Chapter One

It's a normal day, when it happens. It always is.

They're still moving in; it seems like they've been loading and unloading for days. It's a small place, smaller than their last, but it's out of Berlin, out of Germany, and by extension, safer. It's just the three of them anyway, Ed thinks to himself, as he sets another crate down and straightens, observing the new kitchen appraisingly.

"Al," he calls over his shoulder without turning from the dusty window. "Have you got that one with all my books?"

There's a huff from the tiny corridor and a soft thwunk. "Some of these," he hears Al say, "are mine."

"Our books, then," he grins and turns to find Al standing in the doorway, which is expected. What is not is the middle-aged woman leaning awkwardly beside his brother, looking around more curiously than any of them.

Al glances at her and then back to Ed. "This is Madame Lefevre from downstairs," he explains. "She says her husband can help us carry things."

"Oh," Ed says, looking her over, from her brown pumps to the salt and pepper hair just above her temples.

"Bonjour," she greets him and Ed nods. She's looking over them both from her short stature, not quite trustingly and Ed wonders if perhaps helping them is a ploy to eavesdrop, discover what they're all about. Ed's not sure they're about anything very much intriguing anymore, but it's a disconcerting feeling all the same.

Let her snoop. They have nothing to hide, even if Ed still feels like they do.

"Papa," comes another, younger voice and then Erik rounds the corner, struggling under the weight of another box almost as large as he is. His mop of dark hair peeks over the top of it and his knee-socked shins out from the bottom, the only testaments to the fact that he is indeed bearing it. "Are these my toys?"

Al snorts at him and lifts the crate from his hold, nearly hefting the small boy up with it.

"Your toys are already in the bedroom," Ed tells him, watching Erik hop to reach what he had been carrying from Al's much taller grasp before relenting and bounding over to Ed. Ed catches him around the shoulder with his good arm, dragging him back until he's braced against him. "Can you say hi to Madame Lefevre?"

Erik blinks up at the woman shyly, gripping his father's forearm. "Hi," he manages.

She looks at him oddly, no doubt taking in the child's tanned skin and ebony curls and wondering at it and Ed glances to Al, ready to banish her from the apartment if she comments, if he hears another hushed "bohémien" like they have from others on the street.

"Mon fils," he informs her, an edge of a challenge in his voice.

Madame Lefevre looks up at him, startled from her gaze. "Donc, vous avez une femme?"

A wife. Ed exhales, exasperated. "No," he tells her. "Morte." Just gone, really, but what good does it do this woman to know the difference?

Madame Lefevre eyes Erik again and Ed can't tell if her observation is more or less harsh. "Je suis desolée."

Ed doubts she is sorry, but a booming voice cuts off any further conversation, loud enough that he feels Erik start in his arms.

"Bonjour!" they hear and Al barks a laugh. An older gentleman enters and Ed's sure this is the infamous husband, who seems much more congenial than his wife. "Je suis Lefevre! Bienvenue à Paris; nous avons besoin de jeunes. D'où est-ce que vous venez?"

Al shoots Ed a look, as the man claps him good-naturedly on the shoulder. Where are they from indeed.

"Partout," Ed says, ambiguously, earning him a dissatisfied look from Madame Lefevre. Everywhere. "A Londres. A Munich. A Berlin. Ici, maintenant." Here is all that matters now.

Monsieur Lefevre's eyes fall to Erik as well, but he passes him over with only mild interest, free of the judgment in his wife's eyes. Ed's grip on his son tightens, nonetheless.

"Erik, why don't you go unpack your toys?" he suggests, giving him a gentle push. Erik moves obediently to the kitchen's entrance, skirting carefully around the Lefevres and then past them, loafers thumping down the corridor. Ed turns back to Monsieur Lefevre. "Il y a des boîtes en bas," he instructs, pointedly. It's a bit dismissive for someone who has kindly offered to help, but he's not overly concerned about it. Monsieur Lefevre nods with nothing more than a smile, turning to go retrieve more. After a moment, his wife follows reluctantly after him.

"She was looking at me," Al tells him as they watch them go. "And when I said hello, she offered. Should I have said no?"

"No, Al, it's fine." It's strange, but not dangerous, as far as Ed can tell and he knows Al hates to be rude, especially to someone with nothing more than good intentions. It's just habit, keeping their heads down, one Ed doesn't want to break with soldiers swarming and a less than Aryan child.

"You worry too much," Al points out and Ed scoffs. It feels as though he's spent his whole life taking care of and protecting a handful of other people and being a parent is a whole new level of that that he can't help.

He's lost enough.

"Hey, kid." Ed raps gently on the bedroom door later that evening, long after the neighbors have gone. He watches Erik who's seated cross-legged on the floor, a circle of toy trucks and animals surrounding him. He doesn't look up, pushing one of the tiny vehicles with a softly voiced vroom. Ed smiles. "What d'you think of the place?"

Erik shrugs. "S'small."

"Yeah," Ed agrees begrudgingly, leaning a shoulder against the door frame. "You, me, and uncle Al - we do alright though, yeah?"

Erik hums to his truck.

He wants to tell Erik that he can come to him, can tell him if he misses his mother, or the lack of her presence in his life if not her herself. Madame Lefevre has him thinking about it and Ed would like some reassurance even though it's selfish of him to ask it of a six-year-old.

Ed doesn't miss Noa, was never overly attached to her, wishes her the best in running as far as she can get from the brewing mess, but Erik is allowed to think differently.

"Are we gonna stay here?" Erik asks after a moment.

Ed clears his throat. "For a while," he says. "Long as we can."

"I miss Berlin."

"I know."

"Don't you?" Erik looks up, like of course Ed must, and it gives Ed pause. No, not really, he doesn't, they'd only been there about four years and Ed's never been the type to call anywhere home.

Even if he were, Berlin wouldn't be it.

"Yeah," he says though, for his son's benefit. "Maybe one day we'll get to go back. But for now, we're gonna have fun here, okay?" Erik nods to his truck and Ed steps further into the room. "Now, bedtime."

Erik opens his mouth for what will surely be a whine, but one stern look and he shuts it again, climbing to his feet with a pout and crossing the room to his little bed. Ed tugs the blankets back, waiting for him to crawl in before drawing them up.

"You gonna be okay in here?" he asks. He's starting to think he should have shared with Erik and let Al take the spare room, but Erik nods.

"Story?" he asks hopefully.

Erik is one of the few people with whom Ed has a captive audience when he talks about home, because the boy doesn't know the truth of it from a fairytale. It fascinates him the way Grimm does, and sometimes it's cathartic for Ed and sometimes it's painful.

Now's not a time for the former.

Ed smiles ruefully. "Not tonight," he says.

He reaches for the chain of the nearby lamp and pulls it, stroking a hand over Erik's head before rising and moving to the door.

The bed is empty in the morning.