I really, really need to work on my OG story. I'm supposed to be on, like, chapter 30 and I'm still on chapter 10, but I've been having really bad anxiety lately (gee, I wonder why) and my therapist says I need to immerse myself in things I enjoy to distract myself from the constant fear that my sister who's been dealing with mental health issues will just not be there anymore and then I'll be the youngest of the family.

I've been thinking about putting my OG story on here, if only the first few chapters, to motivate myself to work on it regularly, but I don't know that it's anything anyone here would be interested in.

I suppose my question for y'all, besides whether or not I should continue procrastinating on the thing as well as my other writing projects by writing the next chapter of this is

Do you like cats with swords?

Edward gasped and gulped. At some point, his legs had given way and he had fallen to his knees on the linoleum floor. His face was wet with sweat and tears.

But he did not scream.

He had learned how to put his pain away, turn it into quiet things that Alphonse could not, would not hear.

He would shudder and arch his back, bury his face in his arms so that he could press the pillory into his head to create some counter-pressure to focus on, hold his breath when he heard the warning whistle or when his muscles spasmed involuntarily.

But besides the occasional wet sharp breath, he was silent.

He did not count the stripes - that would require being present in the moment and he was trying to do the opposite of that, telling himself that each blazing hit was his brother's gauntlets slamming into him as they sparred, each instinctual loss and obtainment of air the natural consequences of not blocking or dodging properly. So he had no idea how long he had been on the floor of that storage room when Window Guy broke the semi-silence.

"You're doin' it wrong. Give it here."

The next whistle didn't come, the following burst of searing heat also absent. Edward was grateful for the break, then regretful as the reprieve brought him back to himself and he felt the air filling in the holes in his flesh and the blood oozing onto his pants. An entire facet of his body was nothing but empty agony and sticky lines of drips. He felt his stomach ripple dangerously and he focused on swallowing, forcing his throat to close and open again.

"What d'ya mean, I'm doin' wrong? How else are you supposed to do it?"

"If you were doin' it properly, he'd be singing for us by now. You ain't beltin', you're ticklin'. Give it here. I'll show you how it's done."

There was a brief scuffle of words and hands as the men fought over the honors, then one of them must have won because Ed heard the telltale whistle a fraction of a second before his vision turned white, then black, and then became the floor and the wall from a horizontal position. Ed realized he had lost his balance on his knees and had fallen onto his belly.

"That's how it's done."

Another whistle and Edward thought he felt his spine splinter where the leather struck him.

Ed squealed, a small, choked sound but it was there.

"You're… you're hittin' 'im on his -"

Window Guy huffed in annoyance.

"Yeah. That's where you're supposed to hit. If you only hit where you haven't hit before, you're not gonna get anything."

Another whistle. Ed didn't mean to tense, but the shift between the two men was a difference his body would not ignore.

Window Guy was hurting him, truly hurting him, and his instincts told him to run or fight back or -

His instincts burst into fizzling nonsense and Edward made a gurgling sound, like he was trying to speak through a mouthful of soda water.

"What's that, crip? You'll have to speak up."

The next blow had him rolling onto his side, his body doing the only thing it could in that brief gap between strikes and trying to replace the razed part of himself with a part that could withstand more violence.

He'd rolled onto his left side, offering up his right and metal arm.

The second lieutenants laughed like Ed had written a joke on his arm for them to read.

"Sorry, kid. No point in teaching what can't learn."

Edward knew Window Guy hadn't been talking about just his arm.

Window Guy must have moved so that he could reach Ed's back in his new position because in the next moment, Ed knew nothing as the next three strikes hit something tender. Edward felt his head spin from lack of air. He had thought it was because of the pain, but when he caught the taste in his mouth, he realized it was because he had lost the bacon and grapes Maxine had made for him.

One of them made a sound of disgust while the other made a sound that was almost like a cheer.

"My turn! My turn!"

"Not yet. Not until I get what I came for."

It took Edward a moment of blind panting to realize what the Guy meant. When he did, he felt something inside him fall in despair and something else rise in rage.

The next strike left him moaning and whichever Guy had left it hissed a sigh of satisfaction.

"You think this is bad? The Flame might be patient now, but one day you'll piss 'im off just enough to be enough, and then you'll understand. This here is a mercy."

XXX

He couldn't say exactly when the moaning had thinned into whimpering and the panting turned into breathless sobbing.

He only realized that was what it was when he couldn't get it to stop by catching his breath.

Edward hated letting them see him cry, hated giving them excuse to look at him like a chastised child, but the alternative was giving them what they truly wanted. Besides that, too much noise might attract attention that none of them wanted.

If Edward screamed and someone came to investigate the sound, they would find out what was going and why, and the chances were to great that each step they followed would make a path straight to Alphonse.

He would blubber his eyes dry and beg for mercy if it meant his brother's secret, and his brother by proxy, remained safe.

He did not beg them to stop, even as each blow grew worse than the having his nerves attached to his port, even as he spat up more bacon and grapes into the drain, even as he began to wonder if maybe they meant it, maybe if they really would keep hitting him, even as the leather cut into the bones of his back and the cord inside, as his remaining leg went numb, as lost that precious communication between his lungs and his heart and his brain…

They had stopped.

It took him some time to realize that they had stopped because his back was nothing but pain upon pain upon pain, and it was hard to notice through each individual throb that new ones were no longer being added.

One of the Guys was yelling and swearing; the other was yelling, swearing, and telling him that they had to stop.

"Why the hell now?!"

"'Cause he's past fifty!"

Edward realized, with a fresh surge of nausea, what that number meant.

"So?!"

"So if you don't stop, you'll kill him! Fifty's the limit, after that, you're gonna be leashing his insides and then we'll have a body to deal with."

This information was met by a terrible silence that was broken only by Edward's persistent, uncontrollable sobbing. Then something fell, presumably thrown, onto the floor, and whoever had dropped it swore again.

"So, what now?"

"Nothin' left to do. He's done."

Snippets of conversation that Ed couldn't hear over his own breathing and heartbeat, the vibrations of shoes on the linoleum, then the feeling of fingers brushing his wrist and a lock coming open as the pillory was opened but not removed.

"Hear that? You'd better be a good boy for Mustang. Tell 'im it was Holland's unit that finally taught you to behave. But best we not tell him about this, eh? It's already taken care of. Besides, who knows what he'll do if he finds out."

Edward kept his eyes shut. He could hear the gratified leer in the man's voice, he didn't need to see it.

"Maybe he'll give you more. He could, you know. The law stops at fifty. For each time."

Edward kept his eyes shut but he could not keep himself from shuddering.

The vibrations picked up again, a door opened and slammed closed.

Silence, save for his own breathing.

They had left him.

They had left him, shaking and crying and covered in his breakfast and blood, and he had no idea if anyone was expecting him, if anyone would notice if he simply didn't appear and might come looking.

He had no idea if he wanted to be found.

XXX

He hadn't been found.

He had picked himself up off the floor, the pillory sliding off his wrists and clattering against the ruined linoleum, when he thought he could handle the pain.

He had turned on the spigot to wash away the worst of the mess down the drain. He did his best to wash himself, though he was shaking so badly it was more efficient to just sit in the ice-cold water and let it soak him.

He wasn't able to repair the rip in the uniform and the shirt, what with how hard he was trembling. He wasn't allowed to transmute the uniform, anyway.

City Hall was empty. He did not let himself think about how long he'd been lying on the floor.

Maxine reacted exactly as he'd expected her to, coming into the hostel with his uniform on backwards so that the rip was in the front rather than the back, the former front of the coat soaked in water and blood, the trousers not any better.

"Oh, my God! Sit down, don't move. Clyde, send for the doctor -"

"No! No," Edward surprised himself with the strength he was able to put into his voice as a man, who Ed could only assume was Clyde and probably Maxine's husband, careened into the room as if his wife had said there was a fire. "I'm okay. I just… I fell. It's not that bad, it's just… I don't need a doctor."

Clyde looked him up and down and made a face that said that he could not agree.

"Must've been an awful fall. That's a lot of blood."

Maxine was wringing her hands, her own face flushed as she glanced between Edward and her husband.

"I landed on a rock," Ed said a little too quickly. "A sharp rock," he added when Clyde studied him doubtfully. "I don't need a doctor. I just need some… soap and… and bandages. I'll take care of it."

Maxine looked like she was thinking about protesting, maybe taking him by the arm like she did the other day and force him into sitting and waiting for the doctor, when her husband put his hand on her arm and drew her attention away from Ed.

"We can get you soap. The doctor can bring bandages."

Edward took several steps away from the couple and their unfortunately reasonable compromise. But if anyone else got involved, there was too great a risk that Mustang would, too.

"Okay. That's okay. Let me… I'll take care of it. I'm used to stuff like this. It's not a big deal. Really."

This did the opposite of calming Maxine, but Clyde's eyes narrowed as he realized that, for whatever reason, Edward would not or could not accept help of any kind. Ed wondered what sort of things the man had done or seen to say what he said next.

"You're sure you're all right?"

A final offer, not for help but for Ed to tell the truth. Ed felt like a naughty schoolboy as he said what he said next.

"Yeah. I'm fine. I just need some soap."

Clyde frowned disapprovingly but nodded, took his hand from his wife and told her to fetch a fresh bar. Maxine had looked at Ed with betrayed tears in her eyes, but she had obeyed.

Knowing that he had made the hostel lady cry had made him feel worse and his wounds feel better.

If he was despicable enough to do that, then he definitely deserved every strike.

Edward left Vanes Balt the next morning, long before the sun came up.

XXX

Edward had pulled the mask over his mouth. It gave him an excuse to not answer the colonel's questions and, to be honest, he was beginning to feel dizzy with it covering only his nose.

His heart was fluttering, he could feel the uneven beat against the center of his chest and echoing in his ears. His body was trying to prepare for a panic it couldn't support. If it wasn't for Al's grounding grip on his shoulder, his body would have won and he would have lost consciousness.

Roy was still standing in the middle of the room, his lieutenant a step behind him. He couldn't interpret Hawkeye's posture, which was normal, but Mustang looked exhausted, like he'd been up all night and was running on nothing besides a couple of cups of crude coffee. Beneath the tiredness, and very possibly the cause of it, was a heavy disappointment and even deeper, barely contained bubble of searing fury.

It was the disappointment, not the fury, that had set Ed's heart to fluttering.

"Nothing is - nothing else is going to happen to you, but… Fullmetal, I - we need to know what happened. Who did this to you?"

Edward swallowed the acidic orange juice trying to return from whence it came.

"It's… it's already been… taken care of."

Speaking stole more of the air he didn't have and spots flashed at the edges of his vision.

For a moment, the bubble rose above the waves and nearly burst. Roy only just managed to keep its contents contained and force it back beneath. Edward wished he wouldn't. He would rather get it all over with so he could focus on picking up the pieces he had left.

Roy took a breath, closed his eyes, let it out, opened his eyes. Ed saw Riza's eyes flash with worry for him - the colonel, not the major.

"It should not have been taken care of, Fullmetal. Colonel Holland had no right to make that call, not with a man - officer not within his jurisdiction."

Edward tried to copy the colonel, taking a breath, holding it, and then releasing it. It dissipated the spots for only a fraction of a second.

"I was told to… to tell you that it's been taken care of, so… you don't need'ta worry 'bout it… sir."

The bubble of fury rose again and Hawkeye closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, they were lined with tears.

He imagined what she might do if her frustration was that intense, if she would suggest that he have more lashes added to the ones he already had, a reminder of the punishment for noncompliance.

Maybe she would strike them herself.

A blot of blackness fizzled into and out of the center of his vision.

"Fullmetal, I understand your rationale, but from my position, the matter is far from being 'taken care of.' I can assure you, you will face no further… repercussions." He said the word like it was a swear. "Now, I need you to tell me who did this and why."

Edward did not believe him.

He wanted to believe him, badly enough that it hurt almost as much as his back, but Colonel Holland had said the same things, promised Ed his safety. Edward wasn't sure that he believed what the second lieutenants had said about Mustang, but if Ed couldn't believe the colonels either, there was no way to expect what would happen next.

So Edward followed the voice of caution and expected the absolute worst.

"Brother?" Alphonse's voice was gentle rather than inquiring, he wasn't asking Edward to answer the question so much as he was asking what his brother wanted him to do.

Ed opened his mouth, closed his mouth, opened his mouth again.

"I did it -"

"You did not!"

Edward jumped and his vision flashed to black and back again. Alphonse placed a grounding gauntlet on his shoulder to keep him from keeling over and Tomas, who had been politely pretending that he was not there, lifted an arm so he could take hold of the line's stopper between his fingers.

Roy's disappointment over took his fury and he closed his eyes as he calmed himself, then opened his eyes and fixed Edward with a stare that reminded Ed of Den begging beneath the table for scraps.

"Fullmetal, please don't make me make this an order."

Edward's already dry mouth shriveled, his tongue swelling until it was hard for him to swallow around it.

The second lieutenant had lied.

Of course he had. Edward had been an idiot to believe him. Thanks to that idiocy, Mustang was going to investigate the situation, realize Ed was more trouble than he was worth, and hand him over to his supervisors. There was a small consolation that he would be facing proper justice what he had done.

Ed sighed, opened his mouth and looked into his brother's empty eyes.

He had looked for comfort, but instead he saw all that he had done wrong and would now never be able to fix. Beyond that, it occurred to him that if he could not save himself, he should at least save his brother.

If he told Alphonse to leave, to get a head start at getting away, maybe he could escape while everyone else was busy dealing with Edward.

Alphonse would be free to continue searching for a way to get his body back.

And Edward would die all by himself.

"Al, you…"

Edward did not want to die by himself.

Alphonse shifted closer, presumably to hear his brother better without Ed having to strain himself to speak up.

"Yes, Brother?"

"Al…"

How awful he must be, to want comfort for himself when he should be wanting life and happiness for Alphonse. Knowing that his brother had a chance at a future should have been comfort enough.

Ed remembered the way lieutenant had held him as he had tried to die in Mustang's office and wondered, ridiculously, if she would be willing to hold his hand while the execution blew his brains out.

He giggled at the stupidity, sobbed at its reality, and then felt his heart stop.

XXX

Edward had made a bizarre jerking movement and a bizarre gurgling noise, then fell limply onto the bed like a doll that had been thrown by a dissatisfied child.

Alphonse shrieked, the sound made higher by the ringing of his armor, and Tomas said several vulgar swear words as he frantically unscrewed the stopper as far as it would go.

Riza sucked in a horrified breath and Roy stared dumbly at the way that Ed's head lolled like a chicken with a broken neck, then lunged to the bed and lifted Ed into his arms without considering the consequences.

His intention was to keep Fullmetal from laying on his injuries, the restraining strap having been loosened so Ed could sit up when he was awake. He did not intent to look over the boy's bare shoulder and see the extension of the damage.

Riza saw the way his shoulders started shaking as she took hold of Alphonse's huge arm and pulled him away, blocking his view of his brother with the colonel's body.

"Don't hold him up," Tomas said in a contradictory calm panic, taking hold of Roy's arms and guiding him into laying Edward sideways on the bed, the way he'd been lying when he had come to. Roy obeyed but did not let Edward go.

"What's going on? Brother? Brother?!"

Edward did not answer.

His eyes were glazed and empty, the whites pink with blood. Roy's hand on Ed's abdomen felt nothing, the obvious absence of what was supposed to be there somehow harder and louder than any pounding he should have felt beneath Edward's skin.

"Come on, kid, come on," Tomas chanted desperately, pulling on a bell pull that snaked into the wall and then placing his stethoscope in his ears and pressed the chest piece to Ed's ribs.

"Is… is he dead?" Alphonse sounded horribly placid, as if he was less concerned with whether or not the worst had happened and more with determining his next course of action. "He looks dead."

"Of course, not, Alphonse."

Riza did not sound like she believed herself.

The flew open and an older man ran into the room, asking Tomas what had happened and what was happening now.

"Cardiac syncope. I think… they were asking him what happened and he got upset."

Roy expected a lecture, or at the very least a hateful scowl, but the man, presumably a doctor, ignored him and nodded, his acceptance of the situation almost frightening.

"Did you increase his drip?"

"As far as it would go."

Another nod and then he acknowledged Mustang, his demeanor gentle and sure. He placed his hands above Roy's and instructed him to lift Edward up again, in complete contrast to what Tomas had said only a minute ago.

"Lift him slowly," the doctor said softly, helping Roy settle into a sort of quarter-upright position that sent twinges of pain through the lower part of his spine. "Just a little at a time. We need him sitting up so that his lungs don't fill with fluid, but moving him too fast will make him worse."

"Is he dead?" Alphonse asked again, a note of desperation making his voice waver. If it wasn't for his earlier mien, Roy would have thought that the desperation for his brother's life. In hindsight, Mustang wondered if his brother's death was something Al contemplated often and he had a contingency plan in place if it came to that, and he was keeping himself from collapsing into a formless pile of steel by considering if it was time to put that plan into action.

"He's in cardiac syncope," the doctor explained unhelpfully. Then, more helpfully, "His blood pressure has dropped so low that there isn't enough momentum to keep blood moving through his heart. He still has a pulse, there just isn't enough blood in the chambers of his heart for it to do any good."

He's having a heart attack.

Roy forced himself to keep the words in his head.

As soon as the sentence passed through his mind, Roy saw Ed jerk. Alphonse saw to and made a rattling keening sound.

"There we are," Tomas said, as if he was showing Edward off a train car rather than bringing him back to life. "That's it, come back to me."

Edward jerked again, more forcibly, then flailed wildly, sucking air through the mask and coughing like a drowning man.

"Brother!"

Alphonse tried to push passed Tomas to his brother but the nurse stood his ground, shaking his head sadly but sternly.

"We can't move him too quickly. It'll mess everything up again."

Al balked obediently.

Roy surprised himself by realizing that he did not want to do this.

Then a small but sharp thumb nearly rammed into his eye as Ed swatted at him. Roy reared back instinctively and Tomas grabbed Ed by the shoulders before he fell onto his back. Edward's gasping had changed from breathless to horrified as he stared alternately at Roy and his own hand, as if he couldn't quite believe he had just tried to slap his commanding officer.

Roy didn't know if he had meant to slap him or not and didn't care. The only thing he was concerned about was the way Ed's eyes were beginning to roll as his heart started to once again pump blood it didn't have. Tomas noticed this, too. He kept glancing between Ed and the glass intravenous bottle. The stopper had been completely loosened. There was no way to increase the fluids in Ed's veins any faster.

Alphonse saw his opportunity and pounced.

"What if… what if you gave him to me? Slowly? So I can hold him."

Tomas considered this, then glanced at the doctor, who gave a shrug and a nod. Tomas wasted no time in oh so terribly slowly lowering Edward onto the bed so that he could move one his arms from holding up to beneath Ed's knees and lifted him - still incredibly slowly - so that he could transfer the still coughing and gasping boy into his brother's metal arms.

Alphonse cradled him like he was made of wet paper.

Roy knew he and Riza should probably leave, should probably give the brothers some privacy and Edward space to calm down and recover. He might have if Ed hadn't managed to regain just enough breath to speak, albeit haltingly.

"Al…"

"Yes, Brother?"

More coughing and gasping.

"Al… run."

Roy's blood turned to ice.

He felt Riza put a claw-like hand on his shoulder, her grip strong enough to break his collarbone.

Alphonse had stiffened so that, for a moment, he became the statue many thought he was upon meeting him. Mustang had thought it was from horror until Al broke the silence.

"What… No!" Alphonse did not sound horrified. He sounded scandalized, like Edward had asked him if he needed Ed to explain the origins of babies. "Why would I… If I'm going anywhere, you're coming with me."

Edward coughed so hard he nearly gagged, bouncing against Al's elbow. In that movement, Ed made eye contact with Mustang, though neither had intended it.

The unbridled terror Roy saw in his eyes made Roy hate himself more than he usually did. Ed must have seen something because the terror increased and Ed raised his left arm to try to weakly and vainly push his brother away from him, like he hoped he could get Al to drop him.

Alphonse's grip on him tightened.

"Al… you get outta here."

"Why?"

When Ed glanced at the colonel this time, it was intentional. Al followed the glance, then looked back at his brother.

"What about the colonel? Brother, he's trying to help you."

Edward shook his head, somehow both frantically and fraily, and Roy had to force himself not to step back. Riza's hand on his shoulder squeezed inward so that her nails cut into his coat.

"No, Al."

"What d'you mean, no? Mustang already said that this isn't your fault. You're not in trouble. Are you saying he's lying?"

Mustang felt his knees buckle slightly. Hawkeye swayed for a moment before bracing herself.

"You… you do think he's lying," Al answered his own question, then came up with more. "Why would he lie to us? It doesn't make any sense."

Edward kept his nervous gaze on his brother, saying nothing but still pushing against Al's breastplate with his hand.

"Why do you think Mustang is lying?" Alphonse asked again, catching Ed's hand in his gauntlet to get him to stop. When Ed still didn't answer, Al pressed his logic further. "If Mustang had any reason, he would have done it a long time ago. Whatever reason you think he might have, it can't possibly be better than the one he's had from the start and since he hasn't done anything with that, it doesn't make any sense for him to start now, especially with a brand new reason."

The doctor and the nurse glanced at each other awkwardly, both knowing they should probably leave, that they were probably witnessing something private, but also knowing that the risk to Ed's safety simply wasn't worth it. Even so, they shuffled themselves out of the way so that they were standing in the far corner of the room.

Even if it wasn't true privacy, it was as close as they could manage.

Roy paid them no mind. He was following Alphonse's argument, hoping that it would get Edward to reveal what he was hiding. Riza seemed to have discovered something in her search, something neither Alphonse or Roy had thought to look for.

"Edward… what exactly did Colonel Holland say to you? About anything," she clarified when Ed looked at her in confusion. "Did he say anything about us - or maybe just the colonel?"

Ed was still for so long that Roy thought that he might be ignoring her. Then, if only slightly, he shook his head.

Riza continued before he had a chance to curl back into his shell.

"Did he say anything about you?"

A thoughtful pause, then another shake of the head.

"What about Alphonse?"

A vehement shake that left him reeling. Alphonse tried to tilt his arms so that blood pooled in his brother's body rather than his leg.

"Did he give you any specific orders?"

An even longer pause, then a cautious nod.

"Can you tell us one?"

The mask on Ed's face bobbed as he worked his mouth, trying to find his voice while simultaneously debating whether or not he should.

"No… no eating."

Mustang wasn't able to stop his "What?!" nor Alphonse his "Why?!". Ed shrank against his brother, his eyes round with what looked to Roy oddly like guilt.

Hawkeye breathed deeply but did not react further beyond the slight shaking of her fingers that only Roy noticed since her hand was still on his shoulder.

"Did he tell you why you weren't allowed to… to eat?"

She waited patiently while Ed worked on processing the question and then processing his answer.

"Um… Because it was distractin'. To the others."

Hawkeye "hmmed" as if this somehow made everything make sense. Roy still had no idea what she was getting at, but knew that he would eventually catch up.

"What's another order he gave you?"

"No leavin'… for food. Had to stay all day."

Roy and Al were able to keep themselves calm, though Roy saw the way the empty knuckles of Al's gauntlets curled.

"And why was that?"

This back and forth investigation went on for some time: Hawkeye would ask what was a seemingly innocent question to Edward and a seemingly pointless question to Roy. They learned things, but not things that Mustang could find any value in, until Riza had made a connection and asked a question that Edward answered with his face rather than his voice.

"I'm confused. If Colonel Holland told you not to transmute the coins, how did he expect you to fulfill your purpose on the mission?"

Edward's expression said that he'd asked that exact question and his current situation was the result of that question.

"You couldn't. That was the whole point," Mustang filled in the hole they were all staring down. "You fulfilled your purpose and were… punished for it."

"Brother… I think Colonel Holland got you in trouble on purpose," Alphonse piped up.

Edward's brow pinched. The same thought had occurred to him, but he had discarded it due to lack of motivation.

Roy felt like crying. He suspected that Hawkeye would, once she was alone.

Then, as she had before, she realized something none of them had before.

"Edward… You mentioned earlier that you were ordered not to eat during the day because it would distract 'the others.' Who are these 'others?'"

Edward squirmed, winced, and stopped squirming.

"The… the second lieutenants."

"The men working under Holland," Riza rephrased. "Did the second lieutenants say anything? About you? About the colonel? Either one."

Ed's silence was answer enough.

"What did they say?"

Roy tried to keep calm, to keep the anger from spilling into his voice, but he must have failed because Ed pushed himself further into Al.

Riza took her hand from his shoulder and replaced it on his arm.

"Edward, would you tell me? Just me. I won't tell the colonel unless you say I can. He'll step out for a minute and it'll be just us."

Roy felt the protest rise in his throat and he bitterly swallowed it down. Hawkeye meant the opposite of offense and yet Roy still felt offended. In the absence of knowing exactly who he should be offended by, he unfairly placed the blame on Riza, which he also swallowed down.

It was that interpersonal event that gave him an idea of what they were dealing with.

Unexpectedly but not surprisingly, Edward gave Alphonse an apologetic look that Al, bless his heart, both understood and did not find offensive.

"It's okay, Brother. I'll be right outside if you need me."

He started to gently lower his brother back onto the bed. Tomas scampered forward to help. As soon as Ed was settled, Al turned away and made his way out of the room. Hawkeye gave Mustang a small push with her hand and then let go, heading in the opposite direction as Alphonse and taking a seat on the edge of the bed. Edward pulled his feet away from her and would not look at her but did not shrink away.

Roy wondered how Alphonse did it.

XXX

"Did you know that Brother stayed away from alchemy for a whole year?"

Roy had expected Alphonse to talk to pass the time but he most certainly hadn't been expecting that.

"Brother didn't talk about alchemy at all in the year after the… after what we did," Al went on without waiting for Roy to respond. "He didn't draw any transmutation circles. He wouldn't even touch any book that had runes in it, especially his journal. I didn't either.

"Colonel… Brother kind of has this thing - I guess I do, too - where when something bad - I mean, really bad - happens, he doesn't want anything to do with anything that had anything to do with it. It doesn't always make sense, but… He - we got back into alchemy once we had time to… I guess, get some distance between it and what happened. I don't know if we thought that trying alchemy again, any kind of alchemy, would make something bad happen again or if we thought we didn't deserve to try again, but once we were sure that whatever it was wouldn't happen wouldn't, we went back to normal. Y'know?"

Mustang did and he didn't.

He knew Alphonse was trying to make him feel better about Edward's sudden abhorrence towards him, but he didn't see how telling him that it might take a full year for Fullmetal to forgive him for something he didn't do was supposed to do that.

They waited in silence after that, the only sounds being feet walking somewhere down the halls and hospital staffs' muted voices.

Roy didn't realize he had become accustomed to the quiet until Riza came out of the room and he jumped at the sound of the door opening.

Roy opened his mouth to ask her what she had managed to get out of Ed. He closed his mouth when he saw the expression on her face.

"I need you to do me a favor, sir."

Roy nodded without speaking, hearing Alphonse straighten somewhere behind him.

Hawkeye removed her gun from its holster. Roy reeled backward, expecting her to turn the barrel on him. Alphonse gasped and shifted, possibly into a defensive stance.

She offered the pistol, safety still off, by its barrel so that Roy could take it by its stock.

"Take it, sir. Please."

Roy looked her in her bloodthirsty eyes as he did so, holding the rejected firearm limply at his side.

"Lieutenant… may I ask why?"

Riza ignored him and turned to Alphonse.

"Alphonse… I need you to go to Eastern Headquarters and down to the Archives. Ask for someone… someone disfigured."

"What?" Roy asked at the same time Al said, "Um… okay, Lieutenant, but… why?"

She ignored that question, too. She turned back to Roy and stared at him with a kind of sorrowful rage.

"Sit with him. Talk to him. Show him he's safe."

She turned away from both of them and started walking down the hall toward the hospital's reception room and announced her intentions to empty space.

"I need a drink."

This was a monster to write because I was trying to both get Ed to talk to someone without straying from his irrational fear of Mustang.

Just to clarify, the corporal punishment is not based on something that happened to me. It is based on the historical scandal that inspired this story as well as the experience of someone who was attacked at my old job (I did get attacked several times, but I never had to go to the hospital).

I was, however, frequently locked out of the building, made to work through my lunch break, cover for someone who decided to take a nap during their shift, and could not report any of this because I knew that the boss would rather come up with a reason to blame me for it than have to confront the coworkers who were doing these things.

This included having the boss ask me to do something, did it, received praise for doing it, and was then punished for doing it the next day.

This is not helping my anxiety. I should stop.