Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Levitas Fragosus ❯ Unnatural Outcome ( Chapter 5 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

“Wonders are many in the world, and the wonder of all is man.”

-Antigone

- + -

Chapter V: Unnatural Outcome

The walls of the examination room were a warm buttermilk-cream, the rich colour complimented by the white trim and simple, off-white tiled flooring. There was a plain desk pushed up against the far wall, positioned directly under a small cabinet of the same make and drab, grey-green colour—several glass containers sat upon it in a neat row, displaying their collections of swabs, cotton balls, and multi-coloured lollipops proudly. Hanging on the walls were a few framed certificates and diplomas—displaying how much accreditation the doctors at the clinic had—along with a rather large, pastel print of two ducks flying over a lake . . .

Edward found the rather poetic phrase “muted cheer” running through his head for some reason.

The blonde heaved a weary sigh and shifted around on the examination table in an effort to get more comfortable; he wasn't exactly thrilled with the hard, metal edge that was biting into the backs of his thighs. However, when he moved, the sheet of sterile paper used to cover up said table crinkled its displease at being disturbed . . . so, the blonde quickly stilled and settled with another quiet sigh.

He glanced over at the wall clock and noted with a scowl that he had been waiting for this doctor for nearly twenty minutes . . . What was the goddamn holdup? He growled slightly and his frown deepened, tanned brow furrowing as he turned back to glare at the door . . .

God, he hated doctors. They could never help anyone, really. All they could do was stand there in their stupid white coats and give bottles upon bottles of useless medicine, crackpot theories, and false hope to little boys who so desperately wanted their mother to get better . . .

Edward blinked rapidly for a moment and bit down on the inside of his cheek; he lowered his gaze to the floor as he attempted to will the pressure that had suddenly descended upon his chest away. Doctors hadn't been able to help his mother . . .

“They can't help anyone,” he mumbled to himself, letting his eyes slowly slip shut.

“Brother, I think you're being unfair.”

Ed sighed and turned his head to rest his cheek against his automail shoulder. He wasn't crazy. He wasn't. He was as sure of that as he was of the steel table on which he sat . . . His grip on the lip of the metal slab tightened subconsciously and he was comforted by the weight and solidity of it. It was real and it was there . . . and he wasn't crazy.

But . . .

“Don't you think you're being unfair, Ed?”

But his brother's voice had been echoing through his mind as of late. He didn't know when it had started after the boy's death, but Alphonse would now speak to him in that comforting, chiding way that he always had when he was alive, his voice echoing with a familiar metallic resonance.

“How am I being unfair, Al?” he replied to the question softly. “Those doctors were nothing but talk . . . They didn't save her.”

Edward wasn't crazy—he knew that Al was gone . . . and that he wasn't coming back.

“Just because those doctors in Resembool couldn't save Mom, doesn't mean that all doctors are like that. You're being biased.”

This was just his mind's way of coping with the loss. Al had always been there . . . and then, he suddenly wasn't . . . Ed's mind and heart were just taking longer to adjust to the abrupt absence.

“I am not being biased. You're just upset that I'm right, is all. Just admit it . . .”

“If all doctors are scum, then what about Winry's parents, hm? They were doctors.”

“They were the exception.”

Al's voice in his head was the result. Edward knew that it probably wasn't healthy . . . and that he should talk to someone about it . . . But he didn't want to.

“Ed, if you think that doctors are so bad, then what are you doing sitting here, waiting for one to come and look at you?”

“. . . You're right, Al.”

He didn't want anyone to discover that he was talking to his dead brother inside his mind, because then . . . then they'd send him to some therapist and he would pull that hokey, shrink shit and probably pump him full of drugs, because let's face it: therapists were doctors, too.

“I am?”

“Yeah. I don't need to be here. I'm leaving.”

They would try to make him stop listening. Stop hearing. They would make Edward ignore the voice until it went away. Until it stopped. And that was why the blonde would not tell anyone about his little brother's voice . . .

“Edward, you will not!You've been really sick lately and you're going to sit here on this table and let the nice doctor have a look at you! So sit down and shut up!”

He didn't ever want Al to stop talking.

To disappear.

Ed had paused in his impromptu escape at Al's outburst, letting his flesh hand gently grip the doorknob—he could feel the dull gilded surface, scratched and chipping away in haphazard flecks, beneath his palm—but making no move to turn it. The blonde alchemist chuckled slightly, tilting his head back to smile up at the ceiling; he closed his eyes and mumbled, “All right, Al. If you say so . . .”

A hollow sigh reverberated inside his skull for a moment, then Al said, “Good. After all, Brother, you really do seem sick . . .”

The voice had gone from scolding to concerned at a rate that only Alphonse could have managed . . . and Edward allowed himself a smile at this. It was strange. He had always thought of himself as the older brother—the one who took care of his family. But in reality, it had been the youngest Elric that had always been the more sensible, caring one. And in his soft, almost pedantic way, Alphonse had been the one who had protected him . . . and he still did. “You're right as always Al.”

I'm not crazy.

“I am sick . . .”

. . . How true.

Edward could almost hear metal creaking and grinding against metal, as the Alphonse of his mind shifted nervously. “Brother? How long have you been sick, anyway?”

The blonde suddenly opened his eyes to the white ceiling, considering Al's question carefully. It wasn't really the question that had been asked—though, that in itself was enough to give the alchemist pause, considering that he wasn't too sure himself—but the tone that Alphonse had taken . . .

It was tone that spoke of knowledge beyond years. A tone that was assuming and deducing . . . And on one Alphonse Elric, it did not look good . . .

Edward shrugged what he hoped was a dismissive manner. “I don't know. I've been puking for awhile now. Maybe . . . two or three weeks . . .”

Was that right? Three weeks? That certainly seemed like a long time to be throwing up . . . especially at the rate that the Fullmetal had been doing it. Of course, that was why Hawkeye had insisted that Edward go to a doctor . . . otherwise, Edward wouldn't now be standing in a room of “muted cheer,” his hand resting on the battered doorknob, arguing with his dead brother in his head.

“Why?” he asked softly, being careful to not make the question sound too accusatory or suspicious.

There was a pause . . . then more shifting of steel, before Al's quiet voice chimed, “Oh, no reason. It's just . . . that's an awfully long time to be sick, Brother. Don't you think?”

Ed sighed and closed his eyes again, nodding silently to the question. Then, he tensed, waiting for the gentle assault that he knew was coming . . . because, really, Al was too smart for his own good. And he was too curious not to ask.

“Isn't . . . isn't that around the same time that . . . you, y'know . . . you spent the night with . . . the Colonel?”

Well, Alphonse had certainly hit the nail on the head and the blonde alchemist winced as if he himself had been struck with the hammer. Edward had been trying to not think about that night too much, seeing as how he had somehow managed to go through with not one, but two reprehensible, iniquitous, and damnably taboo acts in the time span of two hours . . . It wasn't something that he was too proud of.

The failed soul attachment had been bad enough, but then . . . but then the Bastard had swooped down like some fucking alchemic knight and had . . . He had . . .

Edward sighed wearily.

Mustang had been wonderfully, unbelievably, infuriatingly gentle and comforting, despite the awkwardness of the situation. He had stared down at the blonde and Ed had drunken up the lust and concern in his dark eyes, noting the distinctive tracks running down his cheeks . . . Edward had taken that comfort and nourished himself on it, then and had fed it back to the man through his moans and half-choked sobs.

Because in all the years that he had known the colonel, he had never once seen him shed a tear . . . But that night, he had witnessed something that few people could claim: He had seen the great Flame Alchemist break down.

It wasn't the splendid event that Ed had always imagined it would be. There was no gloating or laughing or mocking jeers; there was only pity and sorrow . . . And fear. In that moment, Edward had stared into the eyes of a man broken . . . and he had been afraid.

Because that night, Mustang had been his rock.

He had been his rock and it was alarming to Edward to see the foundation suddenly shift and watch the granite slab that was Roy Mustang begin to crack and crumble. Ed had panicked and done the only thing he could think of: he had drawn an array and pressed his hands against it, forcing his will to stabilize outwards and into the stone . . .

He had kissed him.

And the statue had soaked up that console and had spread its arms to return it and Edward eagerly accepted. Not because it was this man or because it was equivalent . . . but because he didn't want to think. He just wanted to lie there and forget and just feel for one moment . . .

Does that make me a bad person?

Ed's amber eyes opened once again and he gave a gusty sigh, the conversation that he had had with Hawkeye that very morning coming back to him with embarrassingly vivid clarity.

- + -

Edward had been slumped over one of the toilets in Central HQ, trying to keep his hair pulled back as he vomited his guts out for what had felt like the hundredth time that day. His sinuses had burned and his eyes had watered, but he just couldn't find it in him to reach up and press the flusher. At that point, Ed had wondered vaguely at how many people would laugh at his funeral if he were to simply drown himself in the toilet right then and there. Boy, he could just see the headlines then: “Fullmetal Alchemist Commits Suicide, Death by Commode.”

Somewhere, someone very vindictive was having a hardy laugh at his expense . . .

It had been sometime around the tenth retch of the morning when the blonde had heard the bathroom door open . . . followed by the familiar click of taloned heels . . .

Edward had looked up miserably to find the blonde first lieutenant staring down at him with what might be construed as surprise. “Major Elric?” she had asked uncertainly, as though she wasn't sure it was really him. “What are you doing in the women's restroom?”

And his day just got worse.

The blonde had turned crimson, then chuckled and rubbed the back of his head in discomfiture; he then had opened his mouth to explain that, on his way to drop off a report at the office, a sudden wave of nausea had hit him and that he had rushed into the nearest lavatory without stopping to examine the sign too closely . . . however, at that very moment, his stomach had gurgled unhappily and he had gagged on air . . .

He didn't see Hawkeye's reaction, considering that his face had been buried in a toilet bowl, but he figured that she had grimaced and left him to flounder in his misery alone . . . It had surprised him immensely when he had suddenly felt warm hands on his back, rubbing gentle circles, and having his blonde fringe pulled back out of his flushed face.

Edward had panted heavily for several moments, swallowed and gagged once more, without producing anything; after several more deep breaths, the blonde had deemed it safe to sit back on his heels and he had looked up at Hawkeye as she pressed the flusher down, his amber eyes shining appreciatively. “Thanks,” he had muttered, reaching up to wipe his flesh wrist against his lips.

“Edward, are you all right?” she had asked. Her voice had sounded in its usual, clipped tone, but the alchemist had seen how her auburn eyes had shown with genuine concern. “What's wrong?”

The Fullmetal had not intended on telling her what had happened . . . He hadn't intended on telling anyone what had happened . . . but for some reason, looking at the lieutenant then, seeing the unease and compassion on her normally masked face . . . and remembering the feel of her palm smoothing circles on his lower back . . . he was suddenly reminded of his mother . . . and he had broken down.

He had told her everything. About how he had planned the soul transmutation and how he had carried it out, about how he had woken up and had felt pain and had just run for his life . . . about how Mustang had found him and, in his very Mustang way, had looked after him and comforted him . . . and then, about how he and Ed had had . . . sex . . . He told her about the sudden illness and how he was vomiting constantly . . .

The blonde had let it all flow out of him, like a great damn being released—the stopper had been pulled and Ed was watching as it all went swirling down the drain in a cyclonic vortex. The knots in his stomach had seemed to lessen as the words and tears poured out of him . . . and he had just felt light and calm. Why hadn't he realized before how unbelievably . . . cathartic it was to tell someone? For nearly four weeks he had kept it bottled up, letting it eat away at his heart like acid . . .

Confessing these sins was almost like pouring a base over his insides, neutralizing the caustic burn. And it felt wonderful . . .

Cleansing.

Riza had borne it all. She had crouched there next to him on the dingy restroom floor, her hands resting gently on her knees and a concentrated expression on her face as Ed had unloaded his burden and split it with her. It probably hadn't been something that she had wanted, and at the tight-lipped expression she had taken on whenever the blonde had mentioned his rendezvous with the colonel, he had wanted to stop . . .

But once the floodgates were opened, there was no way to quell the flood.

I'm sorry Hawkeye.

Edward couldn't remember how long he had sat there and sobbed—his automail shoulder pressed firmly against the grey plywood of the bathroom stall, his red jacket soaking up the moisture off the floor—before he had finally gotten ahold of himself . . . and realized what he had just done.

Oh, God . . . no . . .

He hadn't wanted to unload all of that on the first lieutenant. It had not been her burden to bear—his mistakes were his, his sins were his and his alone—and he had regretted ever having had opened his mouth, especially because . . . Because he was not so blind as to have never seen the way that she looked at the colonel . . .

I am sosorry.

So then, on top of the newly-understood feeling of release, there had been a haze of dread and guilt . . . and Edward had felt sick all over again when he realized that he wanted those feelings to go away.

Because he was just that much of a selfish bastard.

The Fullmetal had bowed his head in shame, letting his blonde bangs shelter his eyes . . . He hadn't wanted to look at Riza; hadn't wanted to see the look of loathing, pity, and disgust that was sure to reside there . . .

“Edward . . .” she spoke softly . . . and the Elric cringed like he had been struck.

“Please . . .” he interjected. “Please don't look at me like I'm some kind of monster. I'm not a bad person, I just . . .” Ed had stopped, because really . . . what was he, if not what he had just denied? He had no excuse . . . except . . .

“Edward—”

“Lieutenant . . . have you ever seen someone die?”

He had sensed an uncomfortable aura radiate off of her at the question and had heard a rustle of fabric as she has shifted around. Ed had known that Hawkeye had been in Ishbal . . . and he was no longer quite naïve enough to believe that anyone who was involved in the battles of that war didn't wake up to their own screams in the night.

Hawkeye was no different. She had seen death. Probably caused it, as well, but Edward had not chosen to bring up those particular demons . . .

“. . . Yes. I have,” she finally spoke.

The alchemist had smiled ruefully at this, then whispered out, “They say that you never forget it. But . . . that's not entirely true. Is it?”

He had waited patiently, but Hawkeye had either chosen to give no response to this . . . or had no answer to offer. In either case, Edward had pressed on calmly, “The truth is, you do forget. You forget . . . and then you remember it all over again . . . and that just makes it so much worse . . .”

There had been a hand on his shoulder then—his flesh one, for he could feel the trembling pressure and warmth through his layers of fabric—and a hushed, “Edward . . .”

“One night,” he had very nearly snarled. “For just one night I didn't want to remember what I had done . . . and what I failed to do. I didn't want to remember the death and the pain and the sorrow. I wanted to let go and I wanted to just feel. God, I just . . . I just wanted some . . . contact. Does that make me a bad person? Does it?”

His head had snapped up at these last words and he had stared with narrowed, red-rimmed eyes at the blonde woman kneeling next to him. A gentle frown was etched on her face and her eyes stared determinedly into his; for just one moment, Ed thought he had seen wetness there. But she had blinked and it was gone . . .

With a sigh, Riza had reached over and taken ahold of his other shoulder, pulling him up and twisting him to face her. “. . . Of course not,” the blonde had stated gently. “You're not a bad person; you never have been and you never will be. What you did . . . it doesn't make you . . . weak. Or a monster. Edward, you have been through so much . . . and you've survived and triumphed. You've faced things . . . horrors that would make grown men piss themselves and you have laughed in their faces. Forgive me, Edward Elric, if I sometimes forget that you're only human.”

Only human.

Edward had stared . . . and then for reasons that he didn't know and couldn't help but obey, he had dissolved into tears and pressed himself against her as he wept . . .

- + -

“Brother?”

“Hm?”

“I asked you if you thought that . . .”

“What is it, Al?”

“If . . . you thought that . . . you might be sick because of . . . the Colonel?”

“Hm . . .”

“. . . Was that a yes?”

“No, Alphonse. It was a `hm'. It had no ulterior meaning.”

“Oh.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“. . . I have thought about it, Al . . . Considered it. Yes, it might be because of . . . that . . . that I'm sick.”

“. . . I'm glad to see you're considering it, Brother. I mean . . . we've all heard those Colonel-slut rumors. Not that I think you'rea slut or anything, Brother! I was just . . . I mean . . . I just meant that Colonel Mustang is promiscuous! I didn't mean that youwere a slut just for sleeping with him or anything! Oh . . . I'm not helping myself here, am I?”

“Al, Al, it's okay. I know that you didn't mean anything by it. It's all right.”

“Oh . . . okay . . .”

“Yes, it could be that, but . . .”

“But?”

“But that was also the night I tried to put your soul back in the armour . . .”

“Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. Exactly what were you thinking, you idiot brother?”

“I promise that we'll talk about it later, Al. Please?”

“Hmph.”

“ . . . Hn. In any case, it might be the failed attachment causing this . . . sickness. I don't know how, since I didn't lose anything, but . . . Whaddaya think?”

“Hm . . .”

“Was that a yes?”

“No, it was a `hm'. It had not ulterior meaning.”

“Heh.”

“. . . Brother?”

“Hm?”

“I . . . I wish you would smile again.”

“. . . I'm sorry, Al.”

“It's all right. I just . . . want you to be happy.”

“. . . That wasn't what I was apologizing for . . . but, all right.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“Brother?”

“Yeah, Al?”

“I'm sorry, too.”

“. . . Sorry? . . . For what?”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“. . . I'm sorry that I died . . .”

- + -

The doorknob suddenly rattled and twisted beneath Edward's palm and he jerked his hand away as though it were the head of a poisonous snake; he took a cautionary step backwards as the door swung inwards and someone entered the small room.

Judging from his white coat, the stethoscope he had looped around his neck, and the clipboard he was currently staring down at, Ed assumed that this man was the doctor he had been waiting on.

“Okay, Mr . . .” The man glanced up from the paper he had been eying and started at the unexpectedly close proximity of his patient. “Oh, um . . . Mr. Elric?”

The blonde gave a nod, his brow furrowing warily.

After a moment, the doctor gave him a small, uneasy smile. “Are you . . . all right? You look like you've been crying.”

Edward blinked . . . and suddenly felt the beads of moisture around his eyes, clinging to his flaxen lashes and running in familiar tracts down his face. Shit, he thought as he reached up to wipe the tears away, feeling his face heat up. “I'm fine,” he lied, sniffling as he scrubbed at his face. “I just . . . I'm fine.”

(“. . . I'm sorry that I died . . .”)

Alphonse . . .

The doctor eyed him uncertainly for a short moment, before sighing and motioning for Ed to take a seat on the table once again. The alchemist complied slowly, making his way over to said table and sliding back up onto the metal slab, the paper crunching as he moved. “All right then, Mr. Elric,” the man stated tiredly as he himself took a seat in a short, rolling chair near the door. While the man was busy straightening his coat, Edward took a second to give him a quick, rather disinterested once-over:

He was younger than the Fullmetal had expected—in his late thirties or early forties at most—and had an unexpectedly kind face, with crinkling lines around the corners of his eyes and mouth when he smiled . . . His sandy hair looked thin and hung limp over his scalp, falling down before his hazel eyes in an almost ethereal fringe. He kept reaching up to push his thin, wire-framed glasses up his nose and Ed caught a glimpse of the man's fingernails, all of them bitten down to the quick . . .

The doctor suddenly sighed and looked up at him. “Mr. Elric, my name is Dr. Antley,” he said hospitably, a small smile on his features. “And I . . . am going to try and figure out what is wrong with you.”

Edward snorted and rolled his golden eyes at the man. Idiot . . .

“Brother, be nice,” Al's voice chided.

You be quiet, Al. Just don't. And don't you everthink about telling me that you are sorry, again. Especially for something that was myfault.

“. . . It wasn't your fault, Ed. I know that and you should just stop blaming yourself for something that you couldn't help . . . But, you're sick . . . and you're with the doctor . . . so I'm not going to fight with you about this right now.”

. . . Al . . .

“I'll . . . talk to you later, okay? I love you, you stupid brother.”

“Al,” Ed whispered out through clenched teeth, trying his hardest to keep the monster in his chest from crawling out of his mouth and eyes. He knew that, if he let them, the tears would come; Edward had never done so much crying in his life than he had done over the past five weeks . . . sometimes, over the stupidest things he could think of. He couldn't imagine that he would have any tears left to give . . . however, he could feel the now-familiar burning in his eyes and tightening of his throat and he knew that he wasn't quite cried out just yet . . .

The doctor, Antley had gone back to reading whatever was on his precious clipboard, but looked up at the sound that Edward had made; the alchemist gripped the table firmly and willed the tears and sadness away . . . He had to hold himself together and just not think about his brother while he was here.

He could do that.

He could, damnit.

Edward assumed an air of turbulent nonchalance and the two men considered each other for a short minute . . . before Antley leant back in his chair and threw one leg casually over the other. “Now, Mr. Elric,” he said, glancing down his clipboard again before looking back up at Ed, “I hear that you've been having some stomach problems?”

The blonde sniffed and shrugged one shoulder as he looked away, deciding that the small attrition on the nearest wall was far more interesting—or safe—to look at than the man he was speaking to. “Yeah. I've been throwing up for about three weeks now.”

“Three weeks?” the doctor asked, sounding both surprised and incredulous, and Ed heard the scratching of a pen against paper. “Constantly? Or at irregular intervals?”

The alchemist reached back and scratched at the base of his braid absently. He really hadn't thought too much about it. “Um . . . j-just about every day, I guess. Mostly when I get up in the morning, but it isn't confined to just that time . . .”

There was a pause and then more noise as pen once again conquered paper. Antley mumbled something to himself and then asked, “Is that all?”

Edward blinked and brought his aureate eyes back to meet the hazel ones of his doctor. “Isn't that enough?” he questioned, making sure that Antley caught the upset tone of his voice.

The straw-haired man gave a light chuckle at this and rephrased his inquiry, “I mean, do you have any other symptoms?”

“Like . . . ?” the alchemist asked, quirking a thin eyebrow.

“Like . . .” Antley raised his hands and gesticulated, twirling them in slow circles at the wrist, as if these movements would draw in symptoms from the air. “Like diarrhea or blood in the urine or feces? Pain in the chest or throat? Fever, chills, nosebleed, sinus trouble, coughing? Anything like that. Anything that you feel shouldn't be happening to you.”

Ed let his brow furrow as Antley dropped his thin hands back to the clipboard. “. . . Now that you mention it, I have been feeling kind of . . . `flu-y' . . .”

“`Flu-y'?” Antley repeated, tapping his pen to the clipboard. “Muscles tight, kind of feverish, sore throat . . . like that?”

“Y-yeah. Kinda. Except, without the sore throat . . .”

“Hm. Okay,” the doctor said, bowing his head to resume writing.

Ed swallowed thickly, unconsciously reaching up to rub at the point on his shoulder where automail met flesh. “And . . . I dunno. I've just been feeling kind of . . . off.” Edward wasn't sure if `feeling off' constituted a symptom . . . but it was something that he felt shouldn't be happening . . .

Antley looked up. “Off? Like . . . just not right? Like that?”

“Uh-huh. I . . . can't explain it. It's like . . . I just don't belong inside my body. Does that make sense?” he asked, uncertain as to whether or not he was getting the point across.

“Hm . . .” the sandy-haired doctor muttered with a nod, looking back down at the paper that he had been scribbling on. “So, vomiting, flu-like symptoms, and . . . just a feeling of unease . . .” He glanced back up at his patient. “Would that describe it?”

Ed considered the man's list . . . and then gave a shrug and a small nod. “Yeah, I guess.”

Antley sighed quietly, adjusted his glasses once again, then began to speak, “Well, Mr. Elric—”

“Could you just call me Edward, please?” the blonde interjected suddenly. “It makes me uncomfortable when someone older than me calls me `mister', so . . .”

The doctor held up his hand in a placating manner and stated softly, “It's not a problem, Edward. I understand.” Offering the young alchemist a smile, Antley cleared his throat and continued on his original track. “Well then . . . Edward,” he said, emphasizing the Elric's first name with a nod and a small smile, “when I first read on your chart that you were vomiting, my immediate assumption was that you had the latest strain of stomach virus that's been going around. I've had a few patients, recently, that have turned up with it and it does strike in your age range . . .”

“However . . . ?” Ed said, because he could just feel a `but' coming on. After four years of dead-end leads for the philosopher's stone, he had learned to predict `but's.

Antley sighed. “However . . . in those cases, the vomiting only lasted for a day. Two at most. The immune system is able to fight off the virus by then and expel it from the body. So . . .” He trailed off quietly.

Edward let out a rather gusty breath and took up where Antley had left off. “So I can't possibly have that . . .”

“Right.” There was a pause and silence filled up the small room like a miasma, broken only on occasion by a cough or the clicking of a pen. Ed had never liked these types of silences. It reminded him—as strangely as it sounds—of nights lying in bed awake, but pretending he was asleep . . . listening to the quiet. He hated it because he should have been able to hear the snoring or simple breathing of another human being, the rustle of clothes against sheets . . . Hell, he would have even preferred the sound of metal shifting about to the silence—he knew that Al had learned over the years to sit stock-still late at night in an effort to not wake his sleeping brother . . . That made the silence even worse, because . . . he was the cause of it.

Damnit, he thought. I promised myself not to think about these things while I was here. Guess I can't even keep a promise to myself . . .

Sighing wearily, Ed banished those thoughts once again and looked up at his doctor, who was staring at him with a concerned look. “So . . .” he started slowly. “If I don't have that stomach virus thing that you mentioned, then . . . what do I have?”

Antley pursed his lips and tapped the end of his pen against them absentmindedly, before putting said pen on the clipboard in his lap and then pushing the whole thing over onto the desk to his left. “Edward,” he said, leaning forward in his seat and tenting his fingers, pressing them to his lips as he furrowed his brow. “You are sick. From what you've told me, that I can be sure; however, I'm not sure that this illness is entirely physical.”

Ed narrowed his eyes. “What are you . . .? What do you mean?”

The man sighed and sat back again. “Stress . . . can cause very adverse effects on the human body. Now, I wouldn't normally consider stress as my immediate ulterior diagnosis, however . . . you seem very anxious. Nervous and jittery. And . . . you were crying when I came in earlier . . . I don't mean to pry into personal business—don't get me wrong,” he stated, noticing the rather hostile look that had crossed the Fullmetal's face. “It's just . . . if it's essential to my diagnosis—and subsequently your health—then, it is rather imperative that I know. Now, has anything stressful happened to you recently?”

Edward nearly laughed at the absurdity. Stress? He thinks that I've been blowing chunks for the past month because I'm stressed out? What fucking planet is he from? The blonde just wanted to crawl under the table, curl up and die. He wanted to disappear. Stress? His whole fucking life had been nothing but stress and heartbreak . . . Why was his body objecting to it now? It should have been used to it . . .

“My . . . little brother . . .” Ed heard himself whisper harshly. “He . . . died. About five weeks ago . . . Is that stressful enough?”

Antley's dark eyes softened at this and his mouth curved downwards in a graceful frown. “I'm sorry, Edward. But . . .” The doctor cleared his throat. “. . . I believe that that is the reason for your sudden, violent sickness. I'm sure that . . . coupled with your brother's absence, you've been getting less sleep at night . . . and eating less. Correct?”

Ed didn't answer, but gave a curt nod as his response. Antley continued, “As I thought. The stress is taking its toll on your body. These symptoms you are experiencing are your body telling you that you need to slow down . . .”

Antley stood suddenly and put his hands into his coat pockets. “Edward, I'm sure that what you are going through is difficult and I sympathize, really I do. I wish that it was nothing but a simple stomach virus. That I can fix . . .”

“I know, doctor,” Ed muttered pitifully. “You can't give medicine for a broken heart.”

The sandy-haired man offered the blonde a sympathetic smile. “No. Unfortunately, I cannot. However, I can give you . . .” He trailed off, turning to pick up his clipboard once again and then jotted down something on a spare piece of paper he had. Tearing the paper away, he held it out to Ed between two fingers and stated, “. . . this.”

Edward reached out and plucked the paper away; glancing down at it, he saw nothing but a telephone number and looked up at Antley skeptically. “What's this?”

“That,” said Antley, nodding at the paper, “is the number of Dr. Wilhelm. He's a very noted psychologist and a very good friend of mine. I highly suggest that you give him a call. In fact, I'm making it a doctor's order. Rest assured that I will call him to be sure that you go in to see him.”

Edward gaped, actually struck speechless by the sheer audacity of this man. How dare he? How dare he assume that he, Edward Elric, would actually go to a psychologist—a therapist—just because he said so? How dare he? A doctor's order? He would take that and shove it up this doctor's ass! The insufferable prick! He had examined—if you could call it that—Edward for all of ten minutes and then foisted him off on yet another doctor, saying that his problem was mental? Is that how he justified it? Bastard!

Antley cocked his head to one side at Edward's expression, but said nothing as he nodded and turned away to make his leave. Well, the blonde would have none of that! “Antley!” he snapped, hopping off of the table.

At the sound of his name and the way at which it was said, the doctor stopped and turned back to his patient, his expression curious. “Yes, Edward?”

“Look, I . . .” the alchemist started, his voice almost snarling. “I didn't tell you everything.”

Ed blinked.

What? Where the hell did that come from?

Antley seemed almost as surprised by the blonde's sudden outburst as he was. “Oh?” he questioned, his eyebrows climbing on his face towards his receding hairline. Shutting the door gently behind him, Antley turned back to face his now-pale patient. “And that would be . . . ?”

- + -

Dr. Antley's expression had remained neutral as Edward had explained in halted, stumbling sentences about his one-night stand almost four weeks previous. The blonde had rushed to explain that, though he was acquainted with the person with whom he had committed the act, he also knew that said person was rather promiscuous themselves and that he really didn't know of their sexual history; he also stated that, if he had indeed caught some sort of horrible disease as a result of sexual intercourse, then it had to have been from this certain person, seeing as how Edward himself had been a virgin up until that time . . .

By the end of it, the alchemist's whole face had assumed a rather violent shade of crimson and he couldn't look Antley in the eye.

“So . . .” the doctor began, reaching up to adjust his glasses with a heavy sigh. “You believe that you contracted an STD from this person . . . and that is what is causing this sudden illness . . . Am I missing anything?”

The blonde shook his head from side to side, but did not look up.

Antley frowned and closed his eyes. “That's . . . a possibility,” he stated slowly. “As much as I hate to admit it . . . I wish that you would have mentioned this incident from the get-go, son.”

“. . . Sorry,” Ed mumbled, wringing his gloved hands together anxiously.

The doctor sighed once again and waved off the apology, though the teen couldn't see it. “It's all right, Edward. No need to apologize. We'll . . . we'll work with this. This . . . definitely opens up new doors, as far as causes and treatments are concerned.”

There was a silence as Antley paused to think, pressing a finger to his mouth absently; Edward chose this moment to look up at him, his cheeks still pink from his earlier tale. “So . . . what are you gonna do?”

The man arched a delicate eyebrow and took in a breath. “Well, Edward,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “First and foremost we are going to draw some blood and have that sent away for a battery of tests. It won't take long, I assure you—a week at most. Based on those results, we will start a treatment . . .”

Edward nodded slowly, then frowned. “What kind of tests?”

“Well,” said Antley, scratching at the back of his head, “they'll run a full serologic test—which tests for certain diseases—and an agglutination or heterophil test—that will identify unknown antigens in the blood. Seeing as you're a teenager, I'll put down for a hormonal test, just to check and be sure that it's nothing pituitary . . . They'll test everything. I guarantee you that, if there is something to find, we will find it. Just wait a week.”

“And until then?” Edward asked, anxiety lacing his voice.

Antley let out a sigh and rubbed at his eyes beneath his glasses. “Until then, Edward, all we can do is wait. I hate to put you on any type of medication, considering that we aren't sure yet if it is something physical or—like I speculated earlier—if it has to do with stress . . . We don't want to act impulsively. Medication now could do more harm than good. Understand?”

The blonde was still for a long while—his left pressed against his mouth, a far-off look in his eyes—and Antley began to wonder if he had actually gone into shock . . . but then, his patient gave a small nod and a muttered, “Yeah.”

Antley watched him for a few more seconds, before sighing and standing to take his leave. “I'll send in a nurse to draw your blood and we'll send it off the hospital to be tested. Anything else you'd like to add before I go, Edward?”

The blonde considered him for a short moment, chewing on his bottom lip, before he relinquished a weary sigh. “If . . . the tests come back as positive . . . will you tell people?”

Antley blinked. He was surprised, not only by the question, but by the look of unmasked fear on Ed's face. “Edward,” he said softly, crossing the room and placing his hands on the boy's shoulders. He was vaguely aware that his left hand was gently squeezing metal, but he made no move to question it at that point. “Edward, if this person is as . . . er, indiscriminate as you describe, then you may have to tell me their name later on. We certainly don't want some kind of epidemic on our hands, do we?” He chuckled softly, and the statement encouraged a small smile from Edward. “But, I promise,” Antley continued, gripping the blonde's shoulders, “that is the only circumstance that I will break doctor-patient confidentiality under. You can trust me on that, okay?”

Edward brought his gold eyes up to meet Antley's and gave a small nod. “All right.”

The doctor patted him once on the shoulder and then turned to leave for the third time that day. “I'll send Maia in to draw your blood in a few minutes, so just sit tight till then. Goodbye, Mr. Edward Elric.”

And with that, Dr. Antley took his leave.

- + -

The phone on Mustang's desk rang once . . . twice . . . three times before he picked it up and brought the receiver to his ear. “Colonel Mustang,” he offered as a form of greeting.

“Hello Colonel Mustang,” a man on the other end of the line answered hospitably. Roy didn't recognize the voice, but the man had a soft, kind voice. “My name is Dr. Joseph Antley—you don't know me.”

“No, I don't,” the colonel said curtly. “May I help you, doctor?”

“I'm . . . not sure. You see, last week one of your subordinates—a Mr. Elric—came to my offices and I examined him.”

Roy's ears perked up and his stomach churned with guilt. “Fullmetal?” he asked, swallowing thickly and seeing Hawkeye's gaze shift to him. “What was wrong with him?”

The doctor—Antley, wasn't it?—cleared his throat and explained, “He came in complaining of stomach troubles. Vomiting to be specific . . . To make a long story short, we sent some blood away to be examined.”

One of the colonel's delicate brows arched upwards, his curiosity piqued. “And . . . ?”

“And . . . the results were . . .” There was an expulsion of breath. “. . . interesting, to say the least.”

Roy's brow, now joined by the other one, arched clean off his head and shot through the ceiling. “`Interesting'? What exactly does that mean, doctor?”

Antley suddenly cleared his throat loudly and stated, “I don't think that this is . . . an appropriate place to discuss it. I am going to ask you to please pick up Mr. Elric and come down to my offices as soon as possible.”

The dark-haired officer let his mouth silently hang open; he could feel the other members of the office now gazing at him intensely and he waved them off in aggravation. “Now see here—”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Mustang,” Antley interrupted smoothly. “But that is my decision. Please bring Edward down and I shall explain everything. Mr. Mustang,” he said sternly, as if sensing and heading off the comment that the colonel was about to shout at him. “If you truly value your subordinate's safety . . . you will not question what I ask.”

“Is that some kind of a threat, doctor?” Roy hadn't been on the phone for but two minutes and he already decided that he hated this man . . .

There was a gentle chuckle. “No, not a threat, Mr. Mustang. Just a warning.” He then gave Mustang the address of the office he was at and bid him farewell. Roy slammed down the phone and turned his fiery glare to Hawkeye.

“Find me Fullmetal!”

- + -

Roy's grip tightened on the steering wheel of the black town car at the memory of only thirty minutes before—if the whole damn thing hadn't been so well crafted, the colonel was sure that the wheel would have snapped under the constant pressure. He just couldn't believe the gall of that doctor. How dare he speak to him like that? Didn't he know who he was?

The officer let out a weary sigh and relaxed his hold, letting his eyes dart over to his sulking passenger. The blonde was hunched up in the passenger seat, pressed as close to his own door—and, Roy noticed, as far away from him—as he could manage and was glaring daggers out of his window. The colonel brought his eyes back to the road.

He had tried not the think about that night too much, but it was hard not to. He had . . . God, he had slept with Edward. His subordinate and a minor to boot. It was horrible and wrong, but he had just . . . he'd wanted to comfort the boy (and had wanted some comfort himself), but he never meant for it to go as far as it did. Roy had meant to help Edward, but in the end, he had just made it worse. That was just like him, wasn't it? The resident fuck-up.

Roy sighed and took a left on Hubert Ave., like Antley had directed him. The offices of Humboldt, Jones, and Antley were only another six blocks away . . . but with Edward sitting less than two feet away from him, not speaking to him for anything, it felt like six blocks couldn't be covered fast enough.

“So . . .” Roy attempted, trying to break the silence that had enveloped the interior of the military-issued car. “That doctor said that . . . you'd been throwing up?”

If possible, the Fullmetal pulled even further away from his commanding officer and clamped his eyes shut. “Yes,” he snarled, the immediacy of the answer startling Roy. “And if you don't shut up and drive, I'm gonna do it all over your lap.”

Well . . .

How could Roy argue with that?

He shut up. He drove.

- + -

“So, Dr. Antley, what was so damn important that it couldn't be discussed over the phone?” Roy growled, watching as the doctor closed the door to his office behind them. “That I had to be dragged down here in the middle of a work day?”

“Oh, shut up, you bastard,” he heard Edward grumble from his seat. The colonel turned to glare at the blonde as Antley took a seat behind his desk. “Like you needed an excuse to get out of work . . . Just thank him and get the hell off your high horse.”

“Gentlemen,” the doctor said chidingly, attempting to head off the verbal battle that was sure to ensue. Well, thought Roy blandly. At least that's one thing that hasn't changed.

He huffed and turned back to face the doctor. “As I was asking, Dr. Antley, why are we here?”

Ed spoke up. “More importantly, why is he here?” Roy didn't have to look at the alchemist to know that it he was referring to him. “Was all that you spouted about doctor-patient confidentiality just some bogus shit?”

Antley, who had been pulling a file from a drawer in his desk, looked up at this question. “No, Edward, no. The circumstances were . . .” He sighed. “As I told Mr. Mustang over the phone, the results of the tests on your blood were extremely odd and very interesting. Under any other circumstance—to a certain extent—your age would not have been taken into account . . . However, I felt that it would be best, considering the results of your test, to have a parent or guardian present.”

“This bastard isn't my guardian!” the blonde screeched. Roy resisted the urge he felt to roll his eyes. I guess that's something else that hasn't changed.

The sandy-haired doctor grimaced at the volume of Edward's voice in the confines of his office and lifted his hands in a placating manner. “I know Edward, I know; however, the people that you put down as your family and your emergency contacts live very far to the East and South. It would not have been feasible for me to contact them and make them come here without giving them direct answers to the questions that I'm sure they would have asked—it wasn't something that I felt safe doing over the phone. Your name sounded oddly familiar to me, so I asked around a bit and soon found out why: Fullmetal Alchemist—Hero of the People, as it were. I figured that, at your age, there had to be someone closer that you saw as your guardian . . . and I assumed that it might be your commanding officer. Apparently, I was mistaken and for that I apologize; however—”

“Please,” the blonde moaned pitiably, bringing the doctor's explanation to a halt. He leaned forward in his chair and caught his face in his hands. “Please, Antley . . . I've been waiting for a week. A whole week of not knowing . . . of waiting. It nearly killed me, understand? I don't want to wait anymore, so just . . . Please. Just tell me what the hell I've got so I can just go home and just . . .”

Ed let himself trail off and Roy suddenly felt the guilt hit him square in the chest once again. Lifting his hand, the colonel reached out slowly and gently gripped the Fullmetal's flesh shoulder, giving it a sympathetic squeeze. To say that he was surprised when the blonde didn't slap his hand away or shout at him to never touch him again would have been a vast understatement . . .

“Edward,” Antley sighed, opening up the manila folder he had just extracted from his desk and pulling out several sheets of paper. “You're healthy.”

Ed looked up. “What?”

“You're perfectly healthy,” the doctor stated simply, a small smile on his face. He shrugged and handed two of the papers over to the teenager; Edward took them and began to scan the graphs and meaningless numbers, his eyes wide. “There are no signs of any pathogens in your blood. Both the serologic and agglutination came back as resounding negatives.”

Edward breathed out a long-awaited sigh of sweet relief.

Roy, however—though equally relieved that his subordinate was okay—was a little more irritated. “That's what you made us drive all the way out here to tell us? He's healthy? Pardon me if I'm a little upset over the fact tha—”

“However,” Antley said pointedly, holding up the final sheet of paper in his hand and glancing at Roy. “The test of your hormones came back with a very different result . . .”

The alchemist's face fell. “So, it is . . . pi-pit—”

“Pituitary,” the doctor finished. “It's a section of the brain that controls hormones. However, I don't think that it's the part of the brain causing the problems . . .”

He handed the last piece of paper over to Ed, who eagerly snatched it away to look at. Roy leaned over to read it over his subordinate's shoulder, but all he could see were numerous graphs with peaks and dips and . . . He was an alchemist. He couldn't decipher that medical crap. Apparently, Edward was of the same mind. “I can work out the most difficult of arrays, Antley . . . but I don't know what the hell this stuff says.”

The doctor allowed himself a chuckle at this, then leaned forward on his desk and folded his hands before him—Roy was briefly reminded of himself behind his own desk back at HQ . . .

“Those charts, gentlemen, are readings of the different hormonal levels within Edward's body. The different peaks indicate certain hormones that have spiked recently. Meaning, their amounts—at least when Edward's blood was drawn—had increased dramatically.”

Roy blinked, letting his eyebrows meet in the centre of his face angrily. “He's . . . he's a teenager! Aren't his hormones supposed to be spiking!”

Antley sighed and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Yes, Mr. Mustang. Yes, Edward is a teenager and, yes, at this point in his life, his hormones will be changing and screwing about with his body considerably. However . . . the hormones that were most increased . . . were hormones that one would not generally find in a teenage boy.”

The colonel let his onyx eyes narrow and looked askance at Edward. The boy appeared just as confused as Mustang felt . . . and that offered no comfort to the dark-haired man. “What do you mean, Antley?” the blonde asked quietly. “What . . . what hormones are you talking about?”

Antley sighed for what seemed like the thousandth time that day and bowed his head behind his folded hands. “We found . . . elevated levels of estrogen, progesterone, and b-hCG or Beta Human Chorionic Gonadotropin.”

Ed and Roy looked at each other . . . and then back at Antley. “What the hell are those?” the blonde asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Isn't estrogen a . . . female hormone?” Roy asked the doctor, crossing his arms and pointedly ignoring the death-glare that Ed sent his way.

Antley looked up at him and nodded slowly. “Yes, it is. When I first saw that there was an increase in that particular hormone . . . I thought that perhaps, Edward was taking hormone replacements . . . Breathe Edward, breathe,” he stated suddenly, for the blonde had gone blue in the face.

“I am not a fucking girl!” he wheezed out through clenched teeth, gripping the armrests of his chair in an effort to keep himself from launching himself across the desk at his doctor.

“I know, son. Please calm down and allow me to explain . . .” Antley paused and gave Ed a chance to calm himself, before he adjusted his glasses and continued, “However, I changed my mind when I saw the increase in progesterone and b-hCG. Those are hormones that one cannot simply buy. They are hormones found only . . . in pregnant women.”

At that moment, if someone were to come in and inform the room's occupants that he had created the philosopher's stone and the fuhrer had been found dead with a note naming Roy as his successor . . . the two alchemists would have had to kindly asked him to fuck off. Both of them wouldn't have found any piece of information more important than what had just come out of Dr. Joseph Antley's mouth.

“P-preg . . . pregnant women?” Ed attempted. “What? You can't be serious.”

“I wouldn't joke about something like this, Edward,” Antley said softly, letting his sympathetic, hazel eyes fall upon the blonde's stunned face.

“So . . .” muttered the colonel, bringing his hand up to his mouth. “What you're saying is . . . Fullmetal is . . .”

“Yes. He's pregnant.”

And, for the fourth time in five weeks, Edward Elric's world tilted off its axis.