Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of the characters invited by Hiromu Arakawa or Square Enix. I just got third TV animation Artbook. Yay!!
Thank you all for reading this fic and thanks all the reviewers and the people making this story their favourite one.
I hope you enjoy this chapter and from now on this story will be officially an mpreg with pregnancy and all. chuckle.
TenshiShanai.
Chapter 13 – Ill?
Ed laid his head on the workbench. He was tired and felt sick, really sick. Three weeks married and just a few days to Christmas and he thought he would have to die. For over a week now the blond teen had vomited every morning. He closed his eyes. Granny Pinako had told him after his mother had died that she had thrown up every morning as well before she died. This thought frightened him. He didn't know if he should tell Roy or keeping it a secret. He for once in his life didn't know what to do.
The young alchemist heard the door to the lab open and that someone came inside. He opened his eyes and looked at Russel. The other blonde looked down and sighed.
"I'm glad I'm not married. Is riding the Mustang so exhausting?" Ed looked up in pure disbelieve. Russel didn't just say what he said? He opened his mouth and closed it again. "You make a nice fish like that, do you know that?" The shorter teen closed his mouth and looked away. He didn't need to talk to the other teen and he clearly didn't need to answer his stupid questions. And anyway Russel just heard that from Havoc, Ed was sure of it. He sighed and turned around to see Russel opening the window. Now that was not so good. The last time Ed opened the window he opened the valve of the plant vessels as well to take a new sample and the last time he did it, he ran to the nearest restroom to throw up again. The blond alchemist couldn't have Russel to see him vomit after he had seen him lying on the worktable.
Ed sat up slowly and felt the cold sweat running down his temple. He looked to Russel and the vessels and then to the door. He thought about the time he would need to get out and get some fresh air. He opened his mouth to tell Russel that he would go outside for some fresh air but it was already too late. The smell reached his nose and it happened. He felt the sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach and more sweat running down his face. He stood up as fast as he could and ran out of the lab to the next restroom where he bent over a toilet and threw up nearly everything he ate this far. The blond alchemist hadn't heard that the other teen had come into the restroom looking for him.
"Holy shit, Ed." Ed looked up as another wave of nausea hit him and he emptied the rest of his stomach into the toilet bowl. He sat up on his heels and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his lab coat before he flushed the toilet, went to the basin and washed his mouth out.
"Mind to tell me what you just did?"
Russel had his hands on his hips and looked demanding to Ed. Not only that Ed was pale and looked exhausted, he just had thrown up. The smell of the plant stuff wasn't pleasant but it wasn't that bad that one would have to vomit from it. The slightly taller teen was sure of that. The other blonde looked again at Russel and sighed.
"To be honest: I don't know and I actually don't want to talk about it."
He dried his hands and was about to leave the lab as everything went black for a short moment. As he opened his eyes again after some moments he looked into Russel's lilac eyes. His expression was serious.
"I don't know what you have but you're ill and you have to see a doctor. I'll call…" He was interrupted by Ed.
"No! You can't!"
Russel had never seen such a look on Ed's face ever before. He seemed to be sad? No. Frightened, yes Ed looked frightened. The light-blond haired teen shook his head.
"You're pale and you're sweaty. You just were about to fall to the ground if I hadn't been here and you don't even mind me holding you. Ed you're ill. Admit it. You need to see a doctor." Ed swallowed and looked away and Russel sighed. "Okay. Let's have a deal: I'll call your husband and you both talk about it. If he thinks going to see a doctor is the best for you, than you will go. Promise?" Ed looked up and rolled his eyes. When Russel called the office and told what happened, Roy would definitely drag him to the next hospital and there they would poke him with needles and give him medication. But what else could he do? He just nodded and Russel helped him to stand up. They got into the lobby where the slightly taller teen called Roy's office.
The raven-haired man walked as fast as possible to the nearby lab where he would find his young husband sitting on a bench in the lobby with a glass of water in his one hand and Russel next to him. He stopped in front of them looking down at both of them. He hadn't even noticed that Ed looked so pale. He swallowed and Russel looked up. His eyes showed that he was angry. He stood up and patted Ed on his shoulder before he left to the room where they normally worked together.
"I'm sorry that you had to come over. I feel a lot better and Russel just overreacted." Ed didn't look up and Roy could sense the lie in his words. He sighed and sat next to Ed laying an arm over the younger man's shoulder.
"I don't think Russel overreacted. He's right. You need to see a doctor and I'm the one who has to apology. I didn't even see that you looked pale." He kissed the top of the teen's head. "And I didn't take care of you although I should have. "
"Don't treat me like a child. We're married and we should be equals in this marriage." Roy smiled a bit.
"I know, Ed, I know. But remember the vows we had to repeat on our wedding day." The teen nodded thinking about the other part of the vows: 'Till death do us part.' He swallowed and leaned his forehead on Roy's shoulder. Fate really hates him.
Nearly half an hour later, Ed lay on an examination table with Roy sitting next to him, holding his hand. They still had to wait until Susan would come in and examine Ed and tell them which illness the teen had. The blonde just hoped that it would be curable. The dark-haired man next to him was cool as ever and tried to sooth him with caressing the younger's hand. It annoyed Ed to no end but it was the only thing that could make him think about something else than his physical situation. He sighed and closed his eyes as the dark-haired doctor entered the room.
"What can I do for you two?" Ed sighed again and looked at her. Roy was the first to speak.
"We are here because Ed doesn't feel right. We hope you can tell us what kind of virus he caught." She nodded and sat on the free chair on the desk opposite of the examination table.
"So, Ed, tell me what kind of symptoms you have." The blonde looked to the ceiling.
"I vomit but have no fever and don't cough and I often feel cold and the next minute I feel hot." She scribbled something on the chart in her hand.
"How long have you bee vomiting?" He bit his bottom lip and looked briefly to Roy before he looked at the ceiling again.
"For about a week." Roy looked shocked. A week and he didn't even notice it. He looked down.
"Ed a week? Why didn't you tell me?" Roy looked hurt and Ed couldn't look him into the eye.
"I…I was scared, okay? I mean Granny told me that Mum did vomit too before she… before she died and I thought…" He didn't need to end his sentence. Roy knew that Ed thought he had the same illness like his mother did have. He stroked lovingly over the younger's cheek.
"We don't know that yet." He looked to the young doctor. "It doesn't need to be the same illness, right?" She smiled and nodded.
"I just can be a virus." She put a lose strand behind her ear. "So when do you normally vomit? I mean if you vomit on certain times." He thought a bit.
"Normally I vomit in the morning but sometimes it comes back like when I smell the plant stuff in the lab." She looked at him and quirked an eyebrow. "What? Is something wrong with that? What do I have? Susan?" Now the teen was nearly hysterical and Roy had to hold him down that he wouldn't fall off the table.
"Edward, calm down!" Susan stood up and walked over to Ed and cupped his face in her hands. "You don't have to worry. I have an idea what's wrong with you but we have to do some tests, okay? Trust me." He nodded and swallowed. Roy heaved a sigh and let go of Ed to sit next to him.
"What kind of tests do you have to do?" The raven-haired man looked to her worried.
"At first I'll make a scan and afterwards we make a urine sample to be sure." The elder man nodded and Susan prepared the machine. "You have to push your pullover up or take it off and pull your trousers down a bit, Ed." The teen nodded and did what he was told. The young doctor clipped a paper towel in the waistline of Ed's pants so they wouldn't get greasy from the gel and put a huge amount of the clear gel on Ed's abdomen. He hissed a bit because it was cold. She started the machine and soon a greyish picture appeared on the screen. For Ed and Roy it was cryptically but Susan saw what she expected. She put the picture on halt and went to the phone on the desk.
"Susan? What's wrong?" The blonde looked at her but she smiled.
"Everything's fine so far. I just call a colleague. He's a specialist for… special cases." She listened to the person on the other end of the line. "Doctor Knox. I need your advice in a special case. – Yes I think you will be interested. – Thank you, Sir." She hung up and walked back to waiting couple. Ed was nearly crying. It hadn't helped him that she spoke to a specialist. Specialists were normally consulted when the case is really bad. He swallowed and blinked his eyes a few times. Then the door opened and a black-haired grim looking old man with glasses and a doctor's coat came inside.
"Is that your special case, Susan?" Ed couldn't find anything comforting by the presence of this man. She nodded and handed him the chart where she wrote something before. He looked over it and nodded a few times before he took the seat next to Ed.
"So Mr…"
"Elric-Mustang. Edward Elric-Mustang."
"Elric-Mustang is too long for me. I just go by Edward then." The teen nodded and waited for his explanations. "Edward, you have been vomiting every morning for a week now and you have no fever and no other symptoms typically for flu?" The teen nodded again. "What do you work with, Edward?" The blonde blinked.
"I work in lab 4. I'm a state alchemist." The doctor shook his head.
"I didn't ask you where you work but wherewith."
"We work with plants. I don't know what this has to do with my illness."
"What kind of plants?"
"It's called 'Herba Feroiam'. We use it to get a salve which can heal wounds faster." The old doctor took his glasses from his nose and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Has anyone informed you what this plant used to be?" The teen shook his head. The doctor put his glasses back on.
"Very long ago as I have been a child it was still known to the old women. Your plant was once used to help women to get pregnant easily. It was called 'Red Virgin Herb'." Ed's eyes got huge and he starred at Dr. Knox. He, being pregnant? No that was impossible. He was a guy and even if the plant was used once for that purpose it wasn't clear if it had helped and Ed still missed the necessary organs.
"But how? I mean it may was used that for but I'm a guy and I can't get pregnant." Dr. Know looked at him with his stern eyes.
"You told me you're a state alchemist, right? Then you have a huge alchemic energy flow in your body and if your body encountered with an enormous amount of the plant's juices you can get pregnant. And from what you have told me and what is standing on this chart and what I can see on this screen…you're pregnant Edward." The blonde looked at the screen, his mouth hanging open. There was just a dark grey spot on a light-grey background. He starred at it. There he was thinking he would have to die and he was pregnant instead. He didn't know if he should laugh or cry. The doctor handed the chart back to Susan and took a look at Edward and then at Roy.
"I'll give you three days to think about it. Do you want to keep the child or do you want to abort it. Think clearly." He stood up and left the room leaving a speechless Ed, a stunned Roy and a somewhat happy Susan in there.
Ten minutes passed before one of the three spoke a word.
"I think we should still take a urine sample from you Ed. It would make things clearer. Of course it would be anonymous and nobody would know about it, yet." The teen nodded and reached for the paper towel which was still around the waistband of his pants and wiped the gel off his stomach and redressed. There were so many things going through his mind. He looked up.
"Had it happen before?" His voice was low. "Was there a case of a male pregnancy ever before?" She looked at him and than down at her chart.
"I read a file. It was shut and I wouldn't have been allowed to read it if I hadn't been one of Dr. Knox's students. It was the file of an alchemist and he experimented with the same plants you do but he did it under another aspect. He wanted to proof that male alchemist with high alchemic power and the help of the plant can get pregnant." She chewed on the inside of her cheek. "He injected the catalysed plant juice and had sex with another male alchemist. After a while he got pregnant because the female hormones from the plant and his alchemic energy had created a uterus and an entry way through his anus." She looked at him. "He carried the baby to full term and he could give birth to child because they had made an exit route for it with medical alchemy but it was too much for his body. He died some days after he had given birth." She swallowed and the blonde nodded.
"Thank you for telling me." He looked to his husband. "I want to go home." Roy nodded and looked at Susan then back to Ed.
"After you have given your sample we can go. I'll call Hawkeye that I'll take the rest of the day off."
Ed lay on their bed. He just wanted to be alone for some time. He knew it was unfair to exclude Roy from this decision because it was Roy's child as well. But it was his body. He sighed and felt helpless. Should he carry this child with the risk of dying or should he end this life before it started? He pressed his face into Roy's pillow. It smelled of smoke and spice. Suddenly a warm body pressed up behind him and two warm arms held him tight. Tears were flowing down his face and he turned in the embrace to cry into Roy's chest. The elder man hushed him and held him close.
"It's okay, Ed. You're not alone." He kissed the top of the blonde's head and stroked his back. The younger sniffed and hiccupped.
"B…but I don't know what's right. I… I can't… It feels like I should decide if somebody should die or not. I don't want to kill anyone…" Roy smiled.
"Then you have made your decision." The teen looked up, his eyes red from crying. "We'll keep the baby and we'll get you both through this pregnancy and you're strong enough to survive the birth and our baby will survive, too." He kissed the teen again and wiped the tears off his face.
"I hope you're right."
"I know so." Ed rolled his eyes and swallowed.
"Do you know what's worst?" The raven-haired man looked to his husband.
"No, but I'm sure you'll tell me, love." Ed laid his head back on Roy's chest.
"I have to thank Russel for helping me to get pregnant." Roy laughed to Ed's confession.
"We can make him the child's first godfather then he has to take care of the baby when it's born." Ed snickered and closed his eyes. Maybe Russel wasn't such an idiot as he thought.
3 days later
Ed lay again on an examination table waiting for Susan and Dr. Knox with Roy on the chair next to him. The doctors arrived with some papers in their hands taking seats on the desk and next to Ed.
"So you have made your decision?" The teen nodded to Dr. Knox's question.
"Yes we decided to keep the baby and we hope you help us with it."
"Susan had told you about the other case, didn't she?" The couple nodded. "Susan, get me the pass and the papers." The young doctor did as she was told and handed the papers to Dr. Knox. "This is your result of the pregnancy test. I think I don't have to tell you that it was positive. And this", he held a yellow pass up, "is a maternal pass. There we will record the progress of the pregnancy." Ed cringed at the word maternal but he indeed would now be a mother in a biological way. "Now take off your pullover and push the trousers down, we want to make the first photo of the little one." Ed smiled. The doctor had a weak spot. Soon the gel was back on his abdomen and the dark grey spot was back on the screen. The Doctor put it on hold and printed it out. "You can't see much but it's just some millimetres high. But it will grow and believe me in some months you wish it would have stayed this small." Dr. Knox wiped the gel off Ed's abdomen and laid the picture into the maternal pass. "Here you go; it's my Christmas present for you two." The dark-haired man stood up. "Dr. Evans will now tell you what else will be done to make this pregnancy successful and what you have to do and what you can't do." The couple nodded. Ed redressed and sat up waiting what Susan would tell them.
There were a lot of 'does' and 'don'ts'. First of all Ed had to skip practical work in the lab, he was allowed to do the paperwork but wasn't allowed to stand near chemicals. Then there were the monthly appointments Ed would have to make to see the progress and last but not least he had to take hormones. The plant's hormones were the activator for the pregnancy but in order to keep the baby the teen would have to take a daily injection of female hormones.
"And how will I deliver the baby?" Susan looked at him and then to Roy.
"Dr. Knox and I talked about it and as I'm familiar with medical alchemy, we decided it would be best when you would get an exit route for the child. We will make the change when you're three months along. I will develop the route through alchemy." She bit her bottom lip. "You don't have to be scared. We can close it after it healed." The teen nodded. He would go through a lot for this child.
AN.: So now Ed is pregnant. I've never been so I have to do a lot of research and I hope I'll get it right. Sorry for any mistakes. Ahm…. and I know that a scan wasn't possible at the times when FMA plays but didn't want to make it without it. So and for the plant: I don't think there is a plant that exists with this name. I hope at least. Reviews?? Please.