It was early morning when the doctor returned to check on Ed.
He sat on the bed, looking down at the pale face of the sleeping boy. His brow was tight and he was murmuring something. Maenz regarded him for a full minute, but he was no closer to piecing the words together. "Mother", the boy said many times, and when he said that word his mouth would suddenly grimace like he was on the edge of tears. He said that word many times, and the other word he said so often was the name of his little brother...As the doctor peered down at Ed, he wondered for the first time where Al was. If this brother was in such a condition, did that mean that the other boy was...?
"Al...Al..." Ed said softly.
The doctor sighed and reached for Ed's wrist. Of course the younger boy was alright. Pinako hadn't mentioned him and although she was being mysterious, she wouldn't leave out if Al had been hurt...Perhaps he had stayed with that woman who was supposed to be teaching them alchemy. It was the doctor's turn to grimace. Alchemy had that effect on him. Maenz touched Ed's wrist to check his pulse and as soon as he did, Ed's eyes fluttered open. "Edward?" The doctor said and leaned closer to make sure those golden eyes were focused.
He found they were, but they weren't focused on him.
"Al..." Ed said and for a moment the doctor just thought he was still half awake, still caught up in whatever dream he had been having that had made him call to his mother and his brother. It had to be true, because what Ed's eyes were so focused on was a huge suit of armor someone must have brought up into the room late in the night after the doctor had finished tending to the boy and his fever, questioning Pinako (to no avail) as to what really happened...but who and why they would bring such a thing up the doctor was just about to try figuring out when the armor spoke.
"Good morning, Brother." it said in a rather sweet voice...
A rather familiar voice...
The doctor's eyes were suddenly narrow, his head swinging like a pendelum on a confused arc from armor to boy, "Al." Ed said with a relieved sigh and eyes too wide.
"Al?" The doctor said, but it didn't seem as though either suit or boy had heard him, for the conversation continued and the doctor, still holding onto Ed's wrist was measuring time with his patient's soft pulse.
"Did you sleep well, Brother?" asked the armor.
"Yeah." Came the answer that was obviously a lie. "You Ok?"
"Mmmm. It rained earlier. It made a lot of noise."
"Really?"
"Excuse me." The doctor finally interjected.
Ed's eyes were suddenly on him and the armor seemed to focus its attention on him. The doctor wasn't sure how he felt about that, not when he was in the room of a mysteriously and terribly injured child and a mysterious and quite frankly terrible looking suit of armor just appears overnight and decides to focus on him...But that didn't matter...What did was..."Sorry, Doctor Maenz." The armor said in that too familiar voice again.
It wasn't that the doctor didn't know who that was in there. It was obvious, of course; the voice and the fact that Ed had called it by its name, it was just it seemed impossible. The boy who belonged to that name was more than half the size of that armor, and yet, there that armor was, standing upright and walking towards him with a gait only slightly off, as though whoever was in there was a little stiff, or unused to such armor..."Alphonse...?" The doctor said as the armor in which a tiny 10 year old was somehow hiding stood in front of him. The doctor craned his head. "What are you doing in there?" The doctor reached out his gloved hand and touched the armor's wrist.
"Don't." Al said softly as the doctor began to tug on his hand. "Please don't do that, Doctor Maenz. I'd rather if you didn't take that off."
The doctor's eyes were wide through his glasses now. There was something familiar about this. Not only this armor standing before him. He'd seen it before, although it had been a few years, when the boy's father, Hoenheim, had invited him into the family basement-then an office-for a discussion on alchemy...Not that...but this feeling he had that he hadn't had for a while, not since he had left Central, not since... "What do you mean?" He asked, suddenly unsure whether or not he wanted to hear the answer. "Why not?"
Al hesitated, but he didn't try to withdrawl his hand. "You see..." Al said and suddenly the voice had gone soft, so soft that the doctor could barely hear it. The doctor leaned closer.
Behind him, not quiet, but merely out of his attention, the doctor heard Ed say Al's name.
"You see..." Al tried again and Maenz noted the slight tremor running through the armor under his hand, the shake in the voice. "We...that is..."
Behind him, the doctor heard Ed say Al's name again. It was louder...or closer.
The doctor's hand was reaching up. He just wanted to touch the face of this armor, comfort the boy from whatever it was he was trying so hard to say...
But suddenly, it didn't matter.
"Stop!" Ed's voice yelled in his ear and suddenly he felt the boy pressing hard against his back, digging five still strong fingers into the doctor's neck, "Leave him alone!" The older boy hissed, "Can't you see he doesn't want to talk about it! Leave him alone!"
"Ed!" Al called and pushed closer to grab a hold of Ed, calm him down. However, as he leaned down, the doctor's hand, the one that had been reaching to comfort the boy hiding so strangely in the armor (or so he thought), suddenly spun wildly, and in a single movement, Al's helmet was gone and the doctor had fallen with Ed on his back against the nightstand. He heard the glass that had been sitting on that nightstand fall and break, he felt drops of water on his hand, but he barely noticed.
It was there, gazing upwards with Ed's one remaining hand suddenly slack around his neck that the doctor realized that Al really wasn't hiding in that armor.
"What have you done?" He whispered, but the headless armor before him and the boy pressed against his back, said nothing.
TBC...