Ed had never been under the impression that memory makes the man - that personality was based on experience, and without memory or experience, a man was blank as a newborn baby. He'd never really believed that, but he was beginning to, now. Now, staring at himself in the mirror, brow furrowed, feeling as if a chunk of his soul was missing because he just couldn't remember. Oh, there had been hints, definitely, and he could accurately guess what had happened, but it wasn't the same as remembering. He wasn't sure he wanted to remember, even though he felt like a stranger to himself without it. This way, it was so much less painful, just conjecture, however likely, and much less personal. He could walk away unscathed, except for nightmares he already had and missing a chunk of his memory. Really, a week of missing information... It drove him insane thinking about it. Where did it all go?
Simply put, away. He'd put it away; that's what the doctor had said. Away, into oblivion, or into a mental copper box locked up nicely - either way, his past self had put the memories away, so he couldn't peruse them anymore. Clever past self indeed, except had he taken into account his natural curiosity? It seemed unlikely that it had been a conscious act, although it might have been with some intense meditating or hypnotism, but no matter his questions or the answers, he didn't see a way of regaining his memories. Or perhaps he was ignoring those options in favor of blissful ignorance. They had been put away for a reason, right? And judging from his "clues" as to what had happened, he knew those were good reasons.
Still, he contemplated all of this. He didn't consider the other reason he might possibly have forgotten - the nice, once bleeding lump on his head was as good a reason as any to forget an entire week - and he didn't consider it because he liked to entertain the idea that he could get it back if he ever found out how to reach into his subconscious. These thoughts were all good and organized, but he forgot he was staring at himself in the mirror and that the doctor was going to realize he was missing from his room soon. So he stood there, thinking, until a nurse showed up and bustled about him, and those thoughts lost focus and scattered before the nurse escorted him back to his room. It was hard to focus on anything after that - even the tiled floor that he walked on. Just couldn't keep his focus. It was like walking through a fog. What had happened to that happy moment of clarity, pondering his memory loss?
He found himself in bed, frowning up at his brother, who looked concerned. "Al?" he asked slowly. "Wasn't I in the bathroom?" He shook his head a little to clear it, but it only made it worse. Concussions really sucked. He had gotten hit in the head, right? Yeah, it still hurt. Al sighed and sat down next to the bed, eyebrows drawn together.
"Brother, do you remember anything? The doctor said you... Well..."
Ed scowled suddenly. Doctors. Always the doctors. They always said stupid, obvious things, and then told your loved ones even when they shouldn't know. "I don't really remember much," he answered, slurring his words. "Did the doctor say something?"
Al opened his mouth to answer, but paused, wondering what good it would do while Ed was so confused. Well, the sooner Ed understood, the better, even if it took a lot of repeating to get the point across. "The doctor says there's signs of... sexual abuse, if you know what I mean."
Ed blinked, dazed. "Then you should really get that checked out, Al."
Al smiled sadly. "I meant, on you."
"On me..." Ed repeated slowly. Then, eyebrows furrowing, "Sexual abuse? Me?" Al nodded, hoping he got his point across. Ed rolled his eyes. "Well of course, but he didn't need to tell you that, did he?"
Al's eyes widened in disbelief. "What do you mean 'of course?'"
Ed squinted up at Al, watching his brother's face for a long moment. "Y'know," he slurred again, "I was thinking pretty nicely before. I don' think these are concussion symptoms." He closed his eyes, thinking back really hard. In the bathroom... Nurse... "Musta' injected me with someth'n... to keep me from fighting..." And he was out cold before he knew it.
Al sighed. Sometimes Ed was too smart for his own good, even drugged up. He waited until Ed woke again, and started the conversation again.
It was around nine in the morning the next day, the same bland hospital room with the same middle aged woman sleeping soundly a few feet away, nurses running about in the hallways. Ed was wide awake and eating crappy hospital food with a sour look on his face when Al decided it was time to try talking about it again.
"So, brother..." he began tentatively. Ed grunted. "What do you, uh... remember?" Ed looked up from his soggy broccoli, sending Al a sharp and undeserved glare. Seeing Ed's reluctance to answer, Al clarified, "About the week you went missing."
Ed looked away, back to poking his soggy broccoli. "Not much."
"So you wouldn't know anything about... signs of physical trauma?"
"Physical trauma," Ed grumbled unhappily. "Like, the entire reason I'm in this hospital?"
Al winced at the tone. "No, I meant... trauma of a sexual nature." He watched Ed carefully, but Ed didn't react the tiniest bit. He just kept poking. That spoke more volumes than Ed had intended. He thought if he could keep his expression blank, he wouldn't give anything away, but if he truly understood himself, he would have known to act surprised when Al suggested he'd been... taken advantage of. "So you do remember something," Al concluded.
Ed flung the broccoli off his fork and onto the ground. "No, I don't remember anything," he insisted. "I'm just..." He hesitated. "...not stupid. It's my body after all; I can feel it." Well, he could feel it, before he'd come to the hospital.
Al faltered. "You really don't remember a thing."
Ed raised an eyebrow. "Do you know something?"
Al shrugged. "I just got a disturbing phone call. That's about it." After he said it, he had expected Ed to perk up and ask about it - anything to remember and find out what happened. But Ed seemed as uninterested in finding out as he was in Mustang's love affairs. He just kept flinging broccoli to the floor. Al asked warily, "Do you want to know what you said on the phone?" Maybe Ed just needed a prompt, and he'd be interested...
"No," Ed replied quietly. "I don't want to know."
Al sighed. "So what's the last thing you remember?"
Ed stabbed the last broccoli. Hard. What was the last thing he remembered?
"Brother?" Al pried gently after a long minute.
What a funny thing, memory. To become fuzzy upon thinking about it...
"Brother, is something wrong?"
But he'd been so certain that he remembered something definite before his black out...
"Brother, you're crying."
"Am I?" he murmured. He touched his face, and pulled his fingers away. True enough, they glistened with salty tears. How strange... He didn't remember starting to cry. "Al?" he asked after another long minute. "Does anyone else know I've been raped?" A solid beat of silence.
"No."
"Good. Don't tell them. And tell that doctor to shut the fuck up."
"Are you sure you don't remember anything? And that you don't want to remember?"
"I'm absolutely sure, Al."
He wasn't lying in the hospital bed anymore. He was lying on the ground. Cold, hard, unforgiving asphalt. He was in pain, all over. His fingernails were gone, bloody and raw, but that was nothing to his ass, ripped open and raw, and still subject to intrusion. He couldn't fight, even if he'd wanted to. He didn't know why he couldn't - it was just a fact of the universe, like gravity, like air. Why does one breathe? Why did he sit still? The same answer.
He opened his eyes with a loud gasp, staring with wide pupils at the brightly lit hospital room. The remnants of the dream swirled around in his head. Darkness and pain, but it dissipated quickly into smoke that he could neither grasp or examine properly before it disappeared entirely. His eyes focused sharply on the face of a woman he didn't know, but recognized. She was middle aged, and he thought she looked strange while not relaxed in sleep. His roommate, for all intents and purposes. His cheek stung, and she had a pinched expression.
"Thought it'd be cruel to let you keep dreaming."
He blinked and sat up, realizing he had company. Roy Mustang sat by his bed, examining the situation sharply. "Cruel?" Ed croaked, wiping his eyes to get the crust off of them - and found tears. The woman didn't say anything, but she shuffled back to her own bed and lay down, her back to them. Ed turned to Mustang, still gathering his wits. What had his dream been about...? "What time is it?"
Roy answered without looking at a clock. "Just after eleven."
Judging by the brightly lit windows, he meant in the AM. Ed crossed his arms. "And what are you doing here, bastard?" He was relieved, at least a little, that someone aside from Al had come to visit him. Something about only seeing Al was a little unnerving, but now that that was out of the way, he hated the fact it had to have been Mustang to relieve his worries.
"I'm checking on my subordinate who's in the hospital with a possible concussion, and also happened to have disappeared last week." He met Ed's gaze, cold and hard, and yet... Ed could sense something else there. Concern? Curiosity? He couldn't place it. "Alphonse said he's only sure of one thing, but wouldn't tell me what it was. He said he'd promised not to tell anyone."
Ed snorted. "He'd have done better not to mention it at all."
"Except he wanted me to know." Silence. "But you don't." When still Ed kept stubbornly silent, Roy sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't want to go this far, but as your superior officer, I have leverage over your medical records. I can look at them regardless of your wishes." He noted the way Ed's hands clenched into fists. "I'd rather hear it from you than have to go that far behind your back."
"It's not behind my back if you go and say it like that," Ed muttered darkly.
"Semantics." Roy waved it away. "You're avoiding the question."
Ed scowled. "You didn't ask one."
"Then allow me to clarify what I want to know," Roy responded quickly, his voice tight in aggravation. Really, Ed could be so stubborn. He was just stalling, and it wasn't like the kid to beat around the bush. "What happened last week? What secret is Alphonse keeping for you?"
Ed looked away. "Just go look in my fucking records and betray my trust. I'm not telling you anything I don't want you to know."
Roy sighed. "Fine; I will. Until then, do you mind telling me how you're holding up?"
"Fine," Ed answered through gritted teeth.
"...I can see I've outstayed my welcome." Roy stood. "I'll ask your doctor when you can come back to work." He gathered his jacket and turned around to leave. Ed wanted to say something. He didn't know what. Something about what Roy said bothered him. Come back to work...
"I don't want to," he said, just for something to say so that Roy would pause and give him time to think about what he really wanted to say. But as it turned out, that was exactly what he wanted to say. So Roy paused, and he said it again. "I don't want to go back to work." Roy turned around and tried to catch Ed's eye, but Ed refused to meet his gaze, just like the rest of their conversation had went. It was infuriating, and so unlike Ed - but right then he was a little distracted.
"You don't want to come back," he stated flatly. He watched the pink rise in Ed's cheeks. Why? Was he embarrassed? Angry? It could be either, the way he clenched and unclenched his fists like that.
"Just... not soon. Or maybe ever. I don't know," he said, voice growing softer with each syllable.
Roy struggled for a minute with his anger and surprise and disappointment and confusion. Finally, he managed to ask, "Is there a particular reason for this? Recently you told me you were going to renew your contract in the fall." He didn't want to see Ed go, but if there was a legitimate reason, and if the blond really wanted it, he would let pretty much anything go. He had a feeling, though, that he wasn't going to get a straight answer from the kid.
He was right.
"I need time to think about it."
Roy couldn't argue with that. It was best to think through decisions like that thoroughly. He hesitated, though. Ed needed advice at a time like this, probably from someone who knew as much of the situation that Ed did, but he was on short supply of those kinds of people. "Then think about it. Just don't make any rash decisions." He paused. That wasn't quite enough... "Don't make a decision like this on your own. Talk it over with the people who matter to you." There. That was the best he could do. So he left Ed to his own thoughts and nightmares to bug the doctor about Ed's records.
He would have a hard time getting them.
