Chapter Four
Where Edward learns what Sara did.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist.
As much as Edward wanted to believe that he was a good person for agreeing to help Sara, he could not deny that he had other incentives than just keeping her from the brink of inevitable death. He had returned to the invalid's bedroom, tucked away in the back corner of the hallway, after his breakfast. His stomach was still rumbling hungrily and Kerstin had offered him another serving, but he continued on anyway, muttering to himself what a terrible human being he would be to choose food over visiting Sara for five minutes. He found her asleep, her body twisted in the thin comforter that had been strewn over her. Edward plopped down into the chair at her bedside.
Sara's face was relaxed, her lips were slightly parted and her eyes fluttered open and closed, as if she was trying to wake herself up. Even so, with the weakness brought on by the radiation poisoning and all, Edward could see that she really was tough. For any girl that he had ever met, anyways. He felt partially at fault for letting this go on, he could not merely keep her fever under control. But, then again, what could he do? That would be the first thing he would do, now that he was staying in their house for a while, he would try and bring down her fever. Sara shifted; her movements, even in sleep, her limited by the blisters lacing her skin. That would be the next, Edward decided; he could heal the burns at the same time as the fever.
"Did you really come in here just to watch me sleep?" Sara grumbled. She rubbed her eyes, rolling over slowly to face away from him. "That seems rather perverted, don't you think?"
He shook his head, not in the least bit embarrassed. Edward had found that as he matured, he began treating people in Germany differently than how he had treated people in Amestris. As much as it went against his character, he tried to respect others. He could clearly see that he had hardly acted that way around Sara and Kerstin, though; but he liked to think had reason enough to justify that. "Not at all," he said. "In fact, I just came into the room to wake you."
"Of course you did," she agreed sarcastically.
Something about her tone of voice reminded him that he would have to undress her later, to examine her other limbs like Kerstin had requested that he do. "That is going to be awkward," he thought, "I hardly know her." He would just have to bear it for now if he wanted to learn whatever Sara knew to send him and Alphonse back home, and doing that was worth any price to him at this point.
"Wait a minute," Sara interrupted his train of though. "It has to be late morning by now. What are you still doing here?"
"Your sister asked me to stay and take care of you," Edward answered. "What was I supposed to do? Say no?"
She frowned. "Kerstin is a big girl, she could have handled it." Sara twisted around to look over her shoulder at him. The gleam in her icy blue eyes reflected pain that the rest of her face would not dare to show.
"That does not change the fact that I am staying," he protested with a smirk. The argument that had been forming in Sara's mind the second he opened his mouth faded away. There was nothing she could say. Her face fell. "Are you really that upset because you are going to have to deal with me for a longer amount of time?"
Sara sighed, "Not as much as I thought I would be. I suppose I should be happy, though. But I should inquire about your method of healing me. Is washing me down really the only system you have?"
"I plan on sending either Alphonse or Kerstin back into Munich sometime in the next few days; they should be able to buy you morphine to dull the pain and supplies to disinfect your skin. They can probably get their hands on a burn kit, if they are lucky." Edward paused, studying her face. It was so clear to him that he had never seen her before in his life – there were no traces of German or Amestrian about her – but he seemed to keep thinking that he had. He may not have seen her directly, but there was someone he knew who looked similar. "I have friends working in the pharmacy just off of campus."
Her dark brows scrunched together, her expression was an overdramatic mask. "Does this mean you have made a habit of tending to complete strangers or do you actually have friends?" Sara teased.
She watched as that mysterious glaze drifted over his yellow irises. Sara knew that she was not going to get an answer out of him. "Friends, believe it or not," he told her. "It helps to have a lot of them."
"That's untrue," she spat without thinking; "If I had clung to my friends in France, the ones studying chemistry at least, then I would have dragged them down with me. Last I checked, no one wants the Nazis running after them. Or the Thule Society, but they don't have strength in numbers; they have strength in insanity…" Sara cut her rant short, knowing that Edward did not want to hear it. He was a blond German; he was probably a Nazi himself.
"I can't argue with that," Edward sighed. "They gave my brother and me quite a bit of trouble a few years back."
"I can't imagine anyone having a problem with Edward Elric," she remarked, rolling her eyes.
He shrugged, smiling playfully. "You are a scientist, like me. You don't look at things creatively, you look at logically. There is no room for imagination." Edward said this like he had known her for years, like he knew her. Period.
Strangely enough, he had been spot-on. That was how Sara thought in problematic situations; she did not see out-of-the-box explanations for things, she saw paths leading directly to answers. "Yes, and if I did not, I would not be lying here, I would not know what I do, and you would not be here to help me."
"Are you ever going to tell me what you discovered in France?" Edward asked, unable to contain his question any longer. That was what he honestly wanted to know, nothing more. Everything else was just small, trivial details. Trying to seem like he was not interrogating her, he reached to the nightstand and dabbed the washcloth in the pitcher. He began stroking her still forehead gently, waiting impatiently for an answer.
Sara nodded, understanding. For the first time, she saw his motives. She cursed herself for being oblivious. "So that is why you stayed," she observed calmly. "You hoped you could gain my trust, thinking you could learn of my alchemic knowledge." She knew how idiotic she sounded speaking of alchemy, the long dead chemistry alternative, but that was the only thing it could possibly be called. That was what it was.
"Alchemy," he thought with a smile. "Not entirely," he lied smoothly. "But it is a piece of information I would like to get my hands on. I want to know how to open the portal." Edward was hoping that telling her this would show her he knew what he was talking about. He continued to blot the tip of the washcloth around her face.
"I thought I could hide it if I moved to Germany with Kerstin," she muttered, shaking her head, knotting her hair around her face. "But then I ran into the Nazis and the Thule Society, which made it just that much worse. They want to know how to open the portal, too. Apparently, they tried several years ago and lost their knowledge. Since then, I have been plagued with nightmares of the Gate and being sucked through it."
That did not add up to Edward; if she was at the Gate, it would take something from her, not take her to Amestris. "Where did it take you?" he asked, curiously, leaning forward.
"Some other world," she replied, exasperated. Sara's blue eyes had veered from his face and to an old memory. "But when I got there, I was in too much pain from having my limbs taken away from me to notice anything specific."
Somehow, even though he knew he should be providing comfort, Edward was glad that her story – at least that much of it – was fitting together. He has still yet to learn how she can send him home. Edward had tried oh-so many times with the old method of Amestrian alchemy and failed, he was praying she had an alternative or modified way of opening the Gate. "Have you actually opened the Gate? How do you know it's real?"
"I opened it," Sara clarified. "Only once, though." Memories of the tugging on her limbs and burning of her inner organs flooded her, making her want to tear herself apart. She was lucky she had been interrupted or something worse than her poisoning may have happened. "It could not take anything from me since I did not take any of its information, but I am certain that it sped up my radiation poisoning."
Edward had frozen in his chair. He was staring at Sara, lost in her words. She gave him a confused look, hoping to draw his attention back. He had given her the impression that he already knew what she was telling him, she was merely confirming it. Sara was worried now that she had told him too much.
"I should not have told you that," Sara sighed. "Any of that."
He nodded. "I understand. But it is nice to know that you can open the Gate without true alchemy, my brother and I may be able to go home."
"On the other side?" she gasped, her blue eyes widening.
The conversation was dragging on longer than Edward would have liked. He rose from his chair, extending his hand to her to help her sit upright. "You asked about my means of healing you?" he reminded. "New treatment begins right now."
She clenched her hands into fists. "No," Sara protested.
"If there is any chance of becoming infected, trust me, I already would have been. Let me help you up," Edward requested. Reluctantly, Sara reached up to grab his hand. She struggled to pull herself into a sitting position, but had no trouble swinging her feet to the floor afterwards. Her hand felt dried out to the touch. He assisted her in hobbling into the hallway. By the time they had reached the doorway, she was feeling light-headed and resting her forehead on his shoulder.
"Is the point of taking me out of the room to show me just how weak I have become?" asked Sara in between staggered breaths.
"No," he assured.
"Then where are you taking me?" She glanced up, watching Edward open the door across the hall from her bedroom. The trip felt much longer to her than it actually was. "The w.c.? Why are you taking me into the w.c.?"
"Did you think I was going to let you sit in your bedroom, with the highest radiation levels in the entire house, when you could be clean and, say, spending time downstairs?" He helped her into the small room, allowing her to lean on the sink counter. "You need to be entirely washed down and redressed before I can let you do that, though."
"What?" she demanded, her voice wavering to reflect her wooziness. Even Sara's eyes were spinning and cloudy.
Edward's arm slipped out from behind her, taking away her support. She leaned helplessly against the wall. He turned around, reaching down for the handles on the bathtub. With several twists of the far knob, hot water was running through the pipes and spilling into the tub. Behind him, Sara was ranting in French – mainly cursing him out. He smirked.
"I understand what you are saying, you know," he grinned. "I at least know how to cuss in French."
Sara's lips pressed into a firm line as she glared at him. For some reason, her expression was not nearly as menacing as she would have liked it to be. Edward decided that was because her face was still covered with burns.
"There is not a single part of the female anatomy that I have not already seen," Edward promised sincerely. "So, if that is what you are worried about, let it go."
"Why suddenly decide to do this?" she inquired.
"You have burns on places other than your arms, correct?"
Sara grumbled, "Yeah."
"That's why," he confirmed. "We don't need you to be sitting in that room, in the same dirty nightgown, and soaking up immense amounts of radiation. Now, are you going to be difficult and take it off by yourself?"
She pouted, folding her arms below her chest. "It is not going to happen," she hissed fiercely. "Not with you in here, at least."
"Saraphine, you cannot stand without help. How do you expect me to leave you alone if I have to worry about you drowning?" Edward asked rhetorically. "Besides, Kerstin asked me to. She is worried."
Sara found herself without an argument against that. "I will strip when you do."
"Really? You'll wait that long? I thought the French were all about taking their clothes off!" he exclaimed tauntingly.
Annoyed, Sara had already began yank her arms out of her sleeves. She stopped abruptly, glaring at him. "You first," she insisted, waiting patiently as she stared at him.
He was fed up. "Fine!" Edward spat. He pulled his dress shirt over his head, wadded it into a ball, and tossed it to the counter behind her. Quickly, he turned to shut off the running water.
Sara could not help but gawk at him. She had expected their combined stubbornness to put off the event for several hours, or if she was lucky, days. Instead, she was now staring at the lean muscles of his back tense as he twisted the handles to turn off the bathwater. Not like she had not seen a man shirtless before, she had just never seen one like Edward. Thankfully, Sara was able to wipe the expression from her face before he turned around. However, she found herself even more amazed when he turned around to face her. His right arm was constructed entirely of metal plating that connected to a port on his shoulder. She had never seen anything like it before. Sara was certain that science was nowhere near developing a prosthetic limb so advanced.
"What is that?" she breathed.
"Automail," Edward told her. "A woman I know on the other side of the Gate made it for me."
Still gaping at the sight, the words passed right through Sara's mind. "Why would you tell me that?" she asked, before continuing to mumble to herself, "It really makes up for not having an arm…?"
"You have opened the Gate yourself, you told me that. Why should I spare you of the truthful explanation if you know exactly what I am talking about?" He shrugged. "Are you going to cooperate like you said you would now?"
The brunette grumbled. He had walked her right into that one. "You are very persistent to see me undress, Edward," Sara chastised him. Nausea flooded her head suddenly; she closed her eyes, trying to keep her balance. She rested her head on the wall, trying to overcome losing the contents of her stomach. She could mentally deal with slowly dying out, but the symptoms that followed were slightly more than she could handle all at once.
"Not at all, I am persistent to help heal you," he corrected. Edward was struggling to keep his patience with her, Sara was acting almost childish.
Eventually, he was able to coax her into following 'the doctor's orders'. Sara had kicked him out of the bathroom while she slid into the tub, draping a towel over the edges so that only her head and shoulders were visible in the water. Edward returned inside, bringing in fresh bars of soap and towels with him. Sara convinced him she was feeling well enough to handle it herself, and that he was more than welcome to leave the room. Finally, he gathered both his shirt and her nightgown off of the floor and went to bury them outside. About twenty minutes later, he found her sitting on the edge of her bed, dressed in baggy trousers and a man's dress shirt.
"I thought it best if I found clothes to wear that had not been infected yet," she shrugged.
"So did I," said Edward, pulling on the collar of the oversized work shirt he had also stolen from one of the empty manor bedrooms.
The two stood in silence for what seemed like an extensive amount of time.
"So," Sara sighed at last, "are you going to tell me more about the other side of the Gate or are you going to leave me wondering hopelessly why you want my knowledge to send you back?"
Lots of talking in this chapter, and a tad of fanservice for the fangirls who are good at imagery :D It helped the plot advance, though, so I am pleased with how it turned out overall. Also, I was able to share some of the useless knowledge I have of the WWII time period. The w.c. is an old European term used for the bathroom, standing for "water closet", in case anyone was wondering. I want my fanfiction to sound as correct as possible to the time period.
Another note, I apologize for the lack of Alphonse in this story. It is strange seeing as he is my favorite character but has made all of one appearance in this story. He will be in the next chapter! Woot!
Until I next update~