Happy Friday everyone! Thanks for all of the reviews! Here's a really long chapter for you! (Almost 3,000 words :O)
Okay, so I'm super excited about this chapter since I've had the last half written probably as long as I've had the second chapter out. But I'm super superexcited because this is just a very important chapter! (fan-girl squeal)
Enjoy!
Roy drummed his fingers onto the dashboard as he waited for the street light to turn green; his patience for the street contraption was wearing thin. Finally the light turned green, allowing Roy to take his foot from the brake to the accelerator and speed down the street.
Ring….ring…
Roy looked down onto the passengers' seat in time for him to see his cell phone fall off of the seat and into the clutter that covered his car floor.
"Damn." He muttered before glancing at the road ahead of him. Once he had deemed it safe to take his eyes off of the road, Roy bent down and searched frantically for his cell phone.
"Gotcha!" Roy exclaimed once his fingers had grabbed hold of elusive plastic and pulled it up with the rest of his body. "Hello?"
"Yo, Roy!" Jean yelled.
Roy let out a long sigh while pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He didn't really have time for the antics of Jean Havoc at this moment.
"What is it Jean?"
"Geez, don't sound so pleased to hear me."
"Sorry Jean but I'm not really in the mood to talk to you or anyone else."
"Who put a stick up your ass?"
"No one. It's just…well Ed asked me to do a favor for him and he sounded kinda serious for once. And with everything that I've talked about over the passed day, I can't help but shake the feeling this has something to do with his family."
"You think, or you want?"
"Think, want, what's the difference?" Roy growled as he made a sharp turn onto a new street.
"Well what'd he say?"
"All he said was that he needed me to break into somewhere for him and then he texted me a few minutes ago and told me it'd be a while out of the way so I needed to make sure I had gas."
"Well if you guys are gong on some sort of adventure I want to come along too!"
"Jean, I don't know what the Hell he needs and if he only wants me to come then that's what's going to happen."
"Come on! If he sees me and wants me to leave, I'll make myself scarce. Just come and pick me up."
"Your house is in the opposite direction from were I'm going and I'm already late. I can't."
"But I'm not at my house. I'm at the library."
"What the Hell are you of all people doing at a library?" Roy asked in an astonished voice; the idea of Jean Havoc sitting in a library, more importantly a non-smoking library, was baffling to Roy.
"Ugh…long story short, I was trying to score a date with this hot girl who works there as a re-shelving person. Didn't work out that well."
"Sorry man."
"Yeah well…so can you pick me up?"
"Fine. Just be outside the doors in a minute or I'm leaving your ass there."
"Awesome. See you."
"Bye."
Only a few minutes later, Roy was closing in on his destination of the park, Jean now sitting in the passengers' seat. Roy parked against the curb before pulling out his phone and sending Ed a text that he was here.
"And you swear that if Ed wants you gone, you're leaving?"
"Yes, yes." Jean sighed as he stretched his arms up through the roofless car.
"Alright. Oh, here he comes."
Ed slowly walked across the grassy field. He had spotted the blond spikes that seemed to sprout out of Jean Havoc's head long before he could make out and other distinguishing features. Ed let out a small sigh as he approached the Jeep.
"What the Hell is this?" Ed asked while motioning towards Jean.
"I saw him and he bummed a ride. I tried to shake him off but the damn sucker wouldn't budge. And look at the bright side, if we need a get away driver, we have one right here." Roy said with a small smile.
"Whatever. You can come along but get your ass out of that seat."
"Fine." Jean said with an air of forced unhappiness.
"So where are we going Ed?" Roy asked once everyone was in their seat and buckled in.
"I got the directions up here." Ed said while pointing to his head. "Just get onto the highway."
"Alright."
"You sure this is the place?" Roy asked apprehensively as he stared at the big gray building in front of him.
After nearly an hour and a half of driving, most of it was in circles due to Edward's faulty directions, they finally reached Ed's much wanted destination.
"Yeah." Ed said quietly, "this is it." Ed closed his eyes as memories flew around his mind.
He was lying in a hospital bed. The light in the room were off and the door was shut, but Edward could still make out shadows of doctors and nurses talking rapidly about something or someone important. They were talking about him…
He was being pushed in a wheel chair down a grey corridor by an overly cheerful, gum-popping nurse. She was chatting on and on about something that Ed wasn't focused on; he was too fixated at the moment with what was left of his right arm and left leg to bother with the women's chattering…
Ed was wobbling down the same, newly painted, corridor, now with a prosthetic leg that could just barley support his weight. The same nurse had placed one of her hands on his back, helping the wobbling boy along…
"Ed?" Roy's voice broke into his skull, bringing Ed back to reality.
"Yeah?"
"Are you alright? You kinda spaced out."
"I'm fine. Let's just get in there and get this over with." Ed said with a sigh as he jumped out of the car, shoved his hands into his pockets, and began walking towards the building.
"Um Ed?"
"Yeah?" Ed asked as he looked at Roy's puzzled face.
"Mind telling us where we're breaking into?"
"It's where my old social worker and nurse used to work."
"Really?" Jean asked in mild surprise. "Cause this place looks totally run down."
"I said used to. She left it a while ago. She just keeps all of her old case files here because there were too may to take with her when she switched buildings."
"Wait!" Roy said, sounding suddenly urgent.
"What is it?"
"You mean your smoking hot nurse? Gen? The one with the red hair and great body?"
"Is that the only thing you can remember about a women?" Ed asked in an exasperated voice.
"What else am I supposed to say? She had red hair and a nice body. And besides, she thought I was cute."
"Roy you arrogant fuck, you were twelve. She was like twenty-five. I highly doubt that she wanted to bang you."
"What are you talking about? I was a killer twelve year old."
"The only thing you were a killer to was that squirrel that you accidentally set on fire when you were ten." Jean piped in from the back seat.
"Ha, ha." Roy said in a coolly. "And because of that little comment, you get to be get away driver."
"What? I wanna come along too!"
"No." Ed said. "You remember what happened the last time we didn't have a get away driver."
"Oh…yeah, right." Jean said with a small smile appearing on his face. "Well then I'll be right here."
Roy opened his car door and followed behind Ed, who had begun to walk closer to the building.
"So what's our first step?" Roy asked once he had caught u with Ed.
"Well first we have to make sure the alarms are off. Even if this place looks like a waste land, there could still be alarms.
"Alarms! You didn't tell me anything about alarms! Un-uh, not doing this. I'm not spending another night in jail because of you."
"Come on Roy. I swear if the alarms gets tripped and guards or police come, I'll try not to out run you too much so maybe you won't have to be hauled away to jail by yourself."
"How sweet."
"Hey, take what you can get. But come on. We have to get to the other side of the building so we can find the secret entrance way."
Roy stopped and stared at Ed's slowly shrinking backside as Ed broke into a run. What had he gotten himself into?
"Thanks Roy." Ed said as he stared at his friends' handiwork.
"No problem. Just one question." Roy said as he wiped his dirty hands onto his pants.
"What's that?" Ed asked as he peaked around the corners for the millionth time.
"May I ask why the Hell you had me break into someone's office?"
"You could, but I don't think I'd answer you." Ed said with a small smile.
"Seriously. Why are you trying to get into this place so badly? 'Cuz if it's something extremely illegal, then you owe my. Big time."
"Crap." Ed muttered after he entered the dark room and looked around.
The office could only be considered an office for the mere fact that outside the door was a name plate that read 'Office of G. Solaris'. Almost directly in front of the door, a small wooden chair was smashed against a small wooden desk that was covered in several piles of paper. The rest of the office space was used up by probably twenty or so filing cabinets.
"This'll take for fuckin' ever." Roy groaned. "Are you sure-whatever the hell this is- is so bloody important that you have to do it now? Can't you make like, an appointment or something?"
"No." Ed said firmly. "I have to do this now while I have the chance."
Roy stared at his friend for a moment. He had known Ed for years, but never had he heard him talk with so much conviction or wear such a serious expression. Roy let out a heavy sigh before ruffling up the back of his black hair.
"Look," Ed began, "You can go back to the car with Jean if you want. Or drive around the block a few time-I don't care. Just let me do this."
"What are you talking about? I can't leave you here by yourself."
"Really?"
"Or at least let me break the locks on these filing cabinets. You always were shit at breaking locks." Roy added with a cocky grin.
"Alright."
"So I know you won't tell me but I think I should at least know something about what we're doing. I mean, if you want me to help, I need to know what the Hell I'm looking for, right."
"Yeah." Ed agreed quietly.
"Well…what the Hell are you looking for?" Roy asked a little impatiently when Ed didn't say anything useful.
"Uh, well let's see if this crap if alphabetized. Because if it's not, I don't think we could find what I'm looking for in a month."
"What letter does it start with?"
"…E." Ed answered, slightly hesitant.
Roy opened his mouth to say something along the lines of 'as in Elric?' but he stopped himself. Ed had been acting weird the entire car ride here.
Roy suddenly realized why Ed had insisted Jean stay in the car but let Roy come along without so much as a fight. Roy had already dealt with this…this orphan/foster crap while Jean had always had his 'normal' blood family right there next to him. Roy remembered years ago, when he desperately wanted to know who the Hell his parents were. It had been Hell and Roy was relived that he didn't have to go through that ever again.
"Well these two cabinets say 'A'." Roy said as he inspected a nearby cabinet.
"This one says 'C'."
"Thank God your names at the start of the alphabet." Roy sighed as he blew some dust off of an older cabinet.
"Yeah. If we were looking for you, I think I'd give up here."
The two fought their way through the cluster of cabinets. Their optimisms had been high at the beginning, mainly because they didn't realize that the few cabinets that had been by them were coincidentally at the front of the alphabet.
"Seriously man." Roy panted as he crawled on top of a row of cabinets. "I don't think I can break another lock."
"Come on, come on. Where are you?" Ed muttered to himself as he hung upside-down from a cabinet in the back of the room while he read several files that where laid out on the window sill in front of him.
"Ed. I'm sorry. But come on. It's almost two. We've been at this for almost three hours. I don't think I can do any more."
"Well then go out and sleep in the car with Jean!" Ed growled, as he shoved yet another file into a cabinet and slammed it shut.
"Trust me I would if I could get out of here." Roy muttered darkly as he crawled along his stomach to the door.
"Wait! Roy can you unlock this one back here? It's the last one with an 'E' on it."
Roy hopped down from the cabinet he was just perched on and did his best to make it over to Ed. Roy pulled out one of his last hair pins from his pocket and stuck it in the lock. After a few minutes of fiddling around with it, the door popped open.
Ed proceeded to search the highest files while Roy moved to the ones in the middle. Ed had almost reached the back of his pile when Roy stopped him.
"Ed…"
By the tone of his voice, Ed knew he had found it. The file with his last name, then his first…Ed looked down at Roy and froze.
There was nothing in his hands.
"W-wait, my, my file wasn't…wasn't in there?" Ed asked in a confused and dazed voice.
Ed stared down into Roy's eyes and was instantly infuriated. Roy's face wore a solemn expression. But his eyes…his damn eyes were absolutely laughing at him; a tell-tale sign that Roy Mustang was attempting to pull a fast one. Ed snapped his mouth shut before he punched Roy on the top of his head.
"What the Hell was that for?!"
"For being an ass, ass! Now give me that goddamn file before a smash your pretty little head in!"
"Alright, alright here you go." Roy said as he massaged the spot on top of his head and handed Ed the file. "Um…I'll go wait outside with Jean."
"'Kay." Ed muttered as he stared down at the file that was in his hands.
Ed waited until he heard the door shut behind Roy before he even dare to open the small, manila folder that seemed to weight more than paper should.
Now or never Ed…you have to know!
"But…but what if I don't have a brother. What if that bastard was just screwing with me?"
Well, the answer is in your hands. Just open it and find out!
Ed took a long and deep breath before he opened the folder and read.
The first page was the file that they had started when Ed had first come here. It had his name, age, date of birth…those sorts of things. The next few sheets were of physiological evaluations and records of meetings with several different psychiatrists about his memory loss and about adjusting to his foster home. But the last sheets were what concerned them him.
"A-a P.I. was…was looking for me?"
Ed stared down at the sheet and felt his hands tremble. Someone had looked for him! Someone out there had honestly tried to find him! Years ago! But who had wanted to see him was the question. He studied at the sheet as best as he could before realized that whoever was looking for him, obviously didn't sign this paper. But someone did sign it, and it infuriated Ed to read the name that was scrawled on the sheet of paper.
"Zolf J. Kimblee." Ed growled in a poisonous tone.
That Bastard knew! He knew there was someone that was looking for him! More importantly, that bastard kept the person that wanted to find him away from him! Someone that could possibly take him away from his Hell!
"…but if he knew about the P.I. then, then maybe h-he wasn't lying."
Ed quickly reopened the file open and moved to the back but…but there was nothing…any paper saying that, yes, he did have someone that cared about him.
"Dammit…" Ed muttered as he slid off of the cabinet and onto the floor. "Great. I know someone wants to know where the Hell I am but I have no idea who…For all I know it could just be an old friend with some money."
Ed bent down to place the file back were it had come from when Ed noticed a piece of paper that was trapped under his shoe. Ed picked it up with a shaking had and turned it over.
"What…what is this?" Ed whispered to himself as he stared at the sheet of paper. "I-I can't believe it…this can't be true…I have…I have a-a…"
It was written there, right there in black and white; the proof that he had been searching for. This, this simple piece of paper answered so many questions he had had over the past several years while living in that Hell with Kimblee. But no matter how many times Ed stared at the paper, he still couldn't believe it.
"…I have a brother…"
Oh snap. Ed knows! What's going to happen next?!
Please review lots for me! :)
-FSK