All The Ice Cream You Can Eat

3. This Too Shall Pass

Warning: This story is set between the series and the movie, so there may be mild spoilers.

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA nor it's characters, except any OCs. I just like to play around in it's world for awhile.

Rating: T, for some mild cursing, and disgusting things like rectal thermometers.

After what seemed to be an eternity, the nurse finally removed the darned thermometer-from-hell, but Alphonse's trials weren't over yet. Another attempt to pull his pajama pants back up resulted in a stern, "We're not done yet!"

From the cloth covered metal pan the nurse had set at the foot of the bed earlier, she withdrew an already filled hypodermic needle seemed so large it had to be the type used only for giants.

Alphonse's eyes widened in horror; was she going to really use that on him? Apparently so. "This will help you relax", said the demon nurse. "If it bothers you, turn away and don't look."

He did so before burying his face into the pillow, opening his mouth and biting down hard on the low weave cotton. It helped - a little - because the injection hurt - it really, really hurt. Alphonse didn't understand why he needed to get a shot to help him 'relax', or why the needle had to be stuck in his hind end. At this moment in time, the ways of adults made absolutely no sense to him.

At last, at long last, it was over. She pushed Al's pajama pants up over his stinging bottom, then threw the sheet over him and left him alone to stew in his humiliation. Alphonse turned over - slowly - to his left side (she had "needled" his right cheek) - drew himself into a fetal position - and pulled the sheet up until it was over his head.

He stayed in this postion until lunchtime, when another brusque nurse (Alphonse wondered if these women were manufactured somewhere in a Rude Nurse Factory, or if they went to a special Rude Nurse school in order to learn how to treat patients like this), yanked the sheet off his head, and hauled him into a sitting up position on the bed. He barely stifled a squeak of pain.

After pulling a tray table over to him, she slapped a steaming hot bowl of what looked like pale yellow water down, clattered a spoon next to it and told him to eat while it's hot. Alphonse stirred it without enthusiasm - what was it? He tried one little taste, but only succeeded in burning the tip of his tongue. The nurse gave him the 'Hairy Eyeball' when she saw he wasn't eating, "It's chicken soup, and it won't taste good if you let it get cold!"

Was she serious?

It didn't taste good hot either - he tried a little more and it only tasted like hot water in which a chicken had been dipped a few times, maybe the chicken had been allowed to sit on the side of the cooking pot and paddle it's feet. Even Winry's cooking was better than this. Had Brother ever cooked? A very faint memory at the back of his mind said 'yes' - once or twice - not very well - but it was probably more edible than this. He wished for Izumi's cooking - her chicken soup was rich and flavorful; but this hospital food was - he couldn't think of a word to describe how awful it was.

Now the nurse noticed he wasn't showing much enthusiasm for the 'soup', and she was right in his face. "Your surgery will be early tomorrow morning, so you can't have any supper. This will be your last chance to eat for twenty-four hours."

As long as only hospital food was in the offing, it was twenty-four hours too soon for Al. He reluctantly picked up the spoon again and manfully slurped at the "chicken soup" for a few minutes before the nurse mercifully snatched the bowl and spoon away, and Alphonse could get back to pretending he wasn't there. He dozed on and off all day until that evening when another Rude Nurse brought supper. From the smell, he guessed it was something masquerading as "beef stew", Alphonse was so very thankful he wouldn't be expected to eat any.

He slept fitfully through the night, and awoke with a start because a noise had roused him. The ward was cold and dark, and another kid at the far end could be heard whimpering faintly while in the grip of a bad dream. Alphonse raised his head and looked over his shoulder at the window where a faint red line could be seen at the horizon. Almost dawn - if not for his tonsils, he would be getting up for morning exercise by now.

He had just lowered his head and closed his eyes again when the double doors to the ward shot open, and a similar starched nurse - perhaps it was a twin to the one he'd seen the morning before came in, carrying a cloth-covered tray. Alphonse shuddered and pulled the sheet over his head and he thought Maybe if I lay very, very still, perhaps she won't see me.

No such luck. The sheet was yanked off, he was flipped onto his stomach like he was a dead fish she was inspecting for dinner, his pajama bottoms were pulled down and here came that damn thermometer. Alphonse stifled a gasp when it went in - I think she stores it on ice between uses! But the ordeal wasn't quite over after the thermometer was withdrawn. When he heard a clatter in the pan, Al knew what was coming next, and he bit down on his pillow. It hurt as much as ever, but she left him alone to huddle under the sheet when she was done.

Alphonse had just dozed off again when the doors burst open a second time, and the sheet was yanked off again. His visitors this time were two large and unsmiling men who lifted him up and roughly deposited him on a gurney. He wasn't allowed to stay in that comforting fetal position, for they made him lay on his back (Ouch!), and lay still.

Any attempt to move - or even sit up, got him a callused hand on his shoulder or chest which pushed him into proper position. He was wheeled down apparently endless hallways which smelled of diluted bleach until the gurney rammed through a set of swinging doors into a room filled with very bright light.

One man grabbed his shoulders, the other his feet and on the count of three, slung him off the gurney and onto a padded table which was slightly higher. Alphonse raised his head a bit to look around, the room was quite large compared to the ward he'd been in, and the walls were covered in a white tile to a height of perhaps six feet. There the tile was replaced by glass, and he could see a few faces staring back at him. Even the ceiling was painted white, but he couldn't see the color of the floor. The whole effect was one of ruthless cleanliness, and indeed the room smelled strongly of some sort of disinfectant.

The table appeared to be in the center of the room, and it's head end was surrounded with machines which beeped quietly. About halfway down the table on his right was a small wheeled table which held a silver tray filled with gleaming silver objects - mostly small knives which looked very sharp. Scalpels, thought Al, and he shuddered reflexively.

The two men with calloused hands left with the gurney, and two masked and gowned figures took over. He could only see their eyes, but they looked to be of the same species of Rude Nurse. One pushed his head back down before she threw green surgical drapes over him, which covered him from his toes to his neck. The other rubbed a harsh-smelling liquid over his left hand before she (he? it?) stuck a fine gauge needle into a vein, and taped it down, doing it so quickly he didn't have time to wince. "Just relax," she told him in a brisk but muffled voice, "you'll start to feel drowsy very soon." He could hear her move behind him and start to fiddle with the beeping equipment.

Alphonse didn't believe her at first, but he gradually began to feel a strange heavy feeling in his mind, and his vision started to blur slightly. A third figure wandered into his field of view, yet another caped and gowned woman whom the others addressed as "Doctor." She smiled down at Alphonse - at least, he thought she smiled - it was hard to tell with the mask on. But the skin around her grey eyes crinkled into smile lines, and an upward curved shadow appeared on her mask. So she might have smiled, but Al was now feeling very groggy, so he wasn't sure of anything.

This figure nodded to the woman who had put the IV into his hand. And the latter person placed a black rubber mask which made a hissing noise over his nose and mouth, and told him breathe deeply and count backwards from 100. The drug dripping into his veins must have been confusing him because the voice now sounded like Teacher's and it was best to do what she said.

So Alphonse took a deep breath, and began to recite a backwards count:

"100, 99, 98, 97, 9..6, 9...5, 9...4, 9..."

Author's note: OK, we won't go into the minutae of a tonsillectomy. IMHO: The less Alphonse knows what happens, the better. Hasn't the poor boy suffered enough?