XXX: I do NOT own Fullmetal Alchemist. I am just a huge fan! :XXX
So, I apologize yet again for the long absence. You might have noticed in a previous chapter that I said I was moving across the country... Well I did it! While I'm so happy to finally be here with my husband, things just keep going wrong. There's lots of paperwork, we've been sleeping on an air mattress, eating microwavable meals, blah blah. Anyway, I am so sorry it's been this long between chapters. Life is starting to mellow out so hopefully I'll be better about all this.
I am still so happy with this story. I'd love to hear your thoughts, as always. Do you guys have any idea where I'm going with this? :p
Enjoy!
Envy POV
I begged the universe to bring back that original moment of painless confusion.
The few seconds after I had lost my arm, I felt nothing. It was as if the arm had still been there. Then it had gone numb, like my arm had fallen asleep. I couldn't move it, but I still didn't feel any pain. Then I'd seen Dante throw my arm to the side. My stomach lurched as I watched it roll across the dirt. My mind had been trying its hardest not to let me put the pieces together, but to no avail. It took one look down at the stump that was left for the realization to break through.
Dante had severed my arm.
As soon as I felt the pain, everything else stopped registering. I couldn't hear anything but my screaming, my vision had gone silver-white, and I could feel nothing but the searing agony of the lost limb. I was vaguely aware that I was being moved. People were probably discussing what they should do with me. I begged them silently to let me die. There was no coming back from this pain.
Then, even in my state, I wondered if Rose was alright. I worried that Dante had done something to hurt her. A new wave of pain washed away the worry in an instant.
For the next couple of hours, things came in flashes of clarity. I looked up to see Rose-thank goodness she'd survived-with bandages, a bottle of alcohol, and a very serious look on her face. She was talking, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. She opened the bottle of alcohol and dumped it over my new wound, and I lost control of my senses again.
My next flash was of Edward staring at me in horror. He must have thought about the time he'd lost his arm, now being able to see what others had seen. He tried to conceal his emotion as best he could, but I could plainly see his aversion. He wanted to leave the room, and he should have. It just occurred to me that he was holding my left arm down before I lost it for a third time.
The only other notable flash I had was of the automail engineer showing up, looking just as horrified as Edward when she realized what was happening in her home. She'd handed everything to her grandmother and ran over to assist Rose. Finally, as they finished up bandaging it, the pain was starting to dull. With it, my consciousness slipped away and I mercifully drifted into an uncomfortable slumber.
XXXXX
I awoke to the feel of something tugging gently on my hair.
My eyes fluttered open and I was met with a white ceiling. My mouth was dry as hell and my mind still had not escaped the fog of sleep.
"Are you awake?" came Rose's soft-spoken question.
I blinked hard once more, coming to full consciousness, and twisted my head until I found her face. She was smiling at me, running a brush through my entirely tangle-free locks. I made a noise of confusion.
She giggled. "You're sort of awake, then. I see."
I lifted my hands to my eyes to wipe away some of the sleep-and I was startled when only one hand made it to my face. I looked down to find the stump and the entire scene with Dante replayed in my mind.
My breathing picked up pace, and I felt my heart rate jump around. I started to try to sit up, some stupid, vain attempt to run away from the place where my arm should have been.
Rose gripped my shoulders, holding me in place. "Shh, Envy, it's okay! Calm down. You'll reopen your wounds and we'll have to go through the same thing we did last week."
I held my breath for a moment, then attempted to break evenly. My heart would not obey me, however, and continued to race. My eyes stayed fixated on the my stump.
"Weird, isn't it?" Edward said.
I jerked my head up and saw that the alchemist had been sitting in the chair in the corner of the room across from me. His right foot was balanced on his metal leg, visible only because he was in his boxers. He wore no shirt and his hair was tousled, out of his usual braid. It appeared he had just woken up.
"Yes, it is." I said. What else was there to say? It was beyond weird. It was humiliating, degrading, horrifying, and a million other things, and the best he could come up with was weird?
"You get used to it, believe it or not." He stood up. "Rose, I'll be downstairs if you need anything. I think I'm going to help Winry with breakfast."
And just like that, so casual, he loped out of the room and down the stairs.
"Why was he in here?" I asked Rose after a few minutes.
"He's been coming in here every morning to check on you. He usually sits longer than that, but I think he's embarrassed. He probably doesn't want you knowing that he cares. That comment he made to me before he left? He's never said anything of the sort before." She smiled warmly at the doorway that the boy in question had just exited.
So Edward cared enough to come in and check on me. The idea was so foreign that I started looking for the motives behind it. When I came up with nothing, the only logical thing left to assume was the simple answer-he cared.
"I wonder why he cares. He never has before."
Rose began to braid my hair. "I have an answer for that, straight from Edward himself. He saw himself in you. It wasn't hard to do, what with the connections that woman pointed out. But he said it went further than the braided hair and alchemy. You protected me in a mindless manner, simply throwing yourself in front of the proverbial bullet. He said it reminded him of the way he had protected someone before. We all know who he means, even though he didn't mention a name. But he said that alone showed him that you really had changed. Going off of that, I think that he's starting to consider the idea of you as his brother. He didn't say that specifically, but it's an inference of mine."
Edward's words came back to me. "You get used to it, believe it or not." That was as close to a reassurance I'd ever gotten from him, and it was also the nicest thing he'd ever said to me. He wouldn't have said that if he still hated me, would he?
It bothered me that I cared so much what Edward Elric thought of me. He and I had been enemies for the longest time, longer than he even knew. So why did it matter?
It wasn't until way later that I found out why it mattered. For the moment, it served as a mild annoyance.
"You're healing very well, by the way," Rose told me. "I'm thankful."
I was thankful as well. Just then, something she'd said earlier resurfaced in my mind. "Hold on. You said something earlier about going through what we'd gone through a week ago. What did you mean?"
"You've been out for a week, silly."
"What?!"
"Don't worry. It's probably a good thing. We did a lot of bandage changes over those few days and that would have been terrible to be awake for. It made the process easier for us and much less terrible for you." She finished fastening my braid and came to sit next to me so I could see her better.
"Well... Good." Again, I was at a loss for words.
Rose placed her hand on my face, looking at me with so much care in her eyes. "I'm really glad you're okay. I don't know what I would have done if..." Tears could be seen sitting on the rim of her eyelid, ready to fall at any moment.
My heart jerked, feeling regret for losing my arm. It wasn't the way that I'd lost it that bothered me, I viewed it as the only acceptable reason. I regretted the face that I couldn't sit up and wrap my arms around her to comfort her. I grabbed her other hand that was sitting in her lap and squeezed it, closing my eyes. "Hey, don't cry. I'm nothing to cry over."
A sharp pain broke across my scalp as she grabbed a fistful of my loose bangs and pulled my head up, earning a look of confusion from me.
"Don't say that!" She blinked away her tears. "You're worth more than you think, Envy."
My already dry throat glued itself shut. It was the second time in less than an hour that someone had shown they cared about me. My long dead heart, for lack of better words, had no idea how to handle it.
Her face softened and she released my hair. "I'm sorry. You're probably in enough pain without me pulling your hair out. Do you need anything? Water? Your voice sounds a little rougher than usual."
All I could do was nod.
"Okay. I'll be right back with some." She stood and left the room, as casual as Edward had.
How did you get here, Envy? You haven't done anything good. How could you possibly deserve all of this love? My thoughts whirled around in my head. I felt so many things-confusion, anger, humiliation, defeat... One thing that stuck out from the rest was this odd warmth. I couldn't quite place it, but it was a comfortable feeling. It was something that I didn't want to lose, that was for sure.
There had been so many emotions that I'd felt since my time with the Elrics, Winry, and Rose that I hadn't felt in ages, if ever. Certainly not in my time as a homunculus. I didn't remember much from my human life, but I was sure it hadn't been anything like this. It left me feeling a bit out of sorts, so unlike myself that it was jarring. It was as if I was waiting for the old Envy to come back, but I wasn't sure I wanted that.
I sat there for however long debating which Envy I liked better. There were plus sides to both. My old self was almost always content with his life, at least when he wasn't thinking about how he'd been abandoned by his only family. He ran around wreaking havoc on anything and everyone around him, and he got off on doing so. Not much bothered him, and even when he was bothered it was simple hatred he had to contend with. This Envy I had become had to struggle with so many more emotions. However, this Envy also had people that cared about him, a relatively calm life, and the chance to do whatever he wanted. It was a choice between comfort and opportunity. A very hard decision indeed.
Rose reentered the room with the cup of water and held it out to met as she sat back in her spot on my bed. I took the cup and gulped it down, giving my thanks.
"Who's room am I in anyway?" I asked.
"Ed and Al's room. Edward offered, since Al didn't really need a bed and he could make do with the couch," she explained.
"I don't understand why you didn't leave me on the couch."
"We thought you needed a quiet place to rest. Not that our noise would have woken you up anyhow. You were out cold!"
My eyes turned back to the ceiling, confirming that I was already tired of looking at it. I braced my elbow against the bed and began to push myself up into a sitting position.
Rose helped push my back all the way up, but she was concerned. "Are you sure you want to sit up?"
My stump ached in protest. "I don't want to sit up. I want to stand and walk around. I'm tired of being the patient."
I had figured that Rose would argue with me, but she just helped me get wherever I wanted to go. She served as a crutch under my good arm until I adjusted to the feeling of being completely vertical. She helped me put on a pair of pants-I refused to wear a shirt, not wanting to feel the loose sleeve sway without something to fill it-and stayed close to me and I walked out of the room and down the stairs. I was surprisingly stable, if it were just myself who was surprised.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I almost ran smack into Winry.
"Oh, Ed told me you were awake! I didn't think you'd be up walking yet though. I was about to bring you this." The engineer held up the plate of food she'd been holding in her hand. It held the usual stuff-bacon, eggs, and potatoes. "I wasn't sure how hungry you'd be, so I just made a normal portion. You don't have to eat it all if you don't want to."
The smell finally hit me and I realized that I was ravenous. I hadn't eaten in a week, after all. I reached out for the plate. "I think I'll be able to get seconds, actually. Thank you."
I chose to sit on the couch in the living room instead of at the table. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to use my left hand effectively or not, and I didn't feel like either being made fun of or getting multiple looks of sympathy. Losing my arm was something that could cause them to treat me like a child, and I didn't want that. My fears were unjustified though, because I could use my left hand just fine, at least for this task.
Rose came over to sit next to me, her plate in hand. She didn't offer to help me, as I expected, nor did she ask me how I was doing. She just sat there, eating with me in companionable silence, watching a couple of birds fly around by the window. I silently thanked her. It was just what I needed at that moment.
After my second plate had been demolished, I decided I was full. Rose offered to take my plate to the kitchen with hers, which I conceded to. Just as she left, Winry came over to stand next to where I sat, holding her hands behind her back.
"I have an offer for you," she said excitedly. "Feel free to deny it if you really don't want it, but I think it's a good idea. We all do."
I had a feeling I knew what was behind her back, but I was still surprised when she pulled out a newly made automail arm. It looked similar to Edward's but larger and a bit of a different style. For what felt like the millionth time, I had absolutely no idea what to say.
Rose came back to sit next to me, this time placing her hand on my knee. "C'mon. It's already fit for you. Winry got the measurements while you were sleeping. It'll be good for you!"
I just stared at the metal limb. "I..."
Edward came to stand next to Winry. He was fully dressed now and had his hair braided, looking much more like the Edward I was used to. "What have you got to lose, Envy?"
I looked down at my hand, clenched, sitting next to Rose's on my leg.
What do I have to lose?
