April 13-July 20, 2010

Author's Note: I wanna sleep. But I still haven't finished my homework… but I'm doing this first cause I love you guys so much:) I don't think I'm going to say what the others did that night. I don't want to drag the story that much. It's already longer than I planned it out to be… oh well.

Disclaimer: I do not own FMA nor will I ever come to own FMA.

Chapter Twenty: Insane

Much to Al's happiness the first night that Ed stayed in the hospital was uneventful. All he wanted now was to relax and to have his brother relax and get taken care of. He didn't move from where he sat and just waited for any signs for his brother waking up. What Al was bothered by was that his brother seemed to be having nightmares when he was asleep. At random times of the night he would begin talking and screaming. The nurses came in at one point where he was yelling for someone to get away but reassured Al that it was probably the effects of the fever and probably some trauma from the recent events. Al already knew this of course, he was the same way when he got his automail, but it didn't stop him from worrying about him. Each time that Ed got restless he'd just say a few reassuring words, stroke his hair and then Ed would be calm again. He liked being this way with Ed, he could never really do this when Ed was awake because then he would feel bad and probably say something along the lines of 'I should be comforting you. Not the other way'. But Al just took what he got.

The next morning Ed still had not woken up but his fever was starting to go down by the slightest bit. Mustang and the others would not visit till the afternoon, Winry though was being brought over by the lieutenant. She woke up late (she needed the rest too) and was arriving around 10. The doctor had come around 8 to check if Ed's wounds were healing properly, and much to Al's delight, were healing just fine. Some of the nurses had offered Al breakfast downstairs but he did his best to try and cover up that he didn't need to eat.

Patients that passed by also seemed to stop by the door and look at Al with curiosity. He didn't really blame them. Who wouldn't stop to see a giant suit of armor holding a young boy's hand; it was weird. Al had already gotten used to people staring at him at this point but he really wanted to close the door. But he refused to let go of his brother's hand.

When Winry finally made it to the hospital Al greeted her and kindly asked her to close the door.

"Why couldn't you close it?" she asked.

"Because I didn't want to let go of big brother… not right now."

"Oh. Okay…yawn."

"Are you still tired? You can still sleep on the couch over there."

"No. I'm fine. I slept too much already."

Winry walked over to Ed and stroked his hair.

"Did he wake up last night?"

"No. All he did was talk in his sleep. Just like before."

Winry stayed silent. They all remembered how Ed was like during that year when he was getting automail. It wasn't a pleasant memory for any of them, especially for Ed and Winry. He was the one who had to bare the pain of the automail. And she gave him the cause of the pain. Of course Ed did his best to try and not show pain but it was obvious most times when moving became too much for him. Around the time he started hurting Al would be there to carry his brother up the stairs forcing him to go to bed and rest.

Al and Winry remained in silence waiting. The only sound audible was Winry's soft breathing, Ed's breathing, and the heart monitor that Ed was attached to. Beep…beep…

"No… don't…don't touch…her…" mumbled Ed.

Both heads turned to Ed who was still mumbling the same thing. His head just kept moving around but he was reasonably calm. For now.

I guess he's remembering the time when he cut me. At least he isn't throwing punches right now. That would be bad.

"NO!" screeched Ed.

He began thrashing on the bed, wildly kicking and punching in random places. He was moving so fast. Al couldn't even catch the flying limbs to stop him from moving. Beepbeepbeepbeep! Nurses came into the room and saw the thrashing boy. They also tried to get him to stop moving, but failed to do so. He was just too fast and strong. His automail didn't help either. The nurses told Al and Winry to get him to calm down quickly because he was in risk of ripping his stitches. That Al did not want happening.

"Brother! Stop! Everything is fine! "Please stop moving! You might open up your stitches!" yelled Al.

"Ed! Stop I'm fine!" shouted Winry.

Ed stopped abruptly and sank back down into his bed wheezing. The nurses fixed his sheets and added a bit more morphine in his IV. They checked all his wounds, making sure that they were all sealed. Thankfully he managed to stay in one piece and didn't even open any of his cuts.

Al looked at Winry, not understanding why Ed responded to Winry but not him. Winry read Al and answered his question.

"He said that when I got this cut on my cheek. Ed was moving around like that and only stopped beating him up when I told him to do so."

Oh. So that was when they were in that house. I guess that makes sense. I hope he doesn't do that again! Sigh…

The rest of the afternoon went without a problem. The nurses delivered Winry and Al lunch, knowing that the two teens wouldn't leave the room. Winry had to end up eating both plates since they didn't want the nurses to get suspicious. It was a good thing that she didn't eat breakfast this morning.

Around 5 in the afternoon Mustang and the rest of his team came over to visit. They all looked a little worn out. Fuery explained that they were busy trying to finish up this case and the cleaning up of the area where they fought the other alchemists. They all sat down in the couch and just talked. The others weren't aware of Ed's little incident this morning and were wondering why he hadn't woken up yet. It was weird; usually a person would have woken up by now. But it didn't look like he had gotten out of bed just that he moved around on the bed.

"Has Fullmetal shown any signs of waking up yet?" Mustang asked.

"No they have him sedated. He kind of caused a ruckus this morning. It was hard to control him so the nurses gave him more morphine so that it doesn't cause any more problems. He nearly ripped his stitched trashing around so much like that."

"Wow. How can this little and injured squirt cause such a disturbance." Mustang said.

Beepbeepbeep!

As soon as mustang had finished speaking Ed's heart monitor sped up. Every one turned to look at Ed. Ed's eyebrows furrowed and his breathing turned faster. His eyes slowly began to open. You couldn't miss the pure anger that was in his golden eyes. He shot straight up from the bed and ripped the mask off of his face.

"WHO CALLED ME SMALL!"

Everyone backed off to the red faced, furious, and a little bit crazy blond.

Oh shit. What did I just do?, thought a very freaked out Mustang.

Author's Note: I couldn't help it. I just had to put an Ed reaction in there… sigh.