Chapter 3: A Harsh Reality

Edward opened his eyes slowly, fighting the grogginess caused by the barbiturates Dr. Knocs had given him. Brilliant white light flooded his eyes, and they snapped shut again. "Urgh," he groaned. "Too bright. Makes my head hurt."

"I just dimmed the lights," came Winry's voice from what sounded like the middle of the room. "Is that better?"

Ed opened his eyes again. The room was now fairly dark, with the only light coming from a few shafts of late afternoon sunlight coming through the window. He shook his head to get his bangs out of his face and sat up, the drugs fighting him for every inch of movement. "Damn that doctor. Damn him to hell. If I didn't feel so tired I would kick his ass." Ed yawned, and then looked over to see Winry sitting at Al's bedside, with both Al and Winry looking at him. "How long was I out?"

"Well, looking at the clock," said Al, "I'd guess around eleven hours."

"I slept all day?"

"Yep. I only woke up a little while earlier. Maybe I shouldn't have played that prank with the blanket."

"It's okay; it was funny." Ed looked down at himself. He was completely naked except for the covers. "I'd get out of bed if the damn bitch nurse didn't take all my clothes off." He tilted his head back to stretch out his neck. "Hey Winry, there's a chest over in the corner of the room. Could you find something for me to put on?"

Winry opened the chest and looked inside. "Hmmm, there's not much in here besides undershorts and towels."

"Whatever, as long as it covers the bare essentials."

"What about Alphonse?"

"I think my urinary catheter would get in the way," said Al.

"Well, if I give you something that's open at the bottom, it should be OK." Winry first grabbed a towel, reached under Al's covers, and tied the towel so it wrapped around Al's hips like a sarong. "That will do nicely," she said, ruffling Al's hair. Several more strands came out in her hand. She then took a pair of shorts and moved her chair to Ed's bedside, taking a peek under the covers.

"Hey!" said Ed. "I didn't say you could do that!" A vivid blush fell upon his face as he heard Al laughing.

Winry had a sly grin on her face. "So you are big for your size down-"

"Shut up!" Ed snatched the shorts from Winry and put them on under the covers. He then pushed the blanket away so he could stand up, but Winry put a hand on his shoulder as if to restrain him.

"Hold on, Ed. Let me check your automail before you put weight on—" Winry's eyes suddenly widened. "Ed, your arm..."

"Yeah," said Ed. "Al used alchemy to give it back. But the way he did it means that I had to give up my alchemy to get him back. Looks like it wasted away just as much in the past few wears as Al did. It has barely any strength at all." He noticed that Winry looked rather despondent as she examined the thin, bony organic arm that had replaced her masterpiece automail. "Yeah, sorry about that, but it was Al's idea, and it saved my life." Ed made sure not to mention the Promised Day, Father, or Truth.

"It's all right," said Winry, taking Ed's hand and splaying the fingers out to look at them. "Looks like the fingernails on this hand need cutting too. It's just like Al's hands."

"Yeah. It aches when I move it. If I tried to pick up a gallon jug of water with it I'd probably drop it." Ed rubbed the emaciated arm. "What the hell is with all this hair on it? My other arm isn't that hairy."

"That's lanugo," said Winry. "It's hair that people grow when they're badly malnourished to provide extra insulation. Al has it all over its body, like a very thin coat of fur. He'll probably have to be shaved from the eyebrows down to get rid of it."

"With skin as thin and dry as he has right now? He'll be cut up so bad he'll bleed to death." Ed looked over at his brother. "Al, you still with us? You're awfully quiet."

"Yeah," said Al, stacking his pillows to prop his head up. "Just listening to you two."

Winry looked as if she had suddenly remembered something. "Ed! There's something I need to tell you about Al."

Ed didn't like the sound of her voice. "Is it bad?"

"Dr. Knocs came in earlier, and told me about Al's prognosis. He said he doesn't think Al will get much better."

Ed felt his guts wrench around inside his belly. "Oh, no..."

"He says Al's muscles are too atrophied to grow back fully, and that his organs are damaged. He thinks Al's lifespan will be shortened because of how bad his condition is. Ed, how did he get like this? I'm not accusing you of anything—I'd never think you could be cruel enough to do this to him knowingly—I just want to know what happened to him."

Ed sighed, faced with the realization that he would now have to tell the truth about Truth, or at least part of it. "Winry, look...when you attempt human transmutation, you're sucked into this other dimension where you have to face this creature—I guess you might even call it a god—that calls itself Truth. And it shows you things about alchemy and the universe, and then it...takes away part of you and keeps it in its dimension before dumping you back out. Truth took my leg, and Al's whole body, and then it took my arm when I made the blood seal to put Al's soul in that armor. And Al's body and my arm were sitting there in that other dimension, for five years, slowly wasting away."

Ed rubbed his eyes and then continued. "And Al and I have a theory about something related to that. You know how Al would just collapse all of a sudden, and not wake up for a while, and how it got more and more frequent over time? Al thinks it was because his body was getting sicker and sicker in there. We probably did not have much time left when I got Al's body back from Truth's world. If it had taken much longer, Al might have...might have..." Ed's sentence trailed off with a whimper as he found himself unable to utter the word died and felt tears welling up in his eyes.

"Edward." Winry's arms closed around Ed's body, hands caressing the smooth skin of Ed's back. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I—I thought you wouldn't have..believed me. I'm so scared, Winry. We went through so much to do this, and I wanted more than anything to have my old brother back. To see him smile. To play with him again. To grow old with him. And now he's going to like this forever because I was...I was too slow!" Ed's words degenerated into choked sobs as tears streamed down his cheeks. He buried his face in Winry's shoulder, crying uncontrollably. "I'm so sorry!"

"Brother, please don't cry!" said Alphonse from across the room. "It's okay, you did get me back, after all! I don't want you to be sad!"

Ed wiped the tears from his eyes, pulled away from Winry, and stood up.

"Ed, wait!" said Winry. "Your automail leg! It could fail at any-"

"Whoooooaa!" Ed felt the ankle of his artificial leg give out and twist sideways, causing him to lose his balance. He toppled over onto the hard, cold floor, his chest, shoulders, and arms aching and bruised. "Damn!" Ed crawled across the floor and grabbed onto Al's bed, clutching the mattress to pull himself up so he could sit next to his brother.

"Ed, are you okay?" Winry had now moved her chair again to get close to Ed, and examined the youth's body for injuries. "Oh, dear, these are going to be some nasty bruises," she said, palpating Ed's shoulders.

"I'll be all right. Just a bit banged up. If it were up to me I'd be here to help Al, not as a patient, but Dr. Knocs wants to keep me for at least another night."

"You sure are being sweet to Al. If only you were more like this all the time."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

Winry said nothing, but just sighed as she lifted Ed's automail leg up by the ankle. "Oh no, the ankle joint's a mess. You should have put more oil in it like I told you to."

"Well, between fighting monsters and homunculi and getting dragged to a hospital and filled full of drugs, I haven't had much time to maintain my automail!" Ed ignored the rest of Winry's lecture, put his arms around Alphonse, and pulled him close, kissing his brother on the cheek. "I love you, Al. I want you to know that. I just wish I could have done better, and gotten you back healthy."

"I love you too, Brother," said Al, resting his head on Ed's shoulder. "You don't have to blame yourself all the time. Even a body like this is better than living inside a tin can—or being dead."

"...are you listening, Edward?" Winry shook Ed's automail leg to get his attention.

"Huh? I was just talking to Al. After all he's been through he needs some support."

Winry groaned. "You're hopeless. Wait there while I get my tools. What am I going to do with you?"

Ed said nothing, simply watching as Winry rummaged through her purse. His arms were still around Al, until he felt his younger brother slump over. Looking down, he noticed that Al had fallen asleep.

Colonel Roy Mustang felt like a prisoner in a hospital bed of his own, blind as a bat and wounded from his encounter with the thing that called itself Father. His career wasn't supposed to end like this. Not with him going through the rest of his life blind, fumbling around with a white cane in his hands while Grumman groped the interns from the Fuhrer's seat. It wasn't fair. He had gained incredible new alchemy powers much like Fullmetal's when he had gone through that gate of Truth, but what good were they now that he was blind?

He's not Fullmetal anymore, Roy had to remind himself. The Fullmetal Alchemist was an alchemist no more; a few tests conducted shortly after Edward Elric's admission to the hospital had shown that the boy was now completely incapable of performing even the most basic transmutations. It was like his talent had just vanished completely. Now he was just Edward Elric again. Poor bastard, he thought, remembering the miserable eleven-year-old double amputee he had met in Resembool one spring day and offered the chance of becoming a state alchemist to. Now that boy was sixteen, and the new life he had received had come to an end. He had signed and stamped Edward's discharge form earlier that day (with some assistance from Hawkeye to find the correct line on the paper) in what would probably be one of his last acts as a military officer. He had to admit he was fond of Edward, as disrespectful, grouchy, and bullheaded as the youth could be sometimes. Sometimes it didn't hurt to have someone under him who was honest about his opinion, even to the point of being brutally honest.

Roy's thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come in."

"Hello, Colonel," said Dr. Knocs, to just about the only person in the world the doctor was ever polite to. "Is any sight coming back to your eyes?"

"None. None at all. I've been thinking about Fullme—I mean Edward Elric. How are he and his brother doing?"

"Oh, making noise, causing trouble, not doing what they're told. Fortunately the condition Edward's brother is in makes him less of a handful than Edward himself, even if Alphonse likes to use alchemy to bind the nurses up."

"Is Alphonse in as bad a condition as I've heard?"

"He looks like a living skeleton. You can see his breastbone, his ribs, his spine, his pelvis, his kneecaps, his eye sockets, everything. He weighed only 76 pounds when we admitted him. He'll be lucky if he doesn't require other people to care for him for the rest of his life."

"I imagine that must be hard on Edward, then."

"Edward actually got out of bed and into his brother's to share body heat with him last night. The idiot could have pulled out Alphonse's IVs and caused a fatal electrolyte imbalance."

"Well, you can't deny that his heart's in the right place. How long do you plan on keeping him?"

"Another few days, until his wounds are healed enough that there's no worry of infection, and then he'll be sent home. His brother won't be able to go home for several weeks, at least. Edward's girlfriend is in the room with them."

"Don't call her that in front of him. You'll never hear the end of it."

"How about I call him a backwoods simpleton sheep-molester from Resembool; do you think that would shut him up?

Roy snorted. "No, it would take an act of God to calm him down once he gets going."

A nurse came in briefly and whispered something into Dr. Knox's ear, provoking a groan. "Dammit, Colonel, from the noises the floor nurses have reported, they must both be awake by now. Even phenobarbital can't keep Edward Elric down for long. How am I supposed to get any work done?"

"Just ignore him. The more you pay attention the louder he gets. Eventually he'll get tired and fall asleep for a while. That kid will sleep fifteen hours a day if you let him get away with it."

"I have to get back to work, but before I do, I have one more thing to tell you."

"Oh?"

"I think we might be able to do something about your eyes."

Edward was lying in his own bed now, still damp from the bath a nurse (thankfully not the fat one with the accent this time) had given him. The fresh linens smelled like soap and lavender, and Winry had brought him a quilt that was much more comfortable than the thin hospital blanket. Now it was Alphonse's turn to be be bathed—as he was too weak to be moved much, he was receiving a sponge bath in bed, and his privacy curtain was drawn to protect his modesty. Ed could hear Al talking to the nurse behind the curtain, mostly complaining about pain when he felt it.

Ed suddenly had an idea. It couldn't be that hard, he thought, to do much of the work of taking care of Al himself, at least once he was discharged and not stuck in a bed of his own. Washing Al, combing his hair, turning him in bed, and the like might be tedious work, but certainly not work that required years of experience and a specialized degree. Winry had done much the same for him when he first received his automail implants, after all. And Al was his brother, the center of his universe, the person he had labored for years to make happy. He waited for the nurse to leave the room before making his move.

"Hey Winry!"

"Huh? Did I fall asleep?" Winry opened her eyes, and sat up straight in her chair, bracing her arms against the back of the chair so she could stretch. "Is the nurse still with Al?"

"She just left. I had an idea. Do you think Granny would be willing to contribute a bit of money to rent a room in Central? What's left of my annual research grant should be enough to cover the rest, as well as my pension when I get it."

Winry looked annoyed. "All right, Ed, what kind of harebrained scheme have you thought up now?"

"I want to stay in Central for a while after getting discharged so I can look after Al. I'll try to do as much as I can myself. Bathing him, feeding him, that kind of stuff." Ed sat up, putting a hand down the back of his pajama shirt to knead out a painful spot on his back. He always felt creaky and sore all over for several days after a fight.

"You can't be serious. Not when he's starved almost to death and you've got a hole in your right arm. Why don't you take it easy for a while instead of trying to pile more responsibilities onto yourself?"

"Because I want to do something, Winry, rather than lie in bed at home in Resembool for days while Granny feeds soup to me and treats me like a sick child, which is usually what happens when I come home a bit beat up. I can walk, I can get around. There's no need for me to be lying around right now, not when my brother needs me. I want to see Al get better. I want to help him. I'm his big brother and I should be protecting him."

"All right," said Winry, defeated. "I'll talk to Granny about it. Just don't overextend yourself. You have a habit of stretching yourself too far, after all. In the meantime, I want you to rest. You've been through a lot. Be a good boy and try to get some sleep, okay?"

"All right, all right." Ed laid his head on the pillow. "Uh, I've got a favor I want to ask you, Winry. Could you...rub my back?"

Winry giggled. "Sure." She scooted her chair closer and unbuttoned Ed's shirt, peeling it away from his back and shoulders, and then turned him so he was lying face down. Ed glanced over at her and noticed that she had a smile that looked far from innocent. He couldn't help but smile back.

"You like this, huh?" said Ed, softly.

"Mmmm." She rubbed her hands together to warm them up and placed them on Ed's shoulders, and began to massage them. "You know Ed, I've kind of been afraid to admit it to you, but I really...like your body."

"Even though I'm...short?" said Ed with a wink. Somehow the "S" word came easily off his tongue this time. Saying it was almost titillating, breaking one of his own taboos, exploring a thought he had forbidden himself to think. Though he was getting taller, he was still only five foot three, but it didn't matter right now. Winry thought he was beautiful, and that's what mattered. The massage felt good; aching knots in his shoulders that felt like they would never stop hurting were gone in seconds, and he sighed in contentment as her hands wandered down to his upper back, pulling and kneading the taut muscles.

"Yes, Ed, even though you're short. Say, uh, can I, um, take your pants off, too?"

"Is Al awake?"

"Nope. Out like a light."

Ed grinned. "Go ahead. Take it all off."

"Naughty boy."

Ed closed his eyes as he felt the rest of his pajamas being slipped off. This was going to be a good night. A very good night.