The Ward

Roy strolled up to the front desk with a small newspaper wrapped package underneath his arm and smiled gently to the nurse. She returned it and reached underneath the table to pull out a small clipboard.

"Seeing him again, sir?" she questioned, handing him the visitor's roster. Roy nodded his head and took it up with a pen. Though the paper had many available spaces for the potential guest a patient might have, the list of visitors for the institution were able to be counted on one hand. Roy could still see his sloppy signatures from his past visits the weeks before.

"Yes, I am m'am. I brought him a little something. Thought it might perk him up a bit," Roy replied casually as he signed his name in the next space. He handed the clipboard back to the nurse and she took it with a happy grin.

"That is very sweet of you! I am sure he will love it. He hasn't been the same since your last visit. This week has been pretty hard on him. We are all worried, but he does seem to get remarkably better when you come-"

"Maybe a familiar face is all he needs, ma'am," he smiled softly. The nurse nodded her head and leaned over the counter to look down the hallway. The double doors leading into the east wing were propped open allowing the place to look more open and welcoming. She pointed down towards the end where Roy knew the patient rooms were located.

"He is in the same room. You know where it is, down the hall to the left."

"Thank you, ma'am," Roy said before he followed the directions he knew too well. Every time he walked down the hallway towards Edward's room he wished it were his last. However, here he was again, his shined shoes making the same hollow click clack on the tile floors he heard every single time before that. He had been coming to the hospital ever since Edward was admitted several months ago. At first he was very reluctant to go, not able to envision the angsty teen in such a state that he even had to be in the hospital at all, but now he had been coming on a regular basis, finding it even harder to stay away. Leaving the boy alone, when everything in the world had already abandoned him, would be like condemning the boy to purgatory. Occasionally, some of his team would come in and see him, but they were on missions a lot and couldn't come as often as Edward needed it. Roy took it upon himself to fill in the gaps.

Roy stopped outside the room, number three hundred and ten. It was the last in the sterile white corridor and the door was shut tight unlike the others which hung wide open allowing the sunlight to stream into the hallways. Edward was locking the rest of the world out. Roy sighed and gave a light knock on the hard wooden surface. It echoed plainly in the empty building as he waited for a response he knew was never going to be given. Nothing stirred on the other side. All was quiet. Taking it as an invitation, Roy gently took the knob in his free hand and eased the door open.

"Edward?" he announced his presence softly. His voice echoed softly in the little bedroom which was crisply made without a single stone unturned. It actually frightened Roy how clean it was, being so completely out of the boy's nature. Unlike his desk at work, which was constantly piling over with papers stuffed in random drawers and boxes of take out that never left from nights of long research, the bedroom was as clean as the white walls it was made out of. The dresser drawers were all closed tight with not a piece of clothes hanging out of them. The walls laid barren with not a picture in sight, and the small writing desk laid empty. Even the bed was perfectly made with hospital corners as if the kid never touched it, which Roy feared he didn't.

Roy caught sight of the young teenager sitting on the windowsill across the room, his blank eyes staring out into the green garden below. The window was shut tight though the voices from some of the nurses out on break could be heard through the silence of the room. Roy noticed how Edward's eyes didn't even seem to be studying the world outside his window, but instead seemed to be lost in thought, staring out into an endless void. Edward's hair was the only thing in the room that was not orderly. He seemingly didn't care to tame it and was hanging loose around his shoulders. The golden colour contrasted highly with his green pajamas making him stick out like a sore thumb.

Roy eased the door closed behind him to return the room back to its natural order and made his way quietly over to the window where his young friend was sitting. He gazed out of it for a few seconds to take in the view that he knew Edward was not enjoying. The small patch of green could be seen and several of the patients were running around outside kicking a worn looking soccer ball around, heavily guarded by eyeful nurses. Some of them were falling over each other for it, looking to be having a good time, while others were sitting on the sidelines simply watching and enjoying the hour of free time they had that day. Roy wished that Edward could have at least been doing that. Instead, the boy seemed lost in his thoughts not even realising he was there. That was the last place he wanted the boy to be.

"Edward," he repeated boy jumped, slightly startled, before turning to him in surprise. He tilted his head slightly to look at him, recognition took a little too long to settle in for Roy's taste, but it brought a small smile to his face.

"Oh, hey you," Edward grinned, his voice soft as ever. The energy seemed to have been kicked out of him ever since the Promise Day. Roy noticed that the smile he gave just barely reached his sparkless eyes. "What are you doing back so soon?"

"It has been a week, Edward, you lose track of the days again?" Roy said, his voice pretending to tease him lightly, but in all reality was dead worried. However, it made Edward chuckle lightly and turn his back to the window he was gazing so desperately out of.

"It's Sunday right?"

"Wensday, but close," Roy sighed.

"You literally can't get farther away from Wensday than Sunday," Edward mumbled, his smile betraying his slight disappointment in himself. There was an awkward silence and Edward tugged uncomfortably at his right sleeve. His right arm, or as much as he could see of it, was still sickly white and thin from being pulled out of the Gate. Having been in the hospital for so long in his state, the arm barely got any colour back in it let alone muscle mass. Even the rest of him was looking paler.

"So what have you been doing lately?" Roy asked trying to distract himself. Edward gave a cheap smirk which was quickly wiped away. Nothing ever lasted long with him.

"The usual I suppose."

"Which entails..." Roy urged him on.

"You know... Thinking-"

"I heard you were getting worse," Roy commented tensely. Edward winced slightly knowing the man's conviction but didn't show anything otherwise.

"What are those nurses talking about, I am perfectly healthy. I could run a marathon if I wanted-"

"Edward," he Interrupted tensely. Edward shut his mouth and looked away. "Don't you ever want to get out of here? What have you been doing this time?"

"I am perfectly fine, Mustang," Edward growled in denial. "The nurses are just paranoid."

"They are looking out for your well being. Half the stuff you pulled before coming here… Edward I couldn't imagine what we would do if you actually succeeded in any of them."

"Yeah," Edward muttered sadly a if reflecting back on his suicide attempts. Roy had known that something was wrong with Edward ever since the Promise day. After Alphonse died, he was never the same. Nightmares were worse, even happening in the middle of the day, symptoms Roy knew well from Ishval, but until he walked in on Edward about to hang himself with his own red coat in his dorm room, he never thought it serious enough to check out. The scars he got from the cloth cutting into his skin were still visible around his neck. Now Edward was here of all places, an environment Roy would only suspect to make him worse. He didn't even if the boy felt remorse for the act or that it just didn't work.

"I-I just thought… It wouldn't matter," Edward stuttered. "Alphonse left... so quick and effortlessly…" He swallowed as if trying to find the right words, but he couldn't seem to be able to form any. Roy waited patiently as the boy placed his head in his hands to try and gather his thoughts. He saw his shoulders shake slightly as if he was holding back a sob. Roy gently set his arm down on Edward's shoulder to try and comfort him but suddenly the boy tensed. He whipped around and plowed his right fist right into Roy's stomach which sent him stumbling back a few feet in pain. The wind was knocked out of him and he dropped the small package he was carrying to the ground. Edward was standing with a determined scowl on his face, his body posed in a stance ready for round two. His eyes gleamed of the spark that Roy had once so admired but now it burned with only the rage of a haunted memory.

"Get up you third rate fraud! I'll show you there's no comparison between us!" the kid growled angrily.

"Edward!" Roy scolded him as the air rushed back to him. The boy didn't seem to hear him for a second, still trapped in his own world, but then he blinked a few times and the fiery spark left his eyes and he returned to the same dead person Roy had walked in on, if not a bit more panicked. Edward's dull eyes widened at his sudden realization and he gripped his head in his hands and shook terribly.

"Nooooo…..," he groaned to himself, turning back to the window. Roy took a few steps back over but Edward held out his hand to motion for him to stop. He just needed his space.

"Edward, it's alright. I am alright," he assured the kid from the distance but he wouldn't listen. Tears started to flow, picking up where they had left off before, and Roy could do nothing to stop them. The kid was breaking down.

"I-I was thinking of Al and then you…. M-Mustang, I don't know what to do. I can't stop thinking about it. I keep seeing him, I keep seeing Alphonse all over again and… I can't stop it," he muttered frantically. "I don't sleep because I-I don't want to see him die anymore. The nurses…. they have to medicate me. I can't control myself."

"Edward-"

"Mustang, I tried again," the boy painfully admitted and Roy stopped knowing exactly what he meant. "I used a fork from the lunch hall. It was all I could find. I just can't stand see him… over and over again... I can't-"

"No Edward, you can," Roy scolded him. The boy stopped and looked up after being interrupted. Roy cautiously took another step closer and the boy allowed him. "Edward, you can, and you must. You can fight this, you just need the right motivation."

"Where the hell am I going to get that, Mustang? I-I am trapped in a fucking box, I am trapped in my mind. I can't escape that. It's like everything is on repeat. I see Father all over again and then I realise… it was just the nurse… or you..."

"Yes, Edward, I know. But you need to get better. If not for yourself, for the team, for the Rockbells, for me. If you can't fight yourself to save yourself, fight for someone else," Roy told him. Edward frowned and turned to stare back out the window as if processing his thoughts. His shoulders shook only lightly now as he was forcing himself to calm down, but his voice was still catching.

"I-I fought for Alphonse,but look where that got him," Edward muttered. Roy frowned as he saw that he wrapped this situation back in the loop that Edward was caught in. He sighed as he bent down and picked up the package he brought with him and walked over to lean against the window sill Edward was staring his hardest at.

"Edward, Maes was my Alphonse," he said for no better way of describing it. "We might not have been able to live the same story as you, but I would like to think of him as my brother I never had. Through Ishval, he was my literal life force, stopping me from pulling that trigger on multiple occasions." Roy remembered those scenes very well. The murder of all of those innocent people… he thought that if he were to just die, lives would be spared from his hands. Hughes didn't let him though, and he was so grateful for that.

"Y-you nearly went insane when-"

"Yes, I was angry. I was angry I couldn't do anything and I focused it all on the culprit. Edward, you were the one who snapped me out of it. You literally saved me from myself."

"Mustang-"

"But now it's you who is angry, Edward," Roy interrupted the boy's attempt of denial. Edward's mouth snapped shut from his obvious depressing retort and the dulled golden eyes widened slightly at how harsh he sounded. He was just giving him the raw truth. "Edward, you are angry at yourself, I can see it in your eyes. But unless you want your own soul to keep tormenting itself until you force yourself to stop it, you need to find it in yourself to let go and forgive."

"I destroyed my brother's life, Mustang! I lead him with false hope and after we finally got his body back, he wasn't even strong enough to live… How could I just forgive myself for that?" Edward scolded him angrily. There was a small length of silence as his outburst startled Roy a bit. Edward covered his eyes as if trying to hide his burden from the man. "And everytime I see him… it just triples my pain of living like this. How am I supposed to forgive myself for this when every moment I just see it happen again and again?"

"I don't know," Roy answered with a frown. Edward looked up at him as if he was thrown back into his pit of despair from those three words, but Roy wasn't done. "But I know you of all people will find a way. Alphonse passed with a smile, remember that. So something in his life must have made him truly happy to exist, and I don't doubt that's you." The kid looked away for a moment as if to ponder this but then there came a light knock from the door. They both turned around to see the nurse peering in with a small smile on her face.

"I am sorry, sir, but visiting hours are now over. I must ask you to leave," she told him. Roy looked at his watch and noticed how late it was. He needed to get back and feed Black Hayate for Riza. He looked down at the package in his hand and then back to his ex-subordinate. He handed it gently to him and Edward looked down with a frown on his face at its newspaper wrapped glory.

"Here, Edward, I found this when we were going through Alphonse's belongings. Riza said he told her that he noticed you needed a new one. He asked her to give it to you but…" Roy faltered, not wanting to bring up Alphonse's passing again. He shook his head and continued, "I will be out of town for a couple weeks but when I get back, you will be here, won't you?" Roy asked him, a glaring concern flying through his eyes. Edward's golden eyes locked onto his as if absorbing what he meant. He duly nodded his head as his hands ever so gently grasped the package. It was as if he was afraid to break it.

"Yeah, I will be here," Edward mumbled absentmindedly. Roy gave a weak smile which was not returned before he let the nurse lead him out of the room. When the door was closed behind them, the nurse looked up to him a bit worried.

"I heard a bit of yelling in there, was everything alright?" she asked him. Roy nodded his head and stuffed his hands into his pocket of his coat.

"Yes, Edward was just realising his priorities."

…..

Edward gingerly looked down at the book after the door closed. It felt heavy in his hands yet as light as a feather at the same time. He couldn't break his eyes from its newspaper bound glory. A fear flickered in him as if telling him not to open it, to preserve its presence, but he couldn't. Alphonse would have wanted him to open it, it was his after all. Edward found the delicate fingers of his right hand inch back the paper wrapping careful not to rip it. When it all came off, Edward flipped it over to find that it was a simple leather bound journal, much the same as his old ones he used for research. A painful flash of memory jolted through his head as he remembered his late nights studying with his brother. He felt his hands start to quiver. What were they getting at? Even all of his research wasn't enough. All of those sleepless hours Alphonse and him wasted over trying to get his body back just for…. Edward clutched his head as his breath caught in his throat. He saw father standing over him again as he was pinned down against the broken cement slab, helpless.

"Stop!" he suddenly screamed at the image as if to either stop his brother from giving his all to save him or to snap himself out of the memory. Edward felt the tears bridging his eyes and he accidentally dropped the book to the floor as he clutched his head. He did get his brother out after that, he reminded himself. Alphonse didn't die saving him… he died in the hospital because when you pulled him out his body was just too weak to survive. Edward felt the sobs wrack his chest and he furiously tried to wipe his eyes to see better. After all they did…. Edward paused in his break down as he caught sight of the fallen journal. It was split open so that the spine was pointed up and the pages were crushed beneath its weight and the floor. Edward quickly rushed over to it and picked it up as if fearing permanent damage to it. As he lifted it, a small piece of picture fell out of the front cover. Edward froze as he saw it flutter to the ground, turning over itself in the still air of his room. He realised it was a photograph before it hit the floor. Edward stared at it as if it was staring straight back at him, right into his soul. He gingerly crouched down beside it and plucked it off of the floor, his heart leaped. Alphonse's weak face was smiling back at him from the hospital bed where he was set for his last few days. He was right next to him, along with the entire team, smiling back with full force. Mustang was still blind so he wasn't staring right at the camera, and everyone else including his were covered in an assortment of bandages here and there. They all looked truly happy, happy to be alive that day. Edward felt a crippled smile crawl on his face. He had completely forgotten about taking that picture. It was right after the chaos of the Promised day. Alphonse had just woken up and everyone was there to see him. He had been the one to suggest it since he remembered Pinako having that wall full of pictures, he wanted to add one of himself back to normal.

After staring at it for the longest time, Edward opened the journal back up to tuck the picture back in the cover where it had been pasted. As he opened it a wrecked sob caught in his throat and he covered his mouth with his other hand to keep it contained. Alphonse's handwriting was on the first page of the book. It was scribbled, weak and shaky from his small hands, but it was still legible. Edward could barely draw himself to read what it said as he was too mesmerized by its existence. It was only a few simple words but it was enough to hold Edward's gaze for eternity.

We finished chapter one of our lives, let's write the next one.

…

Roy yawned to himself as he walked out to the sidewalk to pick up the morning paper only a few days later after his visit with Edward. He shuffled over to his mail box with his cup of coffee and opened up. He took a long sip from his warm mug and sifted through the mail he received. Most of it was bills, but he caught onto the random letter from the Psychiatric Hospital. Roy had been listed as the boy's guardian so the doctors would occasionally send him letters of his status to him if it was of great concern. Roy nearly dropped his mug as he saw it, fearing the worse. Great Concern, what that meant exactly, he didn't know. The last one he got a few weeks ago was to inform him that Edward had attacked seven nurses in one of his flashbacks and needed to be subdued for a few days with heavy medication. After his visit, seeing how bad of a state his subordinate really was in, Roy didn't want to see what was in this one. But he needed to. Without caring about his other bills and such, he dropped everything to the ground, his coffee mug shattering, and ripped open the letter.

Mr. Roy Mustang, Guardian and C.O. of Mr. Edward Elric van Hohenheim,

Edward Elric has been showing a considerable amount of improvement in his attitude and has even took a liking to writing. He has written a few stories that he has shared with some of the other patients and we are encouraging him to publish them. He has become a bit more social in his time here though he still spends most of his time in he still experiences some memory spikes as problem with his case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the writing has proven to be a good outlet for him to take in order to improve his case of depression. I expect him, at this rate, to be out of the hospital in only a couple months with some heavy prescribed medication. I would like to personally thank you for your gift to our young patient, and welcome you to visit again whenever you have a chance.

Dr. Harrison Folly PhD. Psychiatry