Sorry for the wait, again.

I tried to make this a little longer - especially considering last chapter was pretty short :p But in reality, it's just average length, if not slightly shorter ... maybe. I dunno. I'll shut up now.

Oh - I got a couple people asking why Ed wasn't taking his pills.

Well, the way I see it, a) It doesn't fit with the whole Edward Elric personality (but then again, what about this story does? :p)

and b) Ed didn't want to admit there was something wrong with him that caused him to need medication. He thought he could get better on his own.

So, yeah. :3

Enjoy! c:


Later in the afternoon, Ed was permitted to be transferred back to Central's hospital.

The train ride back was uneventful.

Ed was silent.

He was either staring out the window, lost in thought, or asleep.

I didn't mind.

Once we were back in Central, Ed had asked if I could just bring him back to my house instead of the hospital.

Obviously, I told him no. For one thing, he still needed to be in the hospital with his self-inflicted injuries, and for another - I wasn't sure what I would do as a next step to help him. I was lost.

That was the only thing Ed had said to me basically all day.

He was quiet as we sat in Central Hospital's waiting room.

It wasn't long until a doctor - the same one that had prescribed the anti-depressants only months ago, came and took Ed into one of the rooms. I wasn't allowed to come in, apparently.

And so there I sat, in the waiting room.

Hours passed.

No word.

I had no idea what was going on in one of the rooms just off the hall that was barred with two giant white doors.

I wanted to know how Ed was.

I wanted to know what the doctor was saying.

I wanted to know what was going on.

I wanted to know how to help.

But I didn't.

And I wouldn't.

I then realized that Al and Winry would probably want to know what's going on, seeing as I didn't give them much information to go on from our last phone call.

I dragged myself to the payphone in the lobby, and dialed their number.

"Hello?"

It was Winry.

"Hi, Winry. It's Colonel Mustang."

There was a brief pause.

"How is he?"

It was now my turn to pause.

"You should just come see for yourself. He's in the hospital here in Central. I've been waiting for hours, but they still haven't let me in to see him."

There was what sounded like a distant 'we'll be right there' before the line went dead.

I made my way back to my seat in the waiting room.

And I continued to wait.

Al and Winry arrived not shortly after our phone call, and joined me in waiting.

It was quiet for a long time, before Al asked,

"He's still alive, right?"

I had to admit, I was wondering the same thing.

Sure, he was breathing the last I saw him, and the doctor out East took him off of the life support once he regained consciousness.

But the fact remains that he had lost a lot of blood.

And...

And I was fearing the worst with this painful hourly wait.

"Last I saw him, he was."

Winry was crying. She had been crying for a while.

Al remained silent, leaning against the wall.

I was bent over in my chair, my head in my hands.

It had been nearly 6 hours since I had heard anything.

In an almost dreamlike state, I realized the doctor was in front of me, saying something.

Shaking my head to let go of my daze, I looked up at him.

"I'm sorry, I missed all that. Could you please repeat it?" I weakly asked.

"We were just running some tests, doing some observations, and of course meeting his medical needs. I'm afraid he has indeed lost a lot of blood, and it's difficult to say if he's going to get it all back. We're doing our best right now. For now, the best thing we could do was to re-bandage his wounds and place an IV in his arm, to try and pump some blood back into his system."

I nodded.

Winry and Al were hanging on the doctor's every word. I forgot that they still did not know the full story of what happened.

"He's currently unconscious, but you are all allowed to go see him."

The doctor led us to Ed's room, where he then proceeded to leave.

As Winry walked in, she gasped.

Edward looked... well, dead, to say the least.

His skin was completely drained of colour.

Not to mention how shallow his breathing was.

And that the bandages on his stomach were turning a dark crimson colour.

Apparently, the wounds haven't completely stopped bleeding.

The whole fluorescent lighting wasn't helping anything, either.

Winry had stopped in her tracks, her hands held to her face, in shock.

Al had stopped right beside her.

I think he was also in shock.

I guess they never imagined he would look this bad.

I took a deep breath, and made my way over to Edward's unconscious figure.

After a moment, Winry and Al followed my suit.

Winry took a seat in the chair next to the bed, staring at Ed.

Al had gone to the opposite side of the bed, to be right next to his brother.

I watched in sympathy as the younger Elric slowly reached out a hand and laid it on top of his brother's.

Winry clasped Edward's automail hand in hers as I pulled another chair over to the side of the bed to sit down.

None of us said anything.

Winry was still crying.

And, so was I. The tears were silently streaming down my face.

After a while of sitting there, with Ed and the other two, I excused myself and went outside for some fresh air.

It was about 11:30 p.m.

The streets of Central were fairly empty, with the occasional car here and there. The pavement was damp.

It must've rained.

I didn't have a certain place in mind, but I found that my feet were taking me down to the riverbank where I once found Ed.

I sat down on the edge of the water, and watched as the water trickled down through the stones and passed by.

Ed was right - well, about Al being right. Or something.

Either way, sitting by the waters edge was a good way to escape and clear your mind.

I didn't know how much time had passed before I stood up and made my way back to the hospital.

In the lobby, I stopped to call Riza.

She was just as involved in helping Ed recover as I was, she deserved to know what happened and why I suddenly disappeared for nearly two days.

After calling her, I went back to the room to check on Ed.

Ed was still unconscious, but Al was missing. Winry had apparently crawled onto the bed beside Ed, filling the empty space left by his small body.

She was still holding his automail hand in hers, and was sitting cross-legged as she looked down at the young alchemist.

Winry didn't hear me open the door, and feeling like an intruder, I quietly shut the door and went back into the waiting room.

Riza was just getting to the hospital as I walked in from the hall of hospital rooms.

She said nothing as she ran over to me, pausing to take in my expression.

"You're crying."

It was a statement.

I hadn't even realized I was crying.

Probably because I hadn't really stopped since the first time I sat in the room, with Winry and Al.

Riza then wrapped her arms around me.

I returned the hug.

The passage of time was completely irrelevant to me these past few hours, because yet again, I didn't really know how long we stood like that in the waiting room for.

I told her what had happened in Eastern City.

What I had found at the hotel, the anti-psychotics, the hours of waiting back here in Central...

We sat in silence a little bit, allowing Winry some more time before we went in.

As I led Riza to Ed's room and opened the door, we found that Winry had fallen asleep next to Ed.

I tried to be as quiet as I shut the door behind us, but my hand slipped off the knob and it shut with a fairly loud bang.

Winry blinked open her eyes, and blushing, she sat up and put a little more distance between her and the alchemist.

Riza smiled warmly, yet sadly, at Winry before she turned her attention to Edward.

I hung back as Riza's face paled with concern as she sat down beside Ed.

The room held an eerie, tense silence.

I could tell that we were all looking for something to say but there just wasn't anything to say.

All we could do was be sure to do everything we could to never let Edward feel so alone and empty again - something we should've done from the start.

Starting now.


Yay for updates!

Well, I don't really have anything to say, other than that I absolutely adore all of you lovely readers and reviewers and favouriters and followers and yeah. c:

Seriously. I don't think you guys realize how much it means to me when you take the time to read my story, and to review, and awlkajsdl the feels, man. The feels. Love you guys.

I'm not really sure how to write the whole recovery part. But I'll figure it out. Don't you worry. :3

^^That's just more of me thinking outloud but not outloud because I'm typing and yeah oh my god I should really stop rambling.

Aaaaanywhos,

Review! c:

-HazelEyes8D