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TW mentions of illness and an actual medical case of extreme stupidity


It took a lot of bullying on Riza's (and Alphonse's) part to get Roy to go home, if only to shower and change his clothes. It was actually Tomas who made the decisive blow, saying that if Roy didn't wash soon, Tomas would have to take him down to the morgue because he would start smelling like a corpse.

When the hot water hit his bare back, Roy hated the sigh of satisfaction that came out of him.

Now that he was no longer focused on appearances, he was aware of how tired and sore he was. Sleeping in a chair bent over a bed was not conducive to acceptable rest and his joints were reminding him that his thirties were inching closer every day.

Once he was clean in both body and laundry, he wrapped himself in his coat and covered his wet hair with a hat and walked down the street from his house to the corner store to buy a bowl of noodles and eggs and meat and a cold soda - the owner of the store was part Xingese and ran a deli within his store - then took himself home to eat his simple feast.

He'd rarely stopped to consider how soft his bed was, especially on a full stomach and a hot shower.

XXX

He wasn't sure what woke him until the phone rang for a second time.

A quick glance out the window showed him the water blue of dawn. The phone rang a third time and he rolled out of bed with a groan, stumbled down the dark hallway, and fumbled the phone from its cradle on the wall.

"M'hello?"

XXX

This was normal, they reassured.

Blood poisoning was often caused by multiple different kinds of bacteria and not all bacteria were vulnerable to the same medications.

It was normal for one culture to take the opportunity to cause its own infection when a dominant one had been erased.

Saying this and knowing this didn't change the fact that the Fullmetal Alchemist had swollen to the point that he looked like he'd been stuffed with cotton like a pillow and was trembling hard enough that the sound of his teeth chattering was louder than the footsteps of nurses coming in and out of the room.

The first thing the doctor did was demand that Hayate be removed.

This was met with a protesting squeak from Edward and one of Lieutenant Hawkeye's famous glares.

The second thing the doctor did was order a change in the medication and an increase in fluids, especially considering the amount of fluids he'd lost during the night.

A foldable bed had been set up in the corner of the room for Riza - she had volunteered for the night watch so Roy could have some time to himself and so that Hayate could stay with Edward (she knew more than most how much a warm, furry body could help when one wasn't feeling one's best).

She had woken to the sound of barking and knew something was wrong because Hayate only barked when something was wrong.

Then she knew something was wrong because she could smell what was wrong.

"Shut up, you stupid dog! I mean, please be quiet, good dog. Please! Before you -"

"Edward?"

The room was dark, but in the limited light from the street lamp leaking through the window, Riza saw Ed's face snap towards her and then dissolve into mortified terror.

"H-hey, Lieutenant, I was just… you can go back to sleep."

"You're sick."

She saw a moment of defensive sarcasm on his face as he contemplated commenting on her ability to state the obvious, then wisely decided against it because they both knew what she meant.

Besides, he was in no position to be giving her trouble, considering he was currently sitting in his own.

She forgot about his forgotten snark when she saw the embarrassed tears pooling in his eyes.

"I… I'm sorry. I'll clean it up, just don't… don't tell anyone."

Riza felt her heart broke a little, partly because he thought being unwell in the simplest of ways was some sort of crime and partly because he was he was young enough to still be embarrassed for something as small as dirty bedsheets.

"Don't worry about that. Let's just get you cleaned up."

Edward's embarrassment flared with panic and he started pulling the blankets over the worst of the mess. Hayate instinctively snatched a corner of fabric in his teeth with a playful growl. A sharp snap of Riza's fingers had him dropping it and dropping off the bed. By now, her eyes had adjusted to the dark and she was able to find the bell pull for the nurse. She took advantage of Ed's preoccupation with hiding the evidence of his lack of crime to give the rope a healthy couple of tugs.

"No, I can do it. Please, Lieutenant, no one has to know."

"Anyone who will know won't care. This is a hospital. They've seen much worse. I'll run a bath. Do you need some help -"

"No! Just… please, go away."

The last three words were preceded by what sounded dangerously like a sob.

Riza forced herself not to be hurt by his rejection.

"All right. I'll be right outside if you need anything."

She let herself out, clicking her tongue to bring Hayate with her. As she closed the door, Peggy was coming up the corridor, her face pinched with worry.

"How is he?"

Riza smiled tiredly and the nurse paused, confused.

"He's unnecessarily embarrassed."

Peggy's confusion dissolved and was replaced by relief.

"Oh, thank goodness. The medicine is working."

It was Riza's turn to be confused.

"Is there a reason why it shouldn't?"

"None that we should be concerned about. Now, if you don't mind, my patient needs me."

Riza stepped away from the door with a welcoming wave of her hand.

XXX

The door opened and closed and the lights came on.

Ed hissed as he was temporarily blinded, blinked his vision back into place, and stared in horror at the smiling nurse standing in front of the closed door.

"What… how did you…"

"Years of experience. How about we get you cleaned up while I call someone to change your sheets?"

Edward suddenly became very interested in his hand. It was hard to study it when those stupid tears kept coming back.

"Hey," Peggy said in a voice that normally would have made Edward spit a swear word just to prove her wrong. She was lucky that Ed was just too tired to be indignant. "I do this every day with almost all of my patients. I'm not fazed in the least."

Edward did have the energy give her an unimpressed scowl.

Peggy accepted the challenge.

"I once had to dissemble a toaster because a man had stuck his penis into it and gotten stuck in the springs."

It took Ed a second to process what she'd said. Once he had, he had to process it again because he couldn't believe it.

"But… what… why?"

Peggy shrugged.

"I didn't ask. My point is, I really don't give a damn. Will you please let me do my job and get you cleaned up?"

Edward was afraid that if he didn't let her do something other than talk to him, she might tell him something worse.

XXX

When Alphonse heard that his brother was awake, it took all of his self-control and practice to not wake up everyone in the hospital with crashing and clanking.

When he arrived, he found his brother being negotiated with by the nurse to use a bedpan.

"The less you move around, the faster you'll heal."

"No."

"I am more than happy to leave the room."

"No."

Alphonse had been careful to open the door quietly. After hearing the snippet of the conversation, he opened the door fully.

"I'll take him."

Peggy jumped with a yelp and whirled around. Edward raised his arm towards his brother like he was asking to be picked up, which he was.

"Al!"

Alphonse wasted no time in crossing the room and scooping up his brother.

"Al's got me. So you can go away now," Edward said with finality, settled into his brother's arms like a content cat.

"It doesn't bother me," Al said before Peggy could make her argument. "I'm used to Brother leaking. I'm just glad he's leaking from where he's supposed to this time."

When Al left the room with his brother in his arms, Edward was staring at his helmet in horror and Peggy was laughing so hard that she'd had to sit on the edge of the bed to keep from falling.

XXX

Alphonse had taken over watching his brother since Edward wasn't willing to let anyone else help him when he needed to leave his bed and what with his latest symptom, he was needing to do that approximately fifteen minutes.

Riza felt sorry for him. Most anyone would be embarrassed to be sick in that way and Ed's being so young only multiplied that embarrassment. He probably thought she would never be able to look at him without remembering how he had soiled himself in his sleep.

Perhaps she would tell him about the time Mustang and Hughes had had a little too much at the bar and Mrs. Hughes had to colonel-sit them over the weekend.

She was debating this as she took Hayate for a stroll in the freezing winter morning when she saw the very men she had been thinking about. Their breath puffed in front of them like smoke billowing from a dragon's nostrils.

Roy's countenance was so draconic, that for a moment, she had thought he was exactly that.

Maes, having better control over his facial features than his friend - one had to have the perfect poker face if one was the head of the Investigations Department - kept his expression surreptitiously blank. Riza only saw the way his brows were pinched together with stress because she had been looking for it.

"Colonel Hughes," Riza greeted the non-local officer first. "It's been a while. What brings you to East City?"

It was a rhetorical question. They both knew she already knew the answer. Maes played along anyway.

"I'm afraid I'm here on work. I was called in to oversee an investigation. I've received a report of a potential incident of hazing and abuse of authority."

Riza kept raised a brow and tilted her head, feigning surprise.

"Oh, dear. That's not good."

"No," Maes's mask finally cracked away, revealing the fury and disgust lying beneath. "Not good at all. I've been informed that the officer who was victimized is being cared for at this institution." Maes's face twisted at the word "victimized," like it was a particularly vulgar swear.

"He is," Riza answered congenially.

"I need a statement from him. Is he well enough for a conversation?"

The purpose of this verbal game of pretend became clear. The fire of Roy's dragon banked, the crackling lowering to smoldering as sadness killed the flames. Maes's expression didn't change. Riza's didn't either.

Unlike Roy, they were not ashamed of their fury.

XXX

Alphonse noticed the darkening of his brother's skin as Edward slept, so he wasn't surprised when Tomas said that his fever had gone up.

"We'll increase his fluids. It's probably dehydration from the diarrhea," he said, making a note on his clipboard to have the pharmacy send a saline bag with a lower percentage.

"He's been going a lot," Al said, watching his brother's side rise and fell as he breathed. As the fluid displacement disbursed, he had been allowed to remove the oxygen mask as fluid had stopped building up in his lungs. He still coughed in a wet, bubbly way, but breathing was no longer a fight. "Are you sure he's okay?"

Tomas smiled soothingly at the armor wringing its gauntlets in fraternal concern.

"If his body is able to regulate his water enough to use it to flush out his system, the infection is under control. We'll keep moderating him to make sure nothing else takes the opportunity to take a turn for itself, but if that doesn't happen, all he needs is sleep, good food, and clean bandages. It won't be long before you'll be going home."

In the present, where Edward was shivering and deliriously demanding that Winry not be told what had happened because then she would cry and asking Tomas, whom he apparently thought was a private or a sergeant or the like, if he could get Ed some happy from the cafeteria, that was a good man, he was sure to be noticed by Mustang if he did; Tomas was eating his words.

XXX

In the past, where Riza let herself into the room after knocking on the door and receiving permission from Alphonse to enter, the lieutenant noticed the color of Edward's skin before Al could warn her.

"They said it's just from the fever," Al was quick to reassure her. "They said it's from dehydration from… going so much."

Riza wondered why that didn't make her feel better like it was supposed to.

"Colonel Hughes is here."

Alphonse's armor straightened with a creak.

"To talk to Brother?"

Riza nodded.

"I will tell him to wait until Edward wakes up."

"Oh, Brother's already awake. He's just pretending to be asleep because he wants you to go away."

Riza didn't have to ask why.

"Oh, I see," Riza said, smiling amusedly as she watched Ed's closed eyes pinch tight in annoyance. "Well then, Edward, do you think you could talk to the colonel? I promise to go away, no matter what you say."

Edward tried to keep his act up for another five seconds, then gave up and opened his eyes with a sigh. He sat up slowly, grunting and wincing as the packed slash on his back was pulled as he moved.

Then he simply sat on his legs and stared at the floor.

Riza tilted her head to the side, her smile fading.

"Edward? Are you all right?"

"What does the colonel want?" Edward mumbled in an exhausted voice, not raising his head.

"He just wants to talk to you."

"About… about what happened?"

"I would presume so."

Edward's eyes closed with finality and his head dropped.

Alphonse rose from where he had been sitting on the floor, his joints screeching against each other.

"Brother?"

"Just… could you go away, Al?"

Anyone else might have been stung by the abrupt dismissal, but Al had been expecting it. He said nothing, just gave his brother an affectionate pat on his messy-haired head with a flat-palmed gauntlet and left.

"Do you want me to leave, too?" Riza asked him as soon as Alphonse was gone.

Edward surprised her by saying, "No. Stay. Please."

Riza smiled again, this time not at all in amusement.

"Of course," she said, taking the empty chair by the bed and sitting with Edward in heavy silence.

XXX

Riza opened the door when Hughes knocked.

She opened her mouth to ask Hughes how aware he was of the situation. Maes cut her off with, "Roy explained everything." She closed her mouth with a nod and took and stepped out of the way.

Edward was still staring at the floor, his shoulder slumped in what looked horribly like despair and his eyes shadowed with what looked horribly liked resignation. His whole body was trembling. Roy couldn't tell if it was from the fever or out of nervousness.

"Hey, kiddo," Maes greeted him, smiling as if Ed had invited him over for dinner. "How ya doin?'"

Edward looked up at that, his brow pinching in what looked like exasperation. For some reason, this seemed to have been Maes's desired reaction because he laughed and took the seat Riza had vacated, pulling the file he'd been carrying under his arm out and setting it on his lap.

"Elicia's getting bigger every day. You wanna see?" Maes didn't wait for an answer. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out his newest photos, shoving them into Ed's face. "Isn't she precious? She's already as beautiful as her mother."

Edward stared at the photos, seemingly confused, then pulled his hand out from under the blanket he'd wrapped around himself and took one of them between his fingers.

"Gracia sends her love."

Ed looked up from the photo and blinked at Maes in ever increasing confusion. Roy was sharing his confusion, but not for the same reason. Maes was always like this. Why should Edward expect him to be any different?

Hughes put the photos still in his hand back in his wallet and opened the file on his lap.

Roy saw Edward stiffen, his trembling strengthening as he watched the colonel flip through the stapled papers, the photo nearly slipping from his fingers as it was forgotten.

That was why.

Roy paid extra attention to his facial expression to make sure there was no hint of anger that Ed might blame on himself.

"Okay," Maes said, all joviality gone. "So… I heard you got mixed up with some bad eggs. You wanna tell me about it?"

Edward glanced at Riza, who glanced back calmly.

"Mmm," was his eventual answer.

Maes nodded as if this was the answer to the greatest question of the universe.

"Okay. Can you tell me the names of the officers you were supposed to be working with?"

Edward moved his glance from Riza to Roy. Roy must not have been schooling his face as well as he thought because Ed seemed to see something there that unnerved him because he quickly looked away.

"Um… there was a guy at… at the window and the other guy… he was always in the big chair."

Maes had pulled a pen out of one his coat pockets but didn't write anything down. He nodded appreciatively again.

"Okay. Why don't we start at the beginning. What was the first thing you did after you got off the train at Vanes Balt."

XXX

Roy would forever be impressed by Maes's ability to get so much information out of single sentence answers to such simple questions.

"And then what happened?"

"What did you do then?"

"Do you have a name?"

"What time was it?"

Maes scribbled furiously after every answer as if Edward had responded with a short speech to each question, though that wasn't the strangest part. That would have been the fact that all the questions Maes was asking were ones he already had most of the answers to. Roy understood the importance of the full story, but Fullmetal wasn't giving a story so much as he was throwing snippets of different chapters.

As the interview continued, Edward's skin turned redder and his head fell lower. His eyes started being closed for longer than they were open. Roy and Riza glanced at each other, wondering if they should end the meeting or the call the nurse, when Ed did a full-body shudder that not even Hughes could ignore for the sake of politeness.

"Edward? Are you all right? Do you need a break?"

Edward shuddered again and made a bubbly coughing sound. When he opened his eyes, Roy recognized the glazed, distant look shadowing Fullmetal's gaze.

"Help," was all he managed to get out before crumpled.

XXX

In the present, the stopper on the medicine line had been loosened as far as it would go.

It was the only line running into his arm. The antibiotics had been taken away.

Tomas had the stethoscope pressed into Ed's heaving ribs as the boy took hungry gulps from the mask strapped to his face. Peggy was behind the bed, studying the gash in his back.

"I'm sorry, little one," was all the warning Peggy gave before she stuck her well-scrubbed fingers beneath Edward's skin.

Ed didn't make a sound. His closed eyes tightened and tears pooled in the corners, sliding over his nose and dripping onto the pillow. Tomas didn't react beyond hastily wiping them away as soon as they appeared.

Maes hadn't left the room. Roy refused to leave and he doubted he could have made his friend leave if he'd wanted to.

"I thought it was under control," Roy growled as he watched the nurses work.

"It was," Tomas said, not looking up. "Now it's not."

"Why?"

"Because not all germs are the same. Some are resistant to antibiotics. Some are resistant to other bacteria. Once the culture keeping another is gone, the one that was suppressed gets an advantage. Whatever this one is, it's not responding to the antibiotics."

"So what now?" Maes asked, his voice calm but his expression thunderous.

"We switch antibiotics."

"And if it that doesn't work?"

Tomas didn't answer. Maes's jaw tightened.

XXX

If having his bandages changed without the swelling had felt like being stung by fifty bees that had gotten trapped under his skin, having them changed while swollen was like being scraped raw by rusty razors from the inside.

Edward was familiar with the feeling. He knew what to do with it, where to put it, how to make it pass through him silently so that no one could tell that it was there.

Well, mostly no one.

Granny and Winry were the only ones allowed to see his tears and that was because of necessity. He couldn't really tell them to leave during his automail surgery, seeing as how they were the surgeons, and he couldn't really hide his face when he hadn't been able to move. This situation wasn't that different, besides the fact that there was someone kind drying his tears as soon as they appeared.

He knew Tomas was only trying to help by destroying the evidence of his pain, but Edward wondered if the nurse realized that by destroying the evidence, he was proving its existence. Perhaps he thought he was being sneakier than he actually was or perhaps he was trying to dissuade anyone from commenting. Ed didn't know if either of those were actually helpful.

The nurse behind him touched something particularly sore and Edward's body jerked against his will.

"Hold on, Peggy," Ed heard Tomas say from what felt like far away. The fingers stilled beneath his skin but didn't pull out.

The door opened and closed and Edward heard familiar shoes hitting the floor.

"Edward? Alphonse is here. Do you want to see him?" Hawkeye's voice was soft, like she'd woken Ed up from a deep, comfortable sleep.

Edward could not answer, not without making a traitorous sound or shaking out what little blood was left in his head.

"Alphonse doesn't need to see this," Mustang said in a voice that brooked no argument.

Edward hated how grateful he felt towards the colonel in that moment.

Tomas's hand disappeared and then came back larger and rougher. Edward managed to pull his eyes open enough to identify the cause of the discrepancy and saw a blob of blue taking up his vision.

Hughes was pressing his palm against Edward's forehead as if checking for a fever. As Edward shivered and sniffled, Hughes moved his hand from Ed's forehead to his scalp and began petting him like he was a cat.

"Hang in there, squirt," Hughes whispered low enough so that only he and Ed could hear. Edward would have thrown off the colonel's hand if it wasn't for the facts that he wasn't completely sure of who's authority Maes was here on and, though he hated to admit it to himself, he kind of liked the way Maes's fingers were massaging his head. It didn't dissipate the rusty-razor-blade sensation in his back, but it gave him something else to focus on.

He reached for Maes's arm with his single hand and pressed the colonel's wrist into his face so that he could wipe away his tears with the man's sleeve. If Hughes noticed, he gave no sign of it.

"No pus. The infection isn't in the wound." Edward squeaked as Peggy pulled her fingers out of his back.

"It's probably a passing pathogen that wouldn't have managed anything under normal circumstances. Its taken the opportunity to become the new problem."

"And what do you do about that?" Maes asked, still running his hand through Edward's hair.

"Switch antibiotics," Tomas repeated from before. "If that doesn't work, it's probably a virus, and there's not really anything we can do but keep him comfortable and wait for it to go away on its own."

Edward squealed through the oxygen mask and pressed Hughes's wrist into his face as Peggy started refilling the hole beneath his shoulder blades. Maes shoved his file at Roy so he could use his other hand to take Ed's hand off his arm and hold it in his own.

XXX

"Hey, Brother."

Edward said nothing. He lay on the bed and shivered.

"I brought you something."

Alphonse held up the book he'd gotten from the library, something about how genealogies may have an effect on alchemical proficiency. Edward's eyes rolled up and over the book's front jacket, then back down again. If he found any interest in the book, he made no effort to make it known.

"Would you like me to read it to you?"

Edward closed his eyes.

Roy saw no point in telling Alphonse that Edward was too exhausted to give his brother the attention Al seemed to be looking for. Al was more familiar with Ed's behavior when he wasn't feeling well and how best to comfort him.

Peggy had stepped out to dispose of the old bandages. Tomas was still there, sitting in the chair next to the bed so he could regularly monitor Edward's vitals. The nurse looked apologetic, like this situation was somehow his fault. Maes had given the nurse space to work. Riza was checking on Hayate.

There was nothing for Roy here, but leaving would mean admitting that he had no purpose here, and Roy's pride would never let him admit that. Maes saved him from himself by nudging Roy's shoulder with his arm and then jerking his head towards the door.

"I'm in the hall if you need me," Roy said to Alphonse, then followed Maes without waiting for confirmation.

Maes raised his arms and pressed his hands against his face, pulling them down as if he was trying to pull his eyebrows off.

Roy had known it was bad. He had expected it to be that bad. He hated how satisfied he was to see that it was.

"Where do I start?" Maes asked helplessly.

Roy answered for him by pulling the file Maes had given him out from under his arm and flipping it open.

Even in black and white, Roy knew blood on linoleum when he saw it.

Roy flipped a page over the photos so he didn't have to keep looking at them.

"Second lieutenants Dale Hanes and Elmer Schaffer under Colonel Delbert Holland," Roy read off the paper, hatred for the printed letters rising in his throat. "Where do they get the balls?"

Maes barked a humorless laugh. "From Mrs. Holland, apparently."

Roy's head snapped up.

"What?!"

Maes was smiling joylessly, his eyes shut as if he thought he could pretend that what had happened never had by refusing to look at it.

"What's the best way to get a man on his knees beggin' for mercy? Ya kick 'im in the sack. If you want him to follow you around, beggin' for mercy, ya grab 'im by the sack. Hanes grabbed Holland's and his wife's… well, he had both of 'em in his hand."

It took Roy a moment to understand what Maes was insinuating. When he did, the hatred rose up into his mouth. His face twisted at the ugly taste.

"Second lieutenant Hanes was sleeping with Colonel Holland's wife."

"Is sleeping. And making sure Holland knows it. It seems the Hollands share a thing for pillow talk. Hanes caught on. Or he caught her and caught on later."

"Why not just fire him?" Roy asked, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

Maes made a vulgar rolling gesture with his hand. There must have been a nurse behind Roy because he heard someone yelp in horror and drop something. He didn't dare turn to look.

"The balls, Roy. Hanes got the good wife to give him the goods on her husband. Then Mrs. Party Pants took those goods and gave them to Delbert. Which means…"

"Extortion," Roy finished, grabbing Maes's wrist and forcing him to put his arm at his side. "Hanes has been blackmailing Holland with the dirt he's been getting from Holland's wife. But why and how does Schaffer play into this?"

"According to Holland, Hanes's motivation is a life of ease," Maes yanked his arm out of Roy's hand. "He gets payed to stare out the window and eat the colonel's wife's cooking and stick his co -" Roy cleared his throat, jerking his head behind him towards the nurses passing in the hall and Maes caught himself with a grumble. "Schaffer's just a tick, sucking up whatever Hanes doesn't suck down - okay, that's on you, that wasn't supposed to be crude."

Roy did not let up on his unimpressed expression. Maes sighed and grumbled again.

"Schaffer's goal is the same as Hanes's. He's just more than happy to let Hanes do all the work. As far as Holland knows, they're not working together."

That gave Roy pause.

"Holland told you this?"

"As soon as he saw me, he assumed that Hanes had made good on his threat and that he was in for it. He told me everything in the hopes that I would go easy on him in exchange for his cooperation."

Roy wished that knowledge made him feel better. It didn't. It just reinforced what he had already suspected - that Holland was a coward who would sacrifice anyone for his own comfort.

Even, apparently, his own wife.

XXX

"Al. Al, please, you have to go."

Alphonse paused in his reading and turned his helmet away from the book and towards his brother.

"Go where, Brother?"

Edward tried to pull the oxygen mask off his face. Tomas used the hand that wasn't pressing the stethoscope to Ed's chest to hold the mask in place. Ed growled in frustration and tried to yank the nurse's hand away, wrapping his smaller, sweatier wrist around the nurse's.

"You gotta… gotta get outta here."

Al's head tilted curiously.

"Do you need me to get something for you? Some water or the colonel? Do you heed him?"

Edward tried to shake his head. Tomas moved his hand from the mask to Ed's head to keep him still. Edward immediately took the opportunity to tear the mask away from his face.

"Get outta here before… they're comin' for you -"

He grunted as Tomas shoved the mask back into place. Al set the book aside and rose from where he'd be sitting against the wall next to the nurse.

"Who's coming? Why do they want to see me?"

Edward was fighting Tomas, trying to either pull the nurse's hands away or pull himself far enough way that Tomas couldn't reach him.

"Hold still, you'll hurt yourself," Tomas scolded, frustration leaking into his voice.

"Wait," Al put a heavy but gentle hand on Tomas's shoulder. "If what Brother is trying to say is important enough for him to hurt himself saying it, then he should probably say it."

Tomas frowned, not liking it but acknowledging Al's reasoning. He took his hands off Edward and Ed threw the mask off his face with a violence as if it had personally insulted him.

"Al… go."

"Go where? Why?" Alphonse was beginning to lose his own patience.

Edward stared at his brother, glanced at Tomas, and back again. His eyes were bloodshot and bulging.

"Away. Before it's… before you can't."

Al shook his helmet with a squeak.

"I'm not going anywhere without you."

Ed punched the bed with a frustrated snarl.

"They can't get you, too, so go!"

Alphonse finally understood and the emptiness inside him seemed to grow heavy.

"Brother, we talked about this. You're not in trouble. No one's coming for either of us."

Edward cackled in a way that had Al taking a frightened step back.

"Of course they say that. 'Cause then you won't go. You won't go and then… and then…"

Edward started breathing heavily. Tomas snatched the mask and pressed it over Ed's nose and mouth, moving his other hand to Ed's neck to both keep the mask in place and to check the amount of heat radiating from the boy's skin.

He almost instantly pulled his hand away from Edward's neck and turned himself so he could reach for the bell pull.

"What's going on?" Al asked, knowing that whatever it was couldn't be good if the nurse was having to call for another nurse.

"He's fever's spiked," Tomas said, returning his hand to the stethoscope and pressing the end piece over Ed's ribs. Edward shivered as if Tomas had dunked a bucket of ice water over him instead of touching him with a circle of metal. "He's probably getting confused about what's going on and where he is."

"I thought he was on fluids for that."

"He is. This isn't dehydration. This is his body no longer pulling its punches."

"Like…he's going on the attack? I thought that was what the antibiotics were for."

Tomas's silence said more than any words could. Alphonse felt fear take hold of his lack of heart.

"Oh… oh, no."

"Don't panic," Tomas said, trying and failing to put on a brave face. "The fact that the antibiotics aren't working means it's probably a virus. Antibiotics may not work on them, but they're also a lot weaker than bacteria. There's a good chance that if we let him burn it out on his own, his body will be able to take care of itself."

Edward jerked out of whatever stupor he'd fallen into and started pawing at the mask again. Tomas moved his hand from Ed's shoulder to the mask, following the boy's body as he slumped onto his armless side.

"Get outta here… Al." The words were muffled behind the mask. Edward was shivering so hard Tomas's arm was shivering with him.

"Colonel Mustang won't let anything happen to us, Brother," Al reminded gently. "He promised. And he was a rooster. You know how loyal roosters are."

Edward made a protesting sound that was too warbled for Al to tell if there were any words in it.

The door opened and closed. Whoever entered the room walked up behind Alphonse. Edward saw them.

Ed's panicked eyes rolled and he threw himself away from Tomas with such ferocity that the mask came off with a painful-sounding snap.

XXX

Roy knew Maes could be scary when he needed to be.

He'd seen Hughes stare down a brigadier general who had refused hand over classified documents and shout profanities at an arrested serial killer that were so vulgar the murderer had burst into tears.

The face Maes was wearing when Edward scrambled away from him was the soft, gentle one he reserved for his daughter and wife.

"Hey, kiddo," Maes greeted as if Fullmetal wasn't acting like Hughes had threatened his life.

Edward's eyes flicked to his brother and back again. His terrified expression hardened into a one of determination and he squared his shoulders, trying to look unshakable despite his shaking.

"Me."

Maes nodded sagely as Ed had just resolved some existential dilemma.

"Yes, you."

Edward's eyes were glazed with fever. They glazed further with tears and he smiled joyfully. If Roy didn't know better, he would have thought that Maes had promised the boy all the ice cream in the world.

"Al." Edward reached out for his brother and Alphonse didn't hesitate to wrap his gauntlet around his brother's hand.

"Yes, Brother?"

"You'll get it back, Al."

A burst of confused panic sparked inside of Al. He was grateful for the armor then because no one, not even his brother, could tell.

"Of course, Brother. We both will."

Edward seemed to grow sad then, his smile still there but smaller and softer. He pulled out of his brother's grip and settled into the bed, closing his eyes.

"Bye… Al."

Al didn't have to hide his confusion because he saw it on everyone else.

"Oh. Um… bye, Brother. Where are you going?"

Edward didn't answer. Alphonse reached out again and touched his brother's shoulder.

Ed's head snapped up with a snarl.

Al pulled away, horrified by the tears rolling down Ed's face.

"B-Brother?! What -"

"Go, Al."

"But why -"

"Go!"

"Lieutenant." Roy's deep voice was like a cannon blast.

"Yes, sir?" Riza had been expecting this.

"Get Alphonse out of here." He looked her in the eye and made a twirling motion with his hand.

Take him around the block and then come back.

"Yes, sir. Come along, Alphonse."

Al stared at Riza with what would have been incredulity if he was able to have any expression.

"What?! But, Brother -"

"Come along. I'll explain on the way."

For a moment, it looked as if Alphonse might refuse. Then his broad shoulders fell and he followed her out of the room, reluctantly but obediently.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Edward's shaking increase and his breathing turned heavy and wet, like he was trying to breathe through a waterfall. His hand reached across himself and he fingered the empty port of his shoulder. He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again.

"My… my arm is…"

"Fullmetal."

Edward's head snapped up to stare at Roy. His eyes were full of desperate terror.

"Roy, what is going on?" Maes asked, not knowing what to do for the first time in this whole mess. Tomas, who had remained politely silent in all of this, leaned forward in his eagerness to have the same question answered.

"He thinks he's under arrest," Roy answered matter-of-factly, taking Edward's hand and pulling it away from the port. "He things you're here to arrest him."

"What?!" Maes all but shouted, then turned his attention to Edward, who had turned his fearful gaze on Hughes. "I… no, no, kiddo, I would never… why does he think that?"

"Because Hanes told him he would be."

Maes's horror turned into fury and Edward's teeth started chattering as he curled further in on himself. Maes quickly steeled his expression.

"I am going to kill that man," Maes said under his breath.

Not if I get to him first. Roy decided now was not the time to argue over who had claim on the second lieutenant's blood and kept his thought to himself.

"So… how do we handle this?" Maes asked as Roy took the boy's hand in his own like he was thinking about pulling him out of the bed. Instead of pulling him up, Roy sat down on the bed, his expression hard as stone as Edward looked up into his face, watching the colonel's move as if he expected the man to rip his head off his shoulders at any moment.

"We put him under arrest."

"Al… Al…" Edward was whispering his brother's name repeatedly like a prayer, tears rolling down his cheeks. Roy forced himself to ignore them.

"All right, Fullmetal. Now it's time for your end of the deal. Tell us what you know."


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