I thought about making this chapter longer then decided, nah, this is a good stopping point.

Some of y'all were asking why Ed got radiation burns from the X-ray when X-rays don't cause radiation burns. This is a good question. The answer is that Ed-Boy did not get an X-ray because X-rays did not exist in the early 1900s. They had not been invented yet. Radiographs, which is what Ed-Boy got, were the precursor to X-rays and were made with metal-infused paper, or radiographic film, and tubes of tungsten.

The tungsten would be activated with an electric current. Since tungsten is one of the densest elements, it would emit electron radiation instead of melting. The electrons would collect on the film behind the patient, turning the film black, and inside of the patient's bones. This is why bones would show up white on the black film, an X-ray is a "radioactive shadow" of the tungsten's emissions. In small doses, electron radiation is not harmful but repeated large doses can cause burns and cancer, just like any other kind of radiation, and a single large dose can cause mild burns and hair loss.

The main catalyst that turned radiographs into X-rays was the realization that 1) radiation is toxic to humans in high doses and 2) the tungsten tubes did not have to be nearly as close and exposed as they were in order to be effective. Modern X-ray machines still use tungsten tubes activated by electricity and alloy-based film, but the tubes are held at a distance and covered with lead plating to make sure that only the minimal amount of radiation needed to make a picture passed through the body. The radiograph used in this story is based on the window of time in which they knew electron radiation was dangerous in high doses but didn't know that the tubes didn't have to be up close and exposed in order to work.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Edward had done this so many times.

He skipped dinner the night before, spent the night itself switching between dozing and staring at the wall while Alphonse's warm body pressed into his back, then skipped breakfast and spent the carriage ride from the house to the train station with blurry, burning eyes.

He had done this all before, so many times.

And it never got easier.

It was especially awful when the brigadier general and the colonel met them at the hospital.

Edward greeted them with a glare.

"You'll need a place to stay until you're able to travel," Mustang answered his scowl. "All three of you are welcome to stay with either of us or to find lodgings of your own. We'll escort you there as soon as you're allowed to leave the hospital."

Edward said nothing. His words were as absent as his appetite, his throat clogged with familiar apprehension. It was Alphonse who answered.

"I wouldn't mind seeing Hayate again," Alphonse said, glancing at Winry.

"And the colonel and I can have a girls' night while Edward's out of it," Winry said, glancing back at him.

"What about me?"

Winry shrugged.

"You can have a boys' night with the brigadier general." She'd meant it as a joke, so she was just as surprised as Alphonse when Mustang smirked and said, "Sure. Sounds like fun."

Edward tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

XXX

Edward had tried to be quiet when the locks of hair came away in his hand.

It was stupid. It would grow back. It was just hair, after all. Just strands of dead cells.

He couldn't stop himself from mourning them like they were the scattered remains of an old friend.

Winry had found him, whether by chance or because he failed to stifle his sniffling and she had held him, letting him rest his his head on her shoulder. She'd said nothing, only pinned his remaining hair back to hide the bald spot.

"You're allowed to be upset," she'd told him, the only acknowledgement of his tears that she gave.

His hair had started growing back, the bare skin prickling with fuzz, but it meant little when he knew he was probably about to lose even more.

Mustang's eyes landed on him and rounded with sympathy. Ed wanted to punch the stupid look off his stupid face but Hawkeye's soft gaze reminded him that the man was only trying to be kind. Edward did not want anyone to be kind to him. He wanted them to leave him be.

XXX

Alphonse gave his hand a comforting squeeze when he started shaking.

He hated this. He hated this and he hated himself for hating it so much that the others could see how much he hated it. Seizures weren't so bad, if one thought about it. He could totally learn to live with them. They should cancel this stupid surgery and go home. So what if he had to stay in bed every few days so he could drool all over himself and sleep through migraines? It would just take some adjustment. It would be like having automail, but in his brain. He could do that.

When the nurse came for them in the waiting area, Edward discovered that he had forgotten how to walk.

"Come on, Brother. It'll be okay. We'll have whatever you want for dinner when you wake up."

Edward's legs had gone limp, like the bones in his flesh leg had evaporated and the wiring in his automail had short-circuited at the same time. Winry helped him to stand. Then he just stood there, eyes wide and body shaking. Mustang looked like he was thinking about saying something condescending, but a warning look from the colonel kept him quiet.

"I'm sorry. He's an automail patient. He's had some… bad experience with surgeries."

The nurse nodded.

"Would it be easier if we brought the gurney to you instead? We can put him under here and take him to the operating room."

Edward sat down hard enough that the impact reverberated up his spine.

"I think that's a yes," he heard Alphonse say.

XXX

This, however, created the problem of getting Ed onto the gurney when he had forgotten how to walk.

Mustang solved this problem.

"Sorry, Fullmetal, we won't be able to keep this one a secret," he said as he lifted Edward into his arms and deposited him onto the wheeled bed with experienced ease.

"This one?" Alphonse asked with a raised eyebrow.

Roy shrugged. "We both promised we'd never speak of it, so I'm afraid I can't tell you."

"Oh, no, it's not that, it's just…" Al looked at the floor. "I never got a turn."

It was such an Al thing to say that Winry laughed and some of Ed's nerves quietened.

Then he felt the sting of a needle and his breathless chuckling turned into a yelp.

"Sorry. I thought it best to get it over with. Go ahead and lie down whenever you feel like it. You'll start feeling drowsy right away, so you might want to -"

The first wave of dizziness sent him over the side of the gurney. Roy caught him and, with Winry's help, got him to lay down flatly on the bed. The second wave turned everything blurry. The nurse's voice sounded like she was talking from a long way away.

"He'll need to spend the next two days in the hospital just to be safe. On the third day you can…"

"…Hey, Brother."

Woah, what?!

Edward looked around.

He was in a room with a curtained window and dimmed lights. Winry and Alphonse were sitting next to the bed he was in - a real bed, not a gurney. There was a pillow under his head and blanket pulled up to his chest.

"Wha…"

"It's over, Brother. They said it was really easy. Apparently your skull was so messed up it just fell out and they barely had to do any cutting at all."

Edward tried to turn his head to see it. If his skull had really fallen out, it must have happened just now. Perhaps if they caught it before it got any further, they could put it back in his head. Winry stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't move around, Ed. Go to sleep. We can talk more after you've rested."

"But… but where is it?"

"It's gone, Ed. They took it away."

But this was impossible because Edward would have remembered something like that.

"No… no, they didn't."

"What do you mean, Brother?"

"They forgot. They were supposed to… they forgot."

Edward wondered why Alphonse looked confused when he seemed to have all the answers.

"No, they didn't, Brother. They finished the surgery. They took the scar tissue and the broken pieces of your skull off your brain. Now you get to sleep."

"No, they didn't. They forgot." Edward tried to sit up. Both Al and Winry held him down. "We have to go tell them. They forgot."

"Why do you think they forgot, Brother?"

"'Cus… 'cus we just got here. They ain't done nothin' yet 'cus we just…"

Wow, this bed was soft.

"Oh," Winry said with the emphasis of an epiphanic philosopher. "The last thing he remembers is us getting here. Anesthesia effects memory recall. He won't realize what's going on until it wears off." She pulled the blanket closer to Ed's neck.

"Go to sleep, Edward. Don't worry about anything, okay?"

"But… but they forgot."

"Yes, they forgot. I'll go remind them, okay? You just sleep."

"Oh… okay."

Reassured that their time would not be wasted by the doctors' incompetence, Edward surrendered to numbness.

XXX

He woke up feeling very embarrassed.

Alphonse was reading a book. Winry wasn't in the room from what Ed could see.

"Oh, you're awake," Al said, seeing Edward's open eyes. He set his book down, marking his page with a paper bookmark. "How are you feeling?"

"Did I say anything stupid?"

Alphonse was taken aback by this.

"What… what do you mean?"

Edward felt his face warm in anticipation of mortification.

"I feel like… did I say something dumb? When I first woke up?"

"Oh. No. Not really. I mean, you've said weirder things in your sleep."

This did not make him feel better.

"Where's Winry?"

"She went to get us some food. She said you might be hungry when you wake up. Are you hungry?"

Edward didn't know. He still couldn't feel most of his body, though his brain felt like it was draining cotton.

Speaking of his brain…

"I think… I think you said something about it being easy?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. The doctor said that the callous was under so much pressure that as soon as they opened your head the callous and bits of skull just fell out onto the operating table. They had to cut out some parts and pick out some some pieces, but other than that, it was fine."

So it was over. And that meant…

"How much did they shave?"

"Your hair? You were already bandaged when they brought you out."

Ed reached his hand up to touch his hair. He was met with swaths of gauze.

"They said the bandages are just in case of some residual bleeding. They'll take them off in the morning."

And then they could see how bad the damage was.

XXX

Edward fell asleep again.

When he woke up, it was to the smell of -

"Steak and potatoes!"

He sat up so quickly that pain spiked in his head and Winry actually jumped. Alphonse laughed and choked on the food in his mouth.

"Easy, Brother. Don't rip your stitches."

Edward didn't care about his stitches. As soon as he saw the unclaimed plate, he tried to roll himself off the bed so he could reach it. Winry quickly shoved him back against the pillows while Alphonse brought his food to him.

"Stay down, you idiot. Bed rest for three days. Doctor's orders and no, not just me."

Edward was too busy feasting to answer her. His stomach had come out of the anesthesia and felt like it was trying to digest itself.

"Slow down, Brother, you'll choke."

Edward glared at him and swallowed a mouthful of barely chewed potatoes.

"If I slow down any more, I'll be dead."

"Well, at least you're feeling better," Winry muttered to herself. "I'll have to ask them what pain medication they gave you. If it's working this well, Granny will want it for her patients."

Edward ignored her and swallowed a mouthful of barely chewed steak.

XXX

When the pain did come in, it was dull and pounding. Annoying, but certainly not debilitating. His expression must have showed something because Winry smirked at him.

"What?" It came out snappier than he'd meant.

"You're starting to feel things you'd rather not feel. You always make that face after your automail gets attached."

Edward grumbled something about Winry making a face when she felt things and her grin vanished.

"What did you say?"

Ed felt his face redden as he realized what his remark had sounded like.

"No, that's - that's not what I meant -"

"Then what did you mean?"

"I meant you also make faces when you're hurting."

"And how would you know that?"

"How do you think I always know when to get chocolates from the market?"

Alphonse had been trying to remain uninvolved but could no longer do so.

"You noticed that, too? I thought it was just me."

"I didn't know what it was for the longest time. Then I noticed that she always makes that face when she's boiling rags."

Winry's face had turned the color of one of Mom's tomatoes.

"Wha… you noticed that?"

"How could we not? Why else would you be cooking fabric?"

Edward did not understand why Winry so upset by this. Her embarrassment faded into her usual. temper.

"How do you know I wasn't planning on feeding them to you?"

Edward's face twisted in disgust, then in something else. He didn't manage to hide it before Winry saw it.

"No, wait - I have stitches! I have stitches!"

"You'll need more than stitches when I'm done with you!"

"Al! Help me!"

"Nah, you deserve this. You're gross, Brother."

"I didn't even say anything!"

This was, of course, the moment the brigadier general and the colonel arrived. If they knocked before they entered, neither Elric nor Rockbell would have been able to hear over their own shouting. They didn't see the open door and Mustang and Hawkeye staring for the first two minutes after their arrival. By the end of that, Edward had taken refuge under his blanket from Winry who, in the absence of her spanner, had grabbed one of the plates from lunch. The linens were now covered in steak sauce and butter from the potatoes and the plate was broken into several large pieces from Winry having smashed it against the lump of Edward's back.

"Hello, General. Hello, Colonel," Alphonse greeted for the three of them. "Brother's a pervert."

"I am not! That's not what I meant!"

"I saw that look, Edward Elric! Don't lie to me!"

"Shall we come back later?" Roy asked, eyeing the shaking lump on the bed.

"No, you can stay. Actually, could you get some ice for Brother's back? That's probably going to bruise."

XXX

Not for the first time, Roy wondered if he ought to be worried about brothers' safety. He knew the three of them hadn't had the easiest or nicest childhood and that physical aggression was as an acceptable means of communication between them as much as words, but the way Fullmetal winced when he leaned against the headboard, a pouch of ice between his spine and the mattress made him think about having a talk with Miss Rockbell. Edward caught his eye and gave him a warning look, the message as clear as if they were speaking telepathically.

"You could have at least aimed for my leg," Edward growled, wincing again as he shifted against the ice.

"And punish that innocent automail I worked all night on? I was aiming for your disgusting ass anyway. You moved at the last second."

"I thought you were aiming for my head."

"You have stitches."

"Oh, so now that matters."

Roy did not know what they were talking about and he did not want to know. He cleared his throat, reminding the bickering pair that he was there.

"We came to see how Fullmetal is doing and also to deliver a message. Apparently the surgeons want to know if you'd be willing to release ownership of the… tissue they removed during surgery. They said you would know what that meant."

Alphonse, Edward, and Winry all stared at Mustang for a moment. Then Ed groaned the way he would when Roy gave him an assignment he'd know he'd hate, Al started cackling hysterically, and Winry and rolled her eyes.

"Again?"

"Well, maybe if you didn't keep contorting your body in never-before-seen positions, they wouldn't have an excuse to keep asking you."

"I didn't ask to be hit in the head so many times my frickin' brain broke!"

Winry balked, as if confronting a thought she'd been trying to stifle, then pushed past it.

"You certainly enjoy creating the opportunity."

"I do not!"

"You just did!"

"I have stitches!"

"That has nothing to do with it!"

Roy glanced at his colonel to see her smiling like she was understanding the unspoken joke that Roy was missing.

"So… your answer?"

Edward threw his hands in the air and winced again.

"Sure, whatever, let them do whatever they want with it. At this point they might as well put me in a display case and cover me in labels."

"You didn't have a problem with that when they asked to see your colostomy," Winry said, her question both a jab and honestly curious.

Edward opened his mouth to retort and froze. His jaw clopped shut and he looked away, studying his knees under stained blanket. Winry caught the change in attitude and changed along with him.

"Edward?"

It was Mustang's turn to understand what wasn't spoken.

"Hey. They can't do anything to you without your consent. Especially not when they know I'm keeping an eye on you."

Edward snarled, baring his teeth like the wild cat he often reminded Roy of.

"Who said you could keep an eye on me?"

"You did, when you signed on."

Edward rolled his eyes and scoffed.

"What part of retired don't you understand, Colonel?"

"Whatever part of brigadier general you don't understand."

"Whatever. You're a bastard."

Roy smiled and crossed his arms.

"It's nice to know that some things never change."

Edward did the opposite of what Roy expected him to do: he threw his bandaged head back and laughed. Roy found himself following him.

It was Riza and Winry's turn to glance at each other in confusion while Alphonse watched impassively.

XXX

The layers of sheets had kept Ed's back from bruising but the site of impact still smarted. When Ed had said as much, Winry replied that at least some part of him had developed intelligence. Edward didn't rise to the bait, a fact that Alphonse pounce on like a barn cat on a mouse.

"Go to sleep, Brother. You're tired."

"Am not," he said, the protest lacking the energy to prove it true.

"We'll let you rest," Riza said, her face soft with sympathy. "The brigadier general is behind on his paperwork anyway." Roy cast her a warning glance that she pointedly ignored.

"Don't need to rest. I need…" An idea struck Edward and he smiled slyly. "I need an ice cream soda."

"Really, Brother?"

"I have stitches. You can't say no to a man with stitches."

"And a metal plate in your head. Don't forget about that."

"A metal brain to go with your metal leg." Roy couldn't stop himself. "How fitting."

"It's on top of my brain, not in my brain, dumbass."

Roy pretended to be surprised.

"Wait, you already had a brain? And here I thought this procedure was needed because there was nothing but empty space in there."

Edward again did not rise to the bait. Instead, he sat back against the pillows and blinked sleepily, trying to hide how badly his eyes wanted to stay shut.

"Go to sleep, Fullmetal. We'll talk to you in the morning."

"Hmm. No, my… my soda."

"I'll get you an ice cream soda after you sleep," Al said, unable to stop himself from smiling. "Deal, Brother?"

Edward didn't answer. He had fallen asleep.

XXX

He woke up to a literal splitting headache.

The pain medication must have had warn off in his sleep. Without him being conscious to take the next dose, there was nothing left in his blood to fend off the phantom scalpels slicing into his scalp.

"Al?"

"Hey, Brother," he heard Alphonse from somewhere he couldn't see. Ed was afraid to find out what effect the hospital lights would have on his pain.

"Al, help."

Edward heard his brother scramble to his feet. They both knew that if Ed was in enough pain to ask for relief, he had to be hurting badly.

"Do you need me to call the nurse?"

"Help."

"Okay, Brother. Hang on."

He heard Alphonse shuffling around the room, most likely crossing to reach the pull string to call for a nurse, then a clicking sound and the light coming from behind Ed's closed eyes vanished. Then there hands on him, Al's soft, gentle hands, trying to help him into a position to minimize the pain. Moving jostled the swollen incision even more than talking so Ed made his protest known with a moan and a weak shove against his brother's bony chest.

A door opened and closed and a voice he didn't recognize asked Al to move aside. The sudden appearance of biting cold against the searing in his head made him yelp in shock, then sigh in relief as the ghost knives cutting into him evaporated. The nurse, a man judging by the feel of his hands, helped him sit up and pressed a couple of pills into the hand that wasn't holding the pack of ice in place. Al helped him bring the pills to his tongue and brought what tasted like a paper cup of water to his lips to swallow them with. Edward curled back against the pillows, cradling the ice and his head as if they might shatter - there was a chance one might and the other already had.

"The pills should start working in about half an hour but he can keep the ice on to keep the swelling down. You should take it off -"

"On for twenty, off for ten," said Al from somewhere above Ed. "Brother has a lot of experience with surgeries."

The nurse left shortly after. Edward tried to go back to sleep but the combination of lingering pain and chilling ice kept him awake. The ice started melting, as ice tends to do, turning the cloth it was wrapped in into a sodden mess and made a wet spot on the bandaging. Alphonse eventually had to pry his numb fingers off the drenched lump, pulling it away with a murmured apology when Ed tried to snatch it back. By then, the pills seemed to have kicked in. The pain came back with a rhythmic pulsing, but it was a bearable pounding compared to the blinding stabbing it had been before. Edward opened his eyes to see the only light was coming from the curtained window. The light showed it was probably around nine in the morning. He had a fuzzy memory of being woken in the evening to eat something take two of the pills he'd just taken. His mouth still tasted orange from the ice cream soda he'd had for dinner.

It had been delicious but not very substantial, his stomach reminded him as it ached with emptiness. He noticed Winry was nowhere to be seen.

"She's getting us some breakfast," Al said, reading his thoughts by following his searching eyes. The promise of food taking his mind off his hunger, a new problem presented itself.

"What am I - I mean, we supposed to do?"

Alphonse made a face that told Edward that he knew Ed would ask that.

"Well, Doctor Holly - the doctor from before, who did the radiographs," Al shuddered at the memory, "said that she wanted to talk to us."

"About what?"

Alphonse's face twisted further.

"About… treatment options."

Ed pointed at his head.

"I thought this was the treatment."

"Not for that. For this." Al poked Ed's sternum. Panic swelled beneath his brother's finger.

"My heart's failing, too?!"

Al looked confused, then guffawed as he realized. Edward was confused until he realized.

"Oh. Metaphorically." Edward huffed impatiently. "That's a waste of time. I know I can't walk around, but what about a chair? We could go to the library - or maybe the garden, if we can't leave. All hospitals have gardens, right?"

Edward was disheartened when Alphonse's face fell and horrified when his eyes turned silver with tears.

"Al? Hey, what is it?"

"Brother, I… It was an accident."

They both knew that if Al was being vague, it had to be bad.

"What was an accident?"

"She… I was just answering her questions, I thought she was just curious, I didn't think anything of it -"

"Al, whatever happened, it wasn't your fault. What is it?"

Alphonse sighed, a water rush of air.

"She… she's admitted me. As a patient. She thinks I have war neurosis."

Edward expected to feel heartbroken or angry. Instead he was deeply confused.

"But… that doesn't make any sense. You were in the armor -"

Ed felt his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth as soon as he'd spoken the words. They didn't talk about the armor as a general rule. Alphonse still seemed to be processing that it was over, the same way Edward was still processing the loss of his alchemy, another recent happening no one talked about. Bringing it up was like asking a question Al couldn't answer, sending his mind into a spiral trying to find the simple truth that didn't exist. But now the words were out and Edward saw his brother's eyes turn distant as he fell into that spiral.

"I mean… it's not like…"

It's not like me with the transmutation or Baschool.

Just like with the armor and alchemy, the words wouldn't come.

Al squeezed his eyes shut, fighting to keep the tears in and Edward felt the familiar guilt of knowing that his brother was hurting and it was his fault.

"Well… that old bat doesn't know what she's talking about. I'll just show her a piece of my mind -"

Al guffawed again and Edward realized that he'd already done that. The stitches burned in tandem with his blush.

"Brother, she does know what she's talking about. That's how she knew how to stop your seizures."

Edward couldn't deny that.

"Yeah, but… but that made things better. You're upset. That's the opposite of better. So that proves she doesn't know jackshi -"

"That's not why I…" Al's voice trailed off in another shuddering breath.

And then the tears escaped and Edward's heart broke for the countless time.

"Hey, Al, you don't have to… It's okay. I'll fix this. I'll -"

"No, you can't!"

Alphonse stood up with a violence he'd only seen once before when they had had a conversation that was eerily similar to this one.

"You can't fix this! No one can and - and I can't pretend anymore! I know you can't either, so just… just stop." Al sank back into his chair and buried his face in his hands.

Edward tried to pretend that he didn't know what Al was talking about, that he didn't feel the ill sensation swirling inside him and his own tears blurring his vision. Ed was sick of crying. It never did anyone any good. That was why he had stopped when Mom died. Now, suddenly, it was as if his body had decided that it didn't care about the waste of energy and water.

They were both grateful when Winry arrived, knocking before entering and carrying a paper bag stained with grease. She froze when she saw the scene before her. Then she glared at Edward.

"What did you do?!"

Edward stared at her in consternation, looking for the sign that the question was a joke.

"What - I didn't do anything!"

"Well, you obviously did something. Look at him!"

"I don't know, he won't tell me!"

The lie made his voice catch and Winry heard the break, knew what it meant, and her face softened.

"Oh. So that's what happened." She shoved the bag into Al's face, who looked up tearfully and snatched it hungrily. The smell of boiled pastries wafted from it and filled Ed's mouth with spit.

"You're both idiots, you know that, right?"

It was said so pleasantly and to both of them - Edward was used to Winry talking to him like that, but she rarely did to Alphonse - that it took a moment for the brothers to realize what she'd said.

"Don't you remember what the Brigadier General said when he came to Risembool - well, you might," Winry said, speaking directly to Al. "This is happening everywhere. That's why he and the colonel have been going around checking up on people. You're not special so stop acting like you're the only ones and you didn't choose this so stop blaming yourselves. Do I feel sorry for myself for my monthlies or do I stuff my mouth with chocolate and make a hot water bottle?"

Edward and Alphonse stared at her in horror. She threw her hands in the air with a rough squawk of exasperation.

"You brought it up first! I thought we were passed this!"

"But… why wouldn't you feel sorry yourself on your monthlies?" It was Al who asked the question once the horror had faded and Ed nodded in avid agreement.

Winry rolled her eyes. "Boys."

This chapter is based on when I got my wisdom teeth removed and when I realized I needed to go back to therapy.