Inextricable
Chapter Nine: Preparations
Short chapter this time, but I'm back on target with the every-weekend updates! Happy New Year!

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The woman didn't weigh as much as Winry feared, and the young mechanic was able to half-carry her into the adjacent laboratory, away from the filth and cold of the room where Winry's captor had apparently abandoned the poor woman. A trail of dark blood streaked the floor in their wake, drawn across the cracked and dirty concrete by the woman's dragging feet.

He insists I save her, but he does nothing for her himself... she might have died! She must have been like this for days.

There was no doubting it had been some time, at least. The whole arm was going to have to come off. Gangrene had set in, and Winry could only pray that the infection hadn't already gone too far. The smell was beyond anything she'd ever before encountered, and she breathed through her mouth, trying desperately not go be sick.

She didn't have much time and had done only the bare minimum to set up her initial work area just inside the laboratory. She'd set up a gurney — there were, unsettlingly, several of these in the massive, well-equipped lab — and had told her captor she'd need surgical instruments and plenty of hot water. A knife, clamps, a saw, needle and thread... God, help me... It was going to be messy, and it was going to be hard, and she was probably going to have to do it all alone.

The man — and she'd decided her captor was a man — moved in darkness as if he carried the shadows around with him, but he gathered everything she asked for. She sent the man off for towels and bandages and anything to help with the pain or to keep the patient unconscious during the amputation. She worked on sterilizing the instruments.

"Thank you." A rasped whisper was all the sound the woman made, but Winry whirled to face her, eyes wide. "He doesn't mean to be cruel, you know. It's his nature. Now."

Winry shook her head, not comprehending what the woman meant. "I'm afraid that arm is going to have to come off," she said. It was far too late to soften any blow. The woman's eyes glowed with intelligence and something else that seemed off to Winry, but there was no way a lie was going to be believed by those eyes.

"Yes, I know," the woman said. "I'm glad you're blunt. I've always hated pretty lies. ...My name is Vera, by the way. What's yours?"

"Winry Rockbell."

"Ah, yes. That makes sense, that he found you. He's hated the Fullmetal Alchemist ever since Lab Five."

Winry's throat closed on a scream of rage and frustration. Whatever this crazy man blamed him for, it was not Ed's fault! Lab Five had been a horrible place, and someone needed to bring it down! She was glad it had been Ed; glad he'd destroyed these people's obviously perverse plans.

She turned away from her patient abruptly to hide her anger. "Well, Vera. I can't say I understand what you're talking about. Ed helps people. If something happened at Lab Five, I can only imagine it was because he meant to help."

A snort of disdain sounded behind her at this. "Help! Is that what you call it? He destroyed years of work and research. Destroyed everything we'd built up! Destroyed the pack—"

"Rafe!" Vera snapped. "Shut up."

The man was silent at once, and Winry tried to control her shaking. She had to be steady for this. It would be hard enough to perform such a surgery under the best of circumstances. Here, it would be nearly impossible and completely so if she couldn't master her own emotions.

She carefully reviewed her training and her tools. As Rafe set down the bandages and towels, she nodded at his offerings. He'd managed to get a lot of them. She hoped it would be enough.

"Is there any anesthesia?" she asked.

"I don't need it," Vera said. "Just do what you have to, and make it fast."

Winry turned back to meet the woman's unsettling eyes. She saw reflected in them an understanding of what was about to happen, and even some comprehension of how painful it was going to be.

"Tell him," Winry ordered. "Tell him that I can't guarantee you'll live through this. You've been untreated for so long—"

Vera shuddered a shrug. "She can't guarantee it, Rafe," the woman repeated. "You left me there for too long."

"Vera!" the man yelped.

"I see in her eyes that she intends to save me if she can," Vera continued as if the man had not spoken. "The scent of determination is on her. If I die, it isn't her fault. Do you understand?"

"She knows too much," he growled, still fighting.

"If I die, there's only you, and what can you do alone? It won't matter what she knows."

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"I don't understand," Ed repeated, staring stupidly at Hawkeye. They'd taken him to the station office, commandeered by Fuery for Hawkeye's use while they all waited on Ed's train. "She was abducted? Again!"

"Captain Ross and Sgt. Major Brosh have already begun rounding up witnesses at the hospital. She left at about two o'clock and hasn't been seen since. It's only been a few hours, but the building agent was expecting her—"

"And she'd promised to pick up Elysia from school," Gracia-san interrupted, looking even more worried than Ed imagined he did.

Winry kept her promises, that was certain. If something had come up, she'd have sent word to both the agent and Gracia-san.

"And her wrench was found near the hospital," Hawkeye added.

"That cinches it, then," Ed muttered. "No way she'd ever just forget that." He pushed himself to his feet, exhaustion and nearly uncontrollable fury mingling to make his head swim. If they've hurt her...

"I'm going," he said, his tone brooking no argument or countermanding order. If Hawkeye dared deny him this, it would be the end of everything, as far as he and the military were concerned. It surprised him how much he didn't want that to happen.

"Of course, Fullmetal," Hawkeye agreed, standing. "And I'm going with you."