Disclaimer: …Already stated in the last chapter…
Chapter Two: That Which Is Youthful Optimism
Brooke ascended the stairs, Ed and Al shortly behind. They followed in silence, Ed trying to relieve himself of the odd feeling Bryce had given him. Something about that man gave off warning signals and he wondered if Brooke ever realized these sort of signs. But, even if she did, she'd probably refuse to believe her father would do anything shifty. It was youthful optimism; something he didn't have anymore.
Brooke finally stopped at a door in the middle of a long hall and opened it, stepped aside and allowed Ed and Al to walk in.
"A bathroom is behind that door." she commented, pointing to another door next to another (possibly a closet) within the room. Ed took a moment to look around and turned back to her as she stepped to leave, but Ed stopped her,
"Wait." she stepped back within his view and stared at him curiously, "What can you tell me about the abandoned lab? You're dad was a State Alchemist, so he should know something about it and had told you, right?" she gave the window that overlooked a good portion of the town a stare and then back at him.
"Well," she stepped into their room and sat in a wooden chair that leaned against the white wall, "I do know that it was abandoned because there wasn't any use for it after the Ishbal Rebellion." she said.
"What did they do there?" Al asked, sitting on his chosen bed and looking at her avidly. Brooke felt slightly odd, like she was telling a scary story or something and everyone was leaning in, wanting to hear more.
"Alchemy amplifications if I'm not mistaken. Stuff like-"
"The Philosopher Stone?" Ed inserted. Brooke nodded.
"But apparently, nothing came up, so the researchers got bored and left, and erased all files of any of their research and who ran the place." All this information, Brooke felt guilty after saying them, for they were things her father had trusted her with. But, Ed was a State Alchemist, so she could trust him with her father's information, right?
"You're father wouldn't have been involved, would he?" Ed asked.
"No!" she suddenly said defensively, "My father would never do anything as monstrous as what those people did! I heard about the things they did to do research…" she trailed off and looked at the ground. "Besides… State Alchemists don't have authorization on laboratories, do they?"
"No… If it was something for the military, it'd be whoever was in charge of military tactics' responsibility." Ed explained.
"We didn't mean to accuse your dad, Brooke. We were just curious." Al said reassuringly.
"I know, I shouldn't have bitten your head off like that… Sorry." she folded her hands in her lap before giving Al and Ed a smile.
"What does your dad do now?" Ed asked, still immersed in his own thoughts with a gloved hand pinching his chin in thought as he stared down at the ground. She hesitated before speaking, unsure of what she would say herself,
"My father… is unemployed. Instead, he locks himself in that room. You saw the door I'm talking about, right? The one without a door handle." Brooke stared at Ed, waiting for a response. He had sat in a chair next to the bathroom door and was staring beyond the window's glass, as if trying to figure a puzzle out in the darkening sky. He let his hand fall from his chin in defeat and sighed, as if coming to a improbable answer continuously.
"Yeah," he answered, but his voice was distant. Brooke studied him; this guy was going to be contemplating and clever if she could sum him up… Probably even dodgy at times. But somehow, she was willing to trust him.
"But…" Brooke looked back at him, "How is he able to get into there without a handle on the outside after he locks it on the inside?" Ed asked slowly. Brooke couldn't tell if he was asking her or himself this, but either way, she realized she didn't have a answer. "Brooke, are you sure your father doesn't use alchemy at all anymore? He's washed his hands clean with it for good?" he stared at her sternly. She didn't like that look in the least; it was like he was wringing her for answers so as to point a finger. How had he already put up accusations with not even a night's stay? More importantly, what was he trying to accuse anyone of? She smiled falsely,
"Yeah, my mom would beat him to a pulp for it. She doesn't want us getting caught up in that…" she trailed off a bit. Ed knew he was probably jumping to conclusions, but he just needed information. He'd probably end up calling Mustang for information on this Bryce Lindaman. If he was in fact a State Alchemist, then surely Central's Archives would show something… Unless Bryce was like Dr. Marco and was shunned from the military's files. They'd be at a dead end. Which brought up another interesting question: If he was like Dr. Marco, what could Bryce have done to be erased completely of? Ed shook his head; he was jumping to conclusions too fast.
"Well," Brooke clapped her hands together suddenly, making both Al and Ed jump, "dinner should be in preparation and I'm probably needed in the kitchen!"
"Hope you're better in there than you are as a waitress." Ed muttered just loud enough for her to hear and she flinched before grabbing the nearest thing and threw it at him; a glass ash tray. Ed ducked and it shattered on the wall that his head had been resting against just moments before. He gave her a incredulous stare as she smiled venomously.
"Remember, Edward, I'm cooking your food and if you want to wake up in the morning…" she trailed off suspensively as she turned on her heel and left. He hoped that any foul feelings that had aroused during his questioning had dissipated at his joke. It had, for she knew he was joking…
As soon as Brooke was out of sight, Ed got up and closed the door before sitting himself in the chair Brooke had just left from.
"So… What do you think?" Ed asked, crossing his arms and leaning back in the chair.
"I think you may be jumping to conclusions too fast." Al sighed as Ed gave him a knowing stare. Ed knew he was and he didn't like it at all, but he couldn't help but feel that something was amiss. His instincts told him so.
"I know that," he answered sternly as he leaned over, placing his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging between his legs lazily, "but… You can't tell me Bryce didn't give you chill bumps."
"You know I can't get chill-"
"You know what I meant." Ed interjected guiltily. Al sighed,
"Yes, something about him did give me curious signals." Al looked at his brother who stared off in the distance again, thinking about a past memory possibly, "But that doesn't mean we can't trust Brooke and her family." Al said and Ed shot him a unreadable glance before staring down at the ground. Ed eventually nodded for Al was right.
"I'm still going to have to call Mustang about Bryce Lindaman and see if anything comes up." Ed stood up and walked to his chosen bed where he threw himself down upon it. He eventually turned on his back and folded his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling before he spoke again. "I really hope you're right, Al, about trusting him…"
Al turned to him, for he had his back to him, then spoke,
"I'm sure we can." Ed opened his mouth to say something, but his words were lost as a knock, then pause emitted from the other side of the door before Ed opened it.
"Dinner's ready." Brooke said. Ed turned behind him and looked at Al,
"I'll be fine…" Al said. Brooke toggled worried glances at Ed and Al until Ed refused to meet her gaze and shut the door behind him as he walked passed her. Brooke stared at the door a moment before running down the hall to catch up to Ed,
"He'll be okay." he said simply while he didn't look at her, for he knew if he did, her keen "receptors in observation" would pick up his awkwardness.
"But, he didn't eat at the restaurant either." she said.
"He'll be okay." he repeated. He gave a dismissive and awkward smile back at her as he continued down the hall, "It's just the way Al is." She held her own suspicions, but she wasn't going to ask.
Dinner was pleasant, especially the food in Ed's opinion. He waited until there was a pause in Brooke and Katherine's conversation and he had swallowed his food before complimenting Katherine for the food.
"Oh, well, don't only thank me," she placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder and smiled, "Brooke helped." Ed stared at Brooke as she blushed at the indirect praise but then she pushed it away, smiling at him from across the table. Ed had forgotten her mentioning she was helping with dinner; he shot a glance down at his plate, as if expecting it to explode. After her mother and father had switched their attention back to their food, Brooke gave Ed a you-just-saved-your-ass-with-that-comment smirk as she, too, turned to her food. Ed looked at her parents to see if they had noticed their daughter's devilish and nonverbal omen. He eventually took up his knife again until a slight jingling was heard and he paused to look around.
"Do you have a cat, Brooke?" Ed asked looking under the table for any animals. The jingling, he suspected, came from pet tags on a collar. Brooke looked at him oddly and joined his observations under the table,
"No, I don't have any pets, why?" Ed glanced at her under the table before she withdrew herself because of her mother's tug on her hair for her disregard for manners at the table. Ed emerged as well, as the jingling caught his ears again.
"You can't hear that?" Ed questioned Brooke as she rubbed at her head from the hairs being pulled.
"Hear what?" she asked moodily.
"The jingling… like dog tags, or-"
"You mean, this?" Brooke lifted her left wrist in front of her face and for the first time, Ed noticed a bracelet of some sort dangling on her thin wrist. What dangled from the silver chain was a small hoop (about the size of a dime) and another, smaller hoop dangled from the slender rim of the larger hoop, causing the jingling every time they clanked together. When Ed stared at the bracelet, he realized that the bracelet was not that, a bracelet, but a necklace possibly, for the chain was too long to be a bracelet and had to be wrapped around her wrist three times before fitting properly.
"It's a necklace my dad gave me sometime before Jake was born." she nodded at Jake, who hadn't taken any interest in their conversations. "I don't like necklaces; they bother me, being around my neck all the time, so I made it into a bracelet. It's my good-luck charm." she explained and Ed snorted amusedly at her prospect of something bringing her good fortune with insignificant objects; simply illogical he thought.
"There's no such thing as good luck." he said, "It's youthful optimism to believe in such things." gaining a puzzled look from Brooke and interesting stares from her parents. Whether they wanted to humor him or not was their decision, but he was willing to explain his reasoning if questioned. Brooke opened her mouth to speak but her father cleared his throat before interjected calmly,
"But, you yourself are just a child, right? Where's your 'youthful optimism'? How different are your beliefs in such things?" Ed's jaw shifted slightly within suddenly clenched teeth. He couldn't come up with a answer to that without rising suspicions with Brooke's mother of who he was. His answer was simply: He'd seen too much deceit and truth in this world to ever hope to be optimistic.
"I just gave up on such things a long time ago." he said, staring down at his plate with a deadly stiff stare. Katherine and Brooke stared at each other then back at the two of them in confusion, but Brooke knew they needed to steer clear of this type of conversation before her mother's own suspicions arose.
"Well I d-"
"Hey," Jake had decided to speak at just that moment, "where's other big brother?" he questioned Ed who smiled falsely, the previous conversation still fresh in his mind,
"He wasn't real hungry." Brooke gave a furtive glance to the stairs that led to the guest room and frowned. How could he not be hungry?
Not too long afterwards, Jake and Bryce had excused themselves from the table, Bryce going straight to the door without the handle. Ed watched closely, hoping to catch his little "trick", but Bryce simple pushed the door open. Brooke noticed Ed's close observing of her father and nudged him slightly,
"You're finished?" she pointed to Ed's plate as he nodded. She took it up and placed it in the sink that was full of water. Ed left to his room again as did Jake while Brooke finished cleaning their mess from dinner. Every time her bracelet hit the side of a glass plate, she thought about what Ed had said, that he had given up such things. Did that mean that all alchemists were like that? Did her own father give up? And, did that also mean he had given up on religion as well?
Katherine left to her own room after cleaning the table and not long after, Brooke began to ascend the stairs to her own room. As she did so, she paused a moment in front of Ed and Al's door, hearing soft snores coming from within. She let a half-hearted smile creep onto her lips before continuing to her room.
A/N: This chapter didn't take that long to write and I thought that, since I'm not going to be updating for a while, because of the new plumbing and what not, I should at least upload this chapter.
Kuro Roze: Thanks for the review and I hope to update a lot quicker next time!