The blood.
And the gold-toothed doctor still with his grin fixed in place; chattering away. It dawned on him for one terrible, illuminating second, that he would really do it - he would perform human transmutation if it-
Roy Mustang shook himself viciously to consciousness. Again, he had almost succumbed to sleep, and again, he couldn't quite manage it. He sighed. The promised day. It felt like a lifetime ago, though it had hardly been twenty-four hours after the fact.
He heard footsteps shuffling in every direction, muffled through ceilings and floors, and the occasional clanging of metal instruments. The everyday ambience of the hospital. Not to say that they were currently in an everyday situation. It was afternoon. Or evening, maybe? He was in flimsy hospital clothes, in his bed, exhausted; Lieutenant Hawkeye in a similar sorry state across the room. They lay in silence, side by side with a grimy strip of tiled floor between them. The single radio on Mustang's bedside table carried the indistinct buzz of reporters' voices from the station.
Mustang remembered, vaguely, of ordering a few of his men to see to it the previous afternoon, almost immediately upon realizing that the battle was over. Control measures. Temporary, of course. The best way to avoid mass hysteria, he figured, was to give the public information. Just something substantial to keep them busy. If and by what means they would be given the whole truth was a matter for later.
Since the time that they had brought him into the hospital room, he had been listening, his brain tuning in and out aimlessly. Background noise, then a snatch of detail, over and over again. There was nothing else to do. It left his mind whirring, the constant darkness of his surroundings heightening the onslaught of voices.
He couldn't help a sardonic huff. You would think blindness would help sleep, not hinder it.
Why that moment? Why that particular moment? She was fine afterwards. She fought, for heaven's sake, she went to battle and she directed his attacks. She was next to him, alive, right now at this very second -
The radio hummed. Panicked reporter after panicked soldier after panicked citizen. Amidst all the rebuilding, reparations, preparations, obituaries, and of course, the conspiracy theories (as if he could blame them); a single thread kept reappearing, understandably at the forefront of everyone's minds: What exactly happened to the Fuhrer and his son? What the hell kind of scheme must have occurred, that every member of Central Command had been tied up in? What would happen now? Would there be a new Fuhrer?
Well, Lieutenant General Grumman was going to become the new Fuhrer, that was all but confirmed. For all his quirks, he was a man that Mustang long knew he could trust, and more importantly, a well respected member of the military who had stayed deliberately on the sidelines all this time. Mustang wasn't stupid enough to think that anyone making a ploy for Fuhrer, days after leading a coup against military command, would receive anything but suspicion from the public.
As for Bradley and his son - they had, not to be forgotten, tragically died amidst the furor. Yes. Mustang was playing the long game.
He would be the Fuhrer one day. Of course. Even now, lying temporarily useless in a hospital bed, he knew that, though it was years and years down the line. No matter the wound. Yet there were many things to do, to tick off and accomplish, before he could even begin to think about that. Or rather, so much to do in order to proceed.
Needless to say, it was difficult to sleep right now.
The Lieutenant seemed to manage it. He knew from the continuous rising and falling of her breath across the room that she was fast asleep. He listened. She sounded at peace.
There had been the rare moment, years ago, when he had caught her asleep. Long before either of them had found themselves in a situation like this, but still.
He didn't need his eyesight to picture it: her pale hair, uncharacteristically strewn about her shoulders; her eyes closed and face the image of calm concentration, as it ever was. Mustang may have smiled in his head. Her hand was probably mushed against her cheek. Asleep, unconscious, but nevertheless perfectly focused.
The pool of blood, vivid, encircling her terrible wound, creeping further out.
Anyway. Tomorrow's plan. First, Ishval, where it had all begun. He knew it had to start there, if this nation had any hope in hell of becoming something more real and just than what its creators had intended. He must begin with some sort of real attempt at making amends. That was always going to be the first step, if everything went according to the plan.
It was surreal to be on the other side of that plan. His perfect, meticulous operations had paid off. He had had the strategies forming in his head for such a long time now, that the little details of what actually happens after the victory felt like deja vu as they finally, suddenly, came to life. He had been ready and precise for so long. Long enough that even the pain in his seared eyes sat in his consciousness like they were just a slight inconvenience, a minor deviation from the intended endgame, rather than a traumatic handicap he had suffered through.
Now, if only the pain felt slight enough to let him pass out on this bed for a few hours, too.
He turned onto his back. Every so often he heard the rustle of sheets as the Lieutenant shifted her position. Her breathing was still too weak, but it had evened in her sleep, untroubled and unchanging in pace as he listened. It was constant, almost calming.
Yet his mind wandered back to the same scene again.
It had replayed itself in his head, all too clearly, since the moment they found themselves in the hospital with the Promised Day over as soon as it had arrived. The ugly, ragged sound of her breathing and bleeding together on the floor of the Homunculi's lair, followed by something so feeble that it was even worse.
Maybe it wasn't the pain or the idle thoughts milling through his brain that wouldn't let him sleep.
He thought he had understood well the risks that they were taking for their objective. The possibility of failure, of death, was always there. He had known that. And more pertinently, so had the Lieutenant. After all, it was she who had given him the signal not to relent, even in her state, and though it didn't save his eyesight, they had come through better for it. They won, at the end of the day.
He had acknowledged from the start that even the most perilous outcome would be a worthy sacrifice if it meant they would succeed. If they could liberate this godforsaken country. But having it unfold in front of him, in his arms, was something quite different.
The sun had set now. He knew because the warmth of its rays through the little patch of window that fell across his body had ceased. He wondered if even a single tactical thought could have occurred to him in that very moment - or afterwards - holding her body to his for the horrible fraction of a second when he thought that he may have lost her.
He released the tension in his limbs. There were some kinds of loss that Amestris couldn't justify.
They had come too close.
Still the radio went buzzing on, crackling with effort intermittently. So Mustang had established that it started with giving the Ishvalans their land back. He wouldn't sit still, had already asked whichever of his subordinates were free and uninjured to begin reading over the background with him the next day. No point in wasting time. And that meant he had to rest properly today in order to work effectively as soon as he wanted to, after only a day's pause. Which meant he had to sleep.
He felt the coarse texture of the bedsheet, trailed his fingers off the side until they reached the cool and slippery metal frame. Wondered briefly. The strange and precocious Xingese child - May? - who had performed the alkahestry to stop the bleeding - he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that he owed her more than his own life. He hadn't had the time or strength to find her in the aftermath of the battle. She was probably far away from here by now.
What about the Elric brothers? Where were they? And their father. Their teacher, the one lucky enough to be chosen alongside him. It felt strange to be out of the loop, even for a few hours.
Mustang blinked, a peculiar feeling every time (he didn't know what he expected) and willed for sleep to come. There were delegations to make. Announcements, meetings, plans, a city and a whole country to oversee.
And between then and now, there was his restless mind. There was the hospital bed next to his.
Maybe a glass of whiskey would help right now.
By the time they had got to the hospital or even had a moment's break to talk, too much had already happened after. Not to mention the conclusion of all their efforts - between the Elrics and the Homunculus they called 'Father'. For all his intuition, he couldn't have predicted that series of events. It had left even Mustang awestruck.
Either way, the moment had passed. Given all of that, it had felt unnecessary to say something to the Lieutenant. So much so that it was almost silly, even as he played it out in his head. What would it achieve to bring up an understanding that was already silently acknowledged by the both of them?
She stirred again in her sleep. Took deep breaths. He felt it disperse in the stillness of the air, and let it wash over him.
His mind settled a little.
What did he want to do? Say thanks?
Being on the brink of death like that certainly wasn't meant for anyone, going into any situation, regardless of their wartime reflexes. Yet, knowing her as he did, he understood that the possibility was an implicit part of the job for her.
But for him-
He recognised, and in the back of his mind he had always recognised - that it was something else.
Somewhere else, unimaginable. Outside and beyond the reach of any rightful plan or mission.
Inhale, exhale, and again. Mustang grappled for the buttons on the radio and turned the dial to shut it off. He forced himself to focus. If he focused, her breath came strong and uninterrupted. The depth of her sleep was evident. Slow, steady. He straightened out. Closed his eyes, for the minute difference that it made.
Slow and steady.
Inhale, exhale. The room was silent but for her breathing. Her vitality. The gentle, ceaseless proof of it.
Present and soft and completely undisturbed. Mustang turned on his back and let his body loosen.
He listened until he fell asleep.