Cardinal sin (2) : A laugh in Vain

17 - Reaching towards the sky

The Fullmetal alchemist was sitting in his hospital bed, propped up against a few pillows. He was gazing out the window seemingly unemotionally, though none could tell what was actually on his mind. The bandages covering his arms looked quite painful, but Willa decided she had better not mention his injuries.

"Tell the Colonel I'm not in the mood for another damned lecture," said Fullmetal, knowing full well that Mustang's title was General.

"I'm no Colonel, boy."

Edward turned his head and took note of who his visitor was. "Oh. Hello Willa."

"'Oh, hello'? Honestly! You're sitting here in a hospital with god-knows how awful injuries and you greet me like that?"

"You're going to lecture me, too?" asked Ed, his half-closed eyes not showing the least interest.

"Dear god! What happened to you?"

"Nothing much. You don't need to worry about it."

Willa sighed. She was in an awful mood already, and wasen't going to risk worsenning it by arguing with Fullmetal. Besides, she had more important business than that here.

"I only came to tell you two things."

Ed had come to the conclusion that Willa, like Mustang had already done, came to visit him for the sole purpose to yell and curse at him for being so stupid and reckless. The only difference, though, was that Willa whoulden't be as boiling as the General, since she didn't know about the tragedy surrounding Rebecca Catalina. From what Fullmetal had taken out of Mustang's outburst, the latter cared deeply for the Lieutenant, who was devasted over the death of her best friend.

Mustang had possibly mentioned Hawkeye's name more times than Rebbeca's.

Gingerly, Ed crossed his arms. He was trying his best to look calm and attentive to whatever it was Willa wanted to tell him, but the position did nothing more than hurt.

"That looks painful," Willa remarqued.

"It doesn't," Ed lied. "What did you want to tell me?"

The woman sighed again, crossing her own arms and avoiding Ed's eyes. "I wanted to thank you for going through the trouble of rescuing me from execution. You could still get in shit if people find out it was you under that hood."

"I'd be neck-deep in cow shit if it happens. Don't tell anyone. Us and Phil and Frederick can be the only ones to know. We don't want word to spread."

"Absolutely. I also wanted to thank you for letting me speak to Earl through you. It—"

"I get it," interrupted Fullmetal, as he was not in the mood to discuss such a topic while he was still down about Rebecca's death and the events that had preceded it. "You're welcome. Did you come here to talk to him again?"

"No, I think I'll be seeing him soon enough," Willa mumbled. In a louder tone, she told the injured man, "Edward, treat your fiancée well. Be the best man you can be and make her happy. No girl deserves to be married to someone who goes off almost unannounced and comes back bearing horrible injuries like you've done. You must have her worried to death, so go apologize to her!"

Abruptly, she stormed out of the room, leaving Ed stunned. He could not, for the life of him, understand why Willa had spoken of Winry.

It hit him about fifteen minutes after her departure, and by then he was praying it wasen't too late. To apologize and be the best husband possible to Winry, was Willa's final, parting advice for Ed. It was a request she wanted him to carry out after she took her life, and this Fullmetal knew. If he'd had the time, he would have done the same time before committing suicide in the ruins of Xerxes.

"Nurse!" he hollered urgently. "Nurse!"

Two of them came running, and were not pleased to see Fullmetal trying to get out of bed.

"Mister Elric—"

"I need to get to the Hotel Roger-Williams at once!" he cried, trying to hop across the floor with a single leg. The nurses grabbed his arms and shoulders and held him back protestingly.

The two women realized that their patient wasen't going to calm down until he got to the hotel, so one of them forced Ed in a seated position on the bed while the other went to fetch a wheel-chair. They had the alchemist in it and speeding down the sidewalks outside less than five minutes afterwards.

At last, Ed ordered that they stop. He was staring wide-eyed at the balcony of a room on the fifth floor, where he could clearly see Willa standing, her hand extended almost desperately towards the sky... like she was yearning to reach it.

In her other hand, in the poor sunlight, could be seen what was distinctively a pistol. The tip was placed on Willa's throat.

"WILLA!" Edward screamed.

Her eyes detached themselves from the gray sky for a brief moment. She flashed a sad smile at him, then returned her gaze towards the heavens.

The tears that ran down her face while she pulled the trigger were clear even where Ed was, watching Willa but a bullet in her neck, five stories down.

____________________________

I'm disappointed in the sentence "She was in an awful mood already, and wasen't going to risk making it worse it by arguing with Fullmetal". For "making it worse", I had the perfect word in mind, but in french. I was glad I'd found the right verb to describe Willa's mood, but then I put it through a translator and found out that "empirer" is "get worse" in English.

And then I remembered "worsen", which really just makes me disappointed in myself for thinking I could rely on a translator.

So the point of all that was; don't trust online translators. They can be dirty little liars sometimes.

I've also now killed off my favorite OC. There were too many of them in this story, anyways. I still liked Willa, though.

—SmaugIsADragon