Title: Allotted Design.

Pairing: Do you even need to ask?

Rating: I just realized that half the time lately I've forgotten to change the rating from the previous chapter. Instead of rewriting all this shiznat, I tend to just erase the current chapter and start the next one in the same space. Woops! This one probably barely grazes PG-13.

I'm reeeaaaaally sorry for the delay. I got caught up moving into a new house, and haven't been on the internet for the last… well, 2-3 weeks. And prior to that I have no excuse but the fact that I procrastinate far too much.

But…

Hurrah! Another chapter! At first I wasn't too sure where I was going with it, and I'm sad to say Rianne's suggestion of explosions and flying bodies wasn't too helpful… haha.

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Within a week the officer hadn't returned, and though their fellow classmates had long returned to the prep school, Envy and Ed were given permission to stay behind for as long as Envy was hospitalized. At the week and a half mark the prep school administrator contacted the hospital and arranged for the couple to be transferred to a hospital closer to the school; they both knew that would mean Ed would have to return to classes, and Envy would be left alone for the remainder of his days in the hospital.

When the day came that they were to be escorted to the other hospital, a nurse was helping Envy off his bed and into a wheelchair when she was called away to an emergency in the children's ward. Sitting on the edge of his bed, Envy awaited the pain provoked by his ribs holding the weight of his upper torso, but it didn't come. Since his admittance to the hospital he hadn't been out of bed, and was so frequently doped up on morphine that he was barely given the chance to feel any sliver of pain. Until today; he knew it was close to the point where they'd want to give him another hit, and yet he still felt no pain.

"Hey, Envy, I got muff—what're you doing up?" Ed tossed the bag of suddenly forgotten breakfast treats on a table and rushed over to the bed. Envy waved him off, and slowly rose to his feet. "You shouldn't be moving so much on your own; you might knock your ribs back out of place, or... something. I don't want to sit here and have to watch your ribs poking out of your body." Ed crossed his arms over his chest, and Envy laughed a bit.

"No need to be so protective; I feel absolutely fine… no pain at all!" He hopped up and down a few times, ignoring the way Ed seemed to twitch with the urge to shove him back down onto the bed to rest.

"It must be the morphine…" Ed stroked his chin thoughtfully. The nurse from before bustled into the room just then, and dramatically gasped when she saw Envy moving around so much; gently pushing Envy back down onto the bed, she began to poke and prod at his chest, checking his ribs.

"You must not do that! You could hurt yourself… your ribs… you could have—this is weird, I'll be right back." She jogged from the room again, and the two could hear her calling for a doctor down the hall.

Within just moments the doctor had demanded that Envy be taken for another set of X-Rays, despite that it would delay their trip to the other hospital, and although he refused to tell them what was going on, it was obvious by his expression that it was something urgent.

Despite that he claimed he was fine to move and change on his own, a young nurse helped Envy into the appropriate gear for the X-Ray machine, and took several stills of his chest. The x-Rays were developed, and several doctors met to talk in hushed voices, then more X-Rays were taken.

The sun was setting and painting the room with a pale array of oranges and reds when the doctor finally made his way back to Envy's room, where he and Ed both lay asleep on the hospital bed.

The doctor flicked on the overhead light and cleared his throat a few times to catch the attention of the sleeping boys. Clutching the developed X-Rays in his hands, he immediately began to wave them over his head and hold them up to the light for the boys to see.

"It's a bit of a medical miracle! I've never seen broken bones heal so fast, let alone ribs!"

"So… my ribs are completely healed?"

"Yes! And even your lung has healed. I have no idea as to how this has happened, but if you wouldn't mind I'd like to keep you here for another week or so to run some tests. This is most interesting; I… well, we could even have an article about this published in medical journals!"

"Well, if I've no reason to stay in a hospital any longer, I'd really like to return to school." Envy explained slowly. The doctor's face immediately creased with a frown, and after another hour of trying to persuade the boys to stay, he left them for the night with promises he'd be back in the morning.

Now that they were alone, and the room was dark again, Envy was able to comfortably curl his arms around the blonde and hold in close again.

"Are you sure you don't want to grant them these tests? What if they were able to find something as a result of the tests that could help them to excel the healing process of other people's broken bones?" Although Ed couldn't see him, he could sense Envy smiling at his suggestion of good will.

"Well," Envy began quietly; brushing his fingers through Ed's free flying hair. "I don't know how to explain it, but I have an odd feeling about this… I don't think it's something I want to draw attention to."

"Why?"

"Edo, I just said that I don't know how to explain it!"

"Oh… right." Ed giggled a bit, and fumbled in the dark until he could draw their lips together in a long awaited kiss.

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The following morning they were both jostled awake when a stretcher bumped against the foot of their hospital bed. The nurse frantically apologized as she steered the stretcher across the room and behind the spread curtain closing off the back section of the room. Envy stretched, and for the first time since he'd been admitted to the hospital, he was able to smile with the knowledge that he didn't feel pain as he twisted into this feline position not because of the morphine they'd heavily doped him up on, but because he was fully healed. Of course, he was curious as to how he could've healed so quickly; he could remember times in the past when he'd broken bones, and they'd always healed as slow as they were supposed to, but for the time being he was overwhelmed with joy over being able to soon leave this town.

"Envy?" Although the blonde's eyes were open, he didn't look any more awake than he did just moments before, when they both slept soundly.

"Yes, Edo?" Envy settled back down amongst the tousled blankets, draping an arm across Ed's chest and fingering his messy hair.

"I…" He trailed off to yawn. "I had a dream that the doctors were only lying about your ribs, and when we left all of your ribs broke again, but you wouldn't let me take you back to the hospital. You let them heal on their own, but they ended up healing with your body stuck in a 90 degree position." He yawned again, and nuzzled his face against Envy's chest, almost immediately surrendering to sleep.

Envy smiled in amusement at Ed's dream, and then, holding Ed tight, fell back to sleep as well.

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When Envy awoke again, the room had dimmed to a pale blue; outside the open windows the sky was dark, and threatened a violent storm. A mixture of boredom and the urge to be aroused him from bed, and he'd barely tiptoed halfway across the cold floor when an unfamiliar voice called his name.

"E—Envy?" The voice cracked, and reminded him of the old Crypt Keeper show. He straightened, and looked around the room, but Ed was asleep and the door was closed. "Envy." Trying to take more notice of where the voice came from this time, he timidly peered around the pale curtain pulled across the room, blocking off the two halves.

"Who's there?"

"Envy!" The voice rose in pitch, but still crackled and the woman coughed haggardly a few times; it sounded as though she spewed out more phlegm and liquid than the expected foul breath.

"Who are you?" He silently approached the bed, squinting in attempt to see beyond the frail frame outlined by a thin layer of blankets to the face above, but the blankets only met empty pillow.

"Envy!" A hand shot up under the blankets, and even through the fabric he could clearly make out the outline of knobby fingers. "Let me out."

He nibbled hesitantly on his bottom lip, but reached out and slowly pulled the blanket down, revealing the sunken face of an elderly woman; he couldn't estimate an age, but she seemed more than due to be under the ground.

"Envy." She reached for him, but only caught a few wispy strands of hair as he ducked aside.

"Who are you?" He asked again, although hushed so to allow Ed to continue sleeping, persistence and annoyance were both evident on his voice.

"Don't you know?" Her fingers swept through the thin air, but still she couldn't reach him as he avoided each of her flails. "You should; you're just another part of me!"

This drew his interest, and he slid onto the edge of the bed, though still carefully out of her reach. "What? What do you mean? Y—You're not making any sense…" She waved him to silence and his senseless babbling trailed to nothing.

"You must listen…" She paused, cracked lips opening and closing over her crooked yellow teeth as she struggled to breathe. "You have to get out of this town; it's no good for you. I told them; you're too good for everything they have planned. Too good. You were always the best one."

He narrowed his eyes and stared at her through the darkness, "Listen Miss, I think you're mistaking me for someone else. Y'must've heard my name from one of the nurses."

"No, now you're just trying to make yourself feel better… they've passed their own denial to you." She coughed a few more times. "But listen to me; you have to… have to get out. Get out of this town. And stay away this time; don't come back, no matter what. Come back and they'll have you for sure." They both fell to silence, her to unconsciousness and him to his thoughts; what could she mean? Who was she talking about; surely not Dante and Greed, they only wanted him to beat upon whenever they were tired of fighting with one another, right?

Right?

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When Envy awoke the following morning, he at first didn't recall any of the events from the previous night. He yawned, and stretched, careful not to jostle awake the blonde at his side. Until it all came back with a flash of confusion; what had she meant?

"Wh—" Stumbling off the bed, he ignored the sleepy sounds of protest from Ed and clawed at the closed curtain between the two beds. But the bed was empty… no sign of the night before remained; the blankets were folded and placed carefully at the foot of the bed, and the pillow had been puffed to rectangular perfection.

"Mr. Culus!" Envy turned, wide eyed and flushed to face a nurse and doctor in the doorway of the room.

"You're up awful early!" The doctor declared with an amused chuckle, and then paused as he noticed the dry sweat across Envy's forehead, and his expression of despair. "Are you okay?" He moved closer and by reflex began to gently poke at Envy's ribs, as though believing they could have suddenly broken themselves again.

"No, I—I'm okay." Envy waved the doctor off, and turned back to the empty bed. "Where did the woman go? She—I was talking to her last night. Who was she?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Culus, but I'm sad to say the woman that was in this bed passed away early this morning. But you say she spoke to you? She was barely hanging on yesterday; we're surprised she lasted as long as she did. But I'm glad she was able to talk to someone so nice before she went. Too bad about her, though. Hope she didn't say anything to startle you; she was long gone to a fever, and so most of what came from her mouth was gibberish." He smiled, and turned to his obligatory duties of checking Envy's statistics, before he and the nurse bustled back out to help the needier.

"But… I needed to know more." Envy sighed, gently fingering the fraying edges of the stacked blankets.

"Envy?" Ed murmured from behind him, stretching with a clumsy manner across the small bed. "What're you doin', come back to bed. It's still early." He yawned, and settled back down amongst the blankets, watching Envy with a lazy smile on his face.

"Ed," Envy climbed up next to the blonde, and softened against the arms that immediately wrapped around him. "Did you hear what the woman said last night?"

"What woman?" Ed buried his face against Envy's chest, and his eyes fluttered shut. "I didn't hear anything."

"Oh, she had some interesting things to say. I… well, from what I remember she was trying to tell me that someone had a plan for me, but that she felt I was worth more; she said I was always the best, but the best of whom?" He paused, only to note how Ed's breathing had fallen to shallow snoring, and smiled softly. "Yeah, I guess it probably wasn't anything."