Pain is what wakes Ed up next. Not the excruciating waves of fire and knives he dimly recalls from before, however long ago that was. He's sore all over, enough that shifting in his sleep has woken up a fresh laundry list of aches and pains. Even his scalp hurts. Ugh.
Not eager to piss off his neck any more than it already is, Ed makes do by looking around with his eyes alone. This... isn't their bedroom? Not the operating room or any of the rehab rooms either. White walls without decoration, cheap vertical blinds instead of curtains, the closed door the wrong color entirely. A touch of gray morning light creeps in through the blinds, which at least explains why it's so quiet. There's only the beeping on his left, coming from the bedside monitor barely seen in his peripheral. An uncomfortable tugging on his wrist no doubt connects to the IV stand beside it, from which two nearly emptied bags hang. There's a steady whooshing on his right, corresponding with the rise and fall of his chest. That one explains the heap of clear plastic and thick blue tubing over his face, heavy on his tongue, filling his throat.
A hospital, he realizes with a dull and sluggish lack of surprise. He's in a hospital.
Now that he's acutely aware of the ventilator he has to mentally stomp on his body's instinctive urge to gag. He forces his muscles to relax, wincing as they loudly announce their myriad complaints. He starts running through the periodic table backward to get his mind focused on anything else. Relax. Let it do its job. Obviously somebody with a hell of a lot more medical know-how than him figures he needs it. Winry, probably.
Huh. It's easier to calm down than he expected it to be. For all that he holds the dubious achievement of most hospital stays in his circle of friends and peers by a (literal) landslide, he's never been fucked up enough to need a ventilator before. One of those drips must be something to keep him under, if the way his eyelids are already beginning to droop again means anything.
Well. Who is he to argue with chemistry?
He's not alone the next time he wakes. It's the businesslike clatter of somebody fussing with something at the foot of his bed that draws him out of the sucking murk of drugged sleep. He has to take a moment to blink the fug from his eyes, and another to remember not to panic about the enormous fucking tube down his throat. He must visibly twitch despite his best efforts because he blinks and there's a gentle touch on his right hand. A masked face, framed by red hair receding to silver, hovers above his. He experiences a brief moment of total disorientation, wondering why the fuck the only decent bookseller in town would be waiting at his bedside, before he remembers that Vi has a younger sister who happens to be a nurse.
"Easy, lad, easy now," Oseleta urges soothingly. "Let the machine breathe for you. Easy now, Edward, in... and out... and in..."
With her aid he calms rather than chokes on the damn ventilator. He squeezes her gloved hand in lieu of being able to thank her properly. The crow's feet at her eyes crinkle as she squeezes back.
"There's a good lad. Now, I'm going to run through a few questions with you if that's acceptable? All right. Blink once for no, twice for yes. Understand?"
He blinks accordingly. It's in this way that he learns he's in the ICU at BVU's training hospital, that he's been here for three days, that Winry brought him in late Tuesday night nearly non-responsive after a convulsion enroute, that there were marked complications but he's on the mend now, and most important of all: Winry and the kids are safe. They've exhibited not a one of his symptoms thus far. After all that she runs him through a truncated neurological exam; simple tests that don't require him to speak, though he's sure that's to come later. It's hard to tell how well or how poorly he does, though even he can tell he's not firing on all cylinders. His hands feel weird, tingly and reluctant to cooperate in a way not unlike his shoulder and stump act when he's overworked them.
Ah, well. He can only move up from here, right?
Oseleta steps back from his bed once she's satisfied, a happy crinkle still touching her eyes. "Now, I bet you're eager to get that tube out of your throat, but let's leave the final word on that to your doctor, eh? I'll go fetch him, and call your wife while I'm at it."
He blinks gratefully. It's all he can do, in his state.
She leaves the door cracked when she leaves, allowing the familiar bustling chaos of a full-fledged hospital to seep into his room. He doesn't mind. There's something calming in the low cajoling of nurses catching each other's attentions, something comfortable in the jargon one finds in a place of healing. It's only once he's alone that the double whammy of embarrassment for being laid out in fucking critical care and guilt for no doubt scaring Winry half out of her gourd hits him. God damn it. Now that he's not sort of almost dying, she's definitely going to kill him.
What the hell even happened?
Mentally he plays back the day or so before hours of persistent nausea turned into a full-blown sprint for the bathroom, trying to drum up anything he might have eaten or done that could have caused this. He'd gone to the lab for a couple hours, sure, but he'd gotten sidetracked arguing with that wall-eyed dumbfuck Johanniter again, so he hadn't even gotten any real work done. Even if he had, he hasn't stepped foot inside the chem department since, what? March? Maybe early April? He's been too busy trying to design a sturdier centrifuge since the department head had all but begged him to take pity on the one machine he hadn't destroyed yet. Al's taken to calling his pet project his attempt at building a better mousetrap because he thinks "ultracentrifuge" is a dumb name. It's obvious, thank you, and the dunderheads he's forced to share lab space with wouldn't know their asses from their elbows if he took the time to label them. It's a good name, damn it.
Which... is not the point, currently. Right. Yeah. Figuring out what the fuck landed him in the hospital in the first place is. That's what he really should be focusing on...
Despite his best efforts he drifts off again. Ah, well.
There are people speaking quietly nearby. He's blinking at them before he realizes, exactly, that he's awake and on the cusp of interacting with others again. Oseleta's the first to notice, breaking off mid-sentence to step away from the window to hover by his bedside again, reassuring and reminding him to relax and let the ventilator do what's needed. Sidi approaches on his other side more sedately, nodding in lieu of the usual easy grin Ed's accustomed to. A third person joins Sidi, an unfamiliar man with pale skin and salt and pepper hair curling around his large ears.
"Good morning," Sidi says, his made for radio voice warmed further by genuine gladness to see Ed awake.
Ed raises his right hand up off the bed, wincing when his whole arm barks what the fuck at him, but follows through with two fingers tapped clumsily to his brow. Sidi chuckles and returns the gesture; an old joke between a former Army doc and a dog of the military.
Ed drops his elbow back to the bed before his shoulder can start bitching at him properly, waving his hand at the unfamiliar man.
"Doctor Caladoc," the man offers with an amicable nod. "I'm the director here at Bianchetti-Vercellotti's ICU. Ostensibly, I'm the one signing off on anything Doctor Brahim claims needs doing."
His tone is one of dry amusement rather than justified indignation. It's telling of how unusual a city Rush Valley really is. Every doctor owes another some sort of favor, every mechanic has bribed their way into borrowing another mechanic's clinic for one reason or another, and anyone who has any sway in either realm is wizard enough to nudge the rest of the local culture along to their whims. Any place else this kind of 'thumb in every pie' mindset would stem from political corruption. And sure, that's still a problem here; people are people wherever you go, for good or for ill. But when one of the most respected names in automail asks a favor here in Rush Valley, well, people listen. Winry's not usually the type to take advantage of her own fame, but if it gets her what she really needs? Well, there's no wondering at all to find Sidi here in BVU rather than his own clinic and all the local staff considerate enough to accommodate, now is there?
Dr. Caladoc goes on for a bit, as is his right as director. There's nothing that surprises Ed; just a clinical interest in his unusually severe case of food poisoning. There's idle consideration of it being, say, cholera instead, but there have been enough eyes on him and tests done while he's been halfway comatose that they've more or less ruled that out. They've settled on a particularly eager strain of bacterial gastroenteritis as the cause of what landed him here, though naturally they're double checking themselves and his house, just in case. Considering a healthy man in the under 30 club ended up catapulted into intensive care, it's only right they take precautions.
The good doctor is interrupted by a frazzled-looking nurse ducking his head in through the door. "Doctor Caladoc?"
"Yes, yes." His tone is aggrieved, though his body language remains unhurried. He dips his head in a polite apology to Ed, gives Sidi a meaningful look as he raps his knuckles against the clipboard in his hand, and swans out after the nurse. Ed pays it no mind.
Sidi and Oseleta give him their full attention after that, which is something of a mixed blessing. Lucky him, at least; they've been weaning him off the ventilator while he's been in and out, so they can jump right into getting him off it for good now that he's readily conscious for it. There are several minutes of truly impressive discomfort and indignity he's a little bit relieved to not have Winry here to witness. Once the worst of the built-up gunk has been suctioned away he's given the barest amount of ice chips to suck on before an oxygen mask is slapped onto his face. Then Sidi runs him through a full neurological exam that he passes with middling success; his hands and foot are obviously reluctant to cooperate, his tongue's about as useful as a wad of old chewing gum, and the less said about the state of his voice the better. Hopefully the worst of it all will clear up by the time they're ready to discharge him. He'd scare the kids right out of the hospital if Winry brought them for a visit today.
Sidi keeps an almost obnoxiously professional air in front of Oseleta. If they were back in the Brahim clinic Sidi'd be calling him a goddamn irresponsible moron and telling him to mind what he pours down his gullet. Frankly, Ed prefers a firm dressing down to meaningless platitudes, but he understands the pretense here. He's just happy to have a familiar face in all of this until Winry comes around for a visit.
By the end of it all Ed's fucking exhausted. All he wants is a cough drop, a glass of water, and the opportunity to curl up in his own significantly more comfortable bed, but those are all probably a few more days off still. They leave him to rest readily enough however, and he's so wrung out he has hardly any time to wonder again at the cause of the worst food poisoning of his life before sleep drags him under again.
The good news: The next time he wakes up Winry's there, and the world makes sense again.
The bad news: The second she realizes he's awake Winry's eyes do that particular little spasm that means she's about two seconds away from either bursting into tears or tearing him a new asshole, and it's 100% on him to hammer out which way she teeters.
"Heya, sexy," he croaks. "Come here often?"
That earns him incredulous laughter, an aborted move to swat his arm, and best of all, "You unbelievable moron."
He tries to give her his best shit-eating grin, but the stupid oxygen mask gets in the way. He thinks it still comes across well enough though, because she grabs his right hand in a stranglehold like she'd prefer to be squeezing his neck. It's the little victories.
"Sorry," he says.
What little cheer he's mustered in her goes out like a candle. She slumps over him, breath catching on the cusp of a proper sob. "You—" She breathes, steeling herself. "You scared me."
"I know. I'm sorry."
She does smack him then. On his hip, far too gentle to be more than a pat with aspirations of violence. "Idiot. What's sorry ever been good for?"
He hates when she's right. He hates how often she's right more. But what else is there to say? He squeezes her hands, glad the oxygen mask is likely hiding his grimace. He's still so sore. Maybe that's the right thing he can do; the only thing, maybe. Winry doesn't start properly crying, at least, which is what he's trying to avoid. So instead of more useless apologies he asks, "How're the hellions?"
She's wearing a face mask and latex gloves, likely because the docs still don't feel 100% comfortable saying whatever landed him here isn't contractible. The mask makes it difficult to tell whether the huff she gives him is amused, exasperated, or simply tired. "They're okay. I didn't want to bring them until you were feeling a little stronger."
That's fine with him. Nina would probably find the whole experience of visiting him in the hospital pretty cool, but Maes is an anxious kid by default. No way does he want Maes seeing him hooked up to a half dozen machines if he can help it. "Pan watchin' 'em?"
"Yeah. They've been staying at her apartment, for the most part. Doctor Brahim thinks it should be alright to let them come home tonight, but..."
There's a waver in her voice, a hesitation she's trying not to show. He's had a few hours of solid enough consciousness here and there to lay back and wrack his brains, trying to remember the events that landed him here. There's a dreamlike quality to what little he's been able to peace together. He doesn't like what little he can remember. "I scared 'em. Didn't I."
She doesn't bother denying it. She just squeezes his hand again, her eyes squeezing too. "I didn't—" Her mask puffs again in a shaky exhale. "I should've realized it was something serious."
"H-hey, no, don't start with that. I didn't think it was serious either—"
"You're not exactly welling over with medical expertise," she retorts, a horrible dampness creeping into her voice.
"And you're hardly qualified to diagnose—"
Ah, hell. That was too close to a shout for his throat to handle yet. He ends up breaking off to cough like a foghorn, unable to reasonably point out that a combination automail surgeon/mechanic is simply not going to have the training or experience to differentiate between a regular miserable bout of food poisoning and the kind of food poisoning that's going to demand some time in a hospital. He knows she knows that, objectively, but guilt is a nasty infection that's hard to burn out. Ask him how he knows.
Winry's hands are on him at once, helping him sit up, removing his oxygen mask so he can sip blissfully cool water until he can wrestle his respiratory system under control again. She adjusts his bed while she's at it so he can sit up a bit, which he appreciates for all that he's not quite ready to speak and say as much. He stays still as she repositions his mask, smoothing the elastic. Its rounded plastic edges scrape against nearly a week's worth of scruff, uncomfortably itchy. Winry's eyes are dulled by worry, bruised by exhaustion. There's a fine tremor to her hands as she smoothes his bangs out of his face.
"It's—" He swallows a warning tickle, forcing the words out. "I'm gonna be fine. You've been talking to the docs too. I'll be home before you know it."
"We don't know what caused this. Or if there will be any long-term—"
He reaches out to squeeze her hand again, relieved when that's enough to keep her from finishing that sentence. He'll worry about long-term once he's out of this damn bed. He grins at her and hopes it's a fraction as convincing as he needs it to be through the mask. "You know me. I can spring back from anything, so long as I got a pulse."
Her mask puffs. "I wish you'd stop trying to prove that." She almost sounds amused. The little victories.
"Ha. Me too." He's had more than his share of near-death experiences already, but just like all the ones that came before this one he's got no intention of laying down and accepting it. As soon as he's got a clean bill of health—or nearest thing to it, anyway—he's going to go up and down the whole of Rush Valley with a fine tooth comb if that's what it takes to parse any kind of probable cause. He hadn't eaten out on his own in the days preceding his food poisoning, at least nothing he hadn't shared with somebody else. So it's got to be environmental, right? And if it cold-cocked him into the ICU there's no telling what it could do to somebody over 60, somebody pregnant like Winry, somebody with a heart condition, somebody fresh out of an outfitting, and on and on. It's not much of a plan, but if he's being generous with his definitions of one it's at least a solid step in the right direction.
Speaking of getting to his feet, now that he's at a 45-degree angle he's acutely aware of the fact that he has no goddamn idea when the last time he pissed was, and now that the thought's occurred to him it's almost literally all he can think about. He wiggles his hand free of Winry's deathgrip and starts detangling himself from all the wires and tubes attached to him in a concentrated effort to avoid breaking his nose before he can take three steps.
"What are you doing?"
"Relax. I gotta pee, is all." Oh hell, he nudged his wrist wrong and is now appallingly aware of the IV jammed in there. Ugh. "I'll be two minutes, tops."
Winry springs up and around to the other side of the hospital bed to practically pin him down, the dirty cheat. She must have made sure the on-call nurses when he was admitted didn't go jamming anything into his right arm—awesome of her, as always—but it also means he can only get out of the left side of his bed if he doesn't want to turn himself into a human Slinky. "Oh no you don't. You're bedbound until me and at least two other doctors say otherwise."
"Seriously? I'm not gonna use a—" Ugh, more coughing. It still sounds like he swallowed a bunch of cigarette butts on a dare, but at least it's a manageable amount of coughing. "—augh. I'm not gonna use a fuckin' bedpan if I can help it."
There's something about knowing somebody your whole life that means, more often than not, that you just know what expression they're making even if you can't see their face. The particular set of Winry's shoulders and the way she tosses her hair means she's at least 60% too smug for a guy trapped in a hospital bed to have to deal with. "No need," she says, far too cheerfully, and reaches near the end of the bed to pluck yet another plastic bag up by its metal hook. Clouded though its contents may be, there's no mistaking a bag of piss when it's brandished in your face.
He flops back in the bed, mindful of all the shit connected to him even as he groans piteously. Well, at least he knows why his dick hurts as much as the rest of him.
"You only have one leg on right now anyway," Winry adds. She puts the piss bag back out of sight where it belongs to better thump the empty space where his automail ought to be. "Less stress on you," she explains.
"...And it means I can't wander off."
"And it means you can't wander off! Deal with it, Ed; you're not going anywhere 'til I say so."
Well. That's something to keep her occupied when visiting hours are over. His leg's been her personal guinea pig ever since he quit the military, and she's as bad as he is about retreating into a pet project whenever she's stressed. His leg's going to be rebuilt from the frame up by the time he's out of here.
They spend another half hour talking and catching up before his eyelids decide to betray him. He'll have to remember to tease her for trying to kiss him goodbye while they're both wearing stupid masks...
The next morning Winry's in his room barely a minute after visiting hours begin. 20 minutes after that she gets into an argument with Dr. Caladoc while Ed and Sidi run the whole gamut of incredulous eyebrow wrangling on the sidelines. An unrelated but happy development is that Ed's downgraded to a simple nasal cannula just before she leaves for an 11 o'clock appointment she couldn't reschedule, lunch, and to pick up the kids from Paninya to bring them back around for a short visit. Ed's chest hurts like somebody jumped on it boots-first, but he can breathe fine, honest. Some discomfort is worth having a less intimidating amount of plastic hooked up to his face.
...for the kids. Less intimidating for the kids.
The nasal cannula means he can eat his horrible hospital food easier, which is something of a mixed blessing. They may as well just hand him a straw instead of a spoon for the bland shit they're feeding him, but hey, he's not one to turn his nose up at calories. He needs to get his strength back ASAP and the only way he's getting out of here is if he can prove he's got a handle on his basic goddamn bodily functions again.
After Winry leaves Oseleta comes by to change his bandages, of which he has two. He vaguely remembers being back in the operating room back home and an amount of blood smeared all over the sheets that wasn't distressing then but is in hindsight. He knows better than to go yanking IVs out, what the fuck. He hopes the bruising makes his arm look worse than it is. Oseleta doesn't act like it's anything to worry over, but then again, she works the ICU in the automail capital of the world. Half the patients that have walked or wheeled themselves past Ed's room have had metal grafted somewhere obvious on them, and at least three of the staff that he's seen too. A sore vein's not worth batting an eye over in this town.
The other injury in need of fresh bandages is news to him though.
"Twenty stitches?" He echoes faintly.
Oseleta hums. "Your wife said you fell down the stairs, cut your head open on your knee. Lucky it didn't fracture your skull, from the sound of it."
He winces as she dabs his face with something that smells and feels like window cleaner. Great, just what he needed. Another forehead scar. Ah, well.
Winry returns that afternoon as promised, a wide-eyed Maes and Nina in tow. Maes is clutching a small bouquet of yellow and white flowers, Nina the ugliest stuffed toy Ed's ever seen in his life. It's either a hedgehog or a partially skinned potato. It's holding a crudely stitched star that cheerfully demands anyone unfortunate enough to lay eyes on it to GET WELL SOON!
"You shouldn't have," Ed deadpans at Winry. She's definitely grinning behind her mask again, which he decides to ignore for the moment in favor of putting on the nicest smile he can muster. "Heya, kiddos."
"They're both curious in their approach, visibly uncomfortable in their own ill-fitting masks. Ed watches their eyes follow the trail of wires and tubes attached between him and the machines on both sides of his bed. He'd asked Oseleta to put the side rails on his bed down earlier, so it's easy to coax Nina to hop up onto the bed beside him. Maes, twice as cautious as her as always, edges into the nearest chair while Winry takes the flowers from him to arrange them in the vase on the nightstand.
Nina's the first of them to speak. "Here." She holds out the hedgehog.
Ed makes a show of tucking it under the blankets on his left side, mostly so he won't have to look at the tragic thing any longer than he has to. "Thanks, bud. I love him."
"Her," she corrects, quietly.
"Oh, my bad. Did you give her a name yet?" A small shake of her head. "Do y'wanna?"
She nods, chewing on her thumbnail as she thinks. That's not something she's done since he got invited to some middlingly formal event in Central that had childcare in an adjacent corner of the officers club. 75 kids crammed together in a pool hall with a half dozen packs of crayons and unmonitored access to sugar had been a nightmare for everyone involved. She thinks about it long enough that Ed has the opportunity to give Maes a reassuring smile over her pigtails. It doesn't do anything to soothe the furrow between his eyebrows, but it does ease the fidgeting, at least. "Beatrice," Nina finally declares.
"Beatrice the hedgehog, huh? I like it."
"Porcupine," Winry corrects, like it actually friggin' matters.
He rolls his eyes at her. "Porcupine, then. It's a great name for a porcupine." He gives Nina a little hug, which seems to be enough to get her to relax and curl against him. She's still warm from the summer heat. His hand tingles painfully when he strokes her hair but he doesn't mind at all.
"How're you two doin', huh? You bein' good for Auntie 'Ninya?"
Nina mm-hmms. Maes nods belatedly like he's not paying attention. He's not meeting Ed's eyes either, lingering higher. Ed couldn't have torn a stitch just laying here, could he? It's covered by a big wad of gauze anyway. Is it the hospital that's got him on edge? There are always people in and out of the shop in varying states of recovery, though he and Winry are careful to keep the kids away from the worst of it. Maes started to help with things like restocking inventory, what, six months ago? But they agreed not to let him help clean bandages for another year or two. Is it seeing Ed laid out in a hospital bed that's got him so on edge? Nah, can't be. Winry swaps his leg out once a month on the minimum, and he gets banged up to some degree fixing something or sparring with Winry's customers all the time. Hell, the price of good automail is bruises, and—
And he frowns, ignoring the tug of stitches in his forehead. Something about that thought is familiar. Something about that thought... unsettles?
"They've been helping Paninya with some odd jobs around town," Winry says.
Right. Yeah.
He waggles his left hand at Maes, mindful of the tube in his wrist still pumping him full of fluids. "What's Auntie 'Ninya had you doin' while I've been stuck here?"
"Inventory, mostly." Maes does a kind of whole-body grimace. "Are you dying?"
Ed—
—reels.
He meets Winry's eyes and finds the same sickly concern festering there, the same fear tangled up in them both so deeply there's no point in trying to cut it loose. The outbreak of '04 had swept so quickly and so viciously through the countryside that a real diagnosis had evaded most village clinicians until long after it would have been of any use, Resembool included. He's about the same age she'd been, and they'd all been so damn young that whatever memories they've hung onto of his mother's last days can't be trusted. Ed can remember the fear that had all but drowned him; hours spent knocking shoulders with Al at her bedside. She was fine right up until she wasn't, and she only got worse from there. No temporary improvements, no momentary reliefs. She was there, and then she was bedbound, and then he and Al held her hand as she slipped away.
"No," he says, and more firmly, "No. I ate something that made me real sick, but I'm feeling much better now. Promise."
Maes doesn't look convinced, so Ed gives Nina another little hug—ignoring the pins and needles that race up his arm—then reaches over to ruffle Maes' hair. "Hey, I'm serious. Would I lie to you?"
Maes huffs, pulling away. "You lie all the time."
"Tch. Do not."
"Do too! You say something different every time somebody asks how you lost your leg!"
"Oh, c'mon, are you sayin' I lied about a shark biting it off? I've got pictures! And the friggin' jaws of it are up on the corkboard—"
"You also said Auntie 'Zumi cut it off when you were a kid, and that it fell off 'cuz you didn't eat your vegetables, and that you got blown up, and that you got frostbite, and that you played too close to the train tracks, and—"
He's biting his lip to keep from laughing outright. He can tell by the crinkle of Winry's eyes that she's trying not to laugh too. "All of that's true! Every one of 'em!"
"You can't lose the same body part more than once!"
"Sure you can! They grow back if you're lucky."
Maes is so indignant he's practically vibrating as he jabs a finger in Ed's face. "That's a lie! Otherwise Mom wouldn't have a job!"
"Hey, what'd your Mom say about pointing? And I said if you're lucky, keep up."
Maes stops pointing, probably not because it's rude and more so he can throw his hands up as theatrically as possible. "What's that even mean?"
"It means that sometimes limbs can come back under very specific parameters, which includes being good and eating your veggies." He's not even lying, which is the best part. "It's how I got my arm back, remember?"
"No, 'cuz I weren't there."
"Wasn't," Winry corrects, smoothing Maes' hair as she shoots Ed a warning look. Reel it in dummy, he's getting properly mad. "And of course you weren't there, you weren't born yet."
Yeah, yeah. He knows not to rile Maes too much, especially when he can't take him for a walk to cool off. "You can ask Shūshu Al about it the next time he visits," he says placatingly. It can be Al's turn to field the awkward dismemberment/reattachment/wow what big scars you have Dad questions. "Or we can write him a letter when I get outta here, huh?"
Winry perks up. "Oh, that reminds me. Another crate arrived from Xing a couple days ago. I think Al went overboard on gifts again."
Ed tuts. "What'd he send this time? Please don't tell me Emperor Fancypants snuck another live animal in there." Resembool's very own flock of peafowl, ostensibly a wedding present, seems to double in size every time they go out there for a visit. Ed's pretty sure Ling's paying someone to ferret new birds across the border every year as a joke.
Winry shrugs. "I thought we'd wait to open it until you were home."
He opens his mouth to make a joke about finding a dead monkey inside if they do that, remembers the kids are right there and already upset, and thinks better of it. He settles for some emphatic blinking, since he can't even waggle his eyebrow right now thanks to the dumb bandaging on his head. She just rolls her eyes.
"Dad, you smell bad," Nina points out.
"Rude," he says, and tickles her until she's squealing and even Maes stops fighting a smile.
He's so damn glad to see them. He's so damn glad they didn't get sick too.
Ed's bottom of the list of folk who would ever ascribe the concept of miracles to anything in his life, but if there's any time to indulge in a little gratitude to somebody it'd be right after he's told he gets to go home days ahead of schedule.
Of course, he'd prefer to bet money on BVU's administration being sick of the media circus that's apparently been swarming around its campus ever since some asshole let slip that the former Fullmetal Alchemist was laid out with something serious. It's been how many years since he quit the military? And his name still shows up in the papers with irritating regularity for no goddamn discernible reason at all. Those bloodhounds had only just calmed down about Winry expecting again too. Ugh.
Point is, the docs have ruled out cholera or black mold or any of the other really scary shit that would keep him here indefinitely and the house first in line for intensive restorations. Point is, he gets to go home.
Sidi's personally handling his discharge, which is surely one part that family clinician charm and one part Dr. Caladoc and the rest of the ICU staff just eager to get Ed out of their hair. Ed does the wise thing and keeps his mouth shut while Sidi smiles ingratiatingly at everybody through all the paperwork and final checks. Once it's just the three of them and Winry his smile sloughs off and he jabs a long finger practically up Ed's nose. "The only reason you're being released now rather than being transferred to Centre de Santé Brahim is because I trust her to handcuff you to the bed until you're properly on the mend," he threatens.
Winry beams, the maniac.
Ed blinks at the finger in his face, feeling a little cross-eyed. "Nice nails," he says, nodding at the royal blue polish. They're a match to the ribbon tying back his thick curls.
Sidi drops his hand, muttering unkindly in his native Cretan. Ed understands him just fine, of course, and as usual appreciates Cretan's natural flair for insults rather than taking offense at being called a pain in the ass. It's hardly the worst thing he's ever been called. "Incorrigible, that's what you are," Sidi despairs in Amestrian. "Now, is my favorite three-legged dog going to play nice, or must this darling woman strain herself in her delicate condition?"
Winry giggles. "I'm hardly the 'delicate' one in the room."
Ed sighs, flapping his hands to get the both of them to back up so he can scoot his one-legged butt into the wheelchair. His chest is tight and his muscles hurt at being used so abruptly after days in bed, but he doesn't care. He just wants out of this damn place. "I'm cooperating, I'm cooperating, now get out of my way."
Garfiel had let Winry borrow his truck today so it's pretty easy to dodge the paparazzi with nothing more than a, "Don't y'all have anything better to do?" thrown out the window as they drive past. Then it's a quiet drive back home, Winry's finding his hand at every available moment.
Resigned to being coddled for at least the next couple of days, Ed only puts up a token fuss when Winry insists he be wheeled from the truck to their house too, never mind it's a million degrees out and Winry shouldn't be pushing his ass around when she's in her second trimester (a thought that makes him grin like a loon every time he remembers their family will be bigger before the year is out). He fusses a touch more vigorously when she forbids him from going upstairs.
"But a shower," he whines. "And real clothes. And our bed." Fuck, but he's missed their bed. They paid out the nose for it and it was an absolute bitch to get up the stairs, but it's the nicest mattress he's ever slept on and his back is pissed about all the rough treatment lately.
"Two out of three will have to do for now," Winry replies, not an ounce of sympathy to be found.
She wheels him past her workshop (closed for business, all her customers rescheduled or funneled to Atelier Garfiel) and down the hall to Recovery 3, the room nearest the customer shower. It's been freshened up beyond the typical floor-to-ceiling wipedown, given a touch of home. There are more flowers on the nightstand, the quilt Mrs. Sheehy made them a few years back spread on the bed, a fresh change of clothes folded on top, his spare leg leaned against the bed. Make that two sets of clothes; that's definitely Winry's banana yellow tank top.
He cranes his neck to leer up at her. "Awful quiet here. The hellions still with Paninya?"
She presses a kiss to his temple, one hand sliding warm and familiar down his chest. "For another hour."
Neither of them are in any shape for real mutual satisfaction in the shower, the both of them exhausted and him feeling hollowed out and down a leg to boot, but they improvise. It helps that Winry thought to put the accessibility chair in the large shower beforehand, and for all that his dick's still sore from the damned catheter and she's only just passed her own nausea and on the cusp of constant hip and back pain, they manage fun easily enough. There's something about Winry standing over him—grinning, naked, slick all over with apple-scented soap—that just sets him off, never mind everything else. He's alive, and the most awesome woman in the world has somehow got it into her head that she loves him just as much as he loves her. For all that life can be so often terrifying and terrible, there are good times too.
Dried off and hair combed, they lay naked together on the narrow bed for a little while, just happy to run their hands gently over each other's bare skin. Winry sits propped up against a heap of pillows, Ed stretched out on his stomach between her folded legs. He rubs circles on her hips and the swell of her belly, she works out a knot in his shoulder with surgical precision.
It's good to be home.
There's something about the silence—the way their breathing fills the room, the way the bed creaks when he shifts so his leg dangles off the edge more comfortably, the way the late morning light streams in through the gauzy blue curtains—niggles. Something about being in here reminds him of...
Well. He's not sure, exactly.
It's like trying to recall with any clarity the strange dreams he had while in the hospital. He's got an idea something was there, but the details are blurred so completely that he's left piecing a picture together by its absences rather than with what he can remember. It's the same with what little he can dredge up from his last clear memories before the food poisoning took a hard right into the ICU. A room in darkness. An orange slice of light pouring in through an open door. Winry, pale and frightened. A vague flush of fury, though what had infuriated him he can only guess at.
"Did—" He has to adjust his head a bit to speak, clearing his throat. "Did I punch Paninya?"
Winry's hands still. "You remember that?"
Damn. He'd really hoped that had been part of the dreams. "Kinda. I don't know why I'd do that though."
Her hands begin moving again, drifting up to run fingers through his damp hair. "You had a 41 degree fever. You were confused, angry. Hallucinating too, maybe. It was hard to tell."
He hisses through his teeth, long and soft. No wonder his memory's spotty. "Guess that explains my quick trip down the stairs. Arm too," he adds, twitching the left a little. His elbow is all bruises from the IV he'd torn out. It doesn't hurt, not yet at least, which is something.
Winry brushes the edge of it, tutting. "You wouldn't let me clean that up, either."
He tries to think back, to remember. What could have possessed him to think like that? He must have bled all over the place. It must have taken her or Garfiel an age to clean it all up. He remembers the anger. An anger born of fear. Fear of what? Needles—sure, always. Not likely he's ever going to shake that one. But he'd looked at Winry and... begged?
"I yelled at you," he hazards.
"...Yeah."
"Why?"
"It doesn't matter—"
"Course it does. What'd I say?"
"Edward." A note of warning heats her voice. Drop it, please. But if she doesn't want to talk about it, that bad it means he said some awful shit to her. Something cruel. He gently kneads her hips, waiting.
She tugs at his hair with a sigh. "You thought I was going to cut your arm off."
Ed—
—recoils.
He leans back, mindful not to put too much of his weight on her thighs, to better stare aghast at her. "What?"
"You were confused," she insists. "Delirious."
"I don't care. That's insane."
The smile she gives him isn't happy. It's knowing. Understanding. She drags her nails along his scalp; a loud, satisfying thrill of sensation that turns him to putty in no time at all. "You were scared. It made sense to you at the time."
"Still." It comes out a little slurred. "Mm. Cheater."
She tackles the tension built up at the base of his skull he hadn't even realized was there, chuckling when he groans feebly and slumps back into her lap. "You're welcome."
He wants to be mad. He wants to go back and grab himself by the collar, shake himself until he sees sense again. Winry's the last person in the world who'd wish him harm. Winry's the last person in the world who'd hurt him for the fun of it. But that's impossible, and Winry isn't mad at him now. Still. "M'sorry. For what I said."
"It's okay." Back to combing her fingers through his hair, loosening the small tangles her scratching had made. "What else do you remember?"
"Mm. Not much. Mostly weird dreams, I think." He's pretty sure he dreamed Winry died. No way is he telling her that. "I was in and out, at the hospital. Heard Sidi talkin', that kind of thing. Did I do anything crazy there too?"
"No," is all she says, her voice shrunken.
Shit.
Sidi had been a model professional in front of BVU's team, answering Ed's question while somehow twisting his words until all the scare had been wrung from them. The clinical details of his food poisoning are all neatly written down in a file the man's probably going through for the umpteenth time back at his clinic. Ed knows, objectively, that this is yet another tally to add to his personal count of near-death experiences. But hearing about it secondhand isn't the same thing as remembering it clearly.
"...It was bad," he says, matching her tone. "Wasn't it."
"...Yeah. It was."
"I'm sorry.".
She huffs. "Don't wear it out, dummy. It was just bad luck. That's all."
Bad luck, sure. Bad luck's been trying to drag him into an early grave since they were kids. Sheer spite and a hell of a lot of good people in his life are what's kept him out of it. Luck, good or bad, is hardly worth the effort to spell let alone put something so haphazard as belief to it. He opens his mouth to say as much when something bumps lightly against his tender forehead.
"Oh," Winry says, startled but pleased.
He blinks, a grin slowly overtaking his whole face as he looks up at her. "Was that...?"
"The baby, yeah. They've been restless the past couple days. I hardly got any sleep last night."
"Nina 2.0," he jokes, framing her belly in his hands and pressing a kiss to it. "Be good for your Mom, kiddo."
Winry giggles, the best sound in the world. "If only it were that easy."
They don't have all the time in the world to lie there in the solid and irrefutable facts of their mutual existences. No sense getting caught with their pants off if it can't be spun into an embarrassing but hilarious story later. Winry gets dressed while Ed does his gleeful best to hinder her, then she attaches his spare leg, and finally with great reluctance he gets dressed too. He's only just tugging his shirt on when Paninya's voice sings out from the workshop to announce their arrival.
He turns to Winry hopefully. "Lunch?"
She rolls her eyes, but in that sagging shoulder way that means he's managed to win without needing to grease her gears first. "You're staying in bed the rest of the day. No arguing."
That's fine with him. He's exhausted, not that he'll admit that out loud. All his body wants him to do is crawl back into bed and sleep another 12-plus hours, but what he wants takes precedence, and what he wants is to spend some time with family. Lunch is the perfect excuse; he needs calories to get his strength back anyway. And besides, it's only one flight of stairs to the kitchen.
...which is, apparently, just about all he can handle at the moment.
"And there he is!" Paninya exclaims once he—finally—makes it to the landing. Ed, wheezing, gets a glimpse of unmistakable smugness on her face before he's swarmed by a pair of small bodies smacking against his legs. It's lucky they push him at an angle into the wall rather than back down the stairs; he's not so sure Winry could keep all four of them from tumbling all the way back down. Personally speaking, he's good on stitches for at least six months if he can help it.
"Oof," he laughs, ruffling two blond heads. His hands tingle painfully but he doesn't give a single shit, stupidly pleased to see his kids grinning up at him.
"You're back!" Maes and Nina yell at top volume.
"I'm back!" He yells just as loudly. "Have y'all been good for Auntie 'Ninya?"
"I helped her fix a sink," Nina says. "It was gross!"
"Ew, I bet. What about you, big guy?"
"He sweet-talked Missus B into making lunch for all of us," Paninya replies. "Homemade cookies too."
Maes ducks his head, embarrassed. Ed ruffles his hair again, hugging him close. "Missus B?"
"Lives in the pink apartment on 8th Street? She's got the, you know," Paninya makes a wild sweeping gesture around her head, "all that hair."
"I have no idea who you're talking about."
Winry nudges him in the back, peering past his shoulder to smile. "Come on, you two. Give your Dad some space. He shouldn't be on his feet so much yet."
"Here." Paninya stands, positioning her chair at the dining table so it's easier for Ed to sink into with barely-stifled relief. "I promised Mister Holtman I'd fix his roof last week. There's rain forecasted tomorrow, so I can't stick around."
"Thanks," Ed says, bumping knuckles with her. "For watchin' em."
"You know it's no trouble."
"And sorry for punchin' you."
She hugs Winry, kissing her cheek, then throws a crooked grin over her shoulder. "That you owe me big for."
The kids, as he should have realized, go bug-eyed. "You punched her?" Maes asks, Nina chasing it with an indignant, "What for?!"
"I deserved it," Paninya steps in soothingly. "I was being a jerk."
"You were not," Ed retorts. She just rolls her eyes and trots down the stairs with a loud ease Ed finds himself vaguely jealous of. Whatever. He'll be in fighting shape again in a week, tops. He'll get her back the next time they go for a run across the rooftops.
Winry skirts past them all, heading for their narrow kitchen. "You two wanna help me make lunch?"
Nina, their mad magpie, immediately forgets about everything else except the opportunity to hop up on the little footstool Ed had made for her, slapping her hands excitedly on the counter. Maes though, hesitates, eyes darting from Ed to the stairs. "What happened with 'Ninya?"
Ed gestures him over, "Remember when you got sick a couple months ago?"
A nod. "Your birthday. I couldn't eat any cake."
"Ha, yeah. You had a fever. Remember how bad it made you feel?" Another nod. "Well, I had a really high fever when I was sick. A fever gets as high as mine, it can hurt your brain. You can get confused, not sure if you're awake or having a nightmare. I guess I thought punching 'Ninya was a good idea at the time, so I did."
Maes' nose wrinkles. "You're brain damaged?"
Winry barks laughter from the kitchen, barely smothering it when Ed glares at her. "Sorry, sorry, just—h-here, sweetie, can you get the carrots out?"
Ed pulls Maes a bit closer, hand loosely looped around his thin wrist so his attention is on Ed and not the kitchen shenanigans. "My brain's fine," he says. "Promise."
A few too many concussions under his belt, maybe, and never mind that the running joke/explanation for why the former Fullmetal Alchemist can't alchemize his way out of a wet paper bag these days is, in fact, a handwaved bit of brain damage. He also did manage to hurl himself face-first down a flight of stairs into his own automail and several convulsions after that courtesy of the worst goddamn food poisoning of his life. No way he's gonna say all that right now though. He wants Maes happy, not stressing out over his dumb dad.
"I went to the hospital 'cuz I got too sick for me and your Mom to handle on our own," he continues. "But Doctor Brahim and some other doctors took great care of me, which is why I'm home now. Me and my brain are just fine. Okay?"
The worried pinch to Maes' mouth softens. "I'm glad you're okay."
"You and me both. Now c'mon, we can't let those two do all the work, can we?"
Winry brandishes a knife in his direction before he even has a chance to stand up. "You stay put. Maes, can you go down to the herb garden and get some thyme and parsley? Three sprigs of both, please."
Maes bolts down the stairs with a "'Kay!" tossed over his shoulder. Ed gets up anyway, sticking his tongue out when the knife is brandished more aggressively. "Maybe I want some tea and maybe I don't wanna make you drop everything to make it. Is that okay with you?"
"Hmph. Maybe."
He snorts and goes to fetch the kettle from the drying rack. As he's filling it at the sink he leans back against the counter, luxuriating in being able to stretch his stiff shoulders. It's as he's coaxing his joints into popping that his eyes happen to fall on a large crate in the living room he hadn't noticed before. There are unbroken inspection seals all over it. He can make out the characters for Elric stamped in green from here. "Damn, you weren't kidding about the gifts."
"I wasn't too surprised, to be honest. I swear, he gets more excited about our anniversary than we do—which you haven't missed, so relax."
His shoulders hadn't even had a chance to tense yet. "Stop reading my mind, it's creepy."
Still, talk about bad timing. He was going to tell her about the weekend trip to South City he'd planned for their anniversary the day after he got sick. If she intends to keep the shop closed as long as he suspects she will, they'll have to settle for a nice dinner locally instead. It's probably not too late to refund the tickets. They can talk about it tonight, after the kids are asleep.
Nina perks up like a bloodhound at the mention of gifts. She starts tugging urgently on Winry's apron. "Can we open it now? You said we could when Dad came home and he's home now!"
"After lunch," Ed and Winry say simultaneously.
Nina starts to keen like the world's coming to an end, which would be an awful thing to listen to if it weren't so ridiculous. Ed kills the water and sets the kettle on the counter so he can detangle her from Winry's legs. She hasn't swan dived right into real tears, but her face is flushed and twisted up with frustration bigger than her vocabulary can handle yet. "Hey, bud, ease up. No flailing when there's knives around."
"I wanna open it now!"
"Nope, sorry."
"Why not!"
"'Cuz I wanna eat with you and your brother and your Mom, and I wanna hear about everything you've been up to while I've been gone. Is that a crime?"
She gives him a look of pure disgust. "It's insufferable, is what it is."
"You—! What!" He whirls around to throw a betrayed glare at Winry, who's laughing so hard she has to steady herself on the counter.
Maes reappears on the landing, a dishrag full of herbs clenched in his fists, slowing to take in the scene. "Uh. What happened now?"
"Your sister swallowed a dictionary, apparently" Ed grumbles.
"Huh?"
"Nothin'. Hey you—" He prods Nina's stomach, earning a scowl. "Compromise, huh? Lunch is gonna take a while, so how about you two help out while I make tea. After the tea's done I'll crack the crate open. You two can choose one thing to open now. Everything else waits 'til after lunch. How's that?"
Maes and Nina hold an entire conversation in a single shared look. "Deal," Maes says firmly.
Ed grins, clapping his hands and rubbing them together excitedly. He doesn't want to wait until after lunch without at least a glimpse of what's inside that crate either. "Great! Now lemme get the tea started, then we—"
The room bursts with blue-white light the second his fingers brush the teakettle. Instinct has him jerking back to shield the kids even as his brain's spitting question marks. He throws a panicked look in Winry's direction to make sure she's not in danger either, but by then the light's already fading to a sullen crackle, and then dims to nothing.
There's a beat of stunned silence.
Then, impossibly, the teakettle begins to whistle.
"Whoa," Maes breathes.
"That," Winry starts, but doesn't finish. She sounds shaken. Of course she does. She recognized it too.
Ed swallows. Closes the few feet he'd retreated. Reaches out. Snatches his hand back before he can burn himself. The teakettle's hot. The steam is proof enough of that, but it's not possible, he can't—
He looks at his hands. Two real, flesh and bone hands. His hands. Hands that have only ever done together what he's just done two other days in his life, and should be impossible now. And yet, somehow—
Al's voice, unbidden, echoes out of that recesses of his mind where his fever dreams have already begun to scum over, senseless memories that are meant to be discarded for the frightening nonsense they are.
"Go on. You still owe Winry a dance."
"What about you?"
"I'll get the next one."
"Ed," Winry cautions, but he's already stumbling away.
"Ed!" Winry shouts, but he's already halfway down the stairs.
"Ed, where are you going?!" But he's already in the showroom, catching himself on the glass countertop, wheezing as his heart and head clamor, a thundering of drums he can scarcely bear to hear, a thundering of drums he can't outrun.
There's someone at the shop's front door when he throws it open.
"Oh!" A guy—a kid; shaggy brown hair, dark eyed, desert dust clinging to his shirt—blinks at him, and smiles wide. "Mister Rockbell! Heard you was in the hospital. It's good to see you on your feet again."
Ed stares.
"Er—telegram for you," the kid says, and it's enough to place him. Ed doesn't know his name, but he's at the post office often enough to recognize him as one of their runners. He takes the telegram, no larger than a postcard. He keeps staring.
"Um." The kid clears his throat, nervous. "Mister Wurzer asked me to pass somethin' on too. He'd like it if your friends in Xing would stop sending you coded messages. Drives him half-crazy, y'know? He keeps thinkin' his hearin's finally goin'—"
Ed shuts the door in the kid's face.
The telegram isn't from Lan Fan, as anything not from Al directly usually is. This is the first time Ling has ever sent him something without a heap of obnoxious fanfare. The cipher is a simple one, unusually so, and easily broken. Ed can read the message almost as quickly as if it had been written in plain Amestrian. A few bitterly short lines written all in capital letters, lacking any human tone or cadence, stripped of the hush Ling would have spoken with if he were here to speak them instead.
It is with deepest regrets that I inform you that your brother, Alphonse Elric, has—
His nerveless fingers drop the telegram before he can finish reading it, but it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
He already knows how it ends.