#also featuring the WORST thing about medical people writing fic: 'romantic symbolism about blood types exists right?????'

[words-writ-in-starlight]

And ALSO talk to me about Roy and Riza in the aftermath and a pair of hospital beds close enough together to hold hands

The adrenaline crash started to hit Riza while Roy was commandeering the army.  With General Armstrong currently missing and, on last report, injured--and widely suspected to have a hand in the coup, as far as the public was concerned--Roy held the dubious honor of highest rank left alive and unarrested.  And he’d always had that talent for gathering up the pieces of a chaotic mess and putting them back together in accordance with his goals.

He was issuing orders to the remainder of Briggs and Central to bring forward their wounded so that ambulances could get the worst to Central General when Riza wavered.

She didn’t feel it coming, the end of her strength.  It washed over her all at once like ice water--her vision greyed, her breathing hitched, and her heart hammered in her ears, so strong it made her head ache.  Closing her hand sharply on Roy’s arm, where she had been holding on to guide him, took more effort than moving a mountain.

“Lieutenant?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I think I’m about to fall over,” Riza said politely as she swayed in place.

“What--damn,” and then there was an arm around her ribs, her arm draped hastily over the shoulders of a military uniform, and the Colonel was taking her weight, half-holding her on her feet.  “You should have said something.”

“I did say something, sir.”

“Said something earlier, then.  Can we walk to the ambulances?”

Riza took a moment to assess, blinking away the sparkling grey and black haze in her vision until she could see a tunnel of clarity directly ahead of her.  Can we walk meant can you see, right now, and they both knew it.  

"Yes, sir,” she said once she was reasonably sure of herself.  Talking was so much work.  “But I’m not going to the ambulances.  Take me to the medical tents.”  The medical tents were barely more than a staging area with a tarp tacked up on poles to offer some shade.  It was the first thing thrown together when the nurses and doctors and paramedics showed up from anywhere and everywhere, and anyone whose injuries were not immediately life threatening was getting stopgap care in its shade.

It was also right in the center of the ruin that had been Central Command, a perfect place for Roy to hold court while Riza drank some juice or whatever they had in store for her.  The idea of leaving, of leaving Roy here alone without her, was horrifyingly wrong to some intrinsic part of her blurred mind.  She would stay, here, with him, where she could protect him, as shoddy a job as she’d done of that over the last day or so.

“Lieutenant, you’re going to the hospital.”

“I most certainly am not,” she said stubbornly.  Her vision was beginning to go again, and she took a deep breath as she tried to force it to clear.  One of Roy’s hands flashed in front of her as he made an angry gesture with his free hand, the glove still marred with blood and split open from Bradley’s sword.  She should make him go to the hospital.

“You had your throat slit barely an hour ago, Hawkeye, I’m not kidding around--”

“I’m not bleeding--”

“Riza.”

Her name stopped her cold.  It was ragged, as if it had been torn out of his throat, and his arm closed so tightly around her ribs that they creaked, and his blind eyes turned to her wide and not a little desperate.  She could hear the strain of having been in control of himself for all these hours beginning to show.

“Please,” Roy said quietly.  “Please go to the hospital.”

“You should too,” she said.  “Your hands--”

“I will.  I will, as soon as I’m sure things are secure here.  I’ll make sure the medical tents have a look at me, and we have people to fall back on.  But you’re going to collapse before then.”  His voice faded even farther, until it was as fragile as it had been underground, when he had been trying to hold her life inside her throat.  “You lost so much blood--”

Riza took a deep breath and then another, trying to slow her stumbling heartbeat and soothe her spinning head.  “All right,” she finally agreed.  “Eighty yards to two o’clock, then, sir.  And watch your step for the rubble.”

Roy tried to grin at her through the layer of dust and soot and occasional smudged blood.  The smile fell short of success, and his voice was still thinner than usual when he said, “That’s your job, Lieutenant.”

The two of them made slow but respectably steady progress across the ruined foundations, Riza aware that she was mostly upright by virtue of Roy’s iron grip on her, murmuring warnings to step around or over broken stone or cracked pavement.  Roy continued giving orders as they went, whenever Riza greeted someone approaching them, and she focused on her breathing, keeping it deep and steady, to get and keep as much oxygen in her system as possible.  Her fingers were so cold they were starting to go numb.

She felt like she should be applauded, for managing to stave off unconsciousness until they were nearly at the feet of a paramedic.  Roy caught her on the way down, and she felt his hand close around her arm as she was bundled onto a stretcher.

“You’re still under orders, Lieutenant,” he said sharply--so dramatic all the time, her Colonel--and then the world faded away.

Riza woke several times, half-surfacing to consciousness in a hospital room that seemed, according to her experience, understaffed.  She was fairly sure, by the second time, that she was being given a sedative, based on how quickly the darkness surged up to take her again, but by the time she caught a nurse’s sleeve, she was already sinking again.

She woke for the fourth and final time with a sudden rush of--not panic, exactly, but the abrupt and acute knowledge that she had failed to do something important.  Sitting up made her head spin and ache, and she dragged in a few breaths through her gritted teeth as her chest ached and her stomach rebelled.

“Oh, Lieutenant Hawkeye,” a nurse said, smiling.  “You’re--”

“Where’s the Colonel?” Riza interrupted, one hand clenched around the rail of the bed to keep her up, and the nurse’s smile turned resigned.

“He’s fine, Lieutenant--”

“Where is Colonel Mustang?”

“He’s in the long-term care ward, being a pain in another nurse’s ass, I’m sure,” the nurse said dryly.  “And if you try to get up,” she went on as Riza started to scuffle her way out from under the sheet, “I’ll sedate you again.  You’re staying in urgent care for a while longer, Lieutenant, whether you like it or not.  You were in rough shape when we got you.”

“I feel fine,” Riza lied.

“I very much doubt that.  As you can imagine,” the nurse said as she paced over to inspect the IV shunt in Riza’s forearm, “we’re under a lot of strain for resources right now, especially blood, so you haven’t had as many units as you should.  You lost what we’ve estimated to be about thirty percent of your blood volume, Lieutenant, maybe a little more.”  She gave the IV bag, full of clear fluid, a quick tap and turned back to Riza.  “You’re extremely lucky to be alive.”

Thirty percent.  It had been a long time since Riza needed to know medical statistics, but that one every soldier knew by heart--if a comrade lost forty percent of their blood volume and there wasn’t a doctor already there, the best you could do was bring home their dog tags.

“Noted,” Riza said, subdued.

“Ideally, we should have given you four units of blood as soon as you came in,” the nurse went on, a little more gently now that her patient wasn’t actively trying to escape.  “But we’re dealing with a lot of casualties, so we’ve been trying to ration our blood supply and you only got about half that.  We’ve put out a general call for donors, anyone who can pretty much has, but we’re going to be short for quite some time.  We’re keeping your blood volume up with saline until we can get you at least one more unit to bring your hemoglobin levels to a more stable level.  That’s why you’re dizzy, by the way.  And then,” she added to cut Riza off before she could speak, “you will be moved to the long-term care ward, yes.  We wouldn’t normally, but we just don’t have the luxury of keeping people here for observation when we need the beds so badly.”

“Thank you,” Riza said, and sighed, settling back against her pillows.  “How long has it been since the battle?”

“About nine hours.  We kept you sedated for most of it, trying to keep your system as calm as possible while we gave you transfusions.  Also because you tried to leave the first time you woke up, which I assume you don’t remember.”

“No.”

“Massive hemorrhage can do that.  Now,” the nurse said, arms crossed.  “Are you going to go back to sleep or do I have to drug you again?  Short of a few more units of blood, sleep’s going to be better for you than anything else.”

Riza smiled faintly and closed her eyes.  Maybe it wasn’t just the sedatives dragging her down, then--she remembered dozing for hours upon hours every day while her back was healing.  Then, she had been in her apartment, getting checked on twice weekly by a doctor who had been sworn to eighteen different kinds of secrecy by Madame Christmas, and being fretted over by Roy whenever she was awake.  He worried himself sick at every turn of the healing process, no matter how many times she swore that yes, she really was getting better, no, he really hadn’t done permanent damage, yes, she still had full range of motion, and on and on.  She hadn’t held his anxiety against him then, but she wouldn’t much want to be the nurse keeping him in the long-term care ward now.

Someone in the distance coded, and Riza tried to stir herself to see what was going on, but the darkness was dragging her down again.

She woke again to morning light and someone switching out her IV, and Riza was startled to see that it was blood, this time.

“I thought you were out,” she said, blinking, and her nurse gave her a look.

“This,” the nurse said, “is specifically marked for your use by the donor.  As long as I’m on the subject, you soldiers and your dog tags--so helpful.  We normally run out of O-neg in the first hour of a crisis but almost everyone came in helpfully labeled, this time.  This is O-pos, by the way.”  Not the same type as Riza, but a donor match.  Blood types and the various ways that donations did and did not cross was something else every soldier in combat knew--in a pinch, Riza could probably have figured out an emergency donation, and knew that Roy had done it at least once.  

Riza wasn’t a convenient donor type, A-positive.  But Roy--Roy could donate to eighty percent of the population, give or take.  

Riza looked at the tube running down to her arm, red and glossy in the light, and said, “Thank you.”

“Once we’re sure this transfusion goes well, we’re going to move you, which I’m sure you’re thrilled about,” her nurse went on, picking up Riza’s chart.  “But that’ll be a few more hours.  So sit tight.  Have another nap, maybe.”

Riza didn’t go back to sleep.  She held polite conversation with the nurses and doctors who popped in and out, and wished, idly, that she could have visitors.  It was as hectic in the urgent care ward as her nurse had claimed, though, every bed filled and patients being turned out as soon as they were stable enough to be passed onto some other ward.  It made her eye the IV bag with a fresh level of appreciation for her condition, to know that they had kept her there anyway.

It was possible, of course, that they had kept her in urgent care because they’d been reluctant to let someone directly involved with saving the country get lost in the shuffle.

“How do you feel?” her nurse asked as she unhooked the IV bag and replaced it with something that she’d casually identified as a banana bag, which was a bridge too far for Riza’s limited medical vocabulary.

“I feel fine,” Riza said.  She was still a bit dazed and light-headed, but her heartbeat didn’t hurt in the thin skin of her temples and throat anymore, so.  “Much better.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“No,” Riza said with a bit of a grin.  “I’m stubborn, not stupid.”

“Good answer.  I’ve been given orders to take you to long-term care, where they’ve apparently managed to clear a bed for you.  Shared room, but everywhere except urgent care is sharing right now.  You’re right down the hall from those two boys, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear it."

"The Elric brothers?  How are they?”

“Well, one of them’s had about a dozen bits of metal pulled out of his shoulder and the other one can’t stand up without falling down in a heap, from what I hear, but you’d think they’d both won the lottery from the way everyone who talks to them comes away grinning like an idiot.  Oh, no ma’am you are getting in this wheelchair,” her nurse added sharply when Riza started to stand.  “I’ve been on shift for twenty-three hours, you don’t want to fight me on this one.”

Riza considered the look on her nurse’s face for a moment, and nodded.  “Fair enough.”  Once she had been bundled unceremoniously into the chair, she asked, “Has everyone here been working since the battle?”

“Yes,” the nurse said without hesitation.  “Some of us have been here almost thirty-six hours, if they were working before it started.  We’ll start sending them home at the forty-hour mark, probably, assuming nothing else goes wrong before then.”

Shaking her head, Riza said, “We always have the easy part, don’t we.  Soldiers, I mean.  We just break things and wait for you to put them back together.”

“Sometimes,” her nurse said, quiet and considering.  “But from what I’ve seen outside, no one had the easy part today.  Come on.”

They made their way through the hospital in silence.

“All right,” her nurse said brightly as they stopped at a door.  “Here we go, Major.”

“I’m a lieutenant,” Riza was saying as her nurse opened the door.

“Actually, you’ve been promoted,” Roy said from his bed, turning blindly toward the door and smiling.  His hands were bandaged, although not heavily, and there was an inexplicable stack of books already taking up residence on the table at his elbow.  He looked, not to put too fine a point on it, absolutely terrible.  “I said they couldn’t take my assistant away when they made me Brigadier General.”

“Sir,” Riza said, a rush of relief making the word raw.  Roy’s smile softened a little at her tone.

“How are you feeling, Major?” he asked.  He blinked quickly a few times, as if to clear his vision, and Riza felt something in her chest wrench--she’d gotten so used to the regard of those dark, cunning eyes, for most of her life between his time as her father’s student and Ishval and her time as his second.  Now his eyes were clouded to grey, and his unfocused gaze was pointed just over her shoulder, not quite pinpointing her face at the distance.

“Better, sir,” she said, her voice steady.  Her nurse wheeled her over to the bed and helped her up, and offered her a smile and a wink before departing with the chair.  Riza waited for the door to close before she untangled herself from the bed and wheeled her IV stand along with her to Roy’s bed.  “What about you?”

“Sit down, before you fall down,” Roy said sharply, and Riza made a dismissive noise, but she did as she was told and settled carefully on the edge of his bed.  “How’s your throat?”

“Much better,” she said.  “Ms. Chang didn’t quite get all of the damage, but it probably won’t even scar.”  

Roy reached out carefully and bumped into her shoulder, then tracked his fingers up until he encountered the square of gauze taped over the last of what had once been a mortal wound.  “Good,” he said.  Riza held very still, feeling his fingers tremble against the bandage and the thin skin of her throat.  “I--good.”

“You did the right thing, sir,” Riza said firmly.  “No matter what might have happened, you did the right thing.”

He made a sound that could have been a laugh, or at least an attempt at one, and his hand dropped from her throat to rest on the bed near her knee.  “I thought I’d finally gotten you killed."

“Well, sir, with all due respect, I’m perfectly capable of getting my own self killed,” Riza said, a touch of humor in her tone.  Roy tried to smile at her.  “Really, sir, how are you feeling?  You look exhausted.”  She reached up thoughtlessly and stopped herself just short of touching his cheek, pale and drawn with sleepless circles under his eyes.  Letting her hand drop, she asked,  “Have you slept at all?”

He pressed his lips together, but there was only a moment’s pause before he admitted, “No.  I’ve been--worrying.”

“About?”

“What isn’t there to worry about,” he said frankly.  “The country’s a wreck.  Your grandfather is taking the throne, obviously, and he seems to have it pretty well in hand, but I’m sure we’re going to be rooting out corruption for the next ten years.  And everyone’s having to face the reality of Ishval--I’ve been reading up, or rather making the others read me up, so I think we can be useful there.  And,” he said reluctantly, “I’ve been worrying about you.  No visitors in urgent care until things are under control there.”

“I did notice that there was suddenly another unit of blood from a mysterious O-positive donor,” Riza said calmly.  “Marked for my particular use.  Aren’t you O-positive, General?”

She watched calmly as Roy’s exhaustion-grey cheeks slowly colored, until he was blushing as red as he ever had as a schoolboy.

That night, once the nurse--almost deliriously happy to have Roy rendered mostly compliant--had turned off the light, Riza dozed lightly and listened to Roy’s breathing to her right, deep and steady, calming.

When he startled awake with a cry strangled on his lips, she blinked open her eyes and murmured, “It’s okay.  It’s all over.  We’re okay.”

“Riza,” he said, and she didn’t need to ask what he had seen.

“I’m fine, Roy,” she said, shifting onto her back.  She could see the shadow of his hand in the dark, reaching through the barred support of the bed toward her, like they had from time to time in Ishval.

Their beds were just close enough that she could lace her fingers through his and squeeze.

“It’s all over,” she repeated, holding onto his hand.  

“I know,” he said quietly, and squeezed back.