Disclaimer: I don't own FMA.
All Was Well
Chapter 4
The darkness was oddly soothing. It was warm, it was comfortable, it was pain free. In fact, Ed couldn't feel anything at all. That was pretty nice. He floated, comfortable, in his dream world, idly wondering about random facts and pretty much ignoring everything else.
He didn't know quite where dream shifted to nightmare, but, suddenly, he was back in the alley, seeing a replay of what happened to him earlier. The hail and rain beat the back of his head and neck, his flesh leg burned from the amino acids that he knew were being pumped through his straining muscles. He could see headquarters, it was just ahead of him… he could almost reach it…
The feeling of being grabbed from behind pulled him back to the world. He fought against his attacker, clapping his hands and extending his automail blade from his arm, slashing feverishly behind him until he felt his blade slice though the skin of his adversary.
With a growl, the creature released him and he flipped around, arms in the ready position, to attack back.
Whatever it was was humungous. It towered at eight feet, staring down at him with cold red eyes. Eyes that burned, eyes that hungered for him, eyes that were not backing down. Keeping form gulping, Ed started backing away slowly, barely sliding his feet across the wet, slick ground. The creature snarled and moved as well, carefully staying in the shadow, but moving with him none the less. Tensing his knees, Edward prepared to run before the beast would notice; headquarters was, after all, only at the end of the alley.
He had not even turned completely to run before the monster was in front of him. Bearing down upon him, it's rancid breath reaching his nose and gagging him. He had never smelled anything like it before. While he was retching, the being grabbed his automail arm, it's eyes smiling, and it ripped it from the socket. Ed could feel the scream rising in his throat, but he also felt something rough and almost furry cover his mouth.
He was thrown against the wall repeatedly, he supposed this was to keep him from fighting back, before the monster separated him from his automail leg. Knowing he had no escape now, Ed let his head loll forward. What else could he possibly do? He felt as if his head was disjointed from his body.
Numbly, he felt something clawing sharply at his automail port on both leg and arm. Ripping and tearing them off, allowing both to flow freely with his rich, red blood. There was a sharp pain in his stomach, a sense of nausea and vertigo. Something wet and warm, quite unlike the cold rain, dripping down his side thickly. He shuddered involuntarily. So this is what it felt like to die with your body in shock form blood loss.
He heard a shouting voices, and then a grunt from the monstrous thing above him. He cracked an eye and saw it disappear swiftly from his view. Closing his eyes again, he felt the vibrations of someone running towards him down the alley. Heard his name, heard the gunshot, felt gentle arms picking him up, cradling him to them. With this thought, darkness claimed him again. Something warm, pure, and good had fought off all the terror. He knew he was protected.
"Is he okay?" Winry looked down at the anxious Alphonse who knelt on the floor beside her. She gently mopped Ed's sweaty brow, thinking, before she answered carefully.
"He'll be fine. It's normal for people who have been though an attack to have nightmares. Ed's doing much better than I imagined. He's strong. He'll be fine." She knew there was no point in lying. Alphonse would figure out the truth anyway.
Al nodded and gripped Ed's hand, watching as his face screwed up more with each and every twist and turn of his dream. Slowly, his face mellowed out and his breathing slowed. Winry smiled.
"See? I told you Al, he's going to be fine. And when he wakes up, I'll get started on his new ports. Oh! I can't wait to show them to you! There's a big difference in these that are going to make the recovery process so much easier!"
She smiled and turned back to her temporary work table where she had laid out all of her needed equipment. She had made sure that the holes drilled through Ed's skin, muscle, and (finally) bone were completely open and clean the night before when she covered them with bandages and gauze to keep them as sterile as she could. She pulled out her toolbox and laid out the necessary items for the job, freshly autoclaved(1) and in their own individual packages.
She set the borrowed stainless steel bucket within easy reaching distance of where she would perform the operation, and went to the sink to fill the other two with steaming hot water. She carried them both back and set them on heating stations designed for that reason. In one she put nothing, in the other she put IV bags of saline(2). Turning back to her table, she placed her preferred surgery pack on a side table. She then set down the sterile pack that contained her surgery gown. Next to that she put a pack of sterile, size seven, gloves. She turned back to Al.
"If you want to help at all, you need to go wash yourself really good with hot water." Alphonse nodded and stood, walking over to the industrial sized sink in Edward's room. Winry checked Ed's IV line and bag, noting that the latter was only half full, before grabbing some sterile washcloths from her prepared table and nudging Ed awake.
"What's goin' on?" He mumbled incoherently, not bothering to open his eyes. Winry bent over his face.
"We need to start soon. I was going to wake you up and give you you're pain meds so we could clean the area and start the procedure." At that, Ed's eyes fully opened and he looked up at her and nodded, sitting up slowly. Winry pulled off his sheets and turned back to Alphonse. "Can you bring me a bowl of cold water and a cloth Al?" He nodded from where he was drying his entire front on towels and turned on the cold water and stuck a nearby bowl under it before tossing away the towel and grabbing a cloth. He walked back over to the bad and set the bowl across from where Winry held her position.
Winry pulled on a pair of regular gloves and took out a syringe filled with six milliliters of a clear fluid and uncapped the needle, which was relatively small, before pushing half into Ed's IV and the other half into his upper arm. Ed barely noticed.
Winry started unwrapping the bandages she had put around the port sites days before and carefully inspecting Ed's upper torso. She ordered Al to unwrap the one's around his leg as she poured betadine(3) into a freshly opened pan, which she sat next to her. She grabbed the packet of new, sterile, cleaning sponges and pulled out one of the ten that occupied the package. She carefully set it in the betadine to soak and pulled out a pan of alcohol and a sterile cloth. She carefully set to cleaning Ed's upper torso, ignoring his hiss while vaguely noting in the back of her mind that the pain meds hadn't taken effect yet.
When she finished with the alcohol, she passed it and a new cloth to Al who set to cleaning his brother's leg. Winry grabbed the, now soaked, sponge and gently started scrubbing the area where the port would be installed and the area around it. Ed groaned and looked over at her.
'How long will this take? You said something yesterday about it being new?" Winry nodded, still intent on her work as she grabbed another sponge and continued cleaning.
"It'll take about five hours, much less than before, and it'll only take you about a month to recover. The part that patients normally have trouble recovering from it getting the screws put into their bones. Since you have everything done, all we have to do is attach the ports and then attach your new automail in three weeks. You should be fine after that." Ed nodded and turned back to the front as Winry finished with the fifth, and last, sponge and passed the other five sponges and remaining betadine down to Al, who took it and started cleaning as well. Winry casually flicked Edward's cheek.
"Ow! What the heck was that for?" he asked while rubbing his cheek with is good hand. Winry looked thoughtful.
"The Demerol(4) should be working by now, yet you still feel that. You might need more…" She trailed of as she changed her gloves and grabbed the glass bottle of Demerol and turned it upside down, pushing the tip of a new needle through it and drawing out another six milliliters before setting the bottle back down. She put half the fluids into Ed's IV line before capping the needle and sitting back down. "Tell me when you start to feel numb." She told him as she inspected his arm to make sure that scar tissue had not started to grow. Yawning, she looked over at the clock on the wall. Five-thirty. The good news was that they should be done before lunchtime if the Demerol would just kick in…
A knock came at the door and Winry blinked. She stood and walked across the room, tossing her gloves in the waste bin, before opening the door and walking out into the hallway, closing the door gently behind her. She looked up into the face of Colonel Mustang with his subordinates standing close behind him.
"Is there any way that we could see Ed this morning? Wish him good-luck?" Riza asked as she pulled the Colonel back away from the door a bit so Winry could move forward some.
"I'm sorry, but no. We've already gotten everything sterile out and administered the pain medication. It's too close to time right now. If you want, you can sit out here and Al can come give you regular updates. The entire procedure will take about five hours, maybe a bit longer." Riza nodded.
"Thank you, Winry. We'll do just that." From there, she drug the rest of Mustang's men, Mustang included, over to the waiting room and sat down before pulling out her gun and polishing materials and cleaning her gun. Winry walked back in the room and went over to Ed who nodded to her. She turned to the sink and washed her hands with hot water and betadine before having Al open her surgical robe and help her tie it. She walked over to her gloves and open them as well, sliding them on carefully without touching the outside.
She sat down on the stool next to Ed and had Al open the sterile pack without touching the inside. She also pointed out which tools she would need and had him open the individual autoclave(1) packs, letting the tools fall gently onto the work table.
Winry picked up the first piece of the port, a screwdriver, and a screw before pulling her mask up over her nose.
"Well, let's do this."
(1)- An autoclave is basically something that sterilizes materials (whether it be surgical or otherwise). When you autoclave something, you put them in special bags so that when a someone goes to open them for the doctor, the doctor won't have to touch the part that's been exposed to the outside and will be able to easily get the materials they need.
(2)- The IV bags of saline that Winry puts in the hot water are used quite frequently in medical procedures. If a patient gets too cold, you replace the current bag of saline for the IV drip with the bag that's been heating in the hot water bath. It warms up the bloodstream and therefore warms the body.
(3)- Betadine is the brownish colored stuff that you normally see the doctors on TV wash their hands with. It's basically like rubbing alcohol, only much better and it cleans better and lasts longer. Doctors use this to clean and area that they plan to operate on, it keeps the incision area clean.
(4)- Demerol is just a pain killer. I didn't want to really use morphine in my story since everyone else seems to use morphine, so I chose to use Demerol since not too many people know about it.
A/N: So, this chapter was a filler, but the dream in the beginning was, hopefully, enjoyable for most of you. It should give you a vague idea about what it was. As for all of the surgical stuff, I can guarantee that everything in the surgical scene is exactly the way it normally happens. I work at a Vet's office and I've seen how they prepare for their surgery's and I've actually had the chance to watch some surgery's done on people and this is the way an OR would most likely be set up in the FMA universe. Any questions can be PM'd or asked via review.
I 'm really sorry about not updating in over a year, I promise that it will be earlier next time!!
Happy Reading!
EdElricFan1001
