A/N- Hello! Again sorry for taking so long. There are multiple reasons. First my brain shrivels up and dies in the corner of my skull, so all my creativity went with it. More sensible reasons include, homework, internet dying and the website having a stroke and deciding I couldn't update any stories D: Sorry. FINALLY here it is!
Chapter Seven
It was all so hazy. There was definitely people surrounding him. And big bright lights. He wished he could tell someone to switch them off, they were so annoying. One thing he was not to sure was real or not was the itching on the side of his face. It didn't even make sense. Even if he was injured, he shouldn't be itching. Should he? Ed wasn't actually to sure anymore. What did pain feel like again? Probably not like this. The itching got more intense, and he wanted so badly to lift his hand up and scratch his face but when he tried to, his body wouldn't respond. Edward frowned mentally, after finding out that that was another thing he was incapable of doing at the moment. Maybe his automail was busted up again. So the solution was to his left hand, but was confused to find that he couldn't move that either. He gave up, resigned to just putting up with it, despite his need to a scratch it.
The crowd of people got bigger, each person blending messily into the person next to them. He couldn't pick out individual faces, or even clothing, but they were all wearing white, he reasoned, so it might be hard even he was completely aware. Voices penetrated his skull, resonating and ringing, distracting him immensely. Ed wasn't to sure what he was being distracted from though. Some voices were louder than others, and they were the ones that made sense in his messed up world at the moment.
"Hurry up! We're losing him!"
Ed scoffed internally. How could they 'lose' him? He was lying right in front of them! The sane part of his mind said that maybe that wasn't exactly what they meant, but staying on the sane side of reality hurt too much. It was someone had bulldozed him over in a truck, then decided to reverse over him, over and over again, just for the sake of it. At least that's all he felt before he decided to stay in the less painful part of his mind.
Edward's eyes pinwheeled, taking in his surroundings properly. This was weird. It was all white, except some blue splodges above him. Some red flashed into his range of vision. He was also confused by that. Until he reasoned that if he was presuming he was injured, then there would probably be blood involved in it somewhere. At least he thought it was blood. Suddenly his vision grew more hazy, and more voices joined in the original one, until his ears were straining from all the noise.
"His heart's failing! Get the defiblerator!"
There was a pause where people seemed to be fiddling with something.
"CLEAR!"
Ed felt a shock in his chest, one that stopped his concentration from solely focusing on keeping himself in the non-painful side of reality. It pushed him into the extremely painful side, and Ed trembled with the effort of not screaming out loud. Instead a low moan passed his lips, one filled with terror and agony.
"He's stable."
Ed opened his eyes, not even realising he had closed them admist all the panic. Everything was clearer, and he realised the blue splodges were some sort of masks, and yes, there was a lot of blood. He strained himself, grinding his teeth, trying not to scream. Ed's eyes rolled, trying to distract himself from the pain. It wasn't working, even despite his best efforts. His opened his mouth and tried to scream shocked by the choking noise that issued out of his mouth. A burning started in his throat, and he regretted ever screaming. Or at least trying to.
"Barret, you idiot! Inject him with the painkillers NOW!"
Ah. That's why it hurt so much. Stupid doctors. This was the reason why he hated hospitals, they never did a good enough job, and put him through a lot of unnecessary pain. But there it was, the relief of pain that was more commonly known as the effect of painkillers. It was strange though. The pain was still there, it was just like it had been pushed to one side, numbed down a bit. The voices piped up again. God, they were so annoying.
"Give him something to knock him out. He doesn't want to be awake for this bit."
Ed felt himself being pushed under, not into the less painful part of reality, but to a different side altogether. It was like falling asleep, he reasoned, just like falling asleep...
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Roy fidgeted in the back seat. Maybe it was a good thing that he wasn't driving, he would be likely to send them careering off the road. He also probably wasn't supposed to come personally to these sort of things, but he felt responsible if anything had happened to Fullmetal while he was on this mission.
Mustang had been annoyed when he'd heard of the 'exploding church incident'. He had just pegged it down as Fullmetal's reckless behaviour like he usually did. But when a week went past with no contact from him, Mustang started to get worried. Despite Ed's reluctance to check in with the colonel, he always did it at the end of a mission, even if just to tell Mustang it had been a dead end and they were coming home soon.
He had read up about the explosion in the newspapers, and there had never bee any mention of Fullmetal. That led Mustang to believe Ed had either gotten injured or gone off on his own to do more research. The second option sounded unlikely, as Ed wouldn't want to leave his brother than any longer than absolutely possible. Mustang didn't particularly like the first option very much. To his own surprise he had volunteered to go see if Ed was still in this 'Guilden' place, or if he was injured.
So that was how Mustang found himself in the back of a car, driven by Havoc, on a backwash country road. Havoc was staring into space, not really paying any attention to the road at all. He was more concentrated on the cigarette clenched between his teeth. He briefly looked in the back mirror, glancing at Mustang.
"Hey Boss? Where do you think the chief will be?" Havoc sounded slightly worried.
Mustang sighed and looked up to meet Havoc's eyes on the mirror. "I'm going to be checking all the nearby hospitals, though I can't imagine Fullmetal staying in one of those this long."
Havoc nodded, picking up the unspoken message of, 'Unless he was physically unable to.'. That worried Havoc, but he smiled grimly and said, "Yeah, I can't imagine chief being stuck in a hospital."
Roy grunted in agreement. But he still heard, 'That's what I'm worried about to.' hidden in Havoc's reply. They sat there in silence for the next hour, Mustang looking out the window on to the scenery that was flashing by. He was lost in his thoughts, wrapped up in possibilities about what might have happened. Havoc's voice shook him grom his thoughts.
"We're here Boss."
Mustang started a little bit, not noticing that the scenery had changed, and he was now looking out on a small village. He nodded a reply to Havoc, then opened the door and stepped out of the car. The village looked quite normal and peaceful, he thought, but then he turned around. A mass of stone, glass and fire was spread out over a huge area. Roy got the impression that it must have been quuite magnificent, while it had been standing.
Scurrying through the wreckage were some low ranking military officers. The head of them seemed to be a Secpnd Lieutenant, who was shouting out orders. Roy walked towards him slowly, taking in his surroundings. Everything was organised chaos. Shouts and crys wre heard and more answered them. The crackling of fire underlying it all. Soldiers dressed in blue were clearing of the stone and glass, seemingly not bothered by the fires raging next to them.
Mustang found himself standing in front of the 2nd Lieutenant, waiting for him to notice him. He turned around and Rot didn't recognize his face. But from the expression the other man was wearing, he seemingly recognized Mustang.
Shock still written on his face, he stood to attention and saluted. "Colonel Mustang, sir!"
"At ease soldier." Mustang turned around and surveyed the land. "Why haven't you stopped the fires?"
He looked at Mustang and explained. "We tried to at first, but they're just to big to be put out completely, so all we can do is control them before we get the means to stop them completely, sir."
Roy nodded in understanding. "Have you found any survivors?" His clenched his muscles, hoping to god that the man didn't confirm his worst fears.
The man nodded. "Yes we have. Only one though."
Mustang almost sighed in relief, before keeping himself in check, telling himself that it might not have been Fullmetal. "And where is he now?"
The Second Lieutenant looked strangely at Mustang, maybe wondering how he knew it was a man that they had found. "We took him to the military hospital nearest here."
Roy nodded. "Thank you, 2nd Lieutenant."
"You're welcome, sir." Another salute.
He turned away and walked towards Havoc. Havoc was looking at him anxiously, waiting for an answer.
Roy cleared his throat. "One survivor. He's in the military hospital in Selthor."
"I'm presuming we're going there then?" Havoc asked.
"How did you know?" Mustang answered sarcastically.
Havoc, however, replied seriously. "Because you wouldn't be Roy Mustang if you didn't."
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The colonel strode into the hospital, the epitome of confidence. Inside though, he was anxious and worried. Not gicing any hint of this, he walked up to the reception desk. He smiled pleasantly at the nurse behind it.
"Hello, I'm looking for a man who came in here from Guilden? About a week ago?" Roy said, making sure he didn't rush his words, even if his heart was pounding.
"Yes, he's here. May I ask who is enquiring?" The nurse said briskly, pen on paper.
"Colonel Roy Mustang." He said quickly, wanting to see the man soon, with no more delays.
"Okay. Can I have some identification?" She looked apoligetically up at him, but still with a professional face.
"Of course," he said smoothly. "Is this enough?" He held out his State Alchemist pocketwatch.
"That will do. He's in room 304, second floor." The nurse looked at the watch, then handed it back.
"Thank you for your help." He said over his shoulder, as he had already started heading towards the stairwell. He rushed up the stairs, then stopped trying to calm his heart and pulse. It wouldn't look good to visit this man in such a flustered state. Once he thought himself sufficiently calmed down, he started up the stairs again, but at a slower pace. He exited the stairwell to find himself next to room 287. Not to far to walk then. Counting the rooms as he went, Roy made his way down the corridor, making way for hospital staff as they walked past. Stopped outside room 304. Mustang took a deep breath and pulled the door open.
A/N- Finally I finished this. It's the longest chapter yet! Even if it still isn't very long... but I'm working on it! It ended with a sort of cliffhanger, but I mainly stopped because I needed to at least post something. Anyway I hope you liked it, and please review!
Fullmetalsoul0062