This chapter is very... emotional. Given the nature of the plot at hand, this is unavoidable, and from the reviews I am hard-pressed to believe that any of you will find this a problem. (Still, future chapters will not be nearly as angsty.)

"Mom!"

The door flew open, banging against the wall. Eddy panted in the entryway for a moment to catch his breath, before flinging his backpack down and running into the kitchen. His dad stood at the counter, mouth hanging open and ham sandwich raised to his lips.

"Your mom's at work for another hour. What's up?"

Eddy slammed his palms down on the granite surface, shaking the plate slightly. "They took Double-D!"

The man set the sandwich back down before squinting and scratching lightly between his eyes. "Wait, wait... Who took your friend?"

"Some government goons and a lady from the state. Now c'mon!"

He grabbed his dad's arm and tugged for good measure. He made it two steps before his dad's bulk weight held him in place. Seeing that his dad was still looking confused - and they didn't have time to spend being confused - he tugged again, harder.

"Dad, seriously! These guys came in this big black car and the lady said he had to go with them. Can't you tell them that he can just stay here? Why did he have to leave?"

The man took the time to brush the crumbs from his shirt front, then slid the bar stool back under the edge of the island. Every movement, in Eddy's eyes, was much to slow for the urgency of the situation. His friend was being kidnapped! How could the man possibly look so resigned and (now that he had to understand what Eddy was saying) not incredibly surprised by the news?

His dad placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, which he was quick to shrug off. "Eddy... This is a matter between Eddward's parents and the state. There isn't really anything we can do, Son." Seeing the look of utter betrayal on his face, his dad amended his statement. "I'll call your mom and let her know. Maybe she'll know what to do. Just... Why don't you go play with that other friend of yours, Ed, while Mom and Dad figure this out, okay?"

Eddy didn't appreciate being shuffled off, but this was big. Over his head. He'd let his mom handle it; she could be every cliche about momma bears or lions put together. He waited outside the kitchen door until he heard his dad dialing before he finally left the house.

Ed's mom was in a blue and white dress when she answered the door. Smiling, she chattered on about this and that as she let him inside, but he only really heard enough to understand that his friend was holed up in his room. He didn't even feel bad about cutting her off mid-sentence to head to the basement.

Once he had barged in, however, he didn't feel like talking. He plopped himself down in the armchair amidst the comic books and soda cans and stared somewhat blankly at the television. Ed's room hadn't changed much over the years. At some point the boy's mother had went through it with several trash bags and disposed of the mold-covered rotten food and had hired someone to tear up the disgusting carpet, but it was still messy. There were still stacks of magazines atop the dresser, television, and piled up here and there along the cement floor. Clothes still hung off of every not-so-clean surface.

Double-D outright refused to enter anymore.

Eddy slouched down some in the chair. Now that he was sitting, he could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears and his body felt hot, adrenaline still rushing through his extremities. He knew he should do something, tell Ed what had happened, at least... But Ed sat dumbly watching his shows and even if he hadn't been distracted, Eddy had never felt comfortable sharing anything deeply private with the other teen. They shared a name and over ten years of memories, but sometimes it felt like Double-D was the only one who actually listened.

And he would still be around to listen. Eddy didn't care what the government said. Double-D was coming home.

"Would you like something to drink, Eddward?"

The rubber stops did little to muffle the sound of the steel chair legs dragging across cement floor. His interrogator sat down lightly across the table from him, breaking up the cacophony of children's themed posters and crayon drawings. It was supposed to be comforting.

He didn't feel comforted.

"No thank you, I'm fine," he replied softly. He was sure the desert of his mouth was only from nerves. "Ma'am, if you don't mind..."

She placed a manila folder and glass of water on the table between them. "You can call me Lisa. You see, Eddward, a few teachers at your school have been concerned about you. The last several papers they've sent home have returned back unsigned. You never eat during lunchtime at school, and today you show up with these injuries. It is... against the law... for a teacher to not report it if they think something is wrong."

He knew the laws, having read everything on the subject he could find, both in the public and school libraries. He understood that their careers could stand on the line had they not said anything. Still, he couldn't help but feel betrayed, and wanted to know just who had blabbed. He remained silent, though. It didn't matter.

"We tried following up with it, of course. Eddward, how long has it been since you've seen your parents?"

His blood felt like ice in his veins. Surely his face was pure white, but Lisa showed no indication that she noticed his distraught.

Of course she wouldn't. She sees this everyday. Congratulations, you're a statistic.

He fought to keep his voice even as he lied through his teeth. "Three days, Ma'am. It's just, with their new jobs, our schedules conflict. We're still adapting."

"Uh-huh," she agreed, but he couldn't decide if she believed him or not. She wrote a few illegible scribbles on a sticky note. It was nothing like the neat print of his mother's. "And how are you getting by, during the transition? Being so busy, surely they don't have time to make dinner?"

"Right. Um..." He struggled to recall a sleepover a year before, where Eddy's mother had been gone for the night but left out more than enough money for a pizza. "Mother left me with money."

"How much, Hun?"

Mentally he tried to calculate the median price for eating out, verses how many days he supposedly would have been on his own. For some reason, his brain was blanking on the cost of pizza. Was ten dollars enough? Fifteen?

Lisa was already making notes. Floundering for this long, it probably didn't matter what he told her. "Twenty dollars. A friend and I ordered a pizza."

This seemed to interest her. "Oh? How do your parents feel about you having friends over when they're not home?"

"I was a guest in their home, actually."

Immediately he regretted the words. This was the government. They could (and would) check in with the Sullivans, and from there it would be only too obvious that he had essentially been abandoned (the thought itself was enough of a sucker punch to the gut. He didn't want to think about the pitying looks he would get from Eddy's parents if they knew it as well). He wondered if on some level it was Freudian; even as a child he had always hated to be alone, and would spend long hours being bullied by the then-shorter other boy just to avoid being home alone.

She made several short notes, nodding slightly. "I remember sleepovers as a kid. Of course, we girls just sat around talking about boys and painting our nails. What'd you two do?"

He moved restless hands to the sides of the blue plastic seat. It's smoothness provided little to distract from the questioning. His lips felt chapped and parched. He reached for the water glass at the corner of the table. "We partook in a few movies. Only to a decent hour, of course. It wouldn't do to arrive at school on inadequate sleep."

"And your arm?"

On top of it all, she thought his parents responsible for his broken arm as well? Everything else was fair enough, leading questions aside, but to blame them for something they weren't evenaround for? Or maybe that was it. Would he not have gained the injury if under the proper parental care?

"It wasn't my parents' fault. I was only behaving childishly, and was the cause of my own accident."

Despite (or perhaps because) of his calling her out on the unvoiced implication, she appeared rather taken aback for a moment, before her training kicked in. "I understand, Eddward," she spoke softly. Gently. "But I wasn't trying to accuse your parents of causing the injury, Dear. I know how dangerous skateboards are. My son has one himself and nearly kills himself twice a week. I was only commenting on how lucky it was that someone was with you to help you get to the hospital alright."

She slid the pen and notepad away from them, crossing her arms and leaning forward over the table. "Was this your first broken bone? When I was your age I had already broken my ankle from skiing and wrist from falling out of a tree. I felt that the wrist hurt the worst."

They had his medical records. There was no point in lying. "I um... managed somehow to crack my skull when I was quite young," he lifted his beanie slightly, just enough to show the leading edge of a light pink scar disappearing into his hairline. "Before we moved, my old school was fond of dodgeball..."

"Mmhm," she hummed, nodding interestedly as though she hadn't already read this in his file. She didn't ask for details. "Is that why you wear the hat? I doubt I would have noticed the scar if you hadn't pointed it out to me."

"N-No... That's not the reason." His rabbit-soft hair was blonde - nearly platinum - while both his parents' were black. Societal implications aside (he wasn't that naive and had already mastered his school's biology textbook), above all he disliked the reminder that he was so very different. He didn't want to go into detail with this woman that he didn't even know, but he had to tell hersomething. Normal kids didn't refuse to remove a hat without a decent enough reason. "It is predominantly a comfort item. I was a very shy child, and the habit has grown, I'm afraid."

She nodded. Then she asked several other simple questions, ranging from his hobbies to how he was doing in school. He, like any other teenager, was conditioned to always answer an adult's question, but was also feeling increasingly more uncomfortable with every passing minute. They both knew why he was being questioned. It was only a matter of time before she could no longer stall, trying to make him feel comfortable enough to answer her honestly.

When her last few questions were answered with barely-vocalized one-worded responses, she sighed heavily, tapping the forgotten folder a few times with short neat nails. "Okay, Eddward. I know you're a smart kid, so I'm not going to insult you by trying to ghost around the subject. We both know why we're here. I just want you to know that anything you say while in this room or in my presence will be kept in the strictest of confidence. I may have to tell someone if I believe you're in any danger, though. I just ask that you're honest with me. You can trust me, Hun. We're just trying to make sure that you're safe."

With it out there, he didn't feel any better.

"Is this the first time that you've been home alone for this long, Eddward?"

He didn't know how far their influence stretched, but he had called his parents' work years before, looking for them when he hadn't seen them for two days straight. Would CPS know about that? They had never been gone for this long before, though... "Only once before. There was a miscommunication between relatives and my grandparents were not sure of the day they were to be providing care."

Now he was lying to the government. For some reason, he couldn't bring himself to care. These were still his parents, even if they were conspicuously absent. He still loved them, even if they...

"Have you ever been without food? Water?"

"Never."

"Okay. Eddward, have your parents ever hurt you in any way?"

The question wasn't surprising, but the amount of emotion it brought to the surface upon hearing it was. He felt himself gripping the sides of the chair ferociously and almost expected his fingers to sink through the plastic. What right did they have, asking him that? His parents would never hurt him. Mother was a very busy woman, sure, but she had always been so gentle. Father was cool and calm as a winter lake.

The man only rarely got angry enough to yell, and the last time it had happened Eddward had been too cowed by the experience to act up since. He had been pushing his father's temper with little things all afternoon, and when the man had exploded he had flung half a cupboard's worth of dishes at the young boy's head. Not a single plate had made contact, though.

When his throat unclogged enough to allow his response, it felt both too late and too forced. "No! My parents love me!"

Now Lisa looked concerned, hand reaching out slightly in a subconscious mothering urge, he assumed. His own fingers shook. "Eddward, dear..."

His eyes were burning, and he could feel the traitorous tears beading in the corners of his eyes. His parents had never hit him. At least they had never done that. He wanted her to understand and believe him, but his own reactions were betraying him. And he wasn't even lying this time. A few tears fell, and he brushed them away frustratedly. "My parents have never hurt me. I don't know why I'm... I'm sorry. Do you have any tissue?"

She rose from her chair for a moment, and walked out of view. Within moments she had returned, a full box of tissue paper in her hand. He accepted it gratefully.

A beep from her belt sounded into the awkward silence.

"I'm sorry, Eddward. It seems I'm being called away for a moment. Will you be alright here for a few minutes while I find out what's going on?"

He nodded, too embarrassed to look at her. The room was painfully silent once she left.

The young man at the desk tried to usher his mother to lower her voice again, but he quickly filled in the void with his own complaints. For five minutes they had been standing there, and they still had just as little knowledge of what happened to his best friend.

"I understand that you're just doing your job," his mother sighed, leaning heavily over the counter, "but so am I. Eddward has been under my care for the last two weeks. I'm responsible for knowing where he is at all times."

"Two weeks, did you say?"

Both mother and son looked up at the new voice. The lady from outside Double-D's house stood just inside the lobby door, hand resting on the pager on her hip.

His mom turned from the frazzled secretary, gripping the strap of her purse in both hands. "Yes... He's been eating dinner and sleeping over at our house everyday for the past two weeks. Have you contacted..." She seemed to cut herself off, glancing down at him nervously. "My son was very distraught since you came to pick him up. Is there any way he could go see his friend while we talk?"

"I'm not a little kid," he grumbled, annoyed at being shuffled off, but ultimately didn't argue when the social worker pointed him towards the door she had just come from. Something big was going down. He'd let his mother handle all the boring stuff while he made sure they weren't secretly recruiting Double-D into the CIA or something.

He glanced in the narrow window of every door he passed, noting several empty rooms with childish posters and round tables that were lower to the ground. Obviously they were unequipped to deal with situations involving teenagers. He could only imagine the affronted look that would've been on Double-D's face when being guided to sit and be comfortable in such a kid-friendly environment.

The second-to-last door window opened up to a room much like all the others, save for the fact that this one was occupied. Double-D sat leaning over the table slightly, a box of tissues before him and his face resting in his hands. The shorter boy looked up when he entered. His eyes and nose were slightly red, like he had been crying.

Eddy sat down next to him silently, staring without reading the motivational posters across the room from them. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen the other teen cry. "You okay?"

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Double-D nod. That was good. He was no good with emotional things.

What he wanted to do was shake the boy. Demand that he tell him what was going on, why the government came and took him to this place. He wanted to know why the lady in the lobby had been so surprised at the admittance of two weeks, and where his parents had been all this time.

"Mom's going to take care of everything," he told the other instead, not sure if he was trying to comfort his friend or himself. "It'll... It's gonna' be okay."