The Waters of Lethe
Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, I just like to play around in it's world and torture Ed for awhile
Author's note: Post series and very AU, some movie events will happen, but differently
Warning: May contain movie spoilers, plus violence, bad language, blood, death, and maybe sex
Summary: Edward doesn't like to remember his past, but it intrudes as we skip back a few months to the day he had surgery.
Beta: Kittygirl109
31. Hospitalized (Hospitalisiert)
Munich,August1927
The students and residents at the teaching hospital of the University of Munich learned the drill in less than six months. If Professor Hohenheim's car pulled up to the main entrance before classes began for the day, it was a sure sign Edward was sick again. Someone would dash out with a wheelchair and bundle a slight figure into it before returning at a quick trot.
Edward's illnesses tended to be just minor viral infections which would make most people listless enough to stay in their own bed for a day or so. But his symptoms of high fever, dehydration, headache and nausea were severe enough that he required hospitalization every few months. The regular rate at which Edward picked up these infections, and his body's inability to fight them off both puzzled and troubled Professor Jungbeck. Edward was sickly before he came to Germany so the Professor knew the installation of his experimental prothesis was not to blame.
The blonde would lie limp as a wet sock upon the examining table, his skin flushed and damp with sweat, lips dried out and eyes sunken in. Whichever student/residents were on duty would administer the standard treatment of hooking Edward up to an intravenous line of fluids and giving him an injection of a pain killer. This usually did the trick in about twenty-four hours, Edward would be ornery and snapping insults at who ever was unfortunate to draw him. Professor Jungbeck considered Edward Elric to be an invaluable tool in teaching his students how to deal with difficult patients.
But very occasionally, Edward would be deathly ill for two or three days. Then he would cry out and struggle in the grip of a feverish delerium. Those days he had to be strapped down to his hospital bed and closely monitored to prevent him pulling out an I.V. needle. When Edward was brought in one afternoon just after the fall term started, Professor Jungbeck could be forgiven for thinking it was just another serious infection.
But this time was worse.
Edward was feverish as usual, but he wasn't exhibiting the other symptoms. Instead, he moaned in pain and clutched at his abdomen while he writhed upon the table. One of the third-year students explained Edward was assisting his father in administering physics tests all that morning. He had been collecting completed papers when he suddenly dropped what he was carrying, then stopped and clutched at his stomach before he collapsed on the floor. A couple of Professor Hohenheim's students carried him to his office and laid him on a couch, where he regained consciousness a few minutes later.
"I'm fine, father!" Edward protested, but he was sweating profusely, his face was pale, and he winced every few seconds. "Stop - ouch! - fussing - over me - ungh! - old man - geh!"
Hohenheim retorted, with a grim smile upon his face, "Don't lie to me, Edward. I can see something is wrong. I've already made a call and some of the medical students are coming to fetch you back to the hospital."
Edward responded with some choicely rude words under his breath, and he tried to get up from the couch under his own power when two young men arrived with a wheelchair. He tried to tell them he could walk to the hospital when such a wave of pain ripped through his midsection, Edward could only utter a low-pitched animal moan before he collapsed a second time.