Okay, so I admit, this chapter is pretty boring until you hit the bottom. It's really just supposed to be a filler, leading up to a good part. Either way, I'm proud of myself for getting it done.
Thank you for the reviews, favorites, and the alerts. I love reading reviews, so please, send 'em along! I check my inbox every day in hopes of seeing some for something other than the story 'Mother Demon'.
Anyway. Yeah, I won't write a novel up here like I usually do.
Disclaimer: I do not claim to own Fullmetal Alchemist, nor it's characters. Don't sue me, damn it.
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"Glad you decided to show up, Edward. Get lost in the cracks in the sidewalk?" Roy asked, leaning on the counter casually and reading the newspaper. Ed had woken up late, and thus had come into work late.
The blond glared at him, "Shut up, I'm not that short." He was a little over five feet now, darn it. Though he wasn't going to grow any more, he was quite proud of that height. "I woke up late, I'm sorry." He apologized quickly, trying to make up for telling the other to 'shut up'. He had said it instinctively, he couldn't shake the feeling of familiarity. He didn't know a thing about this Roy, but he couldn't get it through his head. Shrugging his jacket off, he hung it up and walked around Roy to the storage closet. "Where is everyone?" Hawkeye and Havoc weren't anywhere in sight.
Roy answered calmly, "Riza had to go visit her sick niece this morning and will be in shortly. Jean is out back having a cigarette." He was writing in his little book again, pausing every so often as if thinking only to begin writing once more. Ed swore that a few times he caught the older man glancing questioningly in his direction.
Ed watched him for a minute before looking away and grabbing the broom out of the closet. "Col-- I mean, Roy, " wow that would be hard to get used to. "... Nevermind." The dark haired man gave him an odd look, but shrugged it off as the blond set to work sweeping the floor. The bell on the door chimed and a man and his small daughter walked in. Ed looked up when Roy addressed them like friends and customers.
"Mr. Tucker, nice to see you again. And, Nina, too." He welcomed, making Ed flinch visibly. The blond cautiously glanced over his shoulder at the two, not at all surprised to see that they were, indeed, who he thought they were.
Rage, sadness, despair, relief, he didn't know which was the dominant emotion. He quickly walked behind a couple of shelves, out of line of vision. They were the same... but they weren't the same... they only looked like their Amestrian counterparts...they had completely different personalities, lifestyles, memories... But of course, Ed didn't. But right now he wished that he was that way too, completely different and fitted to this world. "Nina..." He felt the tears coming, and wiped at his eyes with his sleeve before trying to walk calmly to the back door, but failing as he saw the two again and forcing himself to run.
Roy watched, completely thrown back as he watched the blond push roughly out the back door. "I'll be right back." He got up and followed Ed out the door, passing a very confused Jean Havoc along the way.
Ed kept running, and fast. He hopped the fence surrounding the back yard of the shop, stopping only when he felt he was far enough away that nobody would come looking for him right away. He felt so childish for overreacting like this, but the memories... they refused to be pushed away and they flashed before his eyes. The chimera, Tucker as he proudly showed off his latest creation. ...The way she had to die...
He didn't even hear someone behind him.
Roy slowed to a walk (he had been running to try to catch up to the other), catching his breath as he tried to figure out what was going on. They had ended up on a slightly forest-y area of town, maybe thirty feet away from the busy roads and shops. All he saw really though was Edward, leaning against a tree, obviously upset over something. "Ed, what happened?" He asked , cautiously, not moving from where he stood maybe seven feet away.
This startled the blond a bit and he turned his head to look over at Roy, wiping his eyes again. "It's nothing, don't worry about it..." He muttered in an angry tone. He was angry with himself, when would he ever learn to just grow up?
He watched Ed, sighing. "Did it have anything to do with Shou and his daughter?" He asked. Ed cringed, and he knew he had hit the mark. "Did something happen between you guys?" He pressed for information. "You don't have to say if you don't want to, I'm just a little worried." He stuffed his hands into his pockets, not taking his dark eyes off of the other.
Ed didn't turn to face him, but he spoke anyway. "He... they just look like some people I knew. They... died. A long time ago. A long way from here..." Well, part of that was true... "The little girl was murdered, after she got a ... disease. Her father killed himself after that, since his wife left him." There, that was a good enough excuse. And he was crying, so that gave an excuse for the pauses. Now he only had to hope that Mustang took the white lie.
Roy was still watching him. "Are you all right? Need a bit of time to calm down?" He asked, slightly skeptical. A man, and an odd talking animal. The same man and a small girl in braided pig tails. A large white dog. The man again, and a creature that looked like the dog with a mane of red-brown hair. A mass of blood on the back wall of an alleyway. A crying boy and a huge suit of armor... He remembered that so well... it was one of the most vivid dreams he'd had. "I can sympathize with you a little bit, I've seen a lot of familiar faces around, people tend to look so similar to each other. But, you just have to learn to control yourself." He shrugged, but not in an uncaring way.
Ed remained silent for a minute, trying to wait until his voice grew steadier, "...that's not something you get over easily..."
"You have to try, Ed, I'm sorry."
"Just give me a minute. I'll be back eventually..."
Roy debated, wanting so badly to try to offer some comfort to the blond, but the right words wouldn't come. "All right. If you need me, I'll be back at the store." The hidden message in that was, 'if you need to talk, you know where to find me.'
Ed nodded. "Yeah, all right... thanks." He was starting to calm down now, wiping his eyes with his shirt sleeve and breathing heavily to try to get the lump in his throat to leave.
Roy reluctantly left the boy alone, his mind was reeling but he doubted that his suspicions were true. It was just an odd coincidence, that's it. Nothing more. He made his way through the wooded area, jumping the fence behind the shop and meeting up with a very confused Jean and Riza. Roy crossed the back lawn , stopping a couple of feet before his two perplexed friends.
jean had a new cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, his arms were folded over his chest in a questioning way. "Where did you run off to? Where's Ed?" He asked, glancing over Roy's shoulder as if expecting Ed to be coming along behind the man. Riza, not having even taken off her jacket yet, gave him the same questions with her eyes.
Roy kept an indifferent face. "He'll be back soon. Are Mr. Tucker and his daughter still here?" If they were, he wanted to promptly apologize, but Riza shook her head.
"They were leaving as I arrived." The blond woman gave Roy a look, a look that said quite blatantly that she knew he wasn't giving them the whole story. But then again, it was really none of their business, so she didn't press the subject further.
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Ed returned to the small shop a few minutes later, looking perfectly normal. He said nothing for the rest of the day, though, merely going about his job and doing whatever else he was told. He knew he was overreacting, but it was just a bit too much at once. They all left the shop one by one as the sun set and closing time approached, and soon it was just him and Roy in the small building.
The blond was just finishing sweeping a bit of dirt from the floor, putting the broom back in the storage closet and throwing his waist apron behind the counter with Havoc's. He could hear Roy bustling around upstairs, shuffling a few papers together before he heard footsteps and the lock of a door. Ed glanced up briefly as the dark haired man came down the stairs with a relieved look on his face. Ed assumed that he was just glad to be going home for the night.
"Full-," he coughed, trying to hide that little slip, "er, Edward. Are you all right?" He asked, hoping the blond didn't hear, or rather understand, what he had very nearly said.
Ed noticed, he noticed it big time. He gave the older man a suspicious look, "Yeah, I'm fine now, why?" He could have sworn the man had almost called him Fullmetal...
Roy shrugged, setting his things down on the counted and grabbing his jacket from the hook, "I was just a bit worried, since you haven't said a word since this morning." He quickly put the black jacket on, grabbing his paperwork from the counter and facing the younger.
Ed smiled, "Thanks for your concern, but really, everything's all right now." He tried to sound as truthful as he could considering he still felt a little upset.
"All right. Lock this front door when you leave, all right?"
The blond nodded, watching the others' back as he walked out the door, to his car, and home for the night. Sighing, he walked over to get his own coat, glancing at the clock and seeing... a book? He grabbed his coat off the rack and walked over to the counter, seeing the familiar black notebook that Mustang carried around all the time. "Huh... he must've left it here..." Ed spoke to himself, picking the book up and examining the cover, never having really gotten a good look at it before. He shrugged, placing the book under his arm. He'd keep it for the bastard and bring it in tomorrow. It was no big deal.
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"What's that, brother?" Alphonse asked, looking over Edward's shoulder to the book he held in his hands, just kind of staring at it.
The blond looked up and shrugged, "It belongs to my boss, he left it at work today." He stated simply, knowing Al could figure out just why Ed brought it home himself. He knew the other well enough.
The younger Elric just shrugged it off though, heading upstairs. "All right. I'm going to bed for the night, see you in the morning." He called over his shoulder, soon disappearing upstairs and leaving Ed alone in their kitchen, still staring at the book.
Then, he came to a conclusion. "He doesn't have to know. It couldn't hurt..." He had been contemplating reading the mysterious book for ages, it had been killing him to know just what was written inside. cautiously, he opened the book to a random page...
The sun shone brightly in the sky above, it looked like a desert city. But everything was in chaos. Gunshots were sounding in the background and the shouting of men, women, and children alike filled the air. In the distance, I could hear an officer shouting orders to his men.
In front of me, a boy, probably no older than seventeen years old and wielding a gun, cowered in fear. I was afraid too, I was shaking and for some reason, I snapped my fingers and the boy in front of me erupted in flames...
...Riza was there, but she had shorter hair and wore a uniform similar to everyone else's. She snatched a phone off of it's hook and shouted, "Sir, let me give you a bit of womanly advice. Babies aren't born after just five months!!" I'm not sure who she was talking to, but I got a good laugh when I woke up.
"Master Sergeant Feury, during your last physical examination we discovered a severe case of athletes foot... and we now believe that it is affecting your brain."
I was in a room, with one other person. It looked like a library, and I was holding a skull...
There was a golden haired boy, with his right arm and left leg missing, being watched over by an old lady, a young girl, and a seven foot suit of armor...
...Ed stopped flipping through the pages there, those few sentences that he'd glimpsed on those pages were more than enough to send his heart racing in his chest. "No... how could he..." The examined the words on the pages carefully, making sure he didn't miss anything. The Ishbal Massacre, he noticed that one from what he'd heard from the Colonel. And then... he remembered the last entry so clearly, the night he and Al...
He couldn't resist the temptation. The blond flipped through the pages some more, finding more incidents that he remembered all too clearly, trying to figure out where the Roy from this world was getting all of this information from. That's how he spent the better part of his night.
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Har, har. So. Ed finds the book, Ed reads the book, Ed can't decipher the book to save his life. So basically, the next chapter will be really interesting, in my opinion anyway.
Questions, comments, constructive criticism? Review, please!