat and fill this in,’’ the nurse said, attempting to hand him the clipboard and pen. ‘‘Please.’’

Riza accepted the clipboard before Roy even gathered the energy to do so.

‘‘We will, thank you,’’ the sharpshooter replied.

At least Riza had the decency to shoot him a nasty look of rebuke – the umpteenth one today – when the nurse returned to her station. Had they not been stood in a very busy waiting room, Roy might’ve let himself succumb to the guilt weighing him down and physically wilted. Instead, he remained straight-backed and forced himself to be stoic as he headed towards a trio of chairs against a wall the furthest away from the main bustle of the hospital's waiting room.

The Colonel dropped down heavily in the beat-up chair, the thin padding offering little comfort while the metal arm rails digging into his forearms felt grounding. He sunk back and slowly slid a hand over his eyes, feeling drained. Hidden behind his hand, Roy gave himself a moment to clear his head. It was a task impossible to do in a room that reeked of antiseptic and coffee while a symphony of hacking, sniffles, newspapers crinkling, and complaints from a room filled with people who weren’t as serious as Edward to be whisked away upon arrival.

Roy peeked through a gap between his fingers and caught a glimpse of the old man looking uncomfortable and bruised, and an array of other people. 

If his gaze lingered on a father with his teenage daughter who was nursing what looked like a broken arm, noting how she was older than Edward yet shamelessly buried into her father’s willing side as she received comfort, then that was nobody’s business but Roy’s own.

A scratch of a pen against paper suddenly snagged his attention.

Hawkeye. Riza. She was diligently filling in the additional information. 

Roy decided a mere minute was a long enough respite and forced himself into facing reality. He pulled his hand away from his face and regarded her, having a slight feeling that he was being given the cold shoulder.

Great. More salt into his self-inflicted wound of stupidity. Roy wanted to smack himself. Maybe he should’ve done that instead of jovially – flippantly, ignorantly, cruelly –  smacking Ed on the soft skin of his stomach. Hurting the kid had not been his intention. Watching Ed squirm away with a raspy cry and beg Roy not to touch him - to not hurt him -  again.

Fuck.

Something about that image, along with the awful sight of Ed huddled and pained in Riza’s arms, kept flashing in the forefront of his mind. Roy felt as if his heart had been replaced by a bulky stone. Coarse rock that was still capable of beating, an incessant throb that summoned shame while guilt tainted his mind that he couldn’t concentrate beyond looking towards those damn double doors ahead of him. It grazed against his insides, and sat heavily within his chest, feeling it sink as the seconds ticked by until it was crushing his diaphragm.

‘‘I…’’ Roy scrubbed at his face, using his clammy palm to try and smother the words spilling forth. ‘‘I’m not equipped for this, Hawkeye. They don’t – I mean – handling children were not covered in the military academy training.’’

Riza didn’t deign him a single glance, continuing to fill in the forms. ‘‘Neither was taking your bad week out on others.’’

Target secured , Roy thought bitterly with a pained wince. Ready, aim…

‘‘Least of all a child that was clearly sick, Colonel.’’

…and fire.

Roy felt as if her coolly spoken words had fired a round into his chest. Typical Hawkeye, never missing her mark, even with words. 

His stomach churned with guilt and he didn’t dare offer a counter argument. 

She was right—she was always right. 

He had been in a particularly nasty mood to begin with due to undergoing extra paperwork and having undergone an inspection. An inspection in which he had told the pompous general from Central that Fullmetal was elsewhere on military business, only to find out the little brat had returned without forewarning him. The pressure had simply got to him and….and….

Edward had been an outlet for his pent-up frustrations.

It was wrong. He was supposed to be the adult, yet he’d acted like a short-tempered teen. Retrospect was a lovely but cruel thing at times. 

He sighed gustily and spared a glance at the paperwork Riza was completing. She was filling in a segment regarding Fullmetal’s latest inoculations. Inoculations that Roy had dragged him to only two months prior. It had been a rigmarole filled with childish, headache-inducing antics.

Oh, how he wished to go through that again as opposed to now. He’d take Edward kicking up a fuss over a trio of tiny injections over this. Waiting rooms always felt like another realm where time traveled at a speed that aged the body, soul, and mind. 

Roy returned his attention to the doors once more. He wasn’t certain how long he spent giving the doors ahead of him a thousand-yard stare. All he knew was when Riza dropped the clipboard into his lap, the waiting room was slightly less cluttered by bodies.

‘‘You need to sign that,’’ was Riza’s monotone remark, ‘‘given that you are, technically, his guardian.’’

His guardian. Guardian. Guardian as in parent – no.  

Roy made short work of adding his signature. He barely removed the pen from the paper when Riza collected it from him, bustling off to the main desk to hand over the paperwork. Roy would’ve stared after her, wondering how long she was going to treat him like the moron he was, if he wasn’t busily checking the time via his pocket watch and burning a hole into the doors once more with his eyes. 

Riza returned, saying something about having informed the guys at the office regarding their whereabouts. Roy heard Alphonse’s name get mentioned, stating she had told the men to get in touch with the youngest Elric about his sibling’s status. He had no doubt his men would be tactful in delivering that news, assuming they were able to get ahold of Al. 

Still, Roy kept up his unblinking stare ahead at the doors and, together, they waited.

After the first hour had passed, the Colonel had the urge to get up and pace. He didn’t. By one hour, thirty-three minutes, he opened his mouth to share concerns with Riza, only to shut it closed. After what felt like an endless stretch of more time, he fished out his pocket watch and found it had only been five minutes since he last checked, not quite hitting the two-hour mark since he sat down on this creaky chair.

‘‘It shouldn’t take this long, right?’’ Roy said numbly to Riza, finally able to talk around the lump in his throat. ‘‘I think Hughes once told me he had his appendix out, that it’s a common operation. If it’s so common it shouldn’t take this long, unless…’’

He trailed off at the sight of the double doors squeaking open, no longer immediately straightening up. Roy had seen those doors open and close, staff and patients entering and exiting so many times that he’d lost count. But, this time, when the doors opened, they revealed a harried-looking male nurse that was familiar and heading to the main desk. That man had been one of the nurses that had been firing a thousand questions at him as another went about taking Ed’s vitals. 

Naturally and without thought, Roy pushed himself out of the chair, his feet automatically taking him directly towards the male nurse with Riza hot at his heels. The closer he approached, the more he overheard the soft-spoken exchange between the male and female.

‘‘ – here to update his parents.’’

‘‘They are not his parents, Todd. The Colonel is actually the boy’s Commanding – ’’

Roy heard enough to know who they were talking about. He didn’t care if he looked a little deranged or downright rude upon interrupting the pair, he needed answers. Given the way Riza’s eyes narrowed, he wasn’t alone in seeking that demand met. 

‘‘Elric, Edward,’’ Roy said abruptly. ‘‘Do you have news?’’

The male nurse - Todd - blinked uncomprehendingly, probably the result of long and thankless work shifts, until his tired brain kicked into gear. ‘‘Colonel Mustang, right? We spoke when you arrived.’’ 

Roy had an intense urge to sneer. Todd seemingly had the idea that Roy would not have remembered all three faces of the men and women who whisked Ed away. It was faintly insulting but, mostly, insulting. He wanted answers. He needed answers. Nearly two hours for what was supposed to be a routine and common operation was too long.

Hawkeye placed a gentle hand on his elbow, delaying the implosion. ‘‘Is Edward okay?’’ she asked. ‘‘I - we didn’t expect it to have taken this long for news.’’

Both nurses' expressions softened as Roy’s heart hammered.

‘‘Edward’s going to be just fine, he’s left recovery and is getting placed in a room,’’ Todd said, edging out from behind the desk. The military officers shuffled after him, the three of them standing off-side from others within the room. It was a tiny semblance of privacy.  ‘‘And, typically, yes. Open appendectomies don’t take that long. However, there was a complication: his appendix ruptured during surgery.’’

Roy was certain his own heart ruptured at the news, a thousand questions on the tip of his tongue. Todd seemed to realize that, holding his hands up as if Hawkeye had her pistols aimed at his head. Given how intense Riza’s expression was at this moment, Roy didn’t blame the nurse. 

‘‘It’s common in cases when appendicitis isn’t treated promptly.’’

That stung. It wasn’t said with judgment, but those words hit home and buried themselves under Roy’s skin like a barb. Logically, he knew it wasn’t his fault. Fullmetal had probably shown symptoms before his arrival into East City, way before Roy showed up and shouted.

‘‘To prevent an intra-peritoneal abscess - ’’ Todd paused. ‘‘Bacteria turning into an abscess,’’ he translated sheepishly. ‘‘Ah, yes. So, to stop that occurring we’ve fitted Edward with an abdominal drain and he’s on a course of IV antibiotics. He’ll be needing to stay here for a while and is going to need plenty of rest. I’m sure he’ll bounce back before you know it.’’

Roy wanted to believe him, but… ‘‘May we see him?’’ he asked, forcing himself to be polite. If he got told no, he’d be pulling rank faster than the nurse could draw breath. ‘‘We won’t disturb him.’’

Todd looked as if he was going to advise otherwise until he fell victim to the Hawk’s eyes of silent authority. ‘‘Alright,’’ he agreed. ‘‘He probably won’t wake for a while, he’s on some heavy pain relief, so....’’

That was fine. Roy said as such aloud. It gave him time to gather his frayed nerves and untangle his heartstrings before Edward woke up.

And, maybe, more time to construct an apology.

Edward returned to the land of the living in dribs and drabs with an exceedingly groggy brain.

He felt numb as he blindly pawed about his brain, searching for memories. It was hard to do when he felt like he was swimming in a thick syrup. All the boy knew was that he felt disorientated and found it impossible to open his heavy eyes. Ed let out a soft, bereft sound as he tried to pull himself free from the soothing veil of sleep. It was a difficult task to do when there were fingers combing through his hair, unknowingly pulling him back to the cozy realm of dreamless sleep as he drowsily picked up the sound of two familiar voices.

‘‘ - here, sir.’’ That was Hawkeye. ‘‘You look like you needed the boost.’’

‘‘Coffee, for me?’’ came the Colonel’s strangely mirthless chuckle. He sounded sad. ‘‘Ah, thank you, Lieutenant. Although, I’m sure I don’t deserve it.’’

There was a sigh and, suddenly, Hawkeye didn’t sound as stiff as before. ‘‘I’m certain you’ll make things right.’’

A deep, low rumble of acknowledgment followed from Mustang. The two of them sounded so very far away but, over the reek that was solely hospital, he could smell the bitter tang of coffee alongside the Colonel’s nose-tickly cologne and the Lieutenant’s own softer scent. Drifting, Edward wondered what was going on, his brain sluggishly kicking into gear as fingers continued to comb through his hair, pushing it back from his face.

The action steadily helped in removing the cobwebs from his mind, clearing his recollection of events.

‘‘Any word from Al?’’ Roy asked.

‘‘No. Not yet. Breda mentioned the hotel that they were staying at has been rather passive-aggressive. Apparently, the boys got kicked out due to their affiliation to the military.’’

The hand atop Ed’s head came to a brief halt. ‘‘I see.’’

‘‘We’ll keep trying to get in contact, sir. We don’t think anything untoward has happened to him, but still. Fuery’s at the Elric’s dorm in case Alphonse tries calling there. Falman said he’s more than happy to check the train schedule and go and collect Al, if you want. Havoc’s already asking when he can come to visit Edward.’’

‘‘Of course, Havoc is,’’ Roy huffed, and the fingers continued their repetitive dance across Ed’s scalp, reawakening his brain cells. ‘‘Tell Falman to check the train schedules but keep an eye on manifestos for Al’s name – ’’

‘‘A-Al?’’ Edward croaked.

Because he wanted his brother. If Al wasn’t here, with him, then where was he? A whine that he couldn’t keep contained rattled up his throat and – oh.

Oh, yeah...

Edward barely noticed how the fingers tangled in his hair flinched at his unexpected consciousness. He did notice how the hand quickly returned to smoothing back his hair with gentle sweeps.

…Suddenly, everything came flooding back to him: the stupid assignment, the flu-like symptoms he had that forced Al into sending him back to East City, the way the dull stomach cramps shifted to a painful stabbing as he grew chilled and his brain melted. He couldn’t remember falling asleep in his dorm, or the loss of time and if he had spoken to anyone. What he did remember, albeit fuzzily, was of the Colonel looming over him, doling out a lecture that made no sense until the world fizzled out due to intense pain. Then, what followed was the last thing Edward could recall, and it was embarrassing.

Being sat in the backseat of a car, huddled in Hawkeye’s lap as he blubbered into her neck.

It felt too vague to be real, almost like a mirage. That didn’t happen, did it? Same with the bastard Colonel. Mustang shouted at him a lot but he certainly never looked at Edward with such wide-eyed and unfiltered horror. He must’ve dreamed it up, save the embarrassing recollection of sobbing and snotting over Riza’s neck, clinging to her while the searing pain within reached unbearable levels.

Embarrassment made his face bloom into scorching heat just as how it seemed to wake him up quickly. Edward’s eyes popped open with a newfound burst of energy and alertness, leaving him wincing at the fluorescent light until his vision adjusted. The hand on his head slipped down, cupping his cheek and tilting his face towards –

‘‘Hey, kid. You finally with us?’’

No. That’s what Ed wanted to say. No, he was not with Mustang and Hawkeye. He felt like he was lacking something important unknown to him, disconnected and floating as he was caught somewhere between the stars and a grimy gutter.

With a series of rapid blinks, Edward managed to come back down to earth, his vision and muddled brain clearing just enough that he could see the familiar face of the bastard talking to him. That pale face with intensely dark eyes was inches away from his own and, yeah. There it was. That look. It was an expression that was foreign to him when delivered by Roy.  A very human look that was pinched tightly with concern. Edward had thought he had fabricated seeing such a look, until now. 

Aren’t you meant to be mad at me?

The thought trickled into his mind, leaving him bewildered. Slowly, Ed slowly came to terms with the fact it had been Roy that had been combing back his sweaty hair and currently had Ed’s head - that felt too heavy for his neck to hold up - partially pillowed in his open palm. The skin under his cheek was warm and calloused, and it was difficult to dispute that he was in a pleasant dreamscape.

 ‘‘Colonel?’’ Edward mumbled.

He tried to convey that singular word carried a thousand questions that he was unable to ask. His mouth felt like cotton wool, his throat may have well been filled with grit, and, as a whole, Ed felt misplaced and uneasy. There was distant yelling echoing in the back of his head, a fuzzy recollection of Mustang yelling at him, and he didn’t have the energy to try and comprehend the complicated world of his annoying commanding officer. 

Thankfully, Hawkeye was here. She stepped forward and had what appeared to be a small glass of water, seemingly knowing it was just what he needed. 

Naturally, Edward gave a grunt and tried to sit up which, apparently, was a bad idea. Both Roy and Riza told him to lie back down, the former going so far to nudge him back down into the pillows. The Pain was muted, nothing like it had been before, but it was still there…

There along with other things. Like the tug of the IV in his flesh hand and in something else near his stomach, right next to the achy twinge and tell-tale pull of stitches that he knew all too well. Priorities shifted and he rolled his head away, his face no longer cradled in Roy’s palm. Clumsily, Ed tugged at the starchy sheets to investigate and really, really, wished he didn’t.

White gauze greeted him, along with a tube and a weird bulb that held a murky substance that looked gross.

A low perturbed sound slipped out from behind Edward’s teeth.

‘‘It’s not permanent,’’ Hawkeye was quick to reassure. ‘‘It’s a drain, Ed. Your appendix ruptured during surgery. That’s why you were so ill.’’

‘‘Appendix?’’ He rasped, feeling vaguely robbed for some reason. ‘‘I don’t… it’s – they took it?’’

‘‘The doctors removed it, kid. They didn’t take it. They helped you,’’ Mustang corrected, looking mildly amused.

That didn’t make any of this better. Ed grumbled and scrubbed a clammy hand over his face, doing his best to not yank on his IV. No matter how hard he fought, the miasma of grogginess was not lifting. If anything, it was growing thicker, pulling his eyelids down before he forced them back open with stubbornness alone.

‘‘Urgh. What – what’s in this?’’ he asked, unsteadily holding up his cannulated hand.

Riza guided his hand back down onto the bed. ‘‘You were dehydrated, Edward. It’s to make you better. It’s mostly antibiotics and fluids.’’

‘‘And some of the good stuff to keep you compliant for a change,’’ Roy added with a smirk.

‘‘Oh.’’ Edward gave a slow blink.

Pain relief. That explained it. This was the exact feeling he had experienced post-automail, during the early days of Granny Pinako’s ‘pain management plan.’

He let out a deep sigh and stared muzzily at Riza’s hand atop his, until it moved away to adjust the bed the tiniest bit, so that he was now on an incline. Ed tracked her movements sluggishly before she held a glass of water to his lips, only allowing him small sips.

The water felt like bliss against his raw throat, yet it didn’t brighten his drug-dulled and exhausted mind. If anything, now that his thirst had gone away, he felt ready to drop back off to sleep. Words seemed difficult to produce right now, his thoughts inconsistent and body increasingly growing heavier.

Still… Compliant for a change. The Colonel’s words were spoken kindly enough, laced with something that was almost fond, but they carried prickles. Compliant for a change. The underlying meaning carried a nasty jab that spurred Ed’s jumbled, tired brain into a confession.

‘‘Al made me come back,’’ he spoke around a jaw-cracking yawn. ‘‘B’cos – ‘cos I was sick. I didn’t wanna. I wanted to stay.’’

‘‘I’m sure you did, Fullmetal,’’ Roy said, good-natured disbelief coloring his tone.

‘‘I did,’’ Ed groused, failing to keep both eyes open. He managed to deliver the smug-faced alchemist a one-eyed glare. Didn’t he tell Al that the bastard would tease him? It was part of the reason he wanted to stay, but it wasn’t the main reason.

The bastard hummed. ‘‘Mhm.’’

‘‘I did,’’ Ed insisted with a bit more force. ‘‘I did wanna stay and finish the stupid mission…’’

‘‘Colonel,’’ Riza’s voice carried an unspoken warning.

Roy held up his hands. ‘‘I’m not saying anything.’’

‘‘…I didn’t wanna mess up,’’ Ed muttered under his breath, the battle of keeping his eyes open unsuccessful. He sighed forlornly, suddenly more asleep than awake, his thoughts foggy and brain-to-mouth filter failing. ‘‘You always think I mess up ‘n’ I wanted to stay but Al… Al made me… Al said…’’

Another yawn escaped the boy as he finally tumbled into the realm of sleep. If Edward had held on for a second longer, he might’ve witnessed the Colonel’s face drain of color and heard the man’s astonished response.

‘‘I don’t think that at all, kid.’’

Chapter Text

I didn’t want to mess up. You always think I mess up.

Mustang winced and ran another shaky hand through his hair. He felt sick. Fullmetal had tried to stay behind in a village that forced him to sleep in a barn because of him. His kid had nearly… Edward had nearly died because of him.

Appendicitis was a deadly condition, as testament to the flurry of panic the doctors and nurses had fallen into when they had first gotten Ed to the hospital. If they had been a few minutes later (if Ed had stayed behind to tough it out), Mustang wouldn’t be sitting by a hospital bed running his fingers through sweaty and tangled blond hair.

Hawkeye was still sitting in the room, though she had yet to say a word. His Lieutenant was still angry at him. Furious. Livid in a way that he understood.

There was no denying it, he had not dealt with the situation properly.

True, Mustang would never do anything purposefully to put Ed’s life in danger—But the callous way he had shouted, berated, and slapped him remained crystal clear in his mind.

The sound of Mustang’s careless hand smacking Ed’s tender stomach and the yowl of pain that followed would remain with him forever.

He hadn’t meant to hurt him.

He hadn’t meant to make Ed think that he couldn’t get help when he needed it.

He hadn’t meant for any of this to happen, but that wasn’t good enough.

The man cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he admitted to the room.

The room wasn’t silent. There were sounds of machines beeping, nurses and doctors rushing by, some birds outside. Still, his voice felt like it had been swallowed up; like it had gotten lost and would never be heard by those he intended to hear it.

“With all due respect,” Hawkeye spoke in a calm and even manner, “it’s not me you should be apologizing to.”

He swallowed and nodded. Everything he wanted to say felt thick and heavy in his mouth. What could he even say to fix this?

Could he even fix this?

“Still,” Roy managed to say, “you were also thrown into the situation and inconvenienced. I’m sorry.”

“Helping Edward will never be an inconvenience.”

Hawkeye always could destroy him with only a few spoken words that, on the surface, seemed innocent. It was a good thing she was on his side. If she were his enemy, she could destroy him through words alone.

“You’re right. I need to do better at dealing with him. It’s just—” He sighed heavily, “I never know if he’s being purposefully difficult or if it’s something more serious.”

She was silent for several beats. “Even if it had simply been a stomach bug, those can still be dangerous if not looked after properly. Even if it had simply been a cold, that could cloud his senses and judgment and put his life at risk. He was clearly not well, sir. You should have known better.”

“I know. I know.”

“Besides, he is a child and you are an adult. It’s your job to determine if he’s being difficult or truthful. That comes with the territory.”

He winced and nodded, before biting his lip. “How do I fix this? You heard what he said. He thinks that I think that he always messes up. But I don’t think that! I don’t.”

“You can’t fix this through a simple apology,” she said.

Damn. He was hoping it’d be as easy as saying sorry, handing the kid some pie, and then returning to normal. Even if he knew that was a pipe dream.

She continued. “It’s about trust. You have to learn to trust him.”

Trust. That was it. That was all. Build trust.

Because she was right, this went further than appendicitis. There were multiple red flags that Mustang had either ignored, or hadn’t been privy to that would have changed his understanding and reaction to the situation.

The fact that Ed had apparently been unable to secure a hotel for the trip? That would have been nice to know.

The fact that Ed almost died simply to complete the mission and prove he wasn’t a failure? Also would have been nice to know.

The fact that the kid had gotten back yesterday and hadn’t checked in? Well, he did know about that but he should have done a better job at checking in on the kid.

As much as he liked to pretend that Ed was a lazy brat who would gladly skip out on work, he knew that wasn’t the case. In all the months Ed had worked for him, he couldn’t think of a single mission he skipped out on early. And he would have never left without Al. That should have been his red flag. That should have been a signal to send Breda or Falman or someone over to the dorms to make sure he was okay because he had been acting out of character.

Red flags were everywhere, and he felt like he had ignored them all.

Hawkeye was right. Mustang needed to rebuild the fractured trust that led Ed to making the choices that nearly cost him his life, out of fear of being reprimanded. But there was another layer that needed to be dealt with as well. He needed to learn to trust Ed and to look beyond any preconceived notions he had about the kid and realize when red flags were red flags.

Mustang knew that at the end of the day, unless he changed, Ed would never trust him. Because he could tell that Mustang didn’t trust him.

*****

The next time Ed woke up, he was much less groggy and floaty than before. His head felt clearer and he didn’t take so long to piece things together.

He was at the hospital, because they needed to take his appendix out.

A small, childish part of him thought that they had stolen his appendix for some nefarious purpose only to reason with himself that that was stupid. There were much better organs to steal if they needed to steal an organ.

“Hey, kid, you awake?” a familiar voice asked. A familiar, annoying voice.

Ed groaned and peeled open his sticky eyelids, turning to look at none other than Colonel Bastard still sitting next to him.“You didn’t let them steal my kidneys, right?” was the first sentence out of his dry mouth.

Mustang stared at him, bewildered for several seconds before letting out a short, startled burst of laughter. It was loud enough to wake Hawkeye, who was sleeping in the chair next to him.

“No, they didn’t steal your kidneys, pipsqueak.” He didn’t seem mad at Ed, but that felt like it was wrong.

The Colonel had yelled at him, right?—And hit him on the stomach. Granted, the man hadn’t known how much pain he was in—But he had still been pissed enough to slap him.

Except, now, he didn’t sound pissed. He sounded relieved.

“How do you know? Were you in the operating room with me to make sure they didn’t steal anything?” Ed’s tongue felt like cotton, and his entire throat was aching for some water.

“I know because your skin and eyes aren’t yellow. That proves that you have at least one functioning kidney still in your body.”

That sounded plausible, and he could trust that the Colonel wouldn’t lie to him about potential missing kidneys.

“What about my liver?”

Hawkeye was by his side, helping him sit up and handing him another glass of cool water. “They didn’t steal any of your organs, Edward,” she said with a fond look in her eye.

“Stole my appendix,” he mumbled, before gulping down the water. It soothed his throat and made him feel more human. More awake, and alive.

“They didn’t steal it, Fullmetal, they removed it because it was trying to kill you. They didn’t have a choice.”

Again, that sounded plausible, and he realized he could probably trust Mustang to ensure that only the parts of his body that were trying to kill him had been removed.

Hawkeye took the cup of water from him, and stood up. “I’ll go let the nurses know you’re awake and call the men. I know they’ve been anxious to hear the news.”

“Hold on a minute, Lieutenant,” Mustang said.

Ed didn’t say anything. Was it just him, or did things seem… tense between the two of them? Ed felt like he was missing something major here.

Mustang turned back to him. “Do you know how to get a hold of your brother? We’ve been trying to contact him but haven’t gotten anywhere.”

Ed’s brow furrowed. “But, the mission—”

“Can be completed at a later date. Or I can send someone else to finish it. Al’s a civilian. He shouldn’t be completing your missions.”

Oh. Right.

He looked away from Mustang and back on the sheets.

How could he forget? He had messed up. He had gotten sick and left Al to complete the mission alone instead of toughing it out and finishing it up. That’s why the Colonel was pissed, even if he didn’t sound like it.

“I’m glad you tried your best to complete it,” Mustang hurried to say. “But it’s not that big of a deal if we need to put it off for a few weeks. Besides, I’m sure you’d prefer your brother to be here while you heal. Now then, pipsqueak, do you know how to best get ahold of Al?”

Again, he didn’t sound mad. He actually sounded like he was trying to be kind and caring. It was a weird look on him, Ed had to admit.

He dug through the fuzzy recesses of his mind to try and answer his question. Finally, he managed to grab hold of the information and relay it to them. “There was a girl there, she worked at the inn. Her name was Sarah. You can tell her and she’ll tell Al. I think she’s sweet on Al.” He pulled a face, which caused Mustang to chuckle and ruffle his hair.

“Thank you, Edward,” Hawkeye said. “That’s a great help. I’ll let Fuery know and he can get in contact with them.”

Before he knew it, she had left the room.

Left the room so that he and Mustang were alone.

Alone.

With Colonel Mustang.

Who, as best as Ed could tell, was pissed about this whole situation.

Shit. He was going to get yelled at for sure, since he had messed up, badly. He hadn’t finished the mission, had come home early, had left a civilian alone to take care of it, and hadn’t checked in immediately. He still couldn’t believe he had passed out as soon as he got to the dorms. It didn’t feel real.

He hoped Mustang wasn’t going to yell at him too much or punish him too badly. The number of things he could do to make Ed’s life miserable were infinite.

Maybe he could try to salvage this before it got to that point. Maybe if he apologized and left tomorrow to finish up the mission, Mustang would consider it water under the bridge and he would only get yelled at.

“Look, colonel, I’m—”

“I’m sorry.” Mustang cut in before Ed had a chance to administer his own apology.

He blinked several times, his brain turning the phrase over in his mind to make sure he understood it correctly. “What?” he asked rather stupidly.

Mustang sighed heavily and sat back in the chair, his hand leaving the top of Ed’s head in the process. The room felt colder. “Look, kid, I’m… I’m sorry for not taking the situation seriously. I’ve never known you to leave a mission early. That should have been my first indication that something was wrong. But I ignored it. I ignored everything and you nearly died as a result.”

This was… he wasn’t sure what this was. This wasn’t how their relationship was supposed to go. Mustang was supposed to yell at him. He was supposed to yell back. Then they would go their separate ways.

Now, it seemed the man was actually being… vulnerable in front of him. It was strange, but not wholly unwelcome.

Still, Ed didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t know how to respond, and that made him anxious. What if he responded incorrectly?

“I need to do a better job at trusting you.” Roy sighed again. “You said, before you fell asleep, that I always think you mess up. That’s not true. I don’t think that. I’ve never thought that. But, I will admit that my actions in the past have done a poor job at proving otherwise.”

“Why did you think I was lying?” Ed asked quietly, still trying to figure out where this was going, and how he needed to respond.

Mustang’s shoulders slumped. “Honestly, there was no logical reason. I have had some high-stakes, stressful things going on around the office and I decided to take it out on you. You did nothing wrong, Ed. You reacted to the situation as you should have. I should have been better. And I’m sorry.”

This was the third time he had said sorry in as many minutes. Ed was starting to think that this Mustang was an imposter here to trick him into giving up some secrets.

“I’m going to do a better job at trusting you,” Mustang (or potentially fake Mustang) said, reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder. “However, that does mean you need to be more open and honest with me. I want to know if you two can’t get a room at an inn for any reason, if the townspeople are harassing you, if you run into any trouble, etc. And, if you do need to leave early because you’re sick, call and tell me the symptoms so I can determine if you need a hospital or not.”

Ed made a face. “I don’t need a hospital.”

“The IV attached to your arm and the missing appendix would say otherwise.”

“So, you do admit that they stole my appendix.”

Mustang chuckled. “Yeah, kid, they stole your appendix. But seriously, promise me you’re going to make an effort to tell me these things next time? And, in return, I promise you I’ll do a better job at dealing with the situation properly, instead of jumping to conclusions and potentially putting your life in danger.”

Ed almost argued that Mustang hadn’t put his life in danger. The appendix would have tried to kill him no matter where he was, or what he was doing. And, if anything, Mustang’s anger at the situation probably saved him— it got him to the dorm room before he could get worse.

But, he didn’t say any of this. It wasn’t what he wanted to say, and it wasn’t what Mustang wanted to hear.

Ed nodded. “Fine, bastard. I’ll call you every time I so much as stub my toe. Deal?” He held out his right hand.

Mustang made a face that suggested he was instantly regretting everything he had said. But, he took Ed’s hand in his own and shook it. “Deal. At least if you call me for every injury you get, I might have a better sense of where you’re at and what you’re doing.”

“Never mind. I like making your life more difficult.”

“Brat. After everything I’ve done for you. I apologized to you! Not everyone gets an apology, and this is how you repay me?”

“Yes, because it’s fun to annoy you.”

“Watch it, kid. I’ll tell everyone in the office you threw up on me.”

He felt the color drain from his face. “No I didn’t! You’re lying!”

“Am I? You were so out of it I doubt you’d know for sure.” He shrugged.

“Bastard! That uniform you're wearing is clean!”

“You were in surgery for a while. Maybe I had time to go home and change.” He had a shit-eating grin on his face that made Ed want to punch him.

In the face.

With his automail fist.

Ed started sputtering, trying to think of an awesome comment that would wreck him. He didn’t get the chance as the door opened, and Hawkeye stepped in with a nurse.

“Sir, don’t antagonize Edward,” she said, fixing Mustang with a glare that could freeze hell over.

Ed smirked. Victory was his.

Until she turned to him, and fixed him with a glare as well. This one wouldn’t freeze hell over, but it could make it significantly chillier. “And Edward, don’t get yourself worked up. You’ll pull your stitches.”

This time, it was Mustang’s turn to smirk at him.

Ed sat back and let the nurse look over his bandages, chatting happily away as she poked and prodded at him. He wasn’t exactly happy to be in the hospital, but, with Mustang seeming to be nicer to him, and Al on his way back (hopefully), it wasn’t so bad. Even if he was down an appendix.

Man, he wished Truth had taken that from him as opposed to his leg.

*****

To say things at the office hadn’t been tense since the Colonel and Lieutenant had left would have been a lie. Mustang had been on edge all week due to various inspections and visiting generals that could make or break his career with one out-of-place pencil holder, if they were petty enough to do so.

The team knew this, and therefore knew not to step on too many toes or push too many buttons.

Ed, however, didn’t know this. The kid was combative at the best of times and he liked to push buttons, not always understanding that he needed to stop.

So, when Mustang and Hawkeye had stormed out of the office to deal with the kid, Breda wasn’t expecting the outcome to be good. He was expecting a lot of yelling and for Mustang to come storming back in here thirty minutes later, fuming and being more short-tempered than before.

What he was not expecting was a panicked phone call from Hawkeye an hour later, saying that Ed had been admitted into the hospital for appendicitis and was currently in surgery. Well, she wouldn’t sound panicked to anyone who didn’t know her well enough—She still spoke with the same even and calm tone as she always had, authoritative and guiding, as she requested the men continue with their work as planned and promised to call with updates whenever she got them.

To everyone on the team, however, Hawkeye sounded downright hysterical. It made Breda seriously question if one of them needed to go to the hospital to calm her and the Colonel down.

However, after some thought, he decided against it. A panicked Hawkeye meant a more trigger-happy Hawkeye. The last thing they needed this week were reports of her firing her weapons in the hospital. He trusted her to keep calm (and keep the Colonel calm) while Ed was in surgery.

With nothing else to do, and a silent phone by Fuery’s side, they got back to work.

Each time the clock struck the energy in the room shifted. More than once, Havoc asked Falman how long surgery would take, and if they should know something by now.

The shadows along the walls grew. The number of people left in Eastern Command dwindled.

The sun set.

The streetlights came on.

He was about to call it a night, not wanting to spend another all-nighter in the office, when the phone finally rang.

Fuery dove for the phone, knocking aside his pencils, papers, and long-empty coffee cup to answer it. “This is Colonel Mustang’s office. Master Sergeant Fuery speaking.”

Everyone in the room was silent, trying to listen in on the conversation.

Fuery made several noises of understanding, sprinkled in with ‘yes ma’am, of course ma’am, we’ll get right on that,’ until he finally hung up the phone and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well?” Havoc prompted.

“Ed’s going to be okay. He’s out of surgery now.”

Everyone relaxed and the tension that had been growing in the room since that first phone call hours before had vanished in an instant.

“She wants us to try calling the inn to talk to a girl named Sarah.” Fuery once more picked up the phone and started dialing another number. “Apparently, she likes Al and will pass along the message that he needs to return immediately. She also says we can visit tomorrow if we’d like.”

“Tomorrow?” Havoc groaned. “What’s wrong with tonight?”

“Visiting hours are probably over,” Falman supplied unhelpfully.

Havoc glared at him and threw a balled-up piece of paper at his head. Fuery hissed at them to all be quiet as he started talking with someone on the other end of the phone.

“Success?” Breda asked once he hung up.

He shrugged. “I mean, I talked to a girl named Sarah who said she’d relay the information to Al. I guess we’ll see tomorrow if he shows up.”

“Alright then, let’s go home.” He stood up and gathered his things. “We can visit the kid tomorrow.”

“But… but,” Havoc stuttered as Breda pushed him to the door. “We can still visit him tonight! We can break into the hospital. Oh! Or we can say we’re on protection duty or something!”

“The kid had appendicitis. He wasn’t hunted by the enemy. He’ll be fine.”

“But—”

“I’m not committing a felony because you can’t wait eight hours to visit him. Besides, this will give you a chance to put together a ‘get well soon’ package.”

Havoc’s brow furrowed. “Grandma Havoc’s cure-all soup recipe would be helpful for this.”

“There you go, buddy.”

“And I have a few of Cousin Chris’ knitted sweaters to keep the kid warm. They’ll probably swamp him, but a sweater is a sweater!”

“That’s it. Keep thinking of things to give the kid.”

“I believe I have some books he might find interesting on the history of alchemy.” Falman added. “They’re not instruction manuals or practical books, but they do offer an interesting perspective into how alchemy has developed over the course of hundreds of years.”

“I’m sure he’ll love it.”

Thankfully, thinking of all the things they could give Ed to make his hospital stay more comfortable seemed to work enough to distract them and send them home. Breda just hoped they wouldn’t go too overboard.

*****

“What the hell is all of this?” Breda asked, staring slack jawed at the pile of stuff that had been placed outside of Ed’s door.

Hawkeye and Mustang had visited earlier before heading back to work, since they had missed most of yesterday. The pair had given their blessing for the men to come visit (‘Two hours, no more’ were Mustang’s orders. Those orders would be ignored.).

Breda thought he was going above and beyond with a couple of pastries, a decent sandwich, and a milkshake for Ed. Apparently, he was not going above and beyond. Compared to everything Havoc, Fuery, and Falman had dragged to the hospital, he had practically come empty handed.

“Come on, guys, you’re making me look bad!”

“You’re making yourself look bad,” Havoc answered.

“Where did you even get this much stuff! I’ve been to your apartment before. It’s not this cluttered.”

“Aunt Clara, Uncle Bill, and their eight kids and sixteen grand kids all live in and around East City. I called them last night for an emergency-hospital-visit-bag, and they gave me all this stuff.”

Breda groaned and looked over at Falman’s own pile of books. “I thought you said you were bringing a book. One book. One single book on the history of alchemy.”

“No, I said books,” Falman hummed happily as he organized them. “I have the complete two hundred volume collection on ‘The History of Alchemy: A Look at how Amestrian Alchemy came to be and a Bold Look into the Future. Forward by Winthrop Armstrong, Alex Louis Armstrong, and Katherine Armstrong’.” He beamed at his collection. “I hope he likes them.”

Who was he kidding? The kid was going to go berserk when he saw this. He turned to Fuery’s own pile of stuff. “And what did you bring?”

Please don’t be anything cool. Please be things like milk and vegetables.

“I know Ed and Al love reading comics and adventure books so I asked around and got a lot from my neighbors.”

Dammit! That was cool.

Breda groaned. “You guys, I feel like I’m the lame uncle! You all got awesome shit and I got… some pastries, a sandwich, and a milkshake.”

“You could always get more pastries!” Fuery supplied unhelpfully.

“And make the kid sick? I don’t think so.”

Havoc slapped him on the back. “Oh, don’t worry, Breda. Because you’re so lame and hardly got the kid anything, that means you can help us take all this stuff into the hospital room.”

“He’s only staying here for a few days.”

“And those few days will be the best of his life!” Havoc shoved an armful of knitted sweaters in his hands.

“It’s eighty degrees outside! He doesn’t need eight knitted sweaters!”

“Everyone needs eight knitted sweaters. Oh, that reminds me, what are your favorite colors? Great-grandma Havoc wants to knit us matching sweaters for the winter. I know Ed likes red. What about you, Falman?” He knocked on the door, and stepped inside.

“Chief, we’re here to visit you,” he said cheerfully.

Ed looked up, shocked by their arrival. Thankfully, he didn’t look like he was on death’s doorstep, but he still didn’t look great. His skin was too pale and he was hunched over, his flesh arm curled protectively around the stomach. It didn’t help that the kid looked absolutely bored out of his mind and miserable. Seriously, Mustang couldn’t give the kid a book to entertain himself with? Maybe it was a good thing Falman and Fuery had gone all out. The more entertained Ed was, the less likely he was to attempt a prison break.

“You guys… came?”

“Of course we did,” Fuery said. “And we brought presents.”

“A lot of presents,” Breda mumbled, still feeling a bit put out that no one told him they were going all out for the visit.

“Is that a sandwich and milkshake from the café across from Eastern Command?” Ed said, brightening up as Havoc continued to dump all manner of homemade sweaters and blankets on him.

“Um… yeah, it is?”

“Is it for me?” Ed asked with wide eyes. He looked like a puppy.

Breda scoffed. “Of course it is. You know I’m not a huge fan of milkshakes.”

To say Ed’s whole face didn’t light up like the sun would have been an understatement. Breda felt blinded after seeing the kid smile as he managed to drag his arms out from underneath the still growing pile of knitwear, and hold out his hands. “Gimme, gimme, gimme. Hospital food is disgusting.”

He took the milkshake and sandwich gladly, practically inhaling it.

“Woah there, you don’t want to choke.” Havoc laughed.

“You’re the best, Breda!” He gulped down more of the milkshake and proceeded to dig around the bag of pastries to see what other goodies he could find.

“Glad you like it, chief.”

“How are you feeling, Ed? Does it hurt?” Fuery asked.

“Not really. They got me on some pretty strong painkillers though. Still, can’t wait to get out of here. I hate hospitals.”

“Don’t we all?” Falman shuddered, sitting in a chair next to his bed.

For the next hour, Ed and the others had a great time chatting. Breda was happy to see him so relaxed despite the situation. And, he had to admit, the comics Fuery had managed to scrounge up were pretty cool (though, Havoc went overboard with the knitwear and nothing would ever convince him otherwise). Falman’s books were obviously a hit and Ed practically begged to keep them for a few weeks while he was recovering to make sure he could read them all. Falman agreed, of course.

It was about the hour mark when the door burst open, nearly giving Breda a heart attack.

“Brother!” Al flew into the room. “Brother, are you okay? Sarah told me I needed to come back right away!” The kid damn near knocked Breda out of the window in this rush to get to Ed’s side.

“I’m fine, Al, really,” Ed said as he was scooped up in that huge suit of armor and hugged.

“No you’re not, otherwise you wouldn’t be in the hospital! I told you to go home earlier, but did you listen to me? No! That’s it. Next time, you’re sick, I’m going to force you on the train myself!”

Havoc laughed. “Take it easy, Al. It can be difficult to recognize the symptoms of appendicitis.”

“That’s right. A lot of them could be mistaken for the stomach flu,” Falman added helpfully.

It was at this moment that Al seemed to realize they weren’t alone. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We’re visiting Ed,” Fuery said. “We thought he could use some company since you weren’t here.”

“Yeah, Al. Falman’s got these awesome books on the history of alchemy that you got to read! And Havoc’s great-grandma is going to knit us all sweaters.” Ed then turned to him. “That means one for Al too, right?”

“Of course.”

“But, I’m very big.” Al looked down at the armored body.

“You’re not the biggest person we’ve ever had to knit a sweater for. Cousin Patricia was massive. I think she was part ox. Certainly could lift an ox if she wanted. What’s your favorite color?”

The room returned to normal. Or, as normal as it could be considering there were over two hundred massive, leather-bound books on the history of alchemy, a couple dozen comics and adventure novels, approximately eight sweaters and fifty-two blankets, a pile of pastries, some untouched cure-all soup that Breda was pretty sure had frog eyes as the main ingredients, a giant, living suit of armor, and a bunch of soldiers crowded around the bed of the youngest state alchemist in history.

All and all, it was chaos. But it was a good sort of chaos. A sort of chaos that only a team so truly in sync could produce.