Revisited the 24th of May 2020

Chapter 2: You can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won't back down

Roy dropped wearily down into his office chair. Finally clearheaded, he realized that he probably had let his frustrations loose on the kid. There was no way of winning this pointless battle anyway, as he now had to use manpower to look for the kid's parents, instead of working on the case he had in front of him. Papers were scattered all over his wooden desk, and he was absolutely overwhelmed.

There was a knock on his office door.

"Yeah," he answered, rubbing his fingers between his eyes.

First Lieutenant Hawkeye entered the room in her usual low-key manner.

"Colonel," she greeted with a curt nod. "I just wanted to let you know, that your... juvenile friend, has told me his name."

"...and you're telling me this, because...?"

"Because he said his name was Edward Elric, sir."

Roy abruptly stopped his head massage and opened his eyes.

"As in Edward Elric Hoenheim?" he asked.

"He just said Edward Elric, sir."

Roy sighed. "That is obviously not one of Hoenheim's sons."

"Just in case, I brought you the file we have on Edward Elric."

Something told Roy that she was not too happy with him, and interrupted his work just to prove her point. He decided to humor her, and accepted the file.

"Hmm..." he said ceremoniously with a slight shimmer in his eye. "Edward Elric Hoenheim... Born October 11th, 1899 in Risembool... Son of military official Van Hoenheim."

He looked up at Hawkeye with a smirk, expecting her to state her point.

"Keep reading," was all she said.

"...Van Hoenheim left the family in October 1902, died 22 of July 1914 in Central... After that... raised by mother, Trisha Elric... blablabla, dead November 17th, 1903... The older brother of Alphonse Elric Hoenheim..."

Roy went silent.

"What does it say?" she probed, but Roy understood that she already knew.

"...also died November 17th, 1903. A housefire... That left Edward severely injured, eventually losing his right arm and left leg to the severe burns. After that, he was moved to an orphanage in Drachma, for... boys with behavioral issues and special needs... where he was deemed crippled, with severe Posttraumatic Stress Disorder."

He slowly laid the file back on the table.

"So, it's really him."

"Seems that way. There's a picture on the last page. It's probably over ten years old, but..."

He flipped the pages, and sure enough. A young Edward Elric. Same blonde hair, not as long though, and the same golden eyes, looking into the camera with a curious look in his eyes. All Roy could do was to utter a shuttering inhale.

"Well, then I guess you can just let him go."

"I think you should do it."

Roy recognized Riza talking, not his first lieutenant. This was his childhood friend, from before the military, and before the war.

"Hah, don't make me laugh, lieutenant," he snarled unamused.

"Do you think he knows his father is dead?" Riza dead-panned, a no-nonsense look on her face.

Roy startled. "How the hell am I supposed to know?"

"It's the 14h of October," she stated, unaffected. "He turned 16 five days ago."

"And?"

"And, being in the state he is in, we can assume that he never got adopted. At least there's nothing in his file about it."

Roy stared at her, expectantly.

"And with him just turning 16, would mean that he was allowed to leave the Drachma Orphanage on his own. And now he's in Central, where his father, and as far as he probably knows, last living relative, worked. Do you think that's a coincidence?"

Roy didn't want to deal with this. He was tired after the long train ride, his back was sore and his migraine was dancing some sort of experimental dance behind his eyes. He didn't even know Hoenheim that well, much less his family. The thought of the young Elric kid, who had no one left, crept into his mind. He imagined that Edward had taken what little he had, used it to purchase a train ticket and taken the train from Drachma, hoping to reunite with his long lost father- No! He could not think like this, or feel these things.

He shook his head and made a noise that came out whinier than he had meant it to.

"Fine! I'll talk to the kid."

He rose from his chair and stomped past Hawkeye.

"Good decision, sir," she said, raising her hand in salute as he passed by.

Roy kept his firm march all the way to the HQ's holding cells, and shivered as the smell of sewage and old sweat violated his nostrils. He looked into each cell, getting catcalled or cursed at, as he passed by.

In the fifth cell, he found Edward.

He had been put in with another man. His cellmate was huge. At least 6'3, with a highly muscular physique, as well as he was shirtless. Roy made notice of the gang-related tattoos he bore just before he realized that the man was bleeding profusely from his nose.

Clutching to it, the large man sat in the opposite corner of the cell from Edward, who was slumped down in the other corner.

There couldn't be a connection.

"Elric?" Roy said, tale between his legs. Ed had his arm covering his chest as if a phantom right arm was also folded across his chest while ignoring the Colonel blatantly.

"Edward Elric!" Roy repeated, more firmly. Ed still didn't budge.

Roy moaned in exasperation and unlocked the cell, reached out and grabbed the boy by his arm.

"Hey..." Edward exclaimed as he was dragged out of the cell.

"Where is your crutch?" Roy asked as he closed the grid. In the corner of his eye, he could see the large man flinch as he said it, but he kept his gaze on Ed, who actually looked a bit apologetic.

Roy looked to the man still in the cell, then back to Ed. "What did you do?"

Ed didn't answer.

"Are you trying to tell me that you broke this guy's nose with your crutch?"

"No," Ed denied in his own defense. "He broke it!"

"He broke your crutch?"

"Yeah. So I... broke his nose."

Roy closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, calming himself down.

"I'm sorry I asked."

Roy didn't loosen the grip around the kid's arm. How could he let go? Edward didn't have his crutch and had no way of getting around.

"Come on," Roy suddenly decided. "I wanna talk to you in my office."

There wasn't much Edward could do but obey; the older man was a lot stronger than him, and Ed couldn't really do anything but follow wherever he went. That didn't mean he had to make it pleasant though.

All of a sudden he decided to stop moving, falling to the floor as Roy tried to drag him along, making the job a lot harder.

"For the love of God..."

...well, this wasn't quite what Ed had in mind.

His hand was handcuffed, and his body strapped to a wheelchair that the holding cells apparently had available for transportation of difficult inmates. That was not part of his plan. That bastard had even threatened with a mask they put on the inmates who were prone to sharing their saliva with them.

"I thought you wanted me to talk," Ed had smirked, but quickly retired, as the shithead Colonel seemed dangerously close to acting out on his threats. So, Ed was now wheeled from the holding cells, through a long hallway in complete silence.

At least for a short while.

"I know you just left an orphanage in Drachma," Colonel Shithead suddenly said.

An orphanage, really? It was a prison, or an institution, maybe. But definitely not an orphanage.

Ed decided to exercise his right to remain silent.

"How did you get the money for the train ride?"

This idiot didn't seem like the kind of guy to make small talk. Neither was Ed, so he spat out, "I played my fucking violin."

The wheelchair stopped abruptly, jerking him forward and he heard a sharp inhale, then an exhale, followed by the major asshole mumbling under his breath, "what...have I got myself in to?"