Prologue:
"Mr. Mustang!"
The door to Roy's office burst open and little feet thundered across the floor. He just managed to put his file down before his lap was full of excited toddler. Roy settled Selim Bradley on his thighs, pulling off his reading glasses while the boy's arms wrapped around his neck in a tight hug.
"I'm so sorry, General Mustang," Mrs Bradley said, following her son inside at a much slower pace. She clasped her hands in front of her, bowing. "I know you're busy, but he wanted to see you."
"Quite all right," Roy assured her, ruffling Selim's hair and earning a giggle in response. His gaze flickered over to where Hawkeye stood in the doorway, hand resting lightly on the sidearm at her hip. She would watch them until Mrs. Bradley took Selim back home again.
"I won't stay long, Mr. Mustang. But we got out of class early and I wanted to bring you something." He held out a folded piece of paper. "I made it."
"Did you now?" Roy took it and opened it one handed. It was a crayon drawing of a blue person with a black scribble of hair. Above it was a five-year-old's impression of the military symbol. "Is that me?"
"Yessir!"
"Well, it's even more dashing than the original." He held the drawing up to his face, the afternoon sun beaming in to illuminate both man and art.
Selim laughed again. "You can have it, sir."
"Thank you, Selim." After a moment's deliberation, he propped it up near his framed photo of Hughes.
"Come along now, Selim," Mrs. Bradley cooed, making a beckoning motion. "General Mustang is a busy man."
Roy was treated to another tight hug before Selim slid off his lap. He beamed and bowed, then ran to his mother. The boy turned to wave one last time, then took Mrs. Bradley's hand. His bubbly chatter faded down the hall with them.
/
So close…
The bullet whizzes past his head so close he can hear the whistle of it before it strikes the sun-cooked plaster wall before him. Muttering a curse, he turns to look over his shoulder, gaze fixing on the watch tower. It becomes clear where the shot had come from. He grumbles again and takes a better look at the scene before him. Military grunts scramble all about like ants with semi-automatics, and he's uninterested in their scouting maneuvers. The sector is going to be reduced to rubble anyway; it just appears he'll have to wait a little longer to have the satisfaction.
One of the men pauses to look where the shot was fired as well, and a flicker of recognition goes through his mind when they lock eyes. Maes Hughes. That man from academy days in the mess hall, an eagerly smiling face insisting he should come and sit with some of the other guys. He is a busybody and a nuisance, but not at all a shabby soldier. There are times when he hears Hughes chattering about letters from his girlfriend and ignores it for useless drivel. There is nothing of that senseless joy now, and he decides that he doesn't like the way the bespectacled man is looking at him. He flashes Hughes a smile that is nowhere near pleasant and holds up his hand with half an array marked on his palm, fingers spread. He still feels the alchemic charge from before the warning shot had been fired.
Five minutes.
A frown tugged his lips at the unbidden recollection, and he looked down at the letter, nearly finished now. A few more minutes to dwell on his decision, but the reminder of things he had left behind felt very well timed. He was so close, and yet unable to do anything. It was time to change that. He let the rest of the words fall to the paper.
Chapter 1
It's a good thing I didn't already have dinner plans.
Zolf Kimblee neatly folded up his newspaper neatly and set it down on the small café table, placing his saucer on top so that it wouldn't blow away in the morning breeze. He pulled the little piece of paper from his breast pocket. A single fold went perfectly down the middle, a time and place typed neatly and anonymously.
8:00PM
Dalseni Cafe
Certainly, he knew the place, a little family-owned restaurant not all that different from the place he sat now to have his morning coffee. He appreciated the downplayed atmosphere. Quiet, unobtrusive, and with just the right amount of ambient shadows to perfectly enshroud a meeting that wasn't meant for prying eyes. The boy who handed him the note had merely smiled at him when asked who had paid him to pass on the message. "Just doin' m' job, sir." His mysterious caller could have found no better way to send the invitation. Using a lowly shoe shine boy, who probably got his day's wages in cens to deliver the paper to Kimblee and politely dodge any inquiries. Clever and well played.
Nearly five years had gone by, the time passing in obscurity, fleeting but oddly calm. As years progressed, he had become increasingly more convinced that his old self was but a ghost. A little bit of digging had uncovered that a missive had been sent to his family, cataloging that after his years of service in the military, the conflict in Central half a decade prior had rendered him missing in action. He had laughed at all the unnecessary formality of it, so many official words that effectively stated Mustang hadn't chosen to lay him to rest. The loose end was a half-assed freedom. While certainly not as exciting as military life, it wasn't as boring as his home life had been. He had more found an in-between place where he had retained a rather healthy portion of his sanity and a new start. If all this disappeared because of the note he sent to Mustang, he had only himself to blame.
Curiosity killed the cat.
It made a note like this ever more intriguing. He had been expecting some other kind of letter, not a secret note from a service boy. Such anonymity was unnecessary in New Optain. The town wasn't out in the sticks, as it were, but it was tight knit enough to mean that if someone wanted to relay a message to "Jonathan Crawford", most knew how to do so. He was a regular at this café in the morning, submitted his editorials to the local paper after breakfast and took his walk about the town before heading home. Anyone that wanted to talk to him would normally just ask. As he sipped his coffee, he pondered his next move.
Kimblee's thumb ran over the letters, feeling the creases where the keys had struck, thinking that if he went to the appointed place at the appointed time, the mystery of who had invited him would easily be solved. Another part of him hesitated to indulge such a request so easily. It had a charged feel to it, something he couldn't put his finger on, and his old self began to uncoil at the thought of change on the wind. Ultimately, he knew what the answer would be.
Satisfaction brought him back.
/
A chuckle crept past Kimblee's lips in a low rumble while wariness tracked down his spine. He stood at the edge of the farthest booth in the café, where there was just enough privacy he hadn't seen his anonymous dinner partner until he was only feet away. Once he did, amusement and caution brought a wolfish smile to his face. The moment their gazes locked, the golden eyes before him narrowed unpleasantly, blonde brows furrowing. If Zolf didn't know any better, he would have assumed that their clandestine meeting was just as much a surprise to the other man as it was to him.
Edward Elric didn't move from where he'd been sprawled in the booth, arms slung over the back of the bench. His hair trailed over his shoulder in a messy tail that almost reached his hips. Zolf noticed the absence of automail on the young man's right hand instantly, which only secured his desire to stay. No matter that he was being glared at mightily; that was just part of the fun. He reached up to remove his hat, smoothing the other hand over his hair. Sliding into the seat, he steepled his fingers on the worn table top.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I sense that this is Mustang's handiwork."
"Believe me, I might have reconsidered coming all the way out here if I knew I was going to see someone that dropped a building on my head."
Kimblee chuckled. "I hope you're not still holding a grudge, Fullmetal. It was all part of the job. Nothing personal, I assure you."
"Of course not. And just call me Ed."
"Very well, Ed."
Finally, the blonde shifted his position, putting his elbows on the table and pinning him with an intense stare, the analyzing look of an alchemist faced with a particularly puzzling equation. Zolf couldn't help his satisfaction at the scrutiny, enjoying the notion of being an anomaly to the prodigy of the Amestrian military, the so-called hero of the people. He delighted in the knowledge that if he hadn't yet figured out how he managed to survive the destruction of the homunculus known as Pride, Edward likely wouldn't be able to figure it out at first glance either. He supposed he was lucky that the other man hadn't reacted with his famous temper. He would have hated to upset the quiet atmosphere of the café with an unnecessary confrontation.
"Is there something on my face?" he asked when he grew tired of waiting for Ed to reach an acceptable answer.
Ed snorted. "You look pretty damn good for a dead guy."
"Dead? I believe I was tagged as MIA, not killed in action."
"Cut the crap, Kimblee. The right people know damn well that you were a dead man."
"In the long run, if people just assumed I was dead anyway, it was quite convenient for continuing on without having to account to the military for my actions."
"Spoken like a true coward."
Zolf waited until the waitress made her rounds to their table, and he gave her a pleasant smile. When he ordered a coffee, Ed did the same, and she scampered back to the kitchen.
Unfazed by Ed's insult, the elder man shrugged. "Call it what you will. The variables that were responsible for a number of negative acts I committed are now removed. I consider the fact that I am not permanently removed with them as an indication to move on."
A slow grin crept across Ed's face, not completely unlike those Zolf remembered from a handful of years ago, but older now. The Fullmetal Alchemist always crossed lines he couldn't turn back from, and it was a fascinating transition for someone that Zolf knew was barely of an age to drink, much less to have seen and done what he had. "You can run, Crimson, but you can't hide."
Surely, if Ed was here for the reason he thought he was, hiding was not on his agenda anymore. The corners of his mouth turned ever so slightly downward. "I do believe that I'm still waiting for you to tell me why you're here."
The smile widened as Ed leaned back into his sprawl again, stretching his arms out and crossing one leg over the other. "I dunno. Mustang likes to send me on fool's errands a lot, but I guess when a ghost sends him a letter, it's worth checking out, right? I'm not entirely convinced you won't screw us over in the end and just find some other way to slither under a rock for a few years. Guess it's up to me whether or not to bring you back to life, and my track record ain't so good."
/
Ed had to give Mustang credit for being sneaky, because if Ed had any indication who he was going to New Optain to meet with, he might have denied the journey outright. But the flaming bastard had a silver tongue. Telling Ed the right tidbits, including the fact that Ed would know what he was looking for when he saw it, had him on a mission he couldn't refuse.
Clever as Mustang was, even Ed had to question this move. Sure, his information networks were pretty impressive, pinpointing the location of a supposedly MIA soldier, right down to where he got his shoes shined and had his morning coffee, after just one letter. But he personally thought his superior officer could have come up with better, less skeezy people to ally himself with. The Crimson Alchemist's history was blood-stained, his morals skewed and his mannerisms slimier than the mud he used to play in as a kid.
In the seconds that followed, Ed felt the gnawing on his gut indicating his opinion was about to change. He hated that, the idea of being wrong in his first impressions. It had such negative consequences in the past, and yet it felt like the whole reason Mustang had sent him in the first place. Whatever had been left of the smarmy smile on Kimblee's face had faded into a neutral line. A slight crease drew his brow, and his eyes slipped into an empty focus fixed entirely on him. Ed had stared bigger monsters in the face before; he wasn't impressed by this one. No, he was waiting for more.
"Are you here to take me back?" Deadpan. Cold. Completely guarded.
"Was that what I was getting at?" Ed tipped his head back as if in thought, enjoying the game maybe a little more than he should have. But it felt nice to hold all the cards for once. "Mm, yeah, I guess I am."
He sat up when the waitress returned with their coffees in cups that had flowers painted on them and fancy sculpted handles. He had the fleeting thought that his mom would have liked to have those in her kitchen, but he shook it off, reaching for the sugar.
"And what will happen when I get there?"
Ed looked at him, the man's face still like stone. It dawned on him that Kimblee expected to be stabbed in the back. He could either be trusted or there was enough evidence on him that he could be thrown into prison again the minute he set foot in Central. Ed, and Mustang by extension, didn't just hold all the cards – they held Kimblee's freedom. Ed was inwardly taken aback, used to suspecting others of cloak and dagger backstabbing, but never thinking anyone would assume he'd do it himself.
He took a sip of his coffee, bittersweet. "Well. I guess that's up to you."