AN: I don't own FMA or Chrno Crusade. Yay!
Act.4- Crossing boundaries
It didn't all come back immediately. Actually, it took a long pause and a bit of thought for Azmaria to realize she was lying flat on her back and that her last memory was being on the ground and something about Edward. The last thing she felt was worry, directed at her two friends. After the first moment of incoherency, this sunk in.
"Al! Ed!" She forced herself into a sitting position, completely ignoring the sudden pain shooting through her arm. It didn't matter that she was hurt, but what if they were hurt? That was what she needed to know.
"Azmaria, it's okay, they're fine!" The voice that replied came from her left. It was a female voice, one that sounded distantly familiar. Although she hadn't heard that person speak for over two years, she could always recognize it.
"Rosette, what are you doing here?" For an unexplainable reason, the sight of her friend didn't shock or surprise her at all. Smiling as best she could, she glanced over her shoulder at the older woman. Rosette was wearing a doctor's outfit and had her hair tied back. Azmaria stepped off of the bed and hugged Rosette.
"I'm a doctor now!" She grinned. "They needed a few here after what happened, so I came. Oh, and you might want to watch your head and arm. You landed hard and it might hurt for a few days." Even before Rosette had spoken, Azmaria was wincing in pain, placing her hand on her forehead.
"What happened anyway?" She sat down again and glanced up at Rosette, who looked over to the window.
"Nobody's sure, but the person who did it must have been a genius. It was definitely human-generated and it completely caved in that part of the building. Seventeen people were in there, too." The blue eyed woman shook her head, a look of disbelief on her face. "Hopefully they'll catch the person. Someone like that shouldn't be forgiven."
"At least everyone's still okay." Azmaria couldn't hide the tone of worry in her voice.
"Your friends are fine, they were helping clear up the debris and things like that." Still speaking, she began to check Azmaria's bandages. "Edward was protective of you. He kept asking if you were going to be okay. It reminded me of Chrono, but just a bit." Despite the fact she said his name, Rosette didn't even slow down at the thought of him. She never did, she would always move forward because she was sure she would meet him again.
"Well, he's a bit like Chrono, but not in the way you're thinking…" Azmaria's voice cracked and she blushed, glancing up at the ceiling and pretending to concentrate. She shouldn't have said that, now Rosette was going to ask her what she meant and then she would have to explain everything.
"Speaking of, I met with Al in the hall. He said you stopped singing two years ago. What happened?" That was the one question she had wholeheartedly dreaded. Reluctance filling her, Azmaria looked down from the ceiling and at Rosette.
"I stopped singing because of Edward, but that's not a bad thing. It's because he's from another world. We made a contract so he could find a way back but it wouldn't work." Her voice cut off and she glanced away again.
"I knew there was something important between you two." She laughed. "You two weren't in denial for a silly reason!" Once again, the younger girl stared at Rosette. "Or at least, Edward. I don't think he would admit how he feels about you if someone put him through six torture chambers and then chopped his legs off." Azmaria winced at the thought of legs being chopped off. It sounded painful and she was in enough pain, thank you very much.
"That's okay, he doesn't need to." A knock at the door caused them to both look up. "Who is it?" The door clicked open and then closed again as Heiderich walked through, eyes on Azmaria and Rosette. He smiled.
"Hi, Azmaria. You look much better now." He sat down in a chair beside her bed, placing his book on the bed.
"Hi, Al," both girls said. Azmaria couldn't hold back a smile of her own. This was proof that her friends were safe. If Rosette hadn't been checking on her, she would have hugged him.
"Azmaria, I need to take this thing off to look at your back. There's a deep cut there and I need to make sure that there's no blood dripping off of the bandage or anything, because that would be bad." Why did Rosette have to say those things? It made Azmaria feel a bit sick sometimes.
"Okay." She stood again as Rosette untied the back, allowing the garment to slide off and drop onto the floor. A light cough drew her attention to Al, who had gone dark red and was holding his book in his lap, pretending to be engrossed in the back cover. "Al, I forgot you're not a girl, I mean…" trailing off, she reached down and covered her front with the garment. She was wearing underwear, but it still made things awkward.
"You forgot he wasn't a girl? Azmaria, how did you manage that?" Rosette laughed.
"Well, I don't usually take the gender of my friends into consideration at times like these," she commented, now blushing herself.
"Okay. Well, I've finished here. There's no blood soaking through yet or anything, so that's good." Smiling, she helped Azmaria with the hospital gown. "I need to get going, but I promise I'll be back soon."
"Okay, Bye Rosette!" As the older woman left the room, Azmaria sat down on the bed. "Hey, Al, I'm sorry about that, didn't mean to surprise you."
"It's okay, you didn't mean to do it or anything!" Heiderich blushed as he spoke, eyes nervously darting around the room. This was awkward. Never mind, this was beyond awkward. Her friend's obvious discomfort was the one thing that was making it feel that way. Usually if an accident like that came up they would just brush it off. This time, however, Heiderich was the one having difficulty with that. "We used to always do that when we were younger, remember?" His thoughts seemed to be the same as hers as he laughed nervously.
"Except we were always told that it was wrong to take your clothes off in front of anyone that wasn't family." She blinked in memory. "But then we told everyone we were brother and sister, because…well, we had to be a family for each other." That was the truth. When they had met they were both thirteen. Al had an older brother who was in the war, Azmaria had no living family. They started living together after he had found the reason she was there. After that, Al's brother had died and things had changed since that day.
"You're right. We have Edward now, too." They went eerily silent for a moment, both thinking. Azmaria's eyes went to the window briefly as she thought about Edward. At first he had been nice, but he had made it clear that he didn't want to get too personal with anyone. Little by little, she and Al had torn down what he had built around himself. Things really had changed in two years.
"That's why we need to help him get back home, right?" The response was halfhearted. Neither of them wanted him to leave. He had become important to both of them, he had become another person that they were afraid of losing. She was barely aware that tears were forming in her eyes as she thought about it.
"It's okay, Az. Neither of us wants him to leave." Placing the book on the bed, he moved closer to her and hugged her tightly, saying nothing. In response, Azmaria hugged him and took a deep, sharp breath. Al couldn't see her cry, not right now. Biting her lip, she tried as hard as she could to hold back the threatening tears.
"Al, I'm afraid. One of these days, what if he leaves without telling us?" She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Although the thought bothered her, she still didn't want Al to see her cry over it.
"I don't think he would do anything like that." At that moment, the door made noise. Somehow, Edward always knew the exact moment to enter into something, even if he had no idea that he was doing so. The moment Edward walked in, she felt Al release her, urging her to go over to him. Strangely, she didn't move.
"Az!" Instead, he ran to her and held her as tightly as he could. She could feel his heart racing from surprise and joy as she slowly imitated his gesture, holding him and trying even more desperately to not cry. This time, however, she couldn't help it at all.
"Edward, I'm glad you're back." She tried to speak clearly through her breaking voice.
"Hey, it's fine now, we're all safe." He spoke softly to her, sounding somewhat confused. She moved one hand and rubbed her eye, trying to stop. Sighing, he shook his head a few times. "I'm sorry for scaring you." After a moment, his tone changed and he smiled a bit. "You know, you scared me earlier so I guess this means we're even." As he spoke, he backed away from her.
"Ed…" She didn't feel like joking at the moment. Once again, he signed and shook his head.
"You know, we can't have you in a bad mood for the rest of the night because of this." He took one hand and rubbed her head with it. "You look much better when you're smiling." The golden-haired boy blushed slightly, and Azmaria blushed in response.
"Azmaria, is this Edward? Oh, you're both blushing too, aren't you?" They both glanced over to see that Rosette had returned and was glancing right at them. Heiderich laughed lightly, which only made Azmaria blush even more.
"Rosette, stop!" Azmaria said, as Rosette and Heiderich laughed. Edward glanced at her.
"Az, who is this?" He asked.
"Oh, she's an old friend…remember, I told you about Rosette once?" Glancing from one girl to the other, he nodded.
"So, what's so special about Edward, Azmaria?" Rosette asked. This was going to take a lot of explaining.
It was dark, it was late, and he wasn't back yet. Envy was going to kill someone if everyone was scattered again. The dark-haired girl shook her head a few times, listening for the door. It was an upside to blindness, all she needed to do was listen. Although she was listening now, there was no sound being made. At this time of night, when her bomb-obsessed associate was out alone, that wasn't the best thing.
Finally, the door clicked and she heard the familiar, eerily cheerful voice resounding through the room. "Seventeen down, seventeen down…Take that!" The man's voice sounded entirely too cheerful, something that the girl knew was a bad sign.
"Okay, what did you do?" She didn't sound annoyed but she didn't sound happy either. "Don't say "nothing" because it obviously is something, Kimberly." Calling him that name would definitely irritate him.
"It's 'Kimblee,' not 'Kimberly!'" Yes, he sounded annoyed. He paused for a moment before continuing. "Hmm, what did I do, you ask? Well, it should be obvious. What organization is dedicated to destroying demons, and killed a few of my previous allies?"
"Magdalan Order, right?" The answer was obvious after the amount of clues he had given. "Don't tell me you did something? If it involved your handiwork, then I might hurt you." Kimblee was always creating fireworks and things, and delighted in revenge toward the Order.
"Mariana, you're getting it all very wrong. You see, Envy helped." At the sound of those words, the girl stopped. Okay, now this was getting stupid.
"Explain."
"Well, since Edward Elric was there and Envy is so bitter toward him, he thought it would be amusing to crash through the dorms where his little girlfriend was, only doing enough damage to scare him." Laughing slightly, Kimblee continued. "He did so and transformed out of dragon form the moment his work was done, so that nobody would see. They still don't know what happened, but they're guessing everything! Most people are denying that Envy could have possibly done it."
"Wonderful, really," Mariana replied with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "Envy is reckless as always and for once, you had absolutely nothing to do with it. Interesting, how you call her his 'girlfriend.' You make it sound like we're fighting twelve-year-olds."
"Hmm, and you're still the sarcastic one." She heard a voice behind her and instantly recognized it.
"Hello, Envy. Back in your homu…nic…" she trailed off. Why was the word so incredibly difficult to pronounce and remember?
"You mean homunculus form? Yes, I am." Footsteps moved across the floor and nearer to her. "The demon's horns allow me to use my power again, perfect." From the way he spoke, she knew he was grinning the familiar, evil grin. "That, and they'll also help to join my old world with this world."
"That's completely set up, isn't it?" Her question felt forced. Yes, she wanted to see the two worlds join together as one, but it also meant that one could be wiped out in the process. What if it was their world? Would they all die? Whenever the Mariana in her brain thought of that, it flailed about and screamed 'I don't wanna die yet!' just as it was now.
"Of course, but we need to wait a day. It doesn't matter, we all have the Astral Lines on our side and we have the means of gathering them together here. All that power can match the Gate's, reopening it and then we can just use it to destroy it!" Envy sounded excited as he talked over his plans with the two standing before him.
"That should trigger the reaction that will eventually make the two parallel worlds combine and then our mission will be complete! If anyone suspects that we are the ones who did it, then we can simply destroy this place, which holds our evidence!" Kimblee sounded equally excited. Mariana simply sighed and leaned on the table. Kimblee, Envy…they were entirely too enthusiastic about the entire ordeal.
Act.4-End
AN: Well, uh…yeah. Look. Envy and part of his posse! We also saw Rosette again, Yay for Rosette! Then by next chapter, we get to see Al Elric and all of the people back in the other world, and some more really random stuff. And I won't be lazy about it! Actually, I might be…but, uh, yeah. Review please, I need to know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing really bad with.