The next week, Den died.
Winry was completely distraught, Den being her companion since they were little kids. The dog was at least seventeen years old, which Ed thought was pretty old by dog standards. It wasn't like they didn't see it coming; they just didn't see it coming so soon.
She'd been old, but not sick. Winry had woken up that morning to find her cold and stiff on the ground beside her bed. Ed was at least grateful that she had gone quietly in her sleep.
He wasn't sure that he'd get off that easy.
Ed wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. The foreshadowing was not lost on him or anyone else, he knew, but outside in Winry's side yard, staring down at the shallow grave of freshly transmuted dirt that Mustang had moved, and the small headstone Al had made, it all seemed just a little too real.
Ed could picture it like this, his friends and family gathered around the gaping mouth of his own grave, dropping a wildflower on his casket before burying him, dirt and mud swallowing him into the dark earth.
He shook the thought away.
All four of them stared at the grave and no one said anything for a long time, save Winry's quiet sobs. Ed held her hand but felt like he was completely inadequate to give her comfort, considering it would soon be him under a pile of dirt and stone.
Nothing like a funeral to hit you in the face with your own pending mortality.
"She was a good dog," Al offered, his voice thick as he placed a comforting hand on Winry's shoulder. Winry just sniffled in acknowledgement, running a hand under her leaking eyes.
Mustang stood behind Ed's wheelchair, somehow managing to appear like he had just as much of a right to be there as any of them, despite hardly knowing the dog. Ed wasn't sure if he found it annoying or comforting, but regardless, he was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic for some reason, like everyone was standing just a bit too close, and the headstone was too close, and he wanted to stand up and walk away, but he didn't currently have the ability to do that.
He wanted to stay there for Winry, but he also didn't want to be anywhere near that grave.
At some point his vision started tunneling, his flesh palm slick with sweat. He could hear his pulse pounding a steady staccato in his head, going fast enough to be careening its way toward a panic attack.
"Fullmetal and I are going to head back," Mustang said, placing a steadying hand on Ed's shoulder. His warmth was solid against his subtle shaking, but his voice sounded far away, muffled by the ringing in Ed's ears. "I doubt the chill in the air is good for him."
Winry didn't look at them, just nodded. Al's eyes narrowed in understanding, but he didn't comment on it. "I'll see you at the house."
Ed nodded, taking a breath he hoped didn't come across as a gasp.
Mustang steered him down the pathway, out toward the beaten dirt road. The farther they travelled from the grave, the looser Ed's chest became and the easier he could breathe, his heartrate slowly evening out into something more comfortable and less violent.
The wheelchair bounced over the rough lane, causing Ed no small amount of discomfort, but he would rather this than be back there, staring at that pile of dirt. The sun beat down on them merrily, a contrast to the brisk wind that threatened to bite through the three blankets Mustang and Al had smothered him in before leaving that afternoon. It didn't take much for Ed to get cold these days.
Ed was worse now, even from last week. He knew for a fact that alkahestry was keeping him alive, and he needed it four times a day to maintain his pain levels— which were on the higher side—and as long as he didn't have any major fits, he was on the receiving end of a blood transfusion every other day. His digestive system was about as good as before, but that only meant he'd gone another week without keeping much down. He would have bet that he'd lost another eight pounds or so, and though that didn't sound like much, he'd overheard the doctor telling Al that Ed's inability to keep food down might kill him faster than gangrene, or any of the other grotesque options Ed had predicted.
Ed wasn't allowed to walk anymore, but he knew he couldn't have, even if he'd wanted to.
He'd tried. Yesterday, he attempted to get himself from his bed to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and had barely gotten past the nightstand before his legs shook and collapsed, folding under him like a baby deer's. He'd tried to get up, but he didn't even have the strength to pull himself upright with his automail arm and laid there until Mustang came in to check on him two hours later. His pride was still stinging from the incident and the consequential tongue-lashing Mustang had given him.
Another highlight in Ed's reel of embarrassing situations he'd found himself in over the past few months.
Still, even Ed could admit he was thankful it had been Mustang that found him, and he was grateful Mustang had seen his distress before Winry or Al had and taken him away before he had a panic attack or something right there at the funeral.
Ugh, he really hated being indebted to Mustang for anything.
"Better?" Mustang asked after a while.
Ed fought back a snide remark. The Idiot Colonel did him a favor, after all. "Peachy."
"When did you start speaking fluent hick? I could have sworn you were relatively well educated when I picked you up years ago."
"Have you always been fluent in stupid?" Ed bit back. "'Peachy,' is a perfectly acceptable word used frequently in both lower- and high-class societies all throughout the East, starting in the 1870s –"
"So either I'm talking to a country bumpkin, or a university professor of history? Where do you keep this useless trivia?"
"They don't call me a genius for nothing."
"I always thought it was sort of an irony thing, like naming a hairless cat Fluffy."
"Speaking of hairless, I thought it fair to warn you that I replaced all of your shampoo with potassium thioglycolate and water."
"I might be afraid if I knew what that was for."
"Hair removal. Let's see if Hawkeye will kiss you now."
Ed wasn't sure which part of that last statement got him, but he thought he heard Mustang choke a bit, and the wheelchair lurched dangerously to one side before Mustang corrected it.
"We—I . . . Riza—I mean, the Captain and I . . . it's not like—"
"Save it for someone that might believe you, Mustang," Ed advised, feeling a bit more chipper than he had in a while. Getting Mustang was always a morale booster.
"Has it every occurred to you that I could just leave you out here and keep walking?" Mustang finally bit out, enough steel in his voice to construct a cotton ball.
"Eh, Al would kill you," Ed said easily, propping an elbow on the armrest. "You're no match for him."
"It might be worth it," Mustang grumbled under his breath.
The conversation was a bit more pleasant after that, though Ed would never admit it aloud. They talked about weather, argued over who would win in a fight, Izumi or Hawkeye, and fell into a comfortable silence as Mustang rolled Ed's chair up the ramp Al had set up and to the front door.
And both might have let out an undignified squeak when the front door flew open.
"I was getting worried."
"Captain!" Mustang yelped.
"Hawkeye!" Ed squeaked.
Hawkeye's shrewd sherry eyes ran over them both, the way she might have surveyed a field looking for threats. They lingered over Ed a beat longer, probably seeing every secret he'd kept since she'd seen him last, right down to the large piece of breakfast he was supposed to eat that morning but had slipped to Cat instead, with Al being none the wiser.
"Why is he out there like this?" she demanded, her sharp gaze pinning Mustang. "He is not in any condition to leave the house."
Ed could practically feel Mustang melting behind him. "We were at the Rockbell house," he said in defense.
Ed hadn't recovered from the surprise enough to be annoyed that he had another spectator to his situation, but he had recovered enough to relish the joy of Mustang's certain demise at Hawkeye's hands. "Yeah, Mustang. What were you thinking?"
Her eyes leveled on Ed's, sending a thrill of real fear down his spine. "We both know you would not have gone if you hadn't asked him to take you."
Ed gulped. "You're right, Captain," he agreed. "My mistake."
"Get in, before you catch your death," she ordered, standing aside to allow them passage.
They hadn't been out for more than a couple of hours, but already Hawkeye had taken it upon herself to tidy up the living room and kitchen, the smell of fresh bleach and lemons thick in the air. The windows had been opened, allowing the clean spring air to ruffle the curtains and carry out the stench of sickness Ed had hardly noticed until it was gone.
As efficient as ever, she marched around the room, closing windows while Mustang helped Ed unwrap from two of his blankets. Ed couldn't quite get over how normal she looked, there in his house. He could count on one hand the number of times he had seen her out of uniform, and her gray slacks and blue blouse made her look more domestic than Ed was comfortable with, like seeing your elementary teacher outside of the school house.
"Where is Alphonse?" Hawkeye asked.
"Still at the Rockbell's," Mustang answered. "When did you get here? I wasn't expecting you yet."
"Yet?" Ed demanded, suddenly plenty annoyed. "You invited her?"
Mustang had the decency to look sheepish. "I thought she could be of help—"
"What gives you the right to just go inviting people into my house?!" The demand was punctuated with a wet cough, and Ed forced his breathing to calm. He did not want to do this in front of Hawkeye.
Ed's sudden restraint was not lost on Mustang. "I think it's time for your treatment."
Ed's temper hit its flashpoint, because it was a lot easier to be angry than to be embarrassed, and why was he being so obvious about it, with Hawkeye right there?! "It's fine! Get lost!" Ed pushed his chair forward, narrowly missing Mustang's toes as he made for his room.
He almost bowled straight into Havoc. "Whoa!" the blond man cried, almost losing the pile of linens in his arms and the unlit cigarette dangling from his lips as he danced back. "Slow down, Chief!"
"Great," Ed snarled, his chest contracting painfully enough to make him wince, but not enough to take his mind off of his anger. "Just great. Who else is here?"
"Well, Fuery and Falman went into town to get some supplies, and Breda is in your kitchen," Havoc informed.
"Hey, Ed!" Breda's voice called cheerily.
"Unbelievable," Ed hissed, staring at the floor to avoid accidentally igniting Havoc's cigarette with the power of his glare. He smothered a bloody cough in his blanket before rolling forward.
Them seeing him like this was bad enough; in a wheelchair, a ghost of a human being. Ed was not going to let them watch him cough up a lung, or throw up his insides, or get an alkahestry treatment like a sick dog.
Was it too much to want to be remembered the way he used to be?
He wasn't able to slam the door with any force, but getting it shut behind him was victory enough.
XxXxX
"That could have gone better," Breda commented, drying his hands with a cup towel.
"You could say that," Roy sighed. This was not the way he had wanted this to go. Maybe he should have prepared Ed for this instead of springing it on him? But he hadn't been expecting them until Saturday. Riza was a pleasant surprise, but everyone else was overwhelming to him. He really couldn't blame Ed for being upset. "Why are you here so early? Is this everyone?"
"I tried to call, but apparently an electrical storm took a line down between here and Central and it is still being repaired," Riza explained. "We came early to help prepare. I doubt you and the boys have enough time to cook or clean before everyone arrives."
Roy hadn't even thought about food for the gathering, but they were certainly falling behind on laundry. Ed was bloodying up clothes and linens faster than Roy or Al could clean them.
All the same, and as much comfort as her presence brought to him, Roy wasn't sure if he wanted Riza to be the one cooking. His face must have said as much, because Riza sighed. "Don't worry, Sir. Breda will handle the cooking."
Havoc chuckled. "Yeah Captain, one sampling of your cooking was enough for me, too."
"I believe there was a load of laundry you were tending to?" she said pointedly, the threat in her voice apparent.
"Yes, Sir," Havoc answered crisply, following Breda back into the kitchen with his pile of bloodied towels.
The two men started a quiet conversation over the running of water. Roy and Riza looked at one another for a moment.
"What do you think?" he asked finally, not really wanting to hear the answer, but needing to hear it the same, to have someone else besides Al acknowledge what they both saw.
She held his gaze, but he saw the fear swimming there, just behind the surface. "It's bad. It doesn't look like him at all."
He nodded. "Yeah. He would typically be screaming at this point."
Riza's lip quirked in a sad smile before levelling into a grimace. "There's blood everywhere in this house," she said, eying a dull red stain smeared across a sofa cushion.
Roy sighed, circles and equations he was intimately familiar with by now summoned to the forefront of his mind. He clapped his hands, gently pressing his fingertips into the fabric, and watched as the blood separated itself from the material in a wash of blue light and sharp ozone, leaving a pile of rust-colored dust to be cleaned later.
"Maybe when Al comes back, he'll be a bit more cooperative," Roy said, though he doubted it very much. Ed desperately needed a treatment, before his pain and nausea got the better of him, but Roy wasn't sure if he would accept Roy's help before he was bent over a trash bin. "Did you bring what I asked for?"
Riza gestured to a large messenger bag in the corner, buckles neatly clipped and containing more paperwork than Roy typically wanted to see outside of a fireplace. "I'm not sure I understand why you are requesting paperwork, Sir."
"Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf?" he suggested.
She arched a delicate eyebrow.
"I'll let you know before I do anything stupid."
She still looked unconvinced, but the tightness in her jaw relaxed a bit. "I would appreciate that, Sir."
He offered her a thin smile, but his next comment was forestalled by Breda's worried voice. "Hey, Boss? Is that . . . normal?"
Roy stopped, suddenly aware of the sound of retching from Fullmetal's room, and his heart sank. "We'll discuss this later." Without waiting for her response, he snatched the familiar jar of white paint from the kitchen bar and headed for the oldest Elric's room.
He didn't bother knocking.
Look at me, updating my fics twice in one year. Who says I'm not consistent? xD
I haven't had a chance to reply to reviews, but I will do so for the signed comments of the last chapter as soon as I have some consistent WiFi :')
Well, let me tell you, this Covid-19 business has been fun, hasn't it? (Please note the sarcasm). Just like any self-respecting introvert, I don't mind a good quarantine, but I wish it wasn't under these circumstances. I don't think we've had any confirmed cases in my area, but hospitals are gearing up for it. It really sank in for me this past Thursday when I stopped by the nursing home to visit my hospice patient and saw all the signs and the locked door.
If you're feeling particularly worried, I listened to a great podcast today called "Cleaning Up the Mental Mess," (her most recent episode) and she had some encouraging things to say on the subject, if anyone needs encouragement.
There's always been pain and suffering in the world, but it being something this widespread and in such a mutual way somehow lends the situation more gravitas. We're in this together. As much as possible, take peace and breathe. There's a lot of fear out there where there should only be caution. Safely check-in on the elderly and neighbors, share a roll of toilet paper, and take heart. Darkness doesn't last forever.
If you would, please leave a review, and I'll see you next chapter :)
God Bless,
RainFlame