(Looks back at the Ch. 2 A/N) I lied.
This one has to be in a hospital or I can't make it work.
But I swear to Truth that this is the last one that will be in a hospital ever. The others I looked over and seriously, none of them have even a remote chance of needing to be held in a hospital. But this one... Yeah, kinda needs some circumstances.
And I'm sorry to all of my Roy Mustang-lovers because in this chapter you're getting to see the "Hero of Ishbal" side of him.
Disclaimers: I've never even been in a hospital before, so don't sue me if I get things wrong. I don't own FMA, and if you're an aforementioned Roy-lover grab a few Kleenex. No, not the whole box!
Death Type 04
The world is a cruel place, Roy thought.
Then again, I already knew that.
It seems that the world was always the hardest on the innocent. The people at the top crush those below them, those who did no wrong, to reach their goals, but because of their status no one can call them out. The world may work like the Briggs saying - The weak carve the way for the strong to take their place - but that didn't make it any more fair.
If one wanted an example of 'the innocent are always the victims' then look into the window of the Central military hospital in Amestris, room 211, right in the corner where no one bothers to come because it's too far from the stairs. Inside, the room is dimly lit, the most light coming from the many machines surrounding the bed. The visitor was Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist, sitting on a metal straight-backed chair and clutching the metal frame of the hospital bed with warm, shaking hands.
The one in the bed was Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist, though he didn't really look like alchemist material, if the readings on the machines were anything to go by.
It was so sudden - one second, he was fine, and the next he was coughing and choking on his own blood. While Riza and Al carried him to the car to get him to Central's hospital, the young Elric mentioned that something like this happened to their teacher, Izumi Curtis. But it couldn't be the same thing, because hers was caused by losing internal organs and Ed would have said something if that happened.
When the doctor diagnosed it, he explained that it was a rare, genetically transmitted disease that was passed from parents to children. It was the same one that killed Trisha Elric. The same doctor said that his team would do all they could to stop it from advancing any further, but it was almost always lethal.
Ed, after three days in the hospital, felt good enough to go out and about, although his legs sometimes didn't support him and he'd have to lean on Al for a few minutes. Once or twice he had started coughing up blood, too, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.
Externally, Ed acted like the disease wasn't too big a deal.
Internally, he was freaking out. This was the same thing that killed his mom, after all, and now it was starting on him too. The doctor explained that it usually only affected the firstborn child, and rarely the rest, so he was glad he was the one having it instead of Al, but he doubted it would have affected Al anyways, considering his empty armor thing.
Actually, he was doing much better than Trisha had. According to the nurses and doctor, there were seven stages, the seventh being death. Most people who caught it had to go to bedrest at stage three, but luckily Ed was only at two.
They decided to call it Elric Syndrome, seeing as it didn't have a name before, as it had targeted two of the Elrics.
However, just a few days after getting out of the hospital, Ed was sent outside of Central for a mission given to him by one of the higher-ups, and he'd been attacked and had to use Alchemy. The excessive amount of strain it put on his body to use so much Alchemy had made the stages go by much quicker than they were meant, and he jumped from two to five in the span of four minutes. Al abandoned the fight and ran with his brother all the way back to Central, where he knew there was the best hospital and the doctors who knew how to treat Elric Syndrome.
That night, Ed was unconscious, hooked up to a bunch of machines and very close to dying.
Everyone had come to see him once he rose back to consciousness, but he was usually too weak to even manage a wave or more than three words.
Sciezka and Winry were the first ones to come. Ed had only managed to give them a couple smiles before they left. Then it was Kain Fuery and Heymans Breda, followed soon after by Vato Falman, but they had to get going soon. The bedridden boy had shown the most enthusiasm toward his brother and Roy/Riza.
Riza had left nearly half an hour ago. Al had gone with her. It was only Roy with Ed, and he was panicking, because the sixth stage had decided to show itself while they were gone. He was going to die soon, huh? Roy knew he was in pain, so much that he had gone delirious a while back, and the disease was too far along to backtrack and treat it.
Ed's skin was pale and covered in a light layer of sweat, and his whole body was shaking. His eyes were unfocused, still a bright gold, but unfocused and constantly darting from one place to another as if searching for something or someone. Roy just sat pushing his fingers hard into the metal frame for a few minutes, not bringing himself to look up at his subordinate, until one small, barely heard word broke his trance.
"Dad?"
Roy looked up. Ed's unfocused eyes had finally caught onto Roy's face and he had locked onto it, not looking away. In his delirious state, he was bound to say something like that.
Seeing as he wouldn't ever remember this, Roy let go of the big-bad-military-Colonel act and humored him. He took Ed's flesh hand and squeezed it. The skin was clammy and cold, and it scared Roy more than he would let on.
"Right here, Ed."
Ed blinked, then closed his eyes and fell asleep. Roy didn't dare let go of his hand, but instead lowered them so they rested on the sheets instead of in the air. Now he just had to wait for the monitors to stop beeping.
-Two hours later-
The world was very cruel.
Ed was obviously in pain, every time he opened his eyes - even for just a few seconds at a time - there were the remnants of fear and pain in the golden irises before his eyes flickered to where he knew Roy's face would be and he relaxed. Sometimes he would fall back asleep after that, but this time he'd stayed awake.
"It hurts, Dad."
Roy flinched. He was delirious, but that didn't make it sting any less.
Why didn't he just die? He deserved it. He shouldn't be in so much pain.
The black-haired Colonel squeezed his cold hand tighter.
"I'm still here, Ed."
-Three hours later-
Roy couldn't take it anymore.
Ed's breathing was uneven and sometimes he would suddenly start going faster or slower than before. But it never stopped. Why wasn't he dead? Why couldn't he just die? It would be better for him to die than have to go through this. He was in so much pain.
Roy looked over to the side table. There was a needle and some bottles on it.
He had an idea.
"Wait for just one minute, Ed."
-A few minutes later-
All right, it had seemed like a good idea before, but he was starting to hate himself for thinking of it. But it would be better than just letting him sit here in so much pain, right?
Roy was holding the needle above Ed's throat, ready to inject it. It would make him fall asleep forever. He didn't want to do it, but he knew Ed would've wanted him to.
Ed's metal hand touched his cheek, jolting him out of his torrent of thoughts and into the real world, where his hands were shaking and his cheeks were wet.
"Don't cry, Dad."
Roy took his left hand and lowered the automail hand. He forcefully stopped his right from shaking and said, "Your father loves you, Ed."
"Love you too, Dad."
And then he pushed the needle, and then Ed died. The machines stopped beeping, realizing his heart was no longer beating. The silence seemed eerie.
And Ed was dead.
That, too.
"I hate myself."
Yeah, so Roy killed Ed. Sue me. I'd rather die than go trough a lot of pain like that. Anyways, I'm sorry and not sorry if you like Roy because hey! You saw him, but hey! He killed Ed.
Well, the next one's even worse than this one, plus it's angst time... Mwahahaha...
See you.