It was amazingly refreshing, to wake up from an actual night's sleep rather than to lose consciousness and find yourself where you hadn't been. It would have been better if Edward were there with him, but Alphonse knew that was too much to hope for. The charade had to continue, after all.

The doctor's mention of friends and family left a sick feeling in his gut--there was little doubt in his mind that such visits wouldn't be along lines of anything he would want. The idea of some fake of their mother (another one) coming to reinforce the story of why he and his brother were here made him want to curl up and not leave his bed.

But when the nurse came to collect him, he went along with her over to the Sun Room without any fuss. There wasn't any reason to suspect a thing like that would be sprung on them both so soon--and besides, he had a notice to put up on the bulletin board. At least now he knew there was something he could do to help everyone!

With that small task done (and a quickly sketched copy of the maps Lloyd had left up in his pocket; it was easy to recognize them from before) he took a seat on one of the couches. Hopefully he could catch up with the friends he'd made, find out how their explorations had gone.

[Free!]