Descent

Chapter Three

The very next week, Edward was deemed fit to leave the hospital. He was ecstatic to leave the smell of antiseptic and death, which, for some disturbing reason, Edward had discovered recently it had an almost tangible smell to it. Death smelt like...death. It was difficult to explain, but it certainly was not a pleasant smell. It burned through your nose and down your throat and into your lungs, and it made you feel like you were about to die yourself. Edward was not going to miss it. But, the fact that he had three days to leave was going to prove to be a nuisance. He was no longer part of the military, so he couldn't stay in the dorms, and the military hotel was hardly a place for permanent residence. Besides, it was much too expensive. The reason this was a problem was because the doctors had said that, for the next few months, they wanted to keep him close, just in case something went wrong and one of the more serious wounds reopened. But Edward knew the real reason. They knew he was weak. They thought he couldn't make it on his own. They thought that he would break if the wind was strong enough, or if he bumped a table or became lost in his thoughts for too long. Well...they were right on the last part, but Edward would never, ever admit that! He knew very well that when his thoughts wondered off too far, his eyes would close of their own volition, and then the flashbacks would begin. His senses would twist what was around him and turn them into reminders of everything at that damned barn. He would think he was back there, and it was difficult to get him out of the trance. So far, the only person able to do it was Hawkeye. She was the only person who could break into his hallucinations and pull him out of them.

It was confusing. He -and everyone else- thought it would have been Alphonse or Winry who would be able to break him out of his waking nightmares, but no. It was Colonel Riza Hawkeye. Permanent personal assistant to General Roy Mustang, the blind man. Perhaps that was why. She had personal experience in helping Mustang organize what was real and what was not, so she would know how to do the same for Ed. Or maybe it was because she had been the one to save him from the barn in the first place. She had been his first real comfort in months. So maybe he had formed some sort of bond with her. He hoped it didn't bother Winry too much. But it probably would. He was, after all, her fiance, and surely it would upset her that she wasn't able to comfort him as well as another woman could. Edward knew that if their positions were reversed, and it was Mustang who was the only person who new how to comfort Winry, he would not be anything close to happy about it. But, he also knew, their positions weren't reversed. It was he who had lost an important part of himself, not Winry, and it was he who needed the only person who knew how to pull him back. And at least it wasn't some total stranger. That would be pretty odd. He liked Riza. She was nice, and she'd always known how to handle any situation without allowing anything to blow out of proportions. She was always the calm one. Out of him, Mustang, even Alphonse. She had always kept her cool. Only once was she ever known to have let her guard slip. And that was when she had believed that Lust had killed Mustang. Everyone knew that they loved each other, in their own silent, not-so-secret way, and Edward had never blamed her for allowing everything to slip just that once. He would have done exactly the same thing. As much as he fought with Mustang, he had always felt a certain sense of loyalty and friendship with the older man.

As he had the thought, Mustang walked through the door, his unseeing gaze locked in Edward's general direction. Edward knew Mustang had learned to count his steps and listen to the sounds around him to determine where he was going at any one time, but it had to be extremely hard. He was just lucky that he was still in the Military, really. Although, Grumman made an excellent Fuhrer. He was kind and actually cared about the well-being of his people. And he was always generous to Mustang, who he had been close friends with for several years. He had personally spent several thousand dollars to pay for everything Mustang needed to learn to live with his blindness and recuperate from all his injuries from the Promise Day. As he watched the blind man make his way to the chair Edward had been reading in, he realized that his lips were moving, and he shook his head to clear it, and asked Mustang sheepishly to repeat what he had said.