Happy Friday readers!
Once again, thank you to everyone who sent me a review last chapter-I enjoyed them very much. So, much to the demand of all my annoyed readers for last chapters cliffy, here is the next chapter!
Hope you love it!
"When do you have to leave Dad?" Ed asked a slightly worried tone.
He really didn't want him to go, not when he had just gotten home after two months, but he couldn't whine like a little kid to his daddy. No, he was twelve years old and he was going to act like it dammit! He couldn't act like a little baby, not when he needed to be the 'man of the house', as his father had always put it.
"Oh I don't have to leave for at least another four more days Edward," Hoenhime said with a large smile. "We have plenty of time to do things together."
"Right," Ed muttered, slightly crestfallen.
Four days. He would have four days with this man who had always tried with all of his heart to be a good father and then he'd be gone for a few months. Was that enough for Ed?
No. It wasn't. Nowhere near enough.
But his father's job paid big money and came with plenty of useful health benefits and Edward wasn't going ruin it by mentioning how badly he missed having a dad sometimes. It always stung a little when he would hang out with a friend and their father would return home from work with promises of a baseball game the next day. Edward always tried to hide this small pang in his chest by telling himself repeatedly that his father was doing great work for not only the country, but the world and that all of these baseball-promising dads couldn't hold a candle to his father. But deep inside his heart, Ed knew that if he could chose over this life with a hard working scientist for a father, living in a beautiful house with enough money to pay for his and Al's college tuitions and more or a father who came home everyday, working a boring, desk job and being paid only so much that his mother had to work too and that they had to keep their grades up so that they could get a scholarship to a college because that was only way they could afford it…well Ed knew which one he would pick nine times out of ten and he knew that he wasn't the only one feeling that.
"So did you have any ideas?" Hoenhime asked, breaking Ed out of his solemn thoughts.
"No…"Ed lied. "Not right now. How about we just sit here and watch some T.V. until Al comes home? Then we can think of something to do together."
Al was at a friend's house at the moment and his mother was out at the store to pick up supplies for the fabulous dinner she had planned for tomorrow. They had known that their father would be arriving home for the weekend but what they didn't expect was for him to show up a day early. Ed was now relishing the time he had alone with his father; something that he hadn't had since age three when he started this job.
"Alright but…I actually wanted to do something with just you."
"Just me?" Ed asked in awe.
"Yes. And then I thought I would do something with just Al, then we could all do something and then maybe, something with your Mother…" At the last part of his sentence, Hoenhime's face blushed slightly, causing Ed to snigger slightly.
"You mean a date." Ed giggled.
"Uhh, well yes," Hoenhime while he struggled to regain his composure. "But what would you like to do? Anything you'd like."
Ed's young heart seemed to skip a beat at the prospects that were laid in front of him. He could do anything, anything he had ever wanted to do with his father.
"Well how much time do we have?" Ed asked excitedly.
"Since I'm home for four days, I think everyone can have a special day each day I'm home. So how about the rest of today?"
"But, but what about you?" Edward asked, suddenly feeling unusually spoiled. Yes his family was practically rolling in money but both his mother and father always made sure it never went to his head. "You must be really tired and, and, you must want to relax! I don't want to make all your time playing."
"Edward," he said with his small smile again, "I'm happy as long as I'm with you two boys and your mother. Now, what do you want to do today, we have the entire day."
"Well…" Ed jumped off of the couch and ran as fast as he could to his room.
After digging around under his bed, Ed pulled out something that had been bugging him for the passed four months. It was a very large model rocket that you could launch off in your back yard. Ed had gotten it for his birthday but after Trisha had reminded him that it was not made to be played with without adult supervision and that he knew that his mother wasn't the kind of person who would appreciate the marriage of science and simple technology, Ed stored it under his bed, hoping that when his father finally came home, he'd have the time to play with it.
"This," Ed said once he had returned back to the living room, holding out the box like it was some majestic prize, "I want to do this. I already read all of the directions and everything we need is inside and…" Ed began to trail off as he felt a small wave of embarrassment wash over him.
His father was smiling again at him. More importantly, he was laughing. Laughing, at him. Ed stared back down at the cardboard and plastic box began to feel very foolish.
"Well if that's what you want to do sport," Hoenhime said as he got up and walked over to him before he placed a large hand on top of Ed's small head and began to ruffle his shaggy locks, "that's what we'll do."
"R-really?"
"Of course. Did you want to do anything else after wards? We could go see a movie, go to the park, anything."
"Uh, umm…" Ed muttered as he struggled for the words that he wished to express how grateful he was of this chance at some alone time, but they simple could not come out. Instead, he stood there for a minute, looking like a goldfish, his embarrassment and foolishness flooding back to him once he realize what he must look like.
"Well, let's go to the back yard and set this up," Hoenhime said.
"Right."
And so Ed moved his feet, that felt like they weighed a ton each, and followed his father to his large and beautiful back yard.
"So how's that one friend of yours? Umm…Kyle?" Hoenhime asked as he watched another base ball wiz passed him.
"Kevin," Ed corrected him. "And he's fine. I haven't gotten a chance to talk to him very much anymore since I got put into the advanced placement classes and he's going to him Mom's for a few weeks this summer."
"Oh, right. Good hit Edward!"
"Thanks."
Once they had launched their rocket, they went out to a fast food joint and got something to eat. Now they were hitting baseballs at the nearby batting cage. Well, by 'they' it really meant Ed; Hoenhime wasn't the best when it came to sports. This was yet another thing that clashed with Ed's wish of a father to play sports with, but he would take what he could get.
"So what were you doing all the way down in Florida Dad? I thought your lab worked directly out of D.C."
"Well we do, most of the time. But sometimes they need to send us out to do thing at other labs across the country."
"Like what?" Ed asked, hoping to sound innocent.
"Never you mind," he said, earning a small sigh from Ed.
"You sure you don't want to hit a few?" Ed asked once all of the balls had been shot, even though he knew the answer already.
"Um, no," he sounded slightly nervous, "would you like to hit some more?"
"Nah, I'm good."
Ed pulled off his helmet before walking out of the cage, plopping down right next to his father, and digging into one of his burgers.
"You're hair is getting longer," Hoenhime muttered as he stared at his son.
"Hmm?" Ed asked, who didn't seem to hear him over the munching of his hamburger and the metal clangs of bats on base balls.
"I said your hair is getting longer. Were you planning on growing it out?"
"Hmm…I don't know," Ed mumbled as he twisted a lock of his shaggy gold hair. "I've been meaning to get it cut but I've just been busy. But people keep saying that I should grow it out more and see how it looks."
"Who says that?"
"Mom mostly. She says that long hair would look good on me because it looks great on you and I look just like you when you were my age."
"Hmm…well I do think I was a little taller than you," Hoenhime said with a smirk while he raised his hand to a spot about an inch over Ed's head.
"Hey! I'm not short! I'm still growing! Guys keep growing until their twenties!"
"Well let's hope so," Hoenhime laughed, earning a small growl from Ed. "But do you have anything else you want to do?"
"No, not now," Ed answered with a small but extremely happy smile. "We should get home. Mom and Al probably really want to see you."
"Alright. Let's go."
It was Wednesday morning. Edward could hear the small noises of his mother and father as she helped him prepare to leave again along with the small pitter-patter of rain on the windows. Ed woke up, almost instinctively, at five o'clock; the same time that he knew his father would be getting up. He would have bet his entire college fund that Al was wide awake in the next room. They were both waiting for the right moment to get up from their beds and feign like they had just been woken up. Ed waited another ten minutes before he felt it safe to go and say goodbye.
"Oh! Morning brother," Al whispered as their doors opened simultaneously on the opposite sides of the hall.
"Shh…" Ed whispered before he started to creep down the hall, Al following in his footsteps.
Ed wanted to sneak a chance at hearing were and why his father was going next. He hadn't been able to anything through his bedroom walls so he was hoping, just maybe that they would be able to hear-.
"What do you two think you're doing?"
Dammit.
Trisha was looking at them from where she sat at the kitchen table, fully dressed and wide awake. Ed and Al exchanged guilty glances before they both got up from where they were and walked over to her.
"Nothing," Ed answered with a pout.
She said nothing but gave an all-knowing smirk. Hoenhime walked into the room, not appearing the slightest bit surprised that his sleep-loving sons were wide awake this early in the morning.
"Morning boys."
"Morning Dad," Ed and Al said together.
"Are you going to join me and your mother to the air port?"
"What?"
"Really?"
They had never been allowed to join them to in going to the airport to say goodbye. It had always been a huge hug at the door and then they'd watched sadly as the car disappeared around the corner.
"Well we were talking it over and decided to let you come along."
"If you two think you can behave that is," Trisha said while giving them an unusually stern look.
"We promise!"
"No pranks?"
"Nope."
"No running around like little monkey's?"
"Ern-we'll try not to."
"Good. Go get dressed and be ready in fifteen minutes."
"Okay!"
He didn't want to say goodbye. He really, truly didn't. And after saying goodbye at the airport, after feeling close to tears, Ed was almost sure he wouldn't want to go to the airport again. Al was distracted enough by all of the commotion and security to not seem too sad but Ed, who had learned to turn it all into white noise, could only dwell on the number of minutes that he had left with his father.
"You wanna play a video game Ed?" Al asked as he held up a number of game boxes.
"Nah, I'm good. I was going to go lay down since we got up so early."
"Oh, okay then," Al muttered, sounding slightly disappointed.
"Bye," Ed muttered before he turned to leave for his room.
Once in the room, Ed stared out the rain-washed window and sighed. He missed him terribly already. That was the problem with the visits; they made it just that much harder to say goodbye when he had to leave again.
A crash of lightning illuminated the dark and dank outsides. There was another crash of lightning, illuminating something a little outside Ed's window. Ed got up from his bed and stared at the spot were he swore he had seen something. He waited until the next crash of lightning to see if it would illuminate again but when another came, whatever had been there was gone. Muttering to himself, Ed fell back onto his bed, not realizing that it would not only be months, but years before he would ever see his father again...
"Ed…"
I had a dad…
"Ed!"
And a mom…we were happy…
"Edward-fucking-Elric!" Roy hissed.
Ed snapped out of his state of mind to look up at a completely pissed off yet worried Roy. It took him a moment to realize where and why he was there.
"Huh?" was all Ed's soggy brain could come up with.
"'Huh' my ass! Get up! We have to leave now!"
"Wha…" Ed muttered as he was forcibly pulled from the ground and almost slammed into the nearest window.
"Climb out the damn window before another freakin' cop shows up to throw our asses in jail or I'll do it for you!"
Suddenly, everything clicked and Ed realized that he was in fact in a school that he had just broken into in the dead of night and he remembered that Maes wanted them out of the school five minutes ago.
And so the two teens ran as fast as their legs would take them before they jumped inside of the van and before the door was even closed, they were belting down the street.
Everything was a blur to Ed now. In his hands, he held his brother's address and the only thing that was keeping him from making Maes turn around, was the fact that Ed wasn't sure that his legs would have been able to hold him if he saw Al at that moment.
His heart felt like it was beating against his Adam's apple again as he stared at the house in front of him. It was a two story building with a large front yard. In the driveway was a van similar to the one they had driven here in, except it looked much more taken care of.
Nope, he couldn't do this…Ed now wished he hadn't insisted that his friends leave after dropping him off.
Wait! I hear voices.
Voices from inside spilled outside from the open living room window. One of them sounded like it could belong to a teenaged boy. The other…he wasn't sure.
"You got to do this," Ed said to himself before he moved a heavy foot forwards.
Once at the front door, Ed lifted his hand to knock and then froze. What was he going to say? What was he going to do? What would Al do? And why oh why couldn't he just man up, knock his hand against the door, and say 'Hi, I'm Edward you're long, lost brother. May I come in?' But then, the door knob began to turn.
Oh God, oh God! Abort! Abort mission!
Ed looked to his side and saw a large bush that was planted there. He could hop over the side and hide in the bush until who ever was at the doorway as gone but-no. He wasn't going to act like a little baby about this! He would just have to-.
"Yes?"
Ed turned and saw that standing in the doorway, or more like standing half-way in the door frame due to his shear girth, was the largest man he had ever see; he greatly resembled a mountain bear just woke up from a nap.
Ho-ly Shiiiiiit.
"Who is it?" a teenaged voice asked from behind.
Oh no…
"Uh," Ed opened his mouth to speak but nothing but air came out.
"Hello," the boy said brightly with a warm smile after he had squeezed passed the man's large midsection.
Oh God…
"Were you…" the boy began to lose his train of thought as he looked up and down Ed's face and torso, "…looking…for…"
Al's eyes traveled to the metal hand and arm that was poking out of his shirt sleeve and gasped quietly. He reached out for his right arm and lifted it up; the other man continued to stand there, never showing any emotion on his large face. Al turned his head up, still holding onto Ed's arm, and looked straight into Ed's gold eyes with his large golden-brown ones.
"Brother…?"
OH! MAJOR CLIFF HANGER! WHO WANTS TO KILL ME?!
...but umm, yeah. I just have to say that I LOVED writing this chapter so much. Have I ever mention how much of a Hoenhime fangirl I am? Because I love that guy; he's so badassand adorable at the same time! (adorable because of how much he loves his familyand how adorably awkward he is when he's with them *fangirl squeal*)
Oh, and did you notice that I slipped one of Al's foster parents in at the end? Guess who...*sing-song voice*
Well, I'm going out of town for awesome-ness this weekend and when I come back Sunday, I'm expecting a inbox filled with reviews sent by pissed-off readers! So click on that button down there and bitch at me like I know you want to!
-FSK