When he wakes up, he's groggy and full of pain – someone must have had forgotten to check on his drip during the night. His hands throb and sting, and all his muscles feel like they've been stretched and pulled in every direction.

Roy Mustang feels sore, for lack of a better word.

"Hey look, he's up."

"Breda?"

"Didn't think you were going to wake up for anything. The nurse left you breakfast but none of us could figure out if it looked like it was edible so we gave it a test for you." He gestures to an empty tray sitting on the window ledge and Roy snorts, sitting up gingerly in bed.

"But we got you some real food instead that doesn't look and taste like cardboard," the burly man continues, leaning over and dropping a sealed container on the bed. "Though you might need a fork to eat it, and judging by your hands we might be better off eating it ourselves. Shame."

"Fuck off Breda," he shoots back, grinning. "What's the general mood?"

"Hopeful," pipes up Fuery, a wide smile on his face. "Radio Capital has been very kind in giving us a very favourable slant on the post-battle reporting so everyone from here to Creta is praising your efforts at ridding the country of corruption in one fell swoop. The parade grounds have been mostly cleared, and now we have troops from the East and some remaining Briggs coming in to clear the rubble and start digging for any survivors."

"I heard from the nurses that the railway lines were damaged when the Fuhrer's train was bombed – how is East getting through?"

Fuery cocks his head to the side, biting on his lip. "Last I heard they had managed to recruit some local alchemists to do some quick repairs. The lines are strictly for the military only though. Evacuations have been started to move people out of the Central CBD as quickly as possible but they're running into a host of other problems as well now."

"Like?" He notices for the first time how many other people are crammed into the small room – on top of Breda and Fuery, he also sees Maria Ross; a man next to her who he doesn't recognise; some of his old team from Ishval; and a number of soldiers he recognises from his short tenure in Central as their commander.

"There's a chance the water supplies have been contaminated," Fuery says quietly, ducking his head forward slightly. "On top of having to deal with all the injured from the battle, civilians have been coming in complaining of shakes, high fevers and vomiting. It seems to only be based in one district towards the north but until we can figure out what's causing it we have to remain vigilant."

"Do you think it could be a terrorist faction?" Maria asks, hand on her chin. "Now would be the perfect opportunity to cripple the military further and cause more chaos."

Roy hums. "If they had any brains they would be attacking multiple centres to make the biggest impact. He turns to Breda. "Who's overseeing Central until Grumman comes in?"

The group looks at each other a little guiltily before Fuery coughs. "Actually..." he begins, "well, technically it's you. We've been making decisions in your place because the nurses were getting ready to kick us out if we kept trying to wake you."

"Anything I need to take the fall for?"

The group shakes their heads collectively, while Breda shrugs with a shit-eating grin. "It's mainly administration." Fuery continues, rubbing the back of his head. "Signing off warrants for arrests and making sure supplies are being evenly distributed to the camps and hospitals. General Armstrong left with her main troops late last night – last we heard they had gone back to the manor and she's smuggling them back up to the North on a train tonight."

"How considerate of her," he remarks, stretching his back and shoulders, sighing as he feels the pop of his shoulders. The empty bed to his left catches his eye. "Breda," he says slowly, deliberately. "Did you hear anything from the girls in the shop? I wasn't sure if they got my message or not."

The man pauses for a second before shaking his head slightly. "Nah, I haven't heard anything yet," he says offhandedly. "But we should let you get some rest now." He stands and nods his head towards the door. "Let's leave the Colonel alone for a bit. It's truly horrifying what happens to your face when you don't have your beauty sleep." He winks at Roy as they shuffle out of the room and it's only a few minutes of Roy staring at the bed to his left and thinking of increasingly awful scenarios before the man is back with Fuery in tow.

"The rest don't need to hear about this just yet," Breda says quietly as he shuts the door behind him. There's a solemnness to his tone that Roy hasn't heard in a while and his gut feels like it's turning itself in.

"How bad?"

The burly man sits down in one of the vacated chairs and runs a bandaged hand through his hair. "Vato's nicking the notes right now but…" he sighs heavily. "The prognosis isn't looking good for her at the moment."

There are a few moments of silence while he tries to get his breathing under control. He wants to ball his hands into fists but the lack of morphine in this drip means his hands already sting and he can feel the familiar pangs of pain shooting up into his arms as his body tenses.

"What do we know?"

Fuery pulls out a small notebook from his coat and quickly rifles through it. "She's lost at least half of her blood and because of the alkahestry-" he stumbles a little over the word "-that young girl did, the doctors are worried that her blood is clotting in unusual ways, or will clot badly. She's been given a lot of thinners but that isn't good for her either."

He nods shortly.

Fuery continues, voice wavering slightly. "They're worried about her h-haemorrhaging in the brain or having a stroke so..." Fuery looks down for a moment, his free hand balling into a fist on his knee. "They- they've placed her into an induced coma. She's going in for surgery for her neck in about two hours."

There's ash in his mouth. "I see," Roy manages. "For how long?"

Breda shares a look with Fuery, unease clearly written on his face. "She's been under for just over a day now but I'm not…entirely sure when she'll wake up, sir. Vato's trying to find that out now. The doctors aren't being very forthcoming right now."

He exhales shakily. "Alright. What else?"

Fuery chews on his lip, and runs a shaky hand through his matted hair, quickly snapping the little black notebook shut. "There's a shortage of blood," he begins, his words soft. "Central is experiencing shortages all over and Riza's blood type means she can only accept one particular kind. There's…none of her type at this hospital currently. We're trying to locate some of the smaller clinics reserves but-"

"There's not going to be enough either way," Roy breathes out, his heart racing. "Does she need the blood to survive the surgery?" His mind is racing a mile a minute – different arrays and crude amalgamations flash through but none would be right – none would wholly ensure her survival. Blood was tricky regardless – in some books it was only one step away from human transmutation; in others there was no distinction.

Fuery shrugs, his eyebrows knitted tightly together. "I don't know, sir," he says quietly, desperation leaking through. "I really don't know."

Roy wills himself not to cry.

The nurses wheel her in later that afternoon, a stern but tired-looking doctor following them, making notes on a clipboard that has far too many pages and addendums for Roy's liking. The older man nods briefly at him while the nurses make the transfer from the gurney to the hospital bed. Long minutes are spent uncoupling wires and recoupling them to new points and sockets on the side of the bed, and the entire time Roy is focused on what little he can see of her face between the nurses' movements.

Injections are made. Limbs are adjusted. Her face is wiped down with strong-smelling antiseptic, and the nurses slowly check all her bandages. There's some on her knuckles, her right forearm and another that covers the entirety of her neck, a grotesque snow-white scarf.

The doctor sits in the chair next to Roy's bed and eyes him carefully. Roy tears his gaze away from what is happening to greet the man properly.

"Doctor."

"Colonel." The man's voice is deep and gravelly. "I have been informed by no less than-" he flicks towards the back of the over encumbered clipboard "-thirty-nine of your men that apparently you are Ms. Hawkeye's legal guardian and therefore have a right to access her medical records and know her treatment plan. Despite thirty-nine vehement protests that nobody would have any reason to lie to me about this, I find myself in somewhat of a bind because all of them are undoubtedly full of shit."

He stares at Roy behind thick-rimmed glasses. "Do you have anything to add to these thirty-nine pleas on your behalf?"

Roy pauses, before shaking his head. "You wouldn't have brought her in here if you didn't trust me, and you have, so I guess that leaves us at an impasse if you believe that thirty-nine-" he can't help but smile a little at the ridiculousness from his men "-of my men are indeed, as you say, full of shit."

The doctor snorts and leans back in his chair. "Fair enough," he replies. "In any case we were running out of room in the intensive care unit and she's as stable as we're going to get with the resources we have had at our disposal." Roy stiffens and straightens himself a little at the casual admission.

"Intensive care?"

The doctor nods slowly. "Would you like the sanitised version that gives you hope, or the version that will actually tell you the truth?"

His mouth is suddenly dry and he swallows – it feels like his throat is closing up and it is suddenly hard to breathe evenly. The doctor stares at him, before standing and jerking his head towards the door. "They'll be a while," the doctor comments and Roy slowly pushes himself out of bed, shrugging on his military jacket. In all the chaos, getting him out of his military uniform and into something more comfortable had been the last thing on anybody's mind – there were more important things to worry about. His pants are creased to hell and he knows he looks like a mess right now – he has a terrible case of five o'clock shadow and he can feel the bags under his eyes.

He follows the doctor down the corridor and the older man gestures for him to walk into a small office. It's cramped and messy, the walls stuffed and teeming with files and books arranged haphazardly. He gingerly sits down in the small wooden chair and watches with apprehension as the doctor slowly makes his way to the leather chair across from him.

"I'll be honest with you," the doctor begins, setting his clipboard down on his desk and leans slowly back into his chair. It creaks dangerously under his weight and the older man sighs.

"She nearly died on us a couple of times during surgery," he says matter-of-factly, like the death of Riza Hawkeye, or the multiple instances of near-death that Riza Hawkeye experienced while under his care mean no more than a blip on his career as a doctor, as a healer – Roy is suddenly overwhelmed by an intense anger at the callousness this doctor shows towards the patients under his care.

"But she's a strong one, your soldier," the older man continues, steepling his fingers together. "Surprised us all."

Roy is quiet.

"She was lucky that the cut was so clean – not so much for the uh, alchemy that sewed her skin back together – that was very sloppy and could have caused irreparable damage to her spinal cord if the transmutation had been any closer…but no matter. The problems that we are facing now have far-reaching implications, Colonel." He eyes Roy up carefully, and he forces himself to relax, to stop gripping the fabric of his pants so tightly.

"She had a seizure during the surgery. A mild one. However, it means her risk is greater now for having recurring ones and it was for this reason – as well as the general lack of blood we had available to us – that we put her into another induced coma. It's her best hope of survival right now."

He doesn't register at first what the doctor has said. He hears seizure, lack of blood, and coma but doesn't put them together until he realises that the doctor is waiting for a reaction.

"Riza Hawkeye has been put into a medically induced coma for the sake of her health and hopeful and eventual recovery," the man says slowly, watching Roy carefully. "Do you understand what that means?"

Roy nods jerkily, ducking his head for a moment. "How long?" he manages, wiping at his nose roughly. The doctor doesn't answer. "How long?" he presses. "Before she-"

The doctor gives a non-committal shrug and Roy takes a deep breath, reminding himself that lashing out at this doctor would not solve any of his problems, not certainly his second-in-command in a fucking coma.

"It could be a day, a few days," the doctor says quietly. "Her body has been under tremendous amounts of trauma – to the point where we couldn't believe she was still conscious when she came to us. We put her in the first induced coma because we had little blood to work with, and we were trying to avoid a stroke at all costs. She was clotting badly; this was what led to the seizure during the surgery. We're not sure how much – or in this case – how little blood was getting to her brain, even with the thinners. This was a conscious choice to put her under for longer, because I highly doubt her body could have coped with anything more."

Roy snorts derisively. "You don't know what she's been through."

"You don't know what she's been through," the doctor shoots back, frowning deeply. "Still going through. Will be going through. Did you think our care was finished when we brought her here? She has at least another two weeks of recuperation, and that's assuming she wakes up tomorrow. I highly doubt she will do that." He stands, dusting off his slacks. "Her blood loss was also significant. The entire country is facing shortages in the light of your little coup d'état-" his mouth twists the phrase strangely, it is bitter and resentful and aggrieved all rolled into one timbre, "-so we've been given no choice but to give her blood that is Rhesus positive – she is Rhesus negative and generally it is against best practice to deliberately harm our patients' but-"

"WHAT?" Roy shouts, jumping out of the uncomfortable chair and grabbing the doctor by the lapel of his coat over the wooden desk that separates them, ignoring the searing pain rushing through his palms as he pulls through his stitches, and the jerk of the catheters ends still embedded in his skin. He feels the blood dripping down his wrists, sees the red of it soaking into the thick fabric of the doctor's white coat, dripping down onto the files covering his desk. Roy knows enough about biology and haematology to know that transfusing blood can be dangerous at the best of times – let alone deliberately giving a person blood that is not compatible is bordering on almost suicide.

"WHY?" He shouts, his voice hoarse and broken and he ignoring the crashing of doors as people suddenly enter the cramped room, raised voices and yelling unable to mask his sobs. "WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO HER? SHE DOESN'T DESERVE THIS!" He feels himself being forcefully pulled back by nurses, all but forcefully dragging his fingers away from the lapels of the man's coat and coaxing him to sit back down on the chair. The doctor shrugs out of the stained garment and drops it onto his desk, giving Roy one last shrewd glance before walking out of the room, calling for a nurse as he disappears down the hall.

He feels the stickiness of his blood webbing between his fingers and one of the nurses sits next to him and rubs his forearm soothingly, whispering to him gently. The other nurse kneels down and carefully cleans his hands with antiseptic that does not hurt as much as the realisation that Riza might die because of a deliberate decision to infect her for the slim chance it won't kill her, but instead give her enough support to survive.

You mustn't do this to yourself, the nurse next to him says softly, her hands warm but firm on his forearms, steadfastly ignoring his jerking, trembling body. You need to heal. A dead patient is a useless patient.

He wonders what that makes Riza.