HoS: LG: Debt

[bard_linn]

Debt

Major Armstrong entered the room silently. He peered over at the two unmoving forms on the bed. He hadn’t seen Al and Riza since they had first found them. It made him feel terribly helpless to see them so still.

He stood there for an unknown amount of time before the sound of the door opening made him tense. He turned just in time to see Doctor Mathews enter the room. The physician said nothing, merely checked the instruments attached to the pair and carefully noted their readings on the clipboard in his hand.

Mathews was both an unknown and a worry to Armstrong. The doctor was a specialist, one of the best in his field. Though young, the man had excellent skill in the operating room and more than a passing ability in medical alchemy. Mathews quite literally had control over the entire wing. Yet he continued to check on Hawkeye and Alphonse in person. That sort of dedication usually had a reason behind it. And it could be a very bad one. “Why do you care for them?”

Mathews looked up in surprise. “I am a doctor, Major. It’s what I do.”

“You could leave this to your nurses,” Armstrong retorted.

Mathews paused. Armstrong obviously did not know his past. His father had been a fighter in the Ishbar war. The then Major Mustang had saved his life. Mathews had been only nine. His wife had lived in Xenotime until their marriage three years ago. Without Edward Elric’s interference, she could easily have sickened and died from the red water. And due to both Alchemists’ efforts, the country had deepened its alliance with Xing. Xingian alchemy, focused on medicine, had allowed him to heal his recently born daughter of a disease that would have taken her life.

He gave the only response he could.

“I owe them more than I can ever repay.”