Ed picked up the hot cup of coffee and stirred it slowly. His eyes gravitated towards the window to his left. The only window in the small kitchen area of his apartment.
He had left the military dorms weeks ago. He wanted to tell himself that it was just because he needed more space, it was incredibly nice, but that was not the only reason, nor the compelling force that drove him out. His life had changed so much in the past few months that it seemed ridiculous to have the only apparent constant in his life to be the crappy dorm room that he had spent years considering the closest thing to any sort of home he had.
He laughed to himself as he thought about how he should have just burned the place down like he had his childhood home. That had seemed to be a quite effective way of wiping the slate clean, and in all honesty, he could probably get away with it if he could just figure out a good enough cover story (There were those new arrays he was working on… nobody knew what they were for yet anyway).
He had been rash as a kid, and still was in many ways, but no one could deny that he had matured drastically over the years. It would be hard for anyone to serve in the military for years and not mature in one way or another…
He picked up his mug of coffee, and moved over to the window, leaning against the sill. It had been a shock, restoring Al's body after so long. Somehow he had been caught up in the momentum of time as they searched frantically for a solution, and yet also lodged into a place utterly unmoving.
His unwavering resolve to find the stone, and the constant of Al, always the imposing suit of armor with a child's voice, by his side seemed to have deprived Ed of a sense of the passing time, and when he had looked at Al lying on the hospital be across from him, and himself in the mirror that he had demanded from the nurse, he realized that he was no longer a child in spirit or body.
He took another few moments to sip his coffee and look out the window down at the people below. The were all caught up in the same torrent that he had found himself in, and in the same lulling cyclical motion of day in, day out, week by week, as time flew by. Yet they were all so drastically different from him.
From his window, he heard the bells of the church a few blocks off. It was admittedly quite nice to have it so near by, as it seemed to always be there reminding him of the time and prompting him along when he spaced out in the mornings (as he was apt to do).
He set the mug back down on the counter, and after a brief stretch, grabbed his coat and an apple on his way out of the door. He made his way down the winding stairs quickly, but slowed his pace as he left the lobby of the building and stepped on the sidewalk. It was a nice day, considering that they were in Central and that it was only February. The sun was out, and only a few wispy clouds threatened to cover it as he walked, taking a bite out of his apple as he went.
It had rained for the greater part of the previous week, and it was a pleasant surprise to see that it had cleared up, yet at the same time, he felt a small twinge of guilt that he would be unable to really enjoy the day, as he would be cooped up inside all day.
Once he had turned 16, Hawkeye had decided that he was old enough to deal with paperwork. Before, he had had to write mission reports of course, but even those had seemed tedious and unnecessary to him. He had no idea how much damned paperwork the military seemed to throw at them, and had developed a new sort of respect for Mustang for the mounds of it that the man went through on a daily basis (and if not respect, at least a certain amount of pity and understanding).
Hawkeye had started making him fill out more and more of the paperwork related to missions as the year went on. It had started with completing damage reports, and then the statements of expenses (which included accommodation and food for longer missions), then the municipal police reports to be filed on local records… the list went on and on.
At first, he had tried to get longer missions to increase the amount of time between having to deal with all of the paperwork, but he soon discovered that it didn't really make much of a difference, as the amount of paperwork seemed to jump exponentially as the mission got longer.
It was alright though. It had been a pain in the ass when he was still searching for a way to bring Al's body back, but now it was simply a way of passing the time. Time that he didn't really know what he would do with otherwise.
It was a relatively short walk to Central Command, and within 10 minutes of having set out from his apartment, he found himself walking through the front doors and up to Mustang's office, which was on the second floor of the building, and faced the inner courtyard of the building.
He approached the closed door and briefly listened to hear the voices inside. He knew it was insubordination to simply barge into his superior officers' office with no warning, and though a few years ago, he would have just plowed into the room, now he took the time to make sure that at least there was no one in the room who would actually care (Mustang and the rest of his team were already so used to it that they would probably be more surprised if he knocked than if he barged in).
After determining that it was just Hawkeye and Mustang in the room, he opened the door and entered. They both turned towards the door as he opened it, Mustang seeming his regular, lofty self, while Hawkeye seemed incredibly irritated, almost seething. Yup, it was definitely another normal day at the office.
"Morning, Mustang," Ed said casually, walking up to the desk, "What have you got for me today?"
"You've already finished with your previous assignment?" Roy responded, raising an eyebrow at the blond, then sending a look at Hawkeye, the significance of which, Ed couldn't quite decipher.
"Yeah," said Ed, "I turned it in yesterday evening. It was easy. And boring as hell. Doesn't the military have better things to do than make us sort through old paperwork and summarize it in a new stack of paperwork?"
Ed could have sworn that he heard Mustang mutter something along the lines of "Well, someone has to do it" under his breath as he neatened one of the stacks of paper on his desk, and felt childish anger at the Colonel flare up inside him for a moment. He hated the thought of being used for such banal work that any other soldier could complete.
The past few months—since Al had moved back to Risembol—he had noticed that he seemed to be receiving more and more mundane tasks to complete for Mustang. Though he understood that it was meant to give him a break from the harder, more dangerous work he was used to, to let him settle back into the semblance of a normal life after such a huge shift, but none the less, he thought that it would have instead been much more helpful to him if they had begun to pile on the work, sending him on the most dangerous, distant, longterm missions that they could find.
He could definitely use the distraction. He had had too much time to think lately. And too much time by himself. He was accustomed to spending long periods pouring over alchemic texts by himself in some empty corner of the library, but he had never before come home to an empty quiet apartment, and found that he really didn't know what to do with himself in the evenings.
Roy shot the same look from before at Hawkeye, who scoffed, and stared right back at him. He may be her superior, but she had absolutely no qualms about staring him down (or forcing him at gunpoint when it came to that) when she felt he was acting in a manner unbefitting of his position.
"Well, Fullmetal, you're in luck," he said, never breaking eye contact with Hawkeye, who looked like she was about to implode, "There is a quite interesting case that needs to be dealt with. It doesn't involve leaving Central, but is far from mundane. Hawkeye and I were just discussing it, in fact."
He picked up a file from off his desk, and handed it to Ed, who flopped down into the chair facing the Colonel's desk, and opened up the file to read the brief summary of the case that appeared on the first page.
"Sir," Hawkeye said firmly, barely keeping her cool "I must express how deeply I am opposed to giving Ed this mission for the reasons I expressed earlier."
"Noted," Roy stated frankly He and Hawkeye exchanged one last challenging glare, and Roy then turned his attention to Ed, who was still reading the debriefing.
Ed's eyes darted over a few more lines before setting the file in his lap, and looking back up at Roy.
"Drug rings?" he stated.
"Yes," said Roy, "they exist in any big city of course, and normally the military wouldn't get involved, but as you read In the report, it seems as though alchemy is somehow being used, which we've never seen happen before, and don't quite know what to make of."
"Ed," Hawkeye interjected, " Do you know what cocaine is?"
Ed almost scoffed at her. Of course he knew what it was. Even more sheltered boys of his age knew about drugs, and he had led anything but a sheltered life.
"Yeah," Ed said slowly, trying to figure out exactly what she had meant by the questing. She couldn't really be asking him if he knew about drugs, could she? It was really a stupid question.
"Unless you want me to recite its chemical composition," Ed added sarcastically, "In that case I'll need a few hours to study up."
Hawkeye did seem put off by his less than serious answer, and took the opportunity to take her leave, dropping the papers she had been holding off at Mustang's desk and turning towards the door with a curt "Sir" in Mustang's general direction.
"I don't think that will be necessary, Fullmetal," said Roy, "but in all honesty, it couldn't hurt. It'd be more useful for you to take some time to look at the police's information on drug trafficking in the city though, and that may take you a while to get through. You'll need authorization to look at the files though. Hold on a minute."
Roy took a piece of stationary from the left side of his desk, and wrote out a note, signed it, and stamped it with the military emblem before handing it to Ed.
"Just give that to the reception desk at the police headquarters," Roy said, "They shouldn't give you any problems accessing the files."
"Thanks," Ed said quickly, snatching the paper from his hands, and heading out the door, file in hand. He was genuinely excited about this new mission. It had been so long since a field-related mission, and from what he had read about the situation so far, it definitely seemed like he would have to go digging around for information in the city.
He mentally kissed mindless paperwork goodbye for the moment and prepared himself to delve into this new mystery as far as he could.