Disclaimer: Legendarily Quiet does not own Fullmetal Alchemist
Roy opened his eyes as the first rays of sunshine filtered through the window. Edward was still sleeping in the bed across the room, his chest rising and falling gently. With an inaudible sigh, Roy sat up and swung his legs over the side of his little cot. He tugged his boots back on his feet and stood up, stretching his back as he did so. Sleeping on a hospital cot was certainly not doing his back any favours.
Roy sighed as his bones gave a final crack, then padded across the room to check on Edward. The boy hadn't roused once since Roy had foolishly knocked him out yesterday, and the guilt still bubbled in his stomach. Just what had he been thinking? Not ten seconds after Ed had told him that his care was causing him pain, and he went and hugged the boy.
Roy shook his head and ran a hand down his face. While he had been listening to every word Ed had been saying, thoughts of incinerating Cassandra had swirled in his mind the entire time. He had taken the information in without comprehending it, and Edward had paid the price for his incompetence yet again.
How many times could Roy afford mess up before he ended up killing Edward?
The prodigy had offered up his trust on a silver platter, exposing himself and divulging his feelings to Roy, and he had gone ahead and trampled all over it. What happened to thinking before acting?
Still . . . it was unbelievable. Never in a million years had Roy thought that anything even remotely similar to what Ed was going though would be possible. It was a psychological battle, to be sure, but Roy was unfamiliar with everything besides depression. He didn't have the skills or knowledge needed to help Edward.
"Damn it."
And Ed had been struggling all this time, too. Roy had known something was wrong – heck, that was why he had been trying so hard to get the boy to open up and trust him – but he hadn't known that every attempt to get closer had only dug the knife a little deeper into Ed.
This was failure at its finest.
Roy closed his eyes, and took a slow, deep breath. This – this would be the last time. The last time he would hurt Edward, the last time he would be so useless. Starting now, he was going to do everything in his power and then some to cure Edward once and for all.
Shrugging on his jacket, he walked out of the room and closed the door quietly behind him. It was harder than he thought it would be not to look back.
"Mommy?"
Cassandra halted her appraisal of the street from where they were huddled in an alley and looked down at her daughter. Wide green eyes stared up at her, confused and frightened, and Cassandra's heart ached as she extended an arm to draw Anna in a little closer.
"What is it, dear?"
This hadn't been what she wanted. Never in a million years had she ever thought it would come to this, crouching amidst filth in the dark, with all of Central City after her blood.
"Where are we going?"
And to drag poor, innocent Anna into it all – hadn't this been exactly the kind of thing she always fought against? To deprive her own daughter of a safe environment, undivided attention, and a carefree life . . . what kind of mother – no, what kind of person was she?
And she had made poor Edward's situation worse, in the end.
"We're going far, far away," Cassandra said softly, taking in the motorized vehicles and foot traffic across the street. "Come now." She gripped Anna's hand in hers and made to exit the alley.
"But what about Elicia?" Anna surprised her by digging her heels into the ground and leaning her weight back. "Why do we have to go away? I don't want to leave my friend!"
Something sharp and painful throbbed in her heart, and Cassandra blinked hard to prevent any tears from falling. "You'll make new friends," she said at last, "but we need to go now."
Before security at the train station was impassable, before visiting farmhands recognized her face, before they got caught. If they were, Anna would be taken away from her, and Cassandra would be left to rot in a prison cell for her crimes, which was something that couldn't happen. Cassandra tugged at Anna, fully prepared to drag her to the station, but the squirming child was drawing the attention of passerby's as they exited the alley and came onto the street.
"I don't want to go! I don't want to go!"
Tears rolled down Anna's face, fat, wet, and devastating, and Cassandra nearly turned around and surrendered herself right there. "I don't want to go, Mommy!"
With that final phrase, concerned passerby's smiled lightly and shared sympathetic looks with her, not looking into the issue any further. Cassandra sighed in relief as they continued on, pretending to give the mother and daughter a sense of privacy as she crouched down and gripped Anna by the shoulders.
"I'm sorry it's had to come to this, dear," she said, putting her arms around her child and drawing her close, "but we can't stay here. We really, really can't and I need you to be a big girl and understand right now." Cassandra watched as Anna clenched her eyes shut and gave a loud sniff. Cassandra automatically reached into her bag for a tissue, but she couldn't find any.
Anna opened her eyes, pursed her lips tight for a second, and then said, "Okay." She nodded once as if to cement her agreement. "Okay Mommy, let's go." She drew her arm up and swiped it across her eyes, erasing all tears but leaving red and puffy eyes. Cassandra let go and stood up, looking down as Anna latched onto her hand and looked up at her.
What she saw was a face so full of trust, so full of love –
And suddenly, Cassandra couldn't do it.
"Where's Roy?"
The nurse blinked back at him from behind a clipboard with his chart. "The colonel left early this morning," she finally said, reaching over to hook the chart back at the foot of the bed. "He said he had some important business to take care of." Edward nodded slightly and tried not to breathe a sigh of relief. He would be fine for the next few hours, then.
"If you're ready, we can go through your exercises now," the nurse said, standing up and already reaching for the edge of his blanket. Edward frowned. He did not want the nurse manipulating his limbs for him, but he knew it wouldn't be a good idea for Roy to do it; he could barely look the man in the eye anymore!
Edward exhaled in a puff air. "Sure. Whatever you want," he said, turning his face away.
If he was being honest, he was surprised at what had happened yesterday. Ed had been expecting disbelief, fear, repulsion – whatever shit truth could throw at him, really – but Roy had accepted it without question, and was even sorry for what he'd been going through.
Of course, the idiot had to go and ruin it by suffocating him afterwards, but the good intentions were there. Ed smiled to himself. After seeing him at his lowest, he guessed there wasn't much that could drive Roy away.
He breathed in deeply and sighed through his mouth. Never in a million years had he dreamed that he and Roy would transcend the barely civil working relationship they had had, but now that it was a very definite reality, their relationship was more toxic than ever before.
He turned his face back to the nurse, who was currently bending his leg back and forth. "Do you have any idea when the colonel will be back?"
The nurse smiled sweetly at him but shrugged her shoulders. "I expect he'll be a while," she said, but gave no further comment. "Are you in a lot of pain?"
"No." His muscles and bones ached faintly, reminiscent of the ordeal he went through yesterday, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. "How long will I be here for?"
The nurse pursed her lips as she set his leg back down on the bed. She drew the blankets to his chest and walked around to the other side of the bed before replying, "You don't have a set release date; your condition is a bit of a conundrum."
Edward snorted. "A bit?" He moved his head to follow the nurse as she gently grasped his left arm and lifted it above his head. "I'm probably the biggest conundrum this hospital has ever seen."
The nurse met his eyes, and Edward was surprised to see a devilish glint in them. "Really?" she said, a tilt to her lips, "You look pretty small to me."
Betrayal. Absolute betrayal.
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A TINY LITTLE PIPSQUEAK?!"
Herbert really could have done without all the extra work.
Yes, it was a great honour to be chosen for a top-priority project – concerning the Fullmetal Alchemist himself! – but frankly, the added pressure just wasn't worth it. Being labelled as the most promising rookie in the lab was already hard enough, what with all the extra responsibilities and raised expectations he had to meet, when he would have been satisfied just being a coffee runner the first few months on the job, but now he had to work with people twenty years his senior and stare at formulas until his eyes fell out and mix different compounds until the fumes turned his brain to mush.
No amount of approval and praise from his parents could make up for the work trap he'd so effectively walked into. He couldn't even remember the last night he'd spent out in town!
He should've followed his passion and become an artist . . .
"Enough with the slacking, Holden!"
Herbert sighed and leaned further back in his chair, causing it to tip and balance on two legs as he put his feet up on his desk. He regarded his superior upside-down, and watched with dull amusement as the grey-haired man flushed red in anger.
"Is this some kind of joke to you, Holden?! Do you realize how important it is for us to succeed right now?! And you're treating this like–"
Herbert tuned out as the man continued to rant, but brought his chair down to rest on four legs with a thump. He blinked tiredly, and the numbers and words seemed to dance and wriggle on the pages strewn across his desk. What he wouldn't give to be done with this infernal assignment!
Around him, his coworkers massaged their heads and rubbed their eyes. Every posture screamed tired, which, seeing as they had barely been on this project for two days, seemed to be a sign of bad times to come. His lab had been forced to drop everything to take on this critical assignment, and it would be overtime for everyone until a final report could be written and handed in. Herbert sighed and picked up his pen.
The sooner he found a cure, the sooner he could get out of here.
L.Q: I'm sorry, but this story is well and truly abandoned. As I think I've said before, the reason this story started was to justify the non-slash bathtub scene and . . . yeah. Did that a couple chapters ago! I kept thinking that for sure I would finish this, but after almost 3 years I think I can say I'm not coming back to this (also after reading fanfic for years on end I think my writing skills have gotten worse, so the quality might suffer if I DID continue). This chapter is just what I found on my hard drive. The next "chapter" will just outline the vague ending I had for this.
I would like to give a huge thank you (and apology) to everyone who stuck with this fic. Everyone who gave reviews, asked for updates, favourited, critiqued . . . THANK YOU. This story would not have come as far as it did without you.