Opening Doors by Dib07

Summary:

Post-Fullmetal Alchemist series.

To think that he may never have opened that door.

Warnings:

- Much of this story will contain mature and/or dark content not suitable for younger readers. Do not be frightened by what I write, but I am an adult writer and I do not shy away from what others may otherwise do so. Also, Edward. Yes. Edward.

Pairings:

- Parental. There may be some moments between characters, but there is no romantic connection.

Disclaimer:

I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. Neither do I make a profit. I write this out of my own time.


Chapter Two: No One Knows

Roy wasn't sure what to say, which irked him. He was the goddamn Gospel of answers and solutions. And most likely Edward was dicking around someplace. Having a drink maybe, or he had found a hot babe. He didn't know what he did in his spare time!

Despite shoring up these excuses in his head, Roy knew deep down that something was wrong, and that it went against Edward's nature to fail to return home. He had disappeared during his job without a trace – and had been out of contact all day. Where had he gone?

"Maybe he's gone to see Winry?" The suggestion was a weak one at best, but Roy was used to thinking methodically. When something went missing, it usually was never missing at all. It had just got misplaced.

"I'll try to contact her." Came the wane reply. "Just... if you see him... tell him to ring me straight away."

"Right. Get back to me if you get hold of him, Alphonse." And he placed the phone back on its cradle.

He rubbed tiresomely at his temples with his hand. Great. Just great.

After grabbing his dark cloak, he made a personal effort to visit every desk; every office to make sure Edward wasn't sulking about someplace. He doubted he would be, but the Fullmetal Alchemist was sometimes unpredictable and eccentric when it came to cases and work in general. But, much to his expectations, there was no Edward. The offices were quiet, dark and lonely.

He began to worry for the first time that night. Edward would not run off without informing his brother first, surely?

He hung about the office indecisively and then called Hawkeye.

"Urm... Hawkeye, good evening, sorry to trouble you. Have you seen Fullmetal, by chance?"

"Why, no, I haven't." He could hear jostling pots and pans in the background. No doubt she was trying to make a late dinner for herself. "Should I have seen him?"

"No. No. I'm sorry I called. It's just... he hasn't turned up at home yet. I'm sure Alphonse is just anxious. You know how he gets."

"Strange."

"Yes, it is."

"Give me another call in an hour or so." She said, trying to sound professional. "If there's still no sign of him, we're going to need to inform everybody in Central. And that means sending out patrols. And then we'll have to file him as 'Missing.'"

The word left Roy feeling unhinged. Fullmetal, missing? What a laugh! That screwball never went far.

"Y-Yes." Was all that could spill out of his mouth.

"Well, speak to you soon. I hope he turns up."

There was a click on the other end of the line, and then silence.

Roy put the phone down and sighed. "Shit." It was turning into a really cruddy night. "Thanks Fullmetal." He whispered. "I hope for your sake that you are missing, or help me God I am going to bury you alive for making me worry."

Alchemists weren't exactly everyone's favourite representative or ambassador. It was possible that Edward had got into trouble, but Roy doubted it. Edward was the Fullmetal Alchemist. He was too sharp for his own good, and he was smart and strong. He also had a good following, being the 'people's champion' and all. Besides, the young idiot had probably got consumed in something or other, and had lost track of the time.

Roy checked about the office one last time, feeling like a fool. There was no one there. Not even a janitor.

He walked home in the dark feeling out of place, as if all purpose had seeped from his very bones. When he got home, he dumped his keys on the table and popped open a bottle of beer. He gazed dumbly into the contents of his fridge and didn't feel very hungry for anything from his menu of things.

Instead he sat down in the dark of the parlour with one candle flickering away on the mantelpiece, drinking chilled beer and keeping a stern eye on the time. Fifteen minutes crawled by. Then forty minutes. Still no phone call from either Hawkeye or Alphonse.

"Shit."

This was spoiling his evening. Not that he had much of an evening these days.

Roy swallowed down more beer and leaned over to use the phone by his chair. It was standing on a little oak table that gleamed with polish. He painstakingly dialled the numbers and waited.

"Pick up, pick up."

There was a resounding click, and the shy, hopeful voice of Alphonse on the other end. "Any word? Have you found him?"

It was sad to crush so sweet a spirit. "I'm sorry Alphonse. Still no sign. I called Riza and she's looking into it, but I'm afraid we're going to have to file him as MIA if we don't hear anything of his whereabouts soon. And if that's the case," he added quickly before Al could get a word in, "We'll be sending out search parties. Tonight. I'll be leading the first team. Any idea where to look first?"

There was silence on the other end, of which Roy was expecting. He could imagine Alphonse sitting on his chair in his parlour across the street, confused and upset. Most likely the boy was in denial, or too dumbstruck to really take it all in.

"Alphonse?" Roy repeated more firmly. "Are you still there?"

"Y-Yes..."

Roy closed his eyes for a moment and realized that he needed to try and assuage the boy's widening fears. He was no good at this. No good at all. Tenderness and reassurance did not come naturally to him. He had lived a hard life for a long time, and took things as they came. Life was a bitch, and you either took it head on, or you fled from it like a coward. "Look, no doubt Fullmetal has gotten lost, the nitwit, or he might have... had an accident. These are very common factors for someone going missing. Perhaps you would like to join the search party with me? And before long we'll find that little scumbag together. What do you say?"

He waited. And waited. Finally there came a tentative; "All... all right. It's just... this isn't like brother at all. Not at all." Roy could imagine him shaking his head and looking about the room dimly, flabbergasted. Then it occurred to him that Alphonse had never been on his own. Edward had always been there. Yes, Alphonse was at home when Edward went to work, but the separation was never for very long, besides which, Ed was always a phone call away.

"The sack of shit might have just fainted in some street corner. Drunk." Roy felt uneasy saying this, since Edward had been missing most, if not all of the day, and he hadn't even took any particular interest in it, which made him feel acutely responsible. "Hold on, Alphonse. Let me ring Hawkeye, and list him as MIA. Then I'll swing by and we'll go out looking for him."

"All right..." The reply was so tiny, so miserable.

Roy reluctantly put the phone down, dialled up Riza's number and picked it up.

xxxx

As it turned out, they never did find Edward hunkered over a barstool, drinking away. Neither did they find him curled up in some street corner, or wandering around, lost, in the city.

They didn't find him at all.

Or one scrap of evidence to suggest where he had gone.

Roy felt an increasing flood of guilt that started slow in his gut which then grew ferociously until he was practically drowning. Alphonse sat beside him in the car, and as dawn began to break and there was still no sign of Edward, he had cried and cried inconsolably.

"Hey kid, he'll turn up." Roy said, cranking out some more stupid advice that was about as hopeful as willing grit to turn into emeralds. "You know he never goes very far."

Deep inside, Roy had half expected to find Edward's corpse in some back alley. But they hadn't.

"Something's terrible happened! I know it has!" It was hard to understand the young boy. He was crying so hard that it was tricky to hear his words. His face was hot and red, and his eyes were streaming with salty tears. He had used up all of Roy's tissues in the glovebox of the car.

"Hey, he knows how to defend himself if he gets into a fix. You've both been through some pretty dire situations, am I right? The guy's got automail, Alphonse! He can beat the living shit out of a car if he fancied it!"

The young boy had no heart for jokes, and he broke down afresh in tears.

Roy parked outside a bakery that hadn't even opened yet. The shutters were all down, as it was with the other shops opposite. The search party was still on-going, and would continue to do so until he called them off. They would work in shifts, combing through the city, the parks, the woodland areas, the train stations, all of it, until they found nothing, or something. As for Roy, he had no intention of sleeping even though he had been awake for over twenty three hours now. How could he sleep, knowing that Edward was still out there, possibly hurt, and in danger? Or had he fled town? Abandoned the military?

Roy tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

No. Edward had not absconded his duties. He would rather cut his last remaining limbs off than leave Alphonse alone.

So something had happened to him, this much Roy had considered. But what? How could such a popular man of the military simply... disappear? And right from under Mustang's nose?

The guilt returned, harder. The guilt had never disappeared, would never disappear, even if they found the blonde bastard. But every time his thoughts went back to that morning, walking to D block, turning to see him gone, the shame seemed to swallow him up until he was sweating and shivering in his seat. He had failed as the Führer to protect one of his own. What did that make him?

If I don't find him soon, he thought with self-loathing and dread, then I'm demoting myself. I won't be able to look myself in the mirror until I find that lousy good-for-nothing Elric!

"We need to get you home Alphonse." He turned to the snivelling, dejected boy. He tried very hard to sound calm and restrained. Alphonse needed hope right now, and confidence in getting Edward back. Roy needed to be strong, for both their sakes.

"N-No!" He sobbed. He was pressing his hands against his face, but even so Roy could understand his words. "Mustn't g-give up!"

"Hey, who said anything about giving up?" Roy patted him on the shoulder, feeling awkward at the whole 'comfort' department. It made him think how brutish he would have come off as at being a father. He could be kind, and fair, but he couldn't be soft or gentle. Life had hardened him too much to be otherwise. "I'm going to carry on searching, and so is my team. But I want you to go home, have some coffee and relax. I'll find him. You have my word."

"Don't m-make p-promises you c-can't keep!" He muffled in-between the tears as his whole body shook with them.

Roy gave his back another awkward pat before he drew away. "It's times like these that life really tests us, huh?"

Al gave no reply. He merely went on crying.

"Have hope. It's early yet." Roy backed out of the parking lot slowly and pulled out onto the main road. Sudden nausea clenched him unforgivingly and if it wasn't for Alphonse occupying his passenger seat, he could have got out in preparation to eject his rebellious bodily fluids. But he held it all in, like a Führer must do, and drove Alphonse slowly home.

By now the sun was peeking over the metal horizon and the tallest buildings caught its red wink as it crept up higher. The shadows deepened and then shrunk to little dark pools. The birds were in a raucous of song, but neither Roy nor Al appreciated the birdsong that morning.

Images of yesterday blinded Roy much of the time as he drove down the road.

Edward hadn't exactly been normal that day, what with falling against his desk rather heavily and coughing like he was getting sick.

Mustang's own words echoed accusingly in his head as if he had been delivering nothing but death sentences:

'Just as well I'm not sending you out into the field today, with a bashed nose like that. Clean yourself up and we'll go down to D block.'

'No one else?'

'Just us. Can you manage the distance?'

'Of course I bloody well can! Do I look crippled to you?'

No one else had been around. And if that stupid petty officer hadn't have distracted him...

The only way Edward could have got away so fast was if he had hopped into a car, and was driven off, or if he ran and leapt behind a building for purposes unknown.

Roy tapped on the steering wheel as they neared Alphonse's road.

If Edward had done a runner, the sound of his automail would have given him away.

He must have been picked up by a car.

Roy narrowed his eyes. Edward was no idiot. He knew well enough not to get into a car with a stranger. So it must have been with someone he knew... Even so... if it HAD been a stranger, Edward was one tough little guy.

Roy parked outside the little Elric home. In the early dawn sunshine it looked bright and welcoming. The pink roses were all out in early bloom, and though the grass was trimmed right down, it still looked lush and very green. On the patio was a white swing chair that could accommodate two people.

"Your stop, Alphonse." Roy said gently. Alphonse undid his seatbelt awkwardly – he could barely see through his tears – then he threw open the door and stumbled out into the daylight. He more or less ran down the little path up the picketed fencing and to the front door in a great hurry. He fumbled out some keys, and before Roy knew it, the boy had dived inside and had slammed the door closed.

Roy sat, looking at the swing seat for a few moments through his windshield, trying to recollect his thoughts.

Fuck. Should've handcuffed Fullmetal to me all day yesterday.

He pulled out and drove down the road. He started to feel a little bitter towards Edward. How could Fullmetal just... disappear without saying anything? It was all his damn fault!

Still, a few miles down the road, Roy had to stop. He pulled up outside someone's driveway and hurried out, leaning against the open door of his car. Then he threw up all over the pavement.

When he got back to the office, full of dismay and hate towards himself for having inexplicably lost one of his own, there was a phone call from Havoc waiting for him. He rushed to it and shouted down the line;

"Yes, what is it? Any news of Fullmetal?"

"Sir, you're not going to believe this."

"What? Well, what is it?" Roy had absolutely no time to play games. Answers had to come immediately. He was at his lowest point, with all patience gone sour.

"We've found something."

"For God's sake, Lt. Havoc, out with it!"

"We've found Fullmetal's leg in a field, sir. His automail leg."