After Ed's collapse on the way back from Winry's, Roy wasted no time in picking him up and dragging him back to his house where an agitated Alphonse was waiting.
Upon seeing his brother, all the color drained from his face.
"What happened?!"
"I don't know, he just fainted. Let's get him inside, he's soaking wet."
They hauled Ed to the kitchen, Al helping him wrest his brother onto the table. Somehow, the kitchen had become their operating theater over the past two days.
Roy peeled off the blond's sodden coat as Alphonse pulled off his boots. Ed was completely saturated from his fall, mud smeared across the right side of his face and soaked into the front of his pants and shirt.
Was it his imagination, or was that not just mud?
When Roy finally pulled the coat from the younger man's arms and took a closer look, Roy felt his stomach drop.
The mud over his left side had a dark, reddish tint to it.
Alphonse noticed, too. With a shaking hand, he pushed Ed's shirt up his too-thin stomach and inhaled sharply.
Though his old injury had been grisly before, all distorted and puckered with scarred flesh, it was positively gruesome now, a four-inch tear right in the center of it leaking more blood than should have been possible for such an old wound. Red smeared across his abdomen and chest, mixing with the mud like a child's gruesome finger painting. Roy swiped his hand over the twin scar on the blond's back, his fingers coming away warm and sticky with more blood.
If it was bleeding on the outside, it was probably bleeding on the inside. Roy now noticed the grayish tint to Ed's fingernail beds, his eyelids, his lips. It was all Roy could do to swallow his panic at that point.
They moved quickly, Roy getting a wet towel and sopping up the mess while Alphonse retrieved a first aid kit and the jar of white paint, tracing out the circle on Ed's newly-cleaned stomach and activating it.
Ed coughed weakly, a dribble of blood escaping the corner of his mouth.
"Brother?" Al asked, pressing a bloodied hand to Ed's face.
Ed's eyes fluttered but didn't open. He made a soft groan that could have been Al's name but then he stilled again.
Roy looked closer and felt some of his panic ebb: Ed's coloring, though still too pale, was not as gray, and his breathing was easier. That was a good sign, right?
"I'll call the doctor," Al said, voice hard but eyes weak.
Roy didn't bother listening in on the call, absorbed as he was in his task of cleaning the opened scar. After the alkahestry, the bleeding had stopped, the jagged opening healed in a thin, pink line against the white mutilated flesh around it.
When he had finished, he gently wiped the mud away from Ed's too-cool forehead and cheek, looking at the face of his former subordinate.
He was still so young, barely a man, though Roy reminded himself that in some ways, Ed had been an adult since the day his mother died. Still, he had a lot of life left to live. There were so many things Roy wanted for him, so many things he deserved. He had sacrificed his entire childhood after one devastating mistake, selling it for a chance to see Alphonse in his human body again. In the process, he had saved the entire country, beating one of the most powerful beings Roy had ever encountered with nothing but alchemy and his bare hands.
Why had this happened to Ed, of all people? Hadn't the Elric brothers suffered enough?
It was not fair. It was not fair at all.
There had to be something he could do.
"He said he'll be here within the hour," Alphonse said, coming to stand beside Roy. His voice sounded hollow, shell-shocked, and upon further inspection, his face was drawn, a cold fear glinting in his eyes. He almost looked as pale as his brother.
Roy doubted he looked any better. "He's freezing. Let's get him cleaned up and under some blankets. He'll be more comfortable."
After peeling off Ed's clothes, Roy carried him to the lukewarm bath Al had waiting. Alphonse carefully situated Ed's plate-less automail leg off the side of the tub as Roy lowered him into the basin, water sloshing gently to soak into Roy's shirt. Ed stirred at the contact with the water, but quickly slept again, muttering something unintelligible before falling silent with a small shiver.
Roy left Al to it, retreating to take a quick shower in the guest bathroom to wash the layers of mud and blood from his own skin before returning to help Al fish his brother's limp body out of the water, toweling him off and getting him in clean clothes and under the covers of his bed.
Through all of it, Ed didn't stir again, his features remaining still and pale. If it weren't for the shallow rise-and-fall of his chest and the faint accompanying gurgle, Roy would have mistaken him for a corpse.
"I'll wait for the doctor," Roy offered quietly. Alphonse didn't say anything, just stared at Ed with a mute nod, so Roy left Al alone with his brother and closed the door behind him.
In the wake of everything, the silence of the living room was almost ominous.
Roy looked out the wall of windows, watching the rolling clouds in the darkening sky and wind whip the grass in the fields. It was late now, the sun already setting somewhere behind the clouds and the light quickly fading, dark shadows spreading across the wooden floor of the house like a rising tide. A soft rumble of thunder rattled the glass almost imperceptibly. They might be in for another storm before the night was over.
The silence between rumblings was thick, the air heavy with a weight and a meaning that Roy had trouble placing. Foreboding? It had a gauzier, façade-like feel to it, like if he looked too closely, the sudden calm would come crashing down around is ears., letting him know that something had happened today that couldn't be reversed. The beginning of the end.
This didn't feel real.
He breathed in the sweet scent of rain and moved numbly to the kitchen, flicking on the light to display the table covered in mud and blood and Ed's discarded clothing. Roy's movements were mechanical as he began the process of cleaning, mind weighted with worry that he tried to quell into a less-disconcerting numbness as he scrubbed the smooth wooden surface.
When the kitchen was clean, he drifted back into the living room, not quite sure what to do with himself. He looked at Ed's closed door, a sliver of light pooling underneath from the lamp behind it. Roy swallowed the urge to go check on the brothers. If something changed, Alphonse would call.
In Roy's opinion, it was taking the doctor far too long to reach the Elric's house.
His eyes wondered up to the loft above the front door, the desk stacked high with books and journals and leaves of paper.
He gripped the ladder, pulling himself up the rungs in a fraction of the time he'd watched Ed do it. Desperation and curiosity moved him forward, willing to invade Edward's privacy and his sanctuary if it meant answers. Ed was a genius, but even a genius could miss something, right?
Once at the top, he turned the lamp on and he looked around, signs of Ed everywhere, from the familiar chicken scratch on his notes to the bread crumbs scattered across an open book.
Roy dreaded how empty it would feel when Ed was gone.
He squashed the thought, a heated anger suddenly pooling in his gut. He sat down in Ed's chair and began sorting through the papers in front of him with a fury that would have impressed Riza, had she been there to witness it. Roy found journals filled with information beyond anything he could comprehend, alchemic circles dealing with human anatomy that were simply above his head. In the corners of all these pages, Ed scribbled his notes:
Would never work.
If I could balance the reaction with another outlet . . .
Nope.
Yeah right, if we ignore physics.
Roy could almost hear the sarcasm in Ed's voice and almost smiled.
Some of the notes were coded as a travel log, and Roy stacked those to the side, unwilling to try to break it at the moment. He'd tried to decipher Ed's code once before, but had given up fairly quickly, much to Ed's glee upon finding out. If it came to it, Al would be willing to help him out if he thought Roy might find something.
Roy glanced at the textbooks and reference manuals lining the shelves next to the desk but decided he didn't have time to go through them. After a quick look through what was on top of the desk, Roy went through the drawers, finding a stash of stale crackers, a drawer full of crumpled up balls of paper and other trash, and another drawer full of half-broken pencils and pens.
It was in this drawer that he found another journal.
This one was thin and worn, clearly very old. It was on top of the pencil carnage, indicating that it had been handled recently, but when Roy opened it up, he found two different styles of handwriting that looked vaguely familiar, but was much too big, almost child-like. Some entries were even in crayon. As he turned the pages, the crayon disappeared, only one individual's writing lasting past the first twenty or so pages, suddenly becoming ink and gradually becoming Ed's discernable scribbling in the last half of the book.
Near the end, Roy started reading, and any warmth he felt thinking of Ed and his quirks disappeared completely when he realized what he was holding.
This was the Elric's personal study on Human Transmutation.
The first half was Ed and Al's initial study, before their attempt with their mother.
The middle was Ed trying to figure out how to restore Al to his body.
The last two pages were Ed, trying to save his own life.
There were rows of equations, simple but eloquent, scrawled across the pages. On the last entry there was one circle, sketched in pencil and marked through with a dark line to prevent an accidental activation. It was large and complicated, the lines and angles holding a certain ominousness that could only be explained by their intended purpose.
In the bottom corner, another sardonic, heavy message glared up at him.
As if I didn't learn the first time.
A loud banging on the door nearly had him jumping out of his seat. He took the journal, slammed the drawer shut, then practically slid down the ladder in his haste to get to the door.
Roy had all kinds of images about what a man named Doctor Samuel Fawn would look like: someone small and meek, probably older, with gentle eyes and a soft, doctorly manner.
Doctor Samuel Fawn did not meet expectations.
The man was at least six and a half feet tall and as thin as a rail, with a thick layer of dark stubble over his jawline and blue eyes that were just a few shades too light to be considered soothing. Actually, they trended more toward disturbing, haunted even, but Roy wasn't sure if it was the color or something he'd seen in his lifetime.
Years of military training, however, smoothed away any reaction Roy might have betrayed on his face. "He's in his room," was all Roy said, allowing him in.
Fawn didn't respond, his expression unreadable as he wiped his feet off on the rug and headed back to Ed's room like he'd been there a dozen times.
A sad voice in the back of Roy's head reminded him that the man probably had.
When they walked in, Alphonse was sitting by Ed's bed, just staring. He looked up at their entrance and offered a thin, watery smile in greeting. Despite the smile, he looked twenty years older. "Doctor," he said.
Fawn smiled. "Alphonse," he said, voice low and thick with an accent it took Roy a long second to identify.
"You're Drachman," he said in mild surprise.
Fawn looked at him, smile still in place, though it didn't quite reach his eyes anymore. He placed his bag on the nightstand and a wooden cooler on the floor. "Fawnis short for Faunovvick," he said. "Most find Fawnmuch easier to say." The smile dissolved and he turned back to Edward, pale and still, only half a shade warmer than the white sheets swallowing him. "What happened?"
Alphonse explained, and Fawn proceeded to examine Edward, checking vitals, his automail port, his stomach and back, large hands pressing against the flesh, feeling for something. Nodding as if finding something expected, he took a couple of pillows from the other side of Ed's bed and propped them under his feet. Then he pulled out a bag of blood from the cooler, and Roy wondered if the doctor had previously done this procedure for Ed before, as prepared as he was. Or maybe, the way Ed kept coughing up blood, he had seen this as an inevitability. Fawn produced a few feet of tubing, hooking Ed up for a transfusion with a needle in his arm, hanging the bag on the bedframe. "His blood pressure is low. He's lost a significant amount of blood it seems, but not enough, I think, for more organ damage than he already has."
Suddenly, another, gentle smile lit his features as he taped the needle down. "You know, this is much easier when he's asleep." He said it with a sad sort of sympathy under the words.
Roy couldn't help the knowing smile that pulled at his lips, but it disappeared quick enough with Al's next question.
"Why isn't he waking up?"
Fawn looked at Ed, considering. "He needs to recover from the blood loss and fatigue. His coloring is good, though. Your alkahestry seems to have helped tremendously. He will probably wake up shortly. I do have some other concerns, though, like why he is experiencing so much bleeding in the first place." Fawn pulled the blankets back for a second time, pushing up Ed's shirt to reveal the grisly wound.
"This is not normal, this tearing here," he pointed at the pink line. "It could perhaps be from excessive walking with his crutch, from the strain of throwing his weight forward from his hips. Perhaps it is from the progressive deterioration of the wound as you have mentioned, or maybe it's both. Also, even since the other day, this area around his port," he pointed to the angry, mottled skin on his thigh where flesh met metal, "has worsened. I think it's time you start utilizing that wheelchair."
"No."
Every eye turned to Ed.
"Brother!" Al said, standing.
"Of course you wake up for that," Roy sighed, but was desperately relieved, the invisible hand that had been slowly constricting his heart all night suddenly releasing, allowing Roy to breathe again.
Ed blinked groggily, golden eyes hazy and staring at the ceiling. He didn't look like he was all that aware of anything much, and Roy wondered if he even knew what he had said "no" to, or if that was just his contrary personality, rising up to disagree with anything and everything.
Despite that, he had enough presence of mind to find Roy, eyes latching on to him before drifting out of focus again. "Shut up," he growled, voice low and rough. He shut his eyes, leaning into the pillow, taking a deep breath.
Then, he leaned over the side of the bed and coughed hard, blood spewing across the floorboards and Al's bare feet.
"Ed!" Al cried, grabbing his brother by the shoulders.
Ed hacked again, more blood dribbling down his chin, but there was a weakness to it, like he couldn't get a deep enough breath.
Al looked at Fawn for direction, golden eyes wide and helpless, but Fawn just shook his head, indicating that he should let Ed finish trying to expel the bloody fluid from his lungs.
Then, Ed vomited, a large dark mass that was more black than red, and if Roy had to guess, he would say it was a blood clot. Several smaller ones followed, Ed choking and heaving weakly, barely holding himself up through it all.
Finally, he stopped, leaning heavily against the nightstand and staring at the floor with watery eyes. He panted, breaths weak and wheezing, the only hand Roy could see white and shaking.
Carefully, Fawn helped him lie down, Ed looking like he wouldn't have had the strength to do even that much without help, and Roy felt like he got an uncomfortable glimpse into the future if things didn't change.
Ed didn't wear helpless well. It didn't suit him in the slightest.
Roy hated watching it.
Once situated, Ed's eyes slipped closed, bloody lips moving to say something that he didn't have enough breath to give voice to. He gritted his teeth, a shiver passing through his body.
"Just rest, Ed," Al said, wiping blood from his lips with a cloth as Fawn resituated the tubing under his arm. "We'll talk about it later."
That seemed to satisfy Ed, because his lips stopped and he stilled once more. After a second, his head lolled to the side and he was asleep again, another shiver convulsing his weakened frame.
They stared at pitiful sight a few moments before Fawn spoke up. "Do you have another blanket for him?"
Alphonse nodded, pulling one from the drawers of Ed's dresser and throwing it over his brother. After that, he looked up at Fawn. "What are you thinking?"
Roy looked back to the doctor, frowning at the expression he found there. There was a tightness to those too-light eyes, and Roy knew that the doctor knew something. Something bad. The man glanced at Al then Roy, pursing his lips like he was trying to be careful. Roy was immediately wary.
"He is worse," he admitted finally. "And it's faster than we were predicting. His heart is weakening, and this bleeding . . ."
Something cold settled in Roy's stomach.
Alphonse looked at Ed, his features wavering before settling on something pained but knowing, as brittle as glass. "How long?"
Fawn's mouth pressed into a hard line. "It's hard to say. If he continues worsening at this rate, two months. Maybe three."
Al closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Alphonse. If he has other friends or family, I suggest calling them in soon, while he's well enough to enjoy it."
Roy felt like he had been punched in the gut. He wished he had, because that would have been much less painful than what he'd just heard.
His hand tightened around the journal.
What are you thinking, Roy-boy? xD
So, I'm thinking that human transmutation involves anything having to do with dodging death. Just a theory. I'm having a hard time finding anything that specifically says what it is, other than a very vague "playing God," and the examples we see in the could be something important that I'm missing, but alas, I am missing it. So I'm making up my own rules, as usual xD
Also, all medical knowledge comes from a few A and P classes from ten years ago (dang, I'm old xD) and the internet. If you've had medical training, forgive me :')
I don't know how I feel about this chapter, so there it is lol. Thank you so much to those that reviewed! I've responded to all signed reviews, and now I'm going to try to switch back to DOA, because this level of angst, though somehow soothing, is also heavy lol. DOA is a bit lighter :'D You know, 'cause Ed's already dead /shot/.
I'm going to stop now lol. I hope you enjoy! If you have the time, please review, and I'll see you next chapter!
God Bless,
-RainFlame