"What is the meaning of this?!" Roy demanded, throwing the discharge papers onto Hawkeye's desk.
Maes came rushing in from the inner office.
"Sir," Hawkeye looked down at the papers. She managed to keep a mostly strait face. Her eyes flickered wider for a second.
"Roy, Hawkeye wouldn't have any control over this matter." Mustang turned to his friend. He grabbed the papers off of his first Lieutenant's desk and went back into his office.
"I'm sorry," Maes apologised.
"This isn't my first encounter with Roy Mustang. There is no need for an apology, especially from you." Hawkeye deadpanned. "Go back in there, and make sure he doesn't do something stupid."
Maes followed the woman's order and followed Roy into the inner office.
Mustang was pounding the desk with his fist.
"Roy, stop that."
Mustang looked up at his friend.
"Is everything that kid had going to be taken from him?"
"They still have each other." Maes assured.
"I'm going to make sure they never lose each other." Mustang said voice like steel. "They will never lose each other."
Edward sat in the hospital bed reading a book on medical alchemy. He had done research before, when he had attempted the taboo, but never had much interest in it aside from that. He had perked an interest in the hopes of finding a possible cure for his new deafness. The philosopher's stone had come to mind, but first he needed an understanding of the medical alchemy he would perform.
A piece of paper was slipped between Edward's eyes and the book he was reading. Edward glanced up at Alphonse before looking back down at the paper.
-Ed, the doctor will be coming back to check on you soon.-
Edward groaned. The doctor wasn't really bad or anything. He just looked at Edward like he felt badly for him. Everyone did. It would be nothing if the doctor didn't make out so obvious.
Edward gave his brother a brief nod.
Alphonse frowned internally. Edward was acting so much like himself again, but still so different.
Alphonse sighed, "Oh, Brother."
There was a gentle knock at the door. A doctor came in with a nurse in tow. The doctor smiled.
"So, how's my patient today?" He asked Alphonse.
"Cranky," Alphonse warned.
The nurse smirked. "That's to bad. I hope he will feel better soon."
"Me too, Miss Roslyn." Alphonse replied.
"Alphonse, I said to call me Lily or Lillian. There is no reason to be so formal."
"Oh, yeah! Sorry!"
"Edward, how are you doing?" The doctor said, slowly and carefully with a short pause between words, when Edward looked up to acknowledge the newcomers.
There was a moment of silence while Edward connected the words. He nodded when he deciphered the message.
"I was hoping for more than a nod." The doctor prompted, again, speaking slowly.
Edward stopped. "G- good."
"That will have to do." The doctor said. Lillian smiled and turned to Alphonse.
"Is Edward still refusing to talk?"
"If it's just the two of us he might talk, but he doesn't seem to like talking with more people around."
"Hmm, so Edward's shy?"
"I don't know."
The doctor seemed interested. "If we left, do you think he would tell you what was wrong? If anything is wrong, that is."
"No, I don't think so. Edward doesn't like to say when something is wrong."
"Well, there goes that plan." The doctor smirked. He bent down so that he was shoulder to shoulder with Edward and reached out, touching Edward's upper arm. Edward flinched, pulling away from the doctor.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to surprise you." The doctor tried to calm Edward down, but Edward wasn't letting the doctor come near him. He glared at the doctor daring him to touch his arm again.
"Edward you can trust me." Edward continued his glare at the doctor, not making a single noise and not looking at the doctor's lips.
"Should I come later, or do you think I can give you a check up now?" The doctor asked, putting up both of his hands to show Edward that he wasn't going to touch him. Of course, he would have to touch Edward when he did the check up, but that didn't need to be said quite yet.
Edward wasn't seeking attention or anything, but he hated when people talked around him. He felt awkward. The inability to understand what they were saying was troublesome. Because then he couldn't know if it was important to him. For all he knew they could be talking about him behind his back. He trusted Alphonse not to, but the doctor? He didn't really know the doctor or the nurse. They could talk about Edward behind his back easily without a care, couldn't they?
Alphonse would stop them, wouldn't he? He wouldn't let them talk about Edward like that. Edward frowned. He wouldn't blame Alphonse if he had joined them when they talking about him. He had promised Alphonse that he would get his body back, but how could he if he was deaf? How could he keep his promise? Alphonse probably hated him now. So he couldn't trust Alphonse either?
Could he trust anyone anymore?
A hand made its way to Edward's shoulder. Edward jumped, wincing at the pain it caused his body to feel. He pulled away from the doctor who held Edward's shoulder. He glared at the man.
He was ticked, not even watching the pose of surrender the doctor took up or the moving of his lips.
'How dare he touch me after what he was saying?! Wait, but he didn't say anything, did he?'
Edward was confused but still angry. He continued to hold his glare.
The doctor had tried to help Edward, but the kid wouldn't let him near him. He seemed to see him as a threat of sorts.
"Doctor Richards, should we come back later?" Lillian asked the doctor, Doctor Richards.
"Yeah, we should come back when Edward has calmed down a little. And, Alphonse, if your brother experiences even more personality changes that you can notice, inform me because there is a chance that he could be experiencing some side effects of either his concussion or lack of sleep, which brings me to the question, is your brother sleeping at night?"
"I think so."
"Okay, that's good. He needs to get lots of sleep." Doctor Richards sighed and went on, "We will be back later. If all goes well we will have the check up then. Poor kid."
Alphonse watched them go. He sighed then turned to Edward. He pulled out a note book and wrote a simple question.
_What's the matter?_
Edward scribbled out some barely legible reply. 'So he isn't talking now either. Edward, please, get better. I'm tired of this.'
_You should know._
'What? What does he mean 'You should know.'? What should I know?'
Edward reached up to touch his burned cheek. He used his automail for the action, not wanting to move his burned arm. The most recent dose of pain medicine had worn off but Edward didn't want the doctor to come near him so he didn't complain. How could he really know anyway if the doctor was giving him real pain medicine and not something totally different?
'Because the pain is duller.' Edward reminded himself.
Edward groaned his head hurt now. So now his back was in real agony, his flesh arm and part of his left cheek burned, his side was extremely tender, his lungs felt like they had some sort of pressure on them, his chest also hurt, and now his head was giving off waves of pain that at times felt like it was cracking Edward's skull in half.
Edward cracked his eyes open for at least the seventeenth time. He was insuring that no one had entered his room in the time he had his eyes closed.
Edward felt a hand touch his back. Alphonse. He couldn't possibly know that Edward was not asleep, right? Edward felt the large gauntlet rubbing circles into his back. What was Alphonse doing? Edward tried not to tense up at all and remain relaxed. He was probably not doing a very good job, but Alphonse didn't stop rubbing his back, and he probably wouldn't be doing it if he knew that Edward was truly awake.
Edward sneezed. He groaned in annoyance at his broken cover and the pain it caused him. The rubbing didn't stop, though. It stayed pretty much the same. Edward was glad that Alphonse seemed to be avoiding the burns pretty well because he didn't want to be in any more unnecessary pain. The odd thing was that the gentle rubbing of the oversized hand was very soothing. Maybe, Edward could rest and let Alphonse watch out for him. Maybe...
Alphonse sat there quietly reading his book like he had always done while his brother slept. The 'quietly' part was no longer necessary, but it was now a habit so it didn't matter. He read for a while until he heard the gentle sound of whimpering coming from the bed.
"Brother?" Alphonse shifted so that he was right by Edward. He hesitated for a moment contemplating whether or not to try comforting his brother. He decided to go with comforting. Edward wasn't awake to push him away so he could help his brother.
"It's okay. You're just fine. Just calm down," Alphonse started drawing circles with his leather gauntlet. Edward was a little tense like he was surprised. Alphonse kept drawing circles when Edward sneezed and groaned in pain. He whimpered slightly again.
"Edward, I'm so sorry it hurts. I might not be able to heal your wounds, but I'll always be here to help you. I know you can't hear me, and you're asleep, but I promise."
Alphonse didn't know how long he had stayed there rubbing Edward's back, but if he wasn't mistaken, he could hear Edward snoring lightly. Alphonse chuckled. "Just never forget what I promised you."
A/N: I do know that Edward has an IV, but when I was in the hospital they gave me pain medicine through the IV when you asked or were very obviously in a great deal of pain.
I want to apologize to Squishyfishy. I forgot to mention you. Thanks for giving me the idea. That was actually exactly what I planned to do. You know great minds think alike! The offer for giving me ideas for the story still stands. Also the last chapter was hard to review because I deleted a chapter that wasn't actually a chapter.
Somesamedude PMed me asking me where I got the inspiration for my story. I thought that I would answer it here encase anyone was interested. I got my inspiration from a guy I met that was mostly deaf. He told me that he and his friends made a bomb when they were teenagers and that his friend and he were now mostly deaf (him) and completely deaf (his friend). He actually taught me how to make a bomb (I checked my science books it would potentially work).
I really hope you enjoy! Please review!
-UNAU/ IME