The Bloody Alchemist

A Guilty Conscious Is a Blind Conscious

Cecelia stared at the wall. She wasn't put in the same room as Roy and Jean and she had woken up from her anesthetics a while ago and there was no one there with her. She hadn't heard anything about Jean's conditions. She hadn't heard anything about Roy's condition. But here she was. Alive and well with limited injuries because the homunculus was an idiot when it came to harming her for some damn reason.

        What if the reason nobody had come to tell her about Roy and Jean was that they were dead?

        The wall was beige and boring and it was dark in the room and her legs were too weak to get out of bed and turn on the lights so she was just sitting in the dark letting her brain imagine the worst possible situations. She wanted to get up but she could barely think, much less move. She wanted to leave, but there was still an IV bag of blood attached to her arm. She wanted to see Jean. She wanted to see Roy. She wanted, she wanted, she wanted.

        Finally, the door creaked open and Cecelia lethargically looked over to the light streaming into her room. It was Riza peeking into the room. The grown woman was taken aback by the girl's appearance. Deep bags and puffy eyes. She was so pale. Her complexion reminded Riza of a zombie.

        "Cecelia!" she greeted nervously. "I didn't know you were awake."

        "How's Jean, and what about Roy? Please tell me they're okay."

        Riza stepped inside and smiled. "They both are going to be alright." Cecelia breathed a sigh of relief. She had been so worried that her makeshift blood transfusion only made matters worse. "The doctors said Havoc wouldn't have survived if you didn't act so quickly."

        Cecelia started to cry. This was too much. Everything was just happening and she couldn't keep up. Maybe it was the fact she hadn't slept since she learned of Hughes' death, or maybe it was the fact she hadn't talked to anybody about how she felt except for one boy she met only a few days prior. Whatever the case might be she couldn't do it anymore. She couldn't carry on like this and she just needed to cry.

        And Riza was there for her. She shut the hospital door and kept all the nurses and doctors out and let the girl cry and vent in her arms. Though half of Cecelia's words were garbled messes of sobbing syllables, the other half spoke of how she felt about herself. Wailing about how she felt after the mission Hughes had sent her on. Weeping about how she never truly told Maes how thankful she was for him. Bawling how she wouldn't have survived if it weren't for him. And all this emotion bled over into how she felt about her brother. How she was rude to him when she was a little girl. How she was mad that she didn't have parents and took it out on him. Her most prominent memories with her dear brother were of him trying to soothe a fussing toddler who couldn't understand death.

        "I've always been a burden!" she howled into Riza's chest, "I should have died! Not My brother! Not my parents! I should have died not Hughes!"

        Riza shushed her. "You know that's not true. The universe put you here. It gave you the people you needed in your life. One day you might die, but you are needed very much right now by your friends. Just think hun, if you hadn't been around, Jean would have died. If you hadn't been around Maes would have never been able to see past Ishval. If you hadn't been around your brother would have never been able to work as hard as he did." Though her sobs were louder, Riza could tell she was getting through to the child. "You bring out the best in people Cecelia. And I know it's hard to understand now, but you still have a long life ahead of you, and there are still people you need to help. Do you understand me?"

        Through her painful sobs, Cecelia eventually was able to give Riza a simple nod. The woman smiled and held her tighter in her arms. Cecelia may have been feeling better, but Riza needed to hang on to her innocence just a bit longer.