Descent

Chapter Two

When Edward woke, he was surprised to be smelling the typical smells of disinfectant associated with hospitals. He could hear people bustling around, pencils scratching on clipboards. He could hear the sound of several people's breathing around him, and, with extreme difficulty, he opened his eyes. He had to blink several times to adjust to the bright light, and when he could see clearly, he turned his head to one side. He was looking directly into the eyes of Winry. Tears filled her eyes and she launched herself onto the bed he was laying on. The sudden movement made him flinch violently, out of some newly developed instinct, but he hoped she wouldn't notice. She was gripping his shirt in her fists and crying into his chest, and, with difficulty, he gently wrapped his arms around her. While she cried on him, he looked around and saw the rest of the people around him. On the same side as Winry had been were his brother Alphonse, who was smiling gently at him, and Mai. She was still small and childlike, but he could tell that in the months since they'd seen each other she'd grown quite remarkably. She was now almost as tall as Winry. Maybe Xingese kids had particularly quick growth spurts.

On his other side were three faces he really didn't expect to see. The first that caught his attention was General Mustang, who was gazing at him with unseeing eyes. It made him feel warmer that he was taking time off work to visit him in his hospital bed. He was also surprised to see Colonel Hawkeye there. She was watching him fondly, with a worried yet, at the same time relieved, look in her sherry eyes. He vaguely remembered her saving him from solitude in the barn, and he remembered falling asleep with his head resting on her shoulder, but everything past that point was blank. He didn't remember anything since falling asleep. He wasn't sure how long he had been asleep, or even where he was. He was pretty sure they were no longer in Drachma; even in the hospitals it was always cold in Drachma. Right now it was toasty and warm, a feeling he'd severely missed since being kidnapped. In any case, he would have to thank her for getting him out. Obviously, since he had fallen asleep, they'd found a way to get his blindfold off. For that he was thankful. It occurred to him that he had stopped paying attention to everything around him and had been venturing in fairy-land. He pulled himself back and began to examine the third person.

Her raven black hair was still cropped military short, and her blue eyes were focused sharply as always on whatever she was watching. She was as short as ever, and she still had that trademark mole under her left eye. 2nd Lieutenant Ross smiled at him when she noticed he was watching and he smiled back. He pulled his arms back and Winry slid off of him. But not before giving him a kiss. On the lips. He blushed furiously and felt his heart rate accelerate and he could see a faint hint of pink on her cheeks as well. Her face was streaked with tears and she looked a lot thinner than she had when he'd last seen her. He would have to ask her about that later, because it wasn't the kind of, 'I went on a diet and lost some fat' kind of thin, it was the 'skipped far too many meals and haven't eaten enough' kind of thin. He hoped it wasn't because of him. He remembered when Winry had found out her parents had died. The same thing had happened. Even as a young child, she had been too depressed by the news to remember to eat, and she had become painfully skinny. Granny Pinako had never been able to convince her to eat, and after two months had passed since they had received the news, Winry had needed to be rushed to hospital and put on an IV because her body wasn't getting enough nourishment. The hospital had had to pump the necessary vitamins through needles in her arms, and she'd had to be sedated while they did it. He hoped that she wasn't doing it to herself again, because he didn't think he could stand having to watch her lay unconscious in a hospital bed, with needles in her wrists, and tubes in her nose and down her throat. It had made him sick as a child, and he didn't think it would make him any less sick now.

Winry was too beautiful to have to go through that again. As he watched her, taking in as fast as he could her precious blue eyes, her ray-of-sunshine blonde hair and her shapely face that was nothing less than perfect, those pink lips, he realized that those pink lips were moving. She was talking. How was it that he wasn't hearing her talk? He contemplated that for a moment, thinking perhaps he was deaf. Why didn't that bother him? He simply didn't care, but he hadn't the faintest idea why. That was something that a person should be concerned about, being deaf. Not hearing what people were saying when they were talking to him. Yes, definitely something to be worried, just the same as a person would worry about being mute or blind. Blind, that was something he really didn't like. It was an almost tangible pain, not being able to see everything around you. You never knew what was coming. You never knew where the danger was. Danger was everywhere, but blind you couldn't see it, didn't know which direction it was coming from. And then it hit you, right on the side of your face, and you flinched away, yelping in pain and surprise as your cheek burned fire-like because Envy had punched it. Where is he? He thought, panicked. He was here. Probably right beside him, but then, he felt the rush of air on the same side so he braced for another whack to the left cheek and was caught by surprise by the knee to the right eye. He cried out and felt stars burst behind it but he couldn't see anything else. The blindness was terrible, he couldn't tell whether or not Envy was going to hit him again.