I apologize for the lateness; it was caused by a combination of midterms, vacation in Mexico, and my university wind orchestra tour. Once I actually managed to get more than six hours' sleep, I finally got this out.

Rather introspective chapter, this one. Sorry people, it's not quite as plot-related an arc as you 'd probably like; more along the lines of character development and interaction.

Warnings: Angst, people's mouths running away with them, a little bit of language

Catherine's heart lurched in her chest as a thump and a groan followed the crash. The phone in her hand was gripped so tightly she could barely feel it any more.

"Catherine? What's happening?"

Grissom's voice spurred her into action, and she was already darting to the kitchen door, her hand raised and ready to lash out at whoever was in her house.

A curse, followed by a strangely familiar giggle, stopped her in her tracks.

Was that...?

She peeked around the kitchen doorway and saw two figures on the floor just through the back door. Her mind immediately went to the worst possible conclusion; she was a mother, after all. Her daughter was sixteen, and she herself had done a number of worse things at her age. So seeing Lindsay and Ed sprawled together on the kitchen floor, she couldn't help but draw unpleasant conclusions.

Thankfully, that conclusion only lasted a few seconds before Ed cursed again and stood, and running a hand through his somewhat dishevelled hair and giving Lindsay a disgusted look as she continued to lay on the floor, little giggles escaping her mouth every few seconds.

"So much for not making noise," he muttered, before reaching down and grabbing Lindsay's arm none-too-gently, attempting to pull her to her feet. The girl staggered and fell against one of the kitchen chairs.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Ed flinched violently and let go of Lindsay's arm, already backing away from the kitchen doorway with his hands in the air, as if he were surrendering. His eyes met Catherine's, and all she could make out at the moment was shocked guilt.

"Hiya, Mum," Lindsay slurred from where she leaned against the table. "What're you doin' home?"

Her glare shifted to her daughter, giving her a critical once-over and not liking what she saw. Lindsay was wearing a dress that was far too short for her, and trying to stand in heels that Catherine didn't even want to imagine walking in. The girl's hair was an absolute mess, and there was a glassiness to her eyes that her mother didn't want to consider.

"Where have you been?" she demanded, advancing into the kitchen like a lioness stalking its prey. "It's three in the morning!"

Lindsay rolled her eyes, and simultaneously rolled onto the table until she was lying on it, staring up at her mother with absent contempt. "S'not like it's super late, you've been out later."

Catherine shook her head in disbelief. "Are you drunk?"

The teenager huffed and tried to stand, only succeeding in stumbling into a chair and flopping there. "Nooooo."

Catherine's mouth opened and closed a few times, speechless. "You... you went out to a bar at three in the morning on a school night? And got drunk? You're sixteen years old!"

Lindsay groaned, as if Catherine's objections were the stupidest things she had ever heard. "It's not like it's bad f'r me," she muttered, though Catherine could barely make out the words.

"It's not bad for you? What kind of idea is that, Lindsay? You can't even stand up straight! How long have you been out there? Where did you go?"

Lindsay waved a hand in the air haphazardly. "Just around, y'know?"

Catherine grabbed the hand, and Lindsay whined, trying to pull away. She didn't let go; she was livid. "Do you know how worried I've been? I called to make sure you were alright, and what do you do? Leave as soon as you hang up! What, did you think I wouldn't notice? Did you think that it would be okay if you went out with your friends in the middle of the night and ended up dead in a gutter because you were too busy drinking to notice?"

Lindsay's breathing was picking up, and tears were pricking her eyes as she fought against her mother, but Catherine was not appeased.

"Leggo!" the girl cried, trying to kick with her heels but barely able to get them off of the floor in her current state.

"I come home to find that there's no one here. I nearly sent the police out after you! I thought you'd been kidnapped! What was I supposed to do?"

"Stop it!" Tears were coursing down Lindsay's flushed face.

"You know what? Fine!" Catherine released Lindsay's arm none-too-gently and stepped back. "Fine. Go and get drunk in the middle of the night. It's not as though I can stop you! Oh, look, it's Lindsay's mom, she can't do anything useful, what does she know? Why should we listen to her? It's not like she cares at all about her daughter!" Lindsay was trying to cover her ears, and something in Catherine's subconscious told her that maybe she was going a bit far. But she wasn't done; not nearly. The righteous fury was fuelled by relief and disappointment in equal measures, and she couldn't have stopped if she'd tried. "Why should I care, Lindsay? You can make your own choices! Last year it was stripping, now this? What am I supposed to do with you? If my rules are so repulsive, why don't you just leave? That seemed like a good enough option for Ed; maybe you want that, too? Would that make you happy?"

"No!" Lindsay whimpered and gripped her hair before staggering to her feet and stumbling out of the kitchen. A second later, Catherine heard the bathroom door slam and the unmistakable sound of retching.

She was tempted to follow Lindsay there, her motherly concern warring violently with her continued anger, before a small noise attracted her attention to the other remaining occupant of the room.

"And you!"

Ed started guiltily, his eyes wide and his hands clenched tightly against the counter he was leaning against. Catherine turned fully towards him, and he quailed as though her fury were a physical force.

"How could you have let her do something like this?" Ed opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off. "I left you here expecting that you would stay! Did it not occur to you that you were putting both of your lives in danger by going out like that? What were you thinking?"

Ed's eyes narrowed suddenly, and a defiant look entered them. "Well, it's not like I had a choice—"

She snorted. "Oh, so you couldn't have possibly just stayed home like you promised you would? You couldn't have just avoided this situation altogether?"

"What, and just let Lindsay go to the bar by herself and end up getting killed?" Ed demanded, throwing his arm out to indicate the bathroom, from which the sound of running water could be heard. "She was going whether I went along or not! Does that even matter to you?"

"You could have called me!"

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, because that is definitely my first response in a situation like that!"

"It should be!" she retorted furiously. "It's not your job to protect her, Ed! Did the fact that you'd already been targeted once not even pop into your mind?"

Ed's eyes burned with anger, though it would never eclipse Catherine's own. "Well I think that me being with her was safer than—"

"Safer than what? You can't do anything to help her when you're both drunk!"

"I'm not drunk!" Ed cut in, throwing his hands out with a furiously betrayed look on his face. "I'm not an idiot!"

Catherine gestured at his jacket, which was very obviously stained with large patches of liquid. "Oh, so that's orange juice, is it?"

Ed clenched a fist and ripped off his jacket, throwing it on the floor. "That's from where your daughter and her little friends spilled their drinks all over while I tried to stop them from wandering off!"

She felt the slightest twinge of regret, but continued ire overrode it. "And you think that's any better? You think that letting them drink is acceptable as long as you don't?"

"If you didn't want them driving home drunk, then yes!"

That statement sent Catherine's level of disbelief skyrocketing. "You all drove to the bar? How did you get home?"

Ed's face flushed slightly, and his jaw clenched. "I drove them back."

"Do you even have a license?"

"No," he said immediately, and she was momentarily struck speechless. "Actually, I've never been behind the wheel of a car in my life. And look! I got them home safe, which is more than I can say if I'd been sitting here twiddling my thumbs while her idiot of a friend decided she didn't want to leave her car at a club!"

Catherine threw her hands in the air, trying to ignore how her heart lurched at the thought of her daughter in a car being driven by someone who'd never even learned to drive. "Are you insane? Do you know how illegal that is? You could have died! You could have killed everyone with you!"

"At least I was sober! Would you prefer someone who can't even see straight?"

"I would have preferred you call a cab!"

"Well that wasn't an option, because the one who actually had a license wouldn't let us leave if we left her car in the parking lot!"

Catherine growled. "Who was there?"

Ed tossed his arms over his head. "Hell if I know! They were too busy trying to get themselves drunk to bother telling me!"

She clenched her teeth, nearly incoherent with rage. "Well you're just oh-so-helpful, aren't you? Do you even know what the word responsibility means?"

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Do you even know what the word 'restraint' means?" he threw right back at her. "Because I didn't see much of it when you were tearing into Lindsay!"

Catherine flinched slightly at the dig, but her mouth was still going. "I'll deal with my daughter any way I have to!"

"Well you're sure not doing a very good job of it, shouting at me while she's busy throwing up in the bathroom!"

She clenched her fists. "Whatever consequences she has because of getting drunk are her own to deal with. What would your mother have done?" she demanded.

Ed's face abruptly went from angry to utterly dark and furious. He pushed himself off of the counter and practically towered over the CSI, despite the fact that she had at least a foot and a half on him.

"Nothing," he hissed. "Absolutely nothing, because she was dead before I was old enough to even start thinking about shit like that. The same goes for every other authority figure in my life! Was my father supposed to wander back home just to get mad at me for stupid mistakes? Was that bastard Mustang supposed to give me a telling-off before running off on his own suicide mission? Ha!" He gave a chillingly bitter laugh and tossed his hands to the sides, holding them there like he was exposing himself to the world. "I'm my own master here, Catherine!" Where any other teenager would have sounded complacent, even pleased, saying that, the only thing in his tone besides bitterness and fury was a strange, deep sadness that was impossible to interpret.

Before she could respond in her shock, Ed was already turning and stalking down the hallway, past the bathroom door, and into his own room. The door didn't slam; no, the silent click it made as it was closed gently was far worse.

Catherine was frozen where she stood, unable to think of how the situation had degraded as it did.

"—Cath?"

She jumped slightly and looked down at the cell phone she still held in her hand. Hadn't she...?

"You there?"

Apparently not. She held the phone up to her ear just as Grissom tried to get her attention again. "I'm... I'm here."

There was silence on the other side of the phone for a second, and she couldn't help but feel shame rise up in her throat. He had obviously heard the entire confrontation, and having someone be a witness to her definite lapse in judgment made everything worse.

"Are you okay?"

She rubbed her face and took a deep breath. "I don't know."

"Brass and I are almost there. Hold on for a few minutes, okay?"

"Yeah... Yeah, okay." She looked up at the ceiling, but any prayer she had for inner peace was drowned out by the roiling regret she was already feeling for everything she'd said to both young occupants of her house. Flipping the phone shut with a sigh, she made her way down the hall.

"Lindsay?" she called softly as she knocked on the bathroom door. "Are you okay?"

There was no response; not even the running of water. Feeling concern rise up despite herself, she opened the door.

Lindsay was lying with her cheek against the toilet seat, tear tracks still visible on her face and a bit of sick smeared across her chin. Her make-up was impossibly smudged, and her eyes were half-closed and staring glassily at nothing.

Catherine immediately grabbed a cloth and wet it, kneeling down beside her daughter with a concerned murmur. She gently lifted Lindsay's head and wiped her face. The girl let out a pitiful little moan and mumbled something incoherent.

"Just hold on for a second and we'll get you in bed," Catherine reassured her, her previous anger almost entirely forgotten in the face of Lindsay's state. She tried to get the teen to stand, but the heels she still had strapped to her feet seemed to be too much for her. Lindsay swayed precariously and would have pitched into the counter if her mother hadn't gotten her hands around her and lifted her quickly into the air.

"Come on, work with me here," she murmured, but it was apparent that Lindsay didn't currently have the faculties to even open her eyes fully, let alone help support her own weight. With a sigh, the CSI carefully manoeuvred the girl out into the hallway and down to her room, ignoring the books still scattered about the floor as she set Lindsay down on the bed. What she wouldn't give for her daughter to still be small enough to carry—and young enough not to get into situations like this.

"Let's get your shoes off." She undid the straps and slid them off. Lindsay's current state of unresponsiveness made even that difficult, so she decided that the dress could stay. There was no way she could get her daughter into proper night clothes at this rate. "Alright, do you want a glass of water or anything?" she asked, looking up at the girl's face. She sighed as she realized that Lindsay's eyes were closed completely; she had passed out. Resigned, Catherine pulled the blankets out from under her and tucked her in. Lindsay didn't as much as twitch as she was cocooned.

Catherine stood looking down at her daughter sadly for a moment, before shaking her head. "What am I going to do with you?" she wondered aloud. With another head shake and a sigh, she stepped carefully out of the room and turned off the light, closing the door behind her.

One down, one to go...

Hesitantly, she stood in front of Ed's door, wondering if it really was a good idea to try and apologize tonight. Maybe it was better to just let him simmer for awhile and then talk to him when he had calmed down. But then her mind went back to the look of dark despair in his eyes. That wasn't the look of someone who was angry. That was the look of someone who was hurting and trying to hide it.

Resolved, she knocked lightly on the door.

There was no response.

Lips pursed, she knocked again. "Ed, can I come in?"

Silence.

Somewhat concerned, she grabbed the handle and tried to open the door.

The knob wouldn't turn.

Eyebrows furrowed, she gripped it harder and gave it a wrench, but it still stayed stubbornly immobile. It wasn't just locked; it simply wouldn't move at all.

"Ed, open the door."

She heard some kind of shuffling sound from the other side.

"Leave me alone."

She shook her head, even though he couldn't see it. "Ed, you—"

"Please."

That stopped her short. There was so much emotion in that one word that she couldn't interpret it in the slightest.

"Please, just..."

"Okay," she murmured, stepping away from the door and staring it for a minute, as though she could see through it to the obviously hurting, stubborn teenager on the other side. With a small sigh—this night had not ended good for any of them—she went to the kitchen to wait for Grissom.

Ed stared up at the ceiling as he lay sprawled on his back on the bed. The case with Doc's prosthetics was cold against his side, but he ignored it as he studied the stippling above him.

His mind kept flashing through scenes—

His father, closing the door behind him without so much as a goodbye, his mother leaning against it with tears in her eyes even as she tried to smile for him...

His mother, smiling at him and Al even as her face grew paler and her grip limper, telling them to take care of one another...

Granny Pinako, staring at him in shock as he lay nearly incoherent in his brother's cold metal arms, blood dripping from his two missing limbs...

Colonel Mustang—then only a Lieutenant Colonel—with Hawkeye by his side, asking him to join the State Alchemists...

That same man, giving him a two-fingered salute as he left to face Pride, likely to die at the homunculus' hands and not caring one bit because he said it would help him become Fuhrer...

Major Armstrong, giving him a sad look as he ran after the ones who'd taken Alphonse...

Havoc, cigarette firmly in place in his mouth, asking if he'd managed to find a girlfriend yet...

Hawkeye, her eyes softening in a rare show of emotion as she patted him on the head after he'd had another spat with the Colonel...

Maria Ross, her eyes compassionate as she wrapped her arms around him, risking her life in Lab 5 in order to save his...

His mother, hugging him when he'd fallen off the wall she'd told him not to walk on...

And it continued, more and more memories flashing before his eyes as he stared up into space.

What were they doing now? Were the people he knew in Central still alive? Were they happy? Would they have disapproved of everything he'd done since he ended up in this confusing place with nothing but the clothes on his back? Would they have gotten as angry at him as Catherine had? Was he really such an idiot that even his best of intentions would always end up hurting someone?

He reached up and rubbed his eyes before letting his arms fall to the bed again. He hadn't expected Catherine's words to affect him so strongly. He had been fully prepared to accept the consequences of his actions—after all, he'd known that she would be angry about what Lindsay and, by association, Ed had done. She was a mother; it was her job. What he hadn't expected was to get so defensive. And then she'd said that...

Am I such a horrible son? He wondered absently, no real emotion behind the thought. What would Mom say?

To his dismay, nothing came to mind. Had she really been gone so long that he could no longer remember how she would act in situations like this? Or had he really grown so different from those years that he had absolutely no precedent from which to draw?

He already knew what Mustang would say...

"You're always rushing into things with no thoughts to the consequences, Fullmetal! When will you learn that your own desires are secondary to those of the people around you? When will you learn to act responsibly? At least listen to your brother every once in awhile; maybe then you'd gain some common sense."

He snorted and rolled onto his side. "Sorry, old man," he muttered to himself. "Al's not here right now to set a good example."

Granny Pinako would probably just give him that disapproving stare she had patented years ago, before finally pulling out her pipe and muttering about boys being boys and being thankful that he at least had the sense not to get anyone killed.

Havoc would probably congratulate him on being a rebel, all things considered. The others at the office wouldn't have much to say after that.

He groaned and shoved his face into the sheets. What was the point of thinking of all this? It was only serving to make him feel even worse, adding a strange homesickness to his already dour mood.

Suddenly, a knock sounded on the door. He rolled slightly and looked up at the door through the darkness of the room, fully prepared to tell Catherine to go away again, before a voice that wasn't hers spoke through the door.

"Ed?"

Grissom.

He couldn't decide if this was a better or worse situation than having Catherine come again, so he merely curled up on the bed and tried to ignore it.

"Ed, can I come in?"

"No," he muttered rebelliously, though it wasn't loud enough to actually be heard through the door.

He heard a sigh, then a moment of silence. Grissom was probably trying the door like Catherine had. Ed was immensely glad he hadn't relied on the lock again and had instead transmuted the inner mechanisms together so that they couldn't move. No one was coming through that door without his say-so; to hell with the questions it would probably raise. There were enough unanswered questions around him to fill a circus tent, and then some. What was one more?

"Open the door, please." Grissom's voice was unusually stern, and Ed found himself tensing slightly.

"Why?" he demanded quietly, carefully not letting his defensiveness seep into his voice.

"Because I need to talk to you."

"Then talk. You don't need to see me to do it."

There was another sigh, and then the sound of something hitting the door, before Grissom spoke again. His voice came from lower, and Ed assumed he'd sat against the door. "Catherine was really worried when she came home and there was no one here."

Ed felt the shame rise up in him again. The shame... and the guilt. He hadn't meant to cause her so much worry. In fact, his original intention had been to lessen Catherine's worry by making sure that Lindsay actually made it home safely, preferably before Catherine even realized they'd been gone.

Grissom continued after a minute of silence. "The story's gotten muddled and you're the only one who knows all of it. Care to share?"

No, not really, he thought immediately. But Grissom had chosen the right way to put the question; he wasn't accusing Ed of anything. He was just asking for his side of the story. Ed sighed as he realized that it would be impossible not to deny the CSI without sounding like a child, and he had a chance to actually make his reasons known.

"I wasn't planning on going in the first place," he muttered.

"Pardon?"

"I didn't want to go," he repeated, louder. "Lindsay was going to go anyway, but I knew that Catherine would be mad if I went because I said I'd stay here, and I don't break my word. I honestly wasn't going to go."

"So why did you?" It was a neutral question, no accusation in it. Just wanting more information.

"Because I didn't want Lindsay going alone." He rubbed his forehead. "I know it sounds stupid now—because what could I do, really?—but I felt like she wouldn't be safe unless I went with her, and she and her friends were going whether or not I came along. I didn't... I didn't want Catherine to have to worry about her if she didn't come back. And with that sadistic bastard out there killing all those girls..."

"You didn't want her to be another one," Grissom surmised calmly.

He nodded, even though the man wouldn't be able to see it. "It would have been my fault."

There was silence for a moment. "Did anything happen where you went?"

"No. No really, besides the girls drinking too much and losing their minds. I don't even know how they got us in, let alone why anyone would serve them alcohol!" He sat up and put his chin in his hand. "I mean, what kind of messed up place actually sells that much liquor to teenagers?"

"Some places don't care, as long as you're paying."

Ed snorted. "They don't care who they hurt so long as they get their money," he summarized with a dark glare at the floor. The silence from Grissom sounded a lot like agreement.

"Catherine said something about you driving everyone home. I didn't know you had a license."

"I don't. It was either learn as fast as I could, or let the drunk one who owned the car drive home. Getting everyone killed wasn't on my to-do list for the night, and I trust my own abilities a lot more than hers."

"And you didn't hit anything?"

"Well, obviously. I'm here, aren't I? The car's out back, you can go and check it if you really want to."

Grissom hummed in an odd way. "No, I trust you." After a moment, he continued. "That was very dangerous, not to mention illegal."

He snorted. "Don't I know it? Tell that to my nerves."

"Why didn't you call someone?"

"I didn't know anyone's number. Didn't really have a phone, either. The girls weren't helpful. Have you ever had to deal with the combined strength of four stubborn drunk girls?"

"Can't say I have."

"Then you should know that it's impossible to go against anything they say. The driver wasn't going to let her car stay at the club. I just wanted to make sure they all made it home okay. I'm..." he swallowed, not sure if he should continue. "I'm not really used to having anyone reliable to call on. I usually just have to figure things out myself if I want them to end up well instead of going all to hell in a hand basket."

He lay back on the bed again and stared at the ceiling unseeingly as Grissom remained quiet. The silence lasted for a few minutes, and Ed found his mind wandering to different scenarios of the night. He saw the car mangled against a post, the girls inside unable to get out. He saw someone approaching them in the club and convincing them to leave. He saw Lindsay being snatched as they tried to walk home, and then an image of her on a table in the morgue that Doc had shown him only yesterday, with Catherine standing over the body with a look of unbearable sadness in her eyes that quickly turned to blame as she saw Ed standing there...

"Ed?"

He blinked and sat up. "Yeah?"

"...I'm proud of you for taking care of those girls. You did well."

As a warm feeling rose up in his chest at those words, Ed couldn't help but feel like maybe, just maybe, the night hadn't been a total failure.

Based on the nearness of the end-of-semester insanity here at uni, I can't guarantee when the next chapter will come out, nor how engaging or plot-related the content will be. I apologize in advance, and hopefully the next update will come before April.

Review if you enjoyed!

-Akita