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AnythingButHufflepuff 3
Brave New World: Chapter Four
Roy pulled the IV cord connecting Lieutenant Hawkeye to the cloudy fluid. He felt the blood hit his face, the droplets landing sporadically. He stepped back and waited, his brow furrowed in anticipation, and fear.
Rebecca screamed, attempting to run over to Riza, but being stopped by the firm hand wrapped around her forearm. The blond man held her, preventing her from running over to the blind alchemist and ripping off his face. The nurse's lungs filled with air dramatically as she sprung into action, immediately running over and pushing a corner of the blanket that covered Hawkeye's body over her arm to stop the bleeding. After being pushed out of the way, Roy lost his balance slightly, but quickly regained his firm posture. Riza continued to thrash, the bars on each side of her bed rattling at the assault, as the nurse tried to hold her arm in place, attempting to put a simple bandage on it. Roy stood his unseeing eyes steady, waiting for the noise to stop. I wasn't wrong. He thought, reassuring himself. The blood on the man's face was beginning to dry on his face ever so slightly as he continued to stare into darkness. Finally, the time he waited for had arrived…he heard the bars on the bed silence. The room was swallowed in utter silence.
"Is She breathing, Nurse?" A flustered Fuery spoke, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose after wiping his eyes of the tears that has accumulated there.
"Yes. Can one of you please hold this steady?" She said, her breathing returning to normal. Armstrong quickly came over, holding the blanket in place to compress her arm for the time being. The nurse moved to the cabinet to the left of her and pulled a bandage out, along with gauze.
"Will she be ok?" Breda questioned, his brow furrowed in concern.
"No thanks to him?" The Nurse gestured with her head, taking off the blanket and putting the gauze over the small wound in her arm, wrapping the bandage around. The wound was not a serious one, but pulling an iv out of one's arm did cause some bleeding, and this needed to be taken care of.
"If I wasn't here, she would have died!" Roy exclaimed, the anger evident in his rising voice. He began to question the nurse, yelling at her. Even though he couldn't see, his eyes seemed to zeroed in on hers, his words accusing and biting, as he glared.
"Where were you all day?" Mustang questioned, screaming at the woman.
"I-don-" she began
He continued on, accusing the woman of failing to do her job and shouting as his teammates watched. What could they do? Here, the Lieutenant just had a seizure, and could possibly be dying, and this woman didn't seem to know a thing. The other nurse from earlier was nowhere to be found and when the nurse screamed for a Doctor to help her, no one came. He continued to question her whereabouts, seething with anger as he spoke. Finally his questioning got to be too much for the young nurse.
"I don't remember!" She yelled, her hands covering her face as she started sobbing.
"How could you not remember?" He asked through clenched teeth, still seething with anger. "You're a liar!"
"I came into the Nursing station today…but that's all I remember." She continued to sob. "There was this man, he was a new Doctor I had never seen before, and I asked him to show me his hospital identification and then…" Her hands moved as she began to clutch her head, her fingers pushed to her temples, trying to pull out any detail. It just seemed like the whole day was wiped clean from her memory. They had talked about another nurse, but the other nurses were stationed to the other soldiers who had been injured during the promised day. It didn't make sense, why would there be another nurse in this room, and why hadn't the other Doctor, Doctor Peterson, come to help her when she yelled while Ms. Hawkeye was seizing. She began again, trying finally able to get a detail on the other Doctor. "He was young…and he seemed so…happy" She admitted.
"I knew that Dr. Mathews was up to no good." Havoc proclaimed, looking around the room as the people shook their heads eagerly, trying to tie the Lieutenant and this man's motives together unsuccessfully.
"What's going on here?" She asked, looking around the room, searching for answers in the eyes of each of the men there. Havoc began:
"Were still trying to figure th-"
"ah- stop" He heard a faint whisper.
"Riza!" Roy yelled, trying to see her in the darkness. He heard her sheets rustle, and immediately moved next to her, pushing the nurse slightly to hold her hand once again. His movements were refined, finding her hand easily, like he was trained to find her. He grasped her hand as the team flooded her bedside.
"Roy." She said, her voice still soft and weak. Her eyes opened slowly, the amber iris' searching. She stopped and looked right into Roy's eyes. Her head was still spinning and she felt so heavy. Her back cried for relief, but she was happy. She tried to compose her thoughts, tried to form them into something lucid, but she was still having trouble. He heard her breathing, and felt as her hand finally squeezed his back.
"Riza, I"
"You're safe." She cut him off, a slight smile forming on her lips, as she sighed in relief.
"I thought I lost you." The man whispered, as tears began to trail down his cheeks.
"He's not a Doctor…" She spoke, trying to speak through her tired body, trying to form her thoughts properly as her head continued to spin. Finally she found the right words. She had to alert him of her findings. He had to protect himself. Through clenched teeth, suppressing the pain she admitted "He is the leader of the rebellion, Sir." Her eyes began to close again, as her body begged for sleep. Hadn't she just woken up? Her body ached and she was so exhausted. She drifted off to sleep again, but her eyes suddenly snapped open as she sucked in her breath, trying to suppress the jolt of pain that just moved through her spine. Another jolt hit her as she moved slightly, and this time she whimpered, alerting Roy, and they rest of the room. His face suddenly looked grim as he remembered the reason he first collected his team.
"Nurse, there is blood under the Lieutenant's back." He spoke sternly. The anger that was previously present in his voice was absent, but he couldn't trust the forgetful nurse, not just yet. He had to investigate keep a close eye on her especially, especially if the news of this rebellion were true. Maybe she scratched her back in the battle, and the wounds reopened from her movements earlier. He thought to himself, wanting it to be true, but knowing that he was wrong. Something had happened to her. She was putting him first once again, ignoring her own pain. The Nurse moved to the blond Lieutenant, attempting to examine her. She wanted to at least help with this, since she had failed helping the woman earlier. She reached out, but Riza moved her shoulders away, turning her gaze to Roy, clutching his hand tighter than she had before.
"You have to find Marcoh." She said, clenching her eyes shut, trying to get the information out through the waves of pain that kept setting fire to her back, over and over again.
"We have a team-" She shook her head weakly, realizing that he wasn't truly listening to her. He had to listen.
"They want the stone, Sir."
"How would you know that, Hawkeye?" Havoc questioned, jumping into the conversation as the others tried to figure out how this man has risen so quickly, how he had almost conquered them. Her eyes hardened, and she looked off to the side, refusing to let the nurse treat her once again.
"I know, Havoc, because I told them where it was." She said sternly
"What did they do to you, Riza?" Roy questioned the anger evident in his voice. His blood boiled at the thought of his Lieutenant being tortured for answers. She wouldn't just blurt things out…what did they put her through?
"I'm sorry, Sir, I betrayed you. I can't protect you." She admitted, her words cold, trying desperately to separate from emotion. She couldn't break, couldn't show weakness again. He wanted to take those words back, eliminate the doubt, tell her how much he loved her, but he could do that when she was so angry at herself.
"Riza, they tried to kill you because you were protecting me!" Roy yelled. He was angry that she wouldn't let him in; she wouldn't let him help her, let him ease her pain. She didn't betray him; she saved herself, and thus protected him once again. If she had died, he would have joined her. The blonde Lieutenant glared at the man and began to push herself from her flat position on the bed. She was angry, angry that he wouldn't realize that she was incompetent. She had given away secrets to the enemy. She had failed him once again…he could have been dead right at this moment and it would be her fault. Rebecca decided to intervene. She had heard the two argue before, but it had never been this cold, this biting. She rushed over to her friend and reached out to her, trying to get her to stop, to let the nurse finally hurt her.
"Ri maybe you should take-" She slapped Rebecca's hand away from her, wincing from the sudden movement.
Her anger fueled her and she forced herself up, crying out from the pain in her back. She wanted to yell at him. She wanted to tell the man that she loved that she would die a thousand times if it meant his safety, but this pain stopped her. Her hand drifted to suppress the burning and her head fell back in agony, her efforts to contain the pain had now failed. She tried to speak, but he spoke first. He needed to help her. He couldn't live without her.
"Lieutenant, let us help you. That is an order." She heard the nurse behind her take a deep breath as she noticed Riza's gown, blood soaking through in some places. Rebecca, who was standing right next to the nurse lifted Riza's blanket and told her to hold it. After all, the nurse would have to cut the gown at the top so the Lieutenant's back could be completely free to be treated. Riza covered her front tightly, her eyes locked on Roy as she heard the nurse make the cuts in the gown at the top of her back. She carefully grasped the hospital gown and began to pull it off, as it stuck, trying to fuse with the blood and other substances that soaked her back. The occupants of the room, especially Fuery cringed as they heard the sound of the gown being forcefully removed. Riza hissed as the pain began to consume her. Finally, the fabric was separated from her body and the nurse gasped, dropping the gauze and alcohol she had prepared to help the Lieutenant. Rebecca leaned back; trying to see what had caused the nurse's face to contort in what seemed like a mix of horror and what appeared to be sorrow.
"Our secret isn't safe anymore, Roy." Riza admitted, her resolve finally crumbling as she took in large amounts of air, sobbing softly.
