The hospital is busy in the way that hospitals are always busy, with too many patients and too few beds, not enough medicine, constant triage assessments, sleeping odd hours when she sleeps at all. Sarah Rockbell moves with practiced grace through the chaos, which gives off the illusion that she is not only used to it but thrives on it. The truth is that despite being in Ishval for nearly two years, she is neither used to it nor resigned to it. She hates the necessity of being out here in the broken desert, she still jumps at the too-close explosions and freezes as the fires sweep over building after building that she knows full well are occupied.
The hospital is always far enough removed from the constantly shifting front line that she can sometimes pretend that her work isn't connected to the merciless advance of the Amestrian army. She never hears the screaming until it's within the canvas walls of her hospital tent, when Amestrians and Ishvalans alike gasp for air and cry for their mothers or pray to their god and kick and flail against the pain of flesh burned away or limbs reduced to nothing but tatters by improvised explosives or non-improvised, military-issue grenades.
The hospital is always busy. But it's calm enough right now. She's not in surgery and neither is Urey. They actually have a few minutes to talk, a luxury she takes the time to be grateful for whenever it rolls around. He hands her a cup of coffee so bitter and scalding that it burns her throat on the way down. He rolls bandages while she uses a mortar and pestle to crush down the desert plants that the Ishvalans had taught her to use as a painkiller, even if they also serve as a mild hallucinogen. She doesn't have nearly enough morphine to meet the needs of all these people, so she rations it for only the worst cases. Most of the Ishvalans don't trust Amestrian medicine anyway, not that she blames them. They didn't trust her either, not at first. Sometimes it's only the fact that they're unconscious much of the time that keeps them in their beds instead of fleeing back toward homes that no longer exist.
"You look tired, Sarah," Urey murmurs. He wraps his arm around her and rubs her shoulder with his other hand. She nods, because of course she's tired. She moans softly because his soft fingers kneading away the ever-present tension in her muscles feels almost sinfully good when people are dying all around them. "Get some sleep?" he asks, making it a question rather than an order. She glances at her half-full mug of coffee. She knows she should sleep, knows that exhaustion could result in deadly mistakes, but she's been able to function surprisingly well on surprisingly little shut-eye since med school, and she doesn't want to retreat to the smaller tent a stone's throw from the hospital where she and Urey take turns crashing on military-issue cots. She doesn't want the lonely emptiness that will swallow her in that quiet space.
"It's Winry's birthday next week," she says, instead of sleeping. Urey nods. His guilt is obvious on his face and in the way he holds himself. Sarah's chest tightens the way it always does when she thinks about her daughter. Every letter she writes, she tells Winry how desperately she misses her, how badly she hopes she'll be home before there's time to write another letter. Maybe this time, she'll be right. The hospital is not as busy as it used to be. The Alchemists are a new addition to the war, but a brutally effective one. They tend not to leave any survivors who might make it past the line to seek medical care. The scuttlebutt she hears from the injured soldiers or the officers in the mess, when she eats in there, make it sound like they'll all be going home by the end of the year.
"Maybe we can call her," she muses. Urey frowns. "Winry," Sarah clarifies. "On her birthday." The phones in the Amestrian camp are supposed to be used for military matters only, but she's made a few friends over the years and someone will surely be willing to let her make a five-minute call.
Sarah hears the slap of canvas fabric hitting against itself as the tent is opened. She turns to see Roy Mustang stepping in, looking like death warmed over. Sarah pulls herself out of Urey's arms and smiles at the young Alchemist. "I can't get any more sleeping pills, Roy. But I can figure something out, if that's why you're here."
He shakes his head, his dark hair falling into his face. "General Grand sent me."
Sarah rolls her eyes. "You can tell him we're not going to stop treating the Ishvalans. We've sworn an oath as doctors. We cannot turn away anyone who is in need of care. I've told him that."
Roy swallows hard. "It's treason," he says, very softly. Next to Sarah, Urey tenses up. Roy's voice is shaking as he talks, a little louder now, but he is cringing, like he's yelling in his own ear. "He says you're providing aid and comfort to the enemy. You have to stop." Sarah looks Roy directly in the eyes, and shakes her head. "You have to stop," he begs her. "If you refuse, I have orders to… you know the penalty for treason."
"You'll kill us?" Urey demands. "Right here and now? Without even a trial?"
Roy shrugs. He looks at the dirt floor and clenches tight fists and prays to he-doesn't-even-know-what, maybe the Ishvalan God, just this one time, that Sarah and Urey will see reason. "I have orders," he repeats softly.
Sarah kneels on the ground. Urey looks at her in shock.
"What the hell are you doing?" Roy asks.
She looks up at him, holding his gaze despite the fact that he seems determined not to look at her. "I'm not stopping," she insists. "If that means you have to kill me, then that is what you have to do."
"Sarah, stop!" Urey pleads. He takes her hand and pulls her up, holds her close against his chest, but she pushes him away, hard enough that he crashes into the table behind him.
"We swore an oath as doctors," she spits. "I'm not breaking that, not for anything. I'd rather die a traitor than live as a coward who would put her own life above that of her patients!"
"What about Winry?" Urey asks, very softly. "What about the oath we swore to her?"
"Winry will understand. Maybe not now, but when she is old enough, I want her to know that we stood for our convictions." Her voice dips as she says it though, getting softer and shakier. If there's anything that has any chance of convincing her to change her mind, it's this. How can she leave her daughter an orphan? What kind of mother does that? Would she choose her patients over her own child?
She sinks to the floor again. This time Urey lets her. He looks over at Mustang. He's played cards with the young man some nights when neither of them felt like sleeping. Urey kneels next to Sarah. The doctor makes eye contact with the soldier as he squeezes his wife's hand, imploring him without words to shoot him first because he can't bear to watch his wife die.
Roy nods, his eyes half-closed. He holds his gun in shaking hands.
The report of the firing pistol is impossibly loud for just a second, before the heavy canvas fabric of the tent hungrily swallows the sound. Urey slumps forward, his blood pooling out on the ground, staining his wife's pants as she kneels there, breathing shakily as she watches Roy. The Alchemist is crying, tears streaking down his face as his chest rises and falls in sharp gasps.
She knows he has nightmares. She knows he hates what he is being forced to do. She can see that he is breaking, a little bit more every day. And she understands that this is not his fault.
"I forgive you," she whispers, not because she thinks he needs forgiveness, but because she knows he'll blame himself forever for this moment.
The gun fires.