Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Impossible! ❯ A Guide to Automail ( Chapter 4 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Pairing: EdxWin
Rating: K (plus) / PG
Base: Mostly Manga (books), though I’ll probably got some minor stuff mixed up.
Timeline: Before the automail surgery. Edward 11. Win 10. Al 10.
Summary: Pre-Series! Recovering from an Automail Surgery was not a small thing. With frustrated Edward as the patient and fuming Winry as the therapist, disaster shook the Rockbell household as all fights between them starts. EdxWin!
Note: Very sorry for the late update! Hope it doesn't annoyed you... much. I'll try to update more frequently, I'll really try!
Warnings: Slight Spoiler for part of Chapter 24 in Manga. My opinion in automail Surgery, so you purist, shoo!
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Rizenbool, July 4th 1910


Today was the day. Today was the automail surgery.

Winry sighed. She still couldn’t believe that the day had finally come. Everything in her life recently seemed like a fleeting nightmare, not a single day had passed without some kind of upsetting event.

That morning, Grandma Pinako was busy in the workroom doing some last minute preparation. Al was restless, he kept sitting down and getting up and walking around the house without actually doing anything. He was giving away his nervousness.

Not able to stand watching Al much longer, Winry decided to go to the library. How surprised she was when she found Ed in there.

“Ed?”

The blonde boy lifted his head from the book he was reading, “Hn?”

A doubt filled her heart, she had meant to ask him what he was doing, but suddenly it seemed stupid. “Uh… nothing, you just surprised me. I didn’t expect to find you here.”

“… Al told me you rearrange this room, I just came to take a look,” he replied, “You did a great job, I couldn’t recognized this room anymore until I saw that bookshelf. That was oji-san’s right?” Ed gestured to a bookshelf that stood across the room, covering almost the entire wall.

“Yea, that was my father’s,” Winry looked at the bookshelf. Her heart still clenched when she thought of her parents. She cleared her throat and turned back to the blonde boy, “I can’t move it and the books are too fragile….”

“Sorry I wasn’t able to help,” he apologized.

“It’s okay, I should have done it myself anyway…”

He didn’t reply.

Somehow she had gotten used to him not replying at some of her remarks. After recovering from his state of depression, Ed was quieter preserved, and seemed to be full of thoughts.

Winry didn’t blame him. He probably had much to think about.

“What are you reading?” she approached him.

Ed lifted the book and showed her the title.

Winry had to lift her eyebrows at that, “‘A Guide to Automail’?”

He replied with a shrug.

Of course! Winry scolded herself. The only books in the room were either medical books or automail references. But she had always pictured Edward with alchemy books; automail was more of her territory.

A sudden realization hit her, her eyes widened. “Ed…”

He resumed his reading, “Yeah?”

“… Are you afraid? About the surgery?”

“… No.”

Winry could not bring herself to believe that. Ed was not looking at her, she still recognized that behavior. He was uncertain of something, or he was lying. “Really?” she was careful not to sound accusing.

Closing the book, he turned his eyes to hers, “… I don’t know. Kinda… maybe.”

“… We could always postpone the surgery…”

“No!” Ed replied abruptly. He made a motion like he was trying to stand up, but having only one leg, he only managed to disturb the balance of his wheelchair.

“Ed!” Winry quickly steadied the wheelchair, putting a stop to his fall. Her strength surprised even her; Ed was not actually light though she was taller than him, and the wheelchair was made of iron.

Both of them did not say anything for a while trying to recover from the shock.

Winry clutched the armrest tighter in her hands. “Dammit, Ed! You shouldn’t do things like that!”

“You’re the one who made that ridiculous comment about postponing the surgery!” he retorted.

“It’s not ridiculous! I only said that you can postpone the surgery if you’re not ready!”

“Who said I’m not ready!”

“You’re afraid!”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not ready!”

They gasped for breath, glaring ateach other.

Winry willed herself to calm down, “Why do you insist so much? What if your body could not take it?”

“Grandma said it was fine,” he replied stubbornly.

“Do you really know what you will be going through? What if there was a rejection? Shouldn’t you wait until you’re more healthy?”

He pinned her with a determined look, “We can’t live with what ifs, Winry.”

“I know that.”

“Good.”

They glared at each other again. The action was a reminder of their past selves, but for once Winry didn’t like it. Anytime soon, Grandma would come and call them for the surgery. She didn’t want Ed went to the surgery in that sort of mood.

She averted her gaze and forced her voice to be cheerful, “Did you find anything helpful?”

He was clearly shocked at her sudden change of mood. “What?” he asked, slightly disoriented.

She pointed to the book he was still holding.

“Oh,” he looked at the book, “Dunno, I’m not actually reading it, y’know….”

She pulled another chair near and sat down. She took the book from him, and flipped through some pages until she found the chapter about automail docks. She showed the opened page to him, and pointed a picture. “See this? We call it the docks. This is the part that will connect the automail to your flesh.”

His eyes studied the picture, “That’s… huge.”

“It varies from person to person, silly,” she felt a smile tugging the corner of her lips, “Grandma prepared a much smaller one for you.”

Ed sighed in relief, “Oh, good. I don’t think I will be able to move if I had that thing on my shoulder.”

Winry nodded, and flipped a page. There was a picture of a dock that connect with a human shoulder. “This is the shoulder dock, the one you will be getting.” She flipped again, “If you open the outer case, you will see wirings. These wires will connect directly to your nerves.”

“You mean you implant them?”

She nodded again, “Yup. Actually, that’s what we are going to do at the surgery today.”

Winry saw the blonde boy wince. “Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing.”

He lifted his eyebrow, “But I thought the surgery was painful?”

“A common misconception,” She shook her head. “The surgery itself is not painful since you’ll be deeply sedated. Implanting wire connectors is a dangerous and complicated task, y’know; we can not afford the patient to thrash around and scream in pain.”

She stopped for a while, debating on something, but finally decided to continue. “The pain will come later, when we connect the wires to the nerve stimulator.”

“Nerve stimulator?” his expression told her that he did not like the phrase.

She nodded, “We have to make sure that all the wires connect to the right nerves. And even then, there is still a chance that your nerves would not respond to the wire networks.”

“A rejection?”

“Kind of… rejection is much more painful, but I think we shouldn’t talk about it right now.”

They continued discussing about the things that would be done in the surgery. She was oddly enjoying it. Somehow she felt like they were discussing some school project rather than a dangerous surgery.

“We estimated that we can attach the docks on the third week, that is if you gave no rejection to the wirings,” she informed.

“What!” he exclaimed, startled. “How long is this actually gonna take?”

She gave him a frown, “What? You think automail is like an instant noodle? These things take time, Ed, lots of time - and it’s not going to be pleasant either.”

He sank to his seat, “And here I thought it would all be over with one surgery…”

She laugh tiredly, “If it was that simple, then everyone would be getting automail.”

Ed only grunted in agreement or acknowledgment, Winry couldn’t decide on which.

“Do you want me to explain it to you, in a quick summary?” She patted the book on her lap, “It’s always to know what you’re going to go through.” The end of her sentence was a lie, but Ed didn’t seemed to notice.

She had wanted to tell him that he might not be able to think about anything except pain for at least a couple of weeks, but decided against it.

He sighed, “Sure, I have some time to kill.” Then he eyed her suspiciously, “You’re scarily enjoying this….”

She grinned in return, “Well, it’s not everyday I tutor the mister-know-it-all….”

He snorted, “I’m not a mister-know-it-all, I’m just a genius.”

She rolled her blue eyes, a clear sign that she would rather die first before admitting what he said was true. “Typical. I should have known you’d say that.”

He smirked and they stared at each other before laughing.

This mood was much better. Almost like they were back to those pleasant days under the birch tree - the teasing, the jokes, the pranks.

He calmed down much quicker than she. “Thanks, Winry,” he said suddenly.

She stopped laughing and blinked at him, “What are you thanking me for?”

He grinned, “Just thanks.”

“You’re acting weird, Ed.”

“Are you going to enlighten me or what?”

She blew her cheeks in a pout but flipped the book on her lap until she hit the introduction. “Here,” she showed the page to him, “There are four steps of automail installation; wire implanting, docking, recovery, and rehabilitation. Grandma taught me five; wire implanting, nerve stimulating, docking, recovery, and rehabilitation; but they are roughly the same. You follow me so far?”

Seeing that the boy nodded. She dragged her fingers across the texts in the page, pointing to a flowchart.

“Wiring surgery was the first thing you will be going trough; that is today. I’ve told you before, you’ll be deeply sedated and the next thing you know will be wires poking out from your shoulder and leg.”

She stopped and looked at the blonde boy, but he had his full attention on the book. She had to smile, that was the Ed she knew, being able to give unwavering concentration once he had sat his mind into something.

“The nerve stimulating is next,” she continued her lecture, glad that she was finally teaching Ed about something, not the other way around. “You won’t like this, I should warn you. Actually, this is when you will feel the famous pain people talked about. The wire that had been implanted to you will be connected to a nerve stimulator. This machine will send electric jolts to your nervous system. This is a kind of treatment… to make sure that your nerves are able to work together with the artificial limbs. This treatment will go on for about one or two weeks, depending on your responses.

“After that is the docking surgery… you know, implanting the dock to your flesh. You will be sedated in this surgery, too. Then there is the recovery, when you will regain your health and strength before we actually connect the limbs to you.”

“Wait-wait!” Ed interrupted, “You mean I won’t be getting an arm and leg soon?”

Winry shook her head, “Not until we remove the stitches and you stop feeling pain.”

“How long is the recovery and rehabilitation gonna take?”

Winry gave the question a thought, “Dunno, the books never actually tell when is the time to do this or that, or how long the processes actually are.” She looked at him and continued, “It varies from person to person, I guess. You should ask Grandma, she might be able to give you a rough estimation.”

He sank down his seat, not actually looking forward for the surgery anymore knowing it would be a while before he was able to move around freely again.

Winry gave him a pained smile, “Ed, this is a long, painful, and frustrating process. You have to keep your spirit up…”

“I know…” He tilted his head back so it would rest on the edge of his wheelchair, and he stared at the ceiling unfocusedly. He was thinking again. He had really expected that he would be moving again sometime soon, and joined the military by the end of the season. Now he had to make some adjustments in his plan.

She debated whether to say something or not. Hesitantly, she finally said, “Just… just know that I will always support you no matter what, okay?”

He glanced at her, “I know… thanks, Winry. I’ll pay you back someday.”

She smiled, that was just like Ed - equivalent exchange. Deciding that she should pick up the mood, “Well, someday, you’ll be a very poor. The treatment isn’t actually cheap, y’know!”

His eyes widened in disbelief.

She didn’t blame him, she had never cared much about money before. Well… if Ed really did join the military, his income would be a bit different. “Once you’ve become a state alchemist, you will have endless money supply… I heard that Mustang guy last week.” She smirked evilly, “I’m not going to let slip a chance to draw some cash out of you!”

Ed only gaped at her like a gold fish, wondering what his best friend had turned into.

Winry clasped her hands together, a dreamy looked appeared in her eyes, “Just think about how many new wrenches I will be able to buy with that money! Ah… I want to buy the newest automail design books! And that new spare part model I saw on the newspaper last month, too!”

She sneaked a glance at Ed; he was still in shock. She kept grinning.

Yes, the military’s money. Ah… revenge is so sweet.

It was around noon when Grandma Pinako knocked the library’s door, “Edward? The preparation is complete. We’re ready when you are.”

Winry saw as his eyes searched to meet hers, and gave a reassuring smile.

Ed turned back to Pinako, “I’m ready, ‘baa-san.”

Al appeared and then the four of them made their way to the surgery room.

Once inside, Grandma Pinako quickly filled a syringe with sedative. She turned to Ed, “For the last time, Edward. You’re not gonna regret this?”

Ed lifted his head, “No, I’ve decided.”

Grandma Pinako approached him and lifted the syringe so he could see it. She looked at the blonde boy and again sighed, “No turning back? I trust Winry explained what you will be going through.”

“Just do it, ‘baaba,” he replied, slightly annoyed. “How long will the recovery and the rehabilitation take?”

Grandma Pinako injected the syringe to his right shoulder, “It’ll probably take three years until you can move properly again.”

Ed shook his head. “One year,” he replied determinedly, as if he was making a promise.

Winry stared at him wide eyed.

She didn’t know what to say. Ed must have lost his mind. Completed recovery and rehabilitation in a year? How could you hurry your body to recover? Or how could anyone guarantee that the surgery would go well and there won’t be any rejection from his body? Grandma was right, he could be coughing up blood.

Questions kept running around in Winry’s mind, so she shook her head to scatter them. She was afraid that she would say something discouraging. She decided that whether or not Ed would recover within a year it was a problem that should be solved after the surgery.

Right, focus on the surgery first.

She watched as Ed turned his head to Al, who was standing at the other side of the bed, “Al, please wait a little longer. I’ll surely return you to your normal body.”

Al nodded, “Yes. And when the time comes, you will also have your body back, nii-san.”

Ed smiled.

It was that smile again. The smile he had just recently developed. The Edward she knew never smiled. He grinned mischievously, or arrogantly, but he never smiled.

This new smile held no happiness. Pain would fill his golden eyes, and he would bite the inside of his cheek as if it would help him appeared tough. Suddenly he looked like he had the whole world on his shouldersm, but he showed no sign of giving up. Instead, strong determination would fill his gaze.

At that time, Winry simply admire him for his determination. For an eleven-year-old boy, Edward Elric was very determined and strong-willed. She really had thought that he had matured.

Years later, she would realize that that determination was not something that he gained as simply she might have thought. Edward needed that determination to keep moving forward; because with determination came the strength to do what was necessary, and along with it came hope. And with hope, came the will to continue moving forward.

But as a ten-year-old girl, Winry only wanted to be his hope; knowing what he was just about to enter was probably the hardest, and most despairing chapter in his life.

After all, the past couple of days were only just the beginning, and the hardest part had yet to come

Oooo TBC oooO

DICTIONARY:
(o)ji-san: uncle
(o)baa-san: grand mother
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THANKS:
Thank you all for reviewing! And very sorry for the late update! I won't explain anything cuz it'll sounded like i'm just looking for reasons! Sorry! Lots of things had been going on my life, specially these past few weeks... but I'm not abanddoning this story! I'll just took longer than I first expected. Don't worry! ANd thanks again for your reviews!
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Special thanks to Lady Riona, my beta!You were right, I was in a hurry!