Hi readers! Sorry for the slight wait but I've been pretty busy...and had a little bit of writers block.
This chapter will not be as long as last chapter but should be understandable since last chapter was over twice the normal length.
Enjoy and I actually did edit this chapter so hopefully there won't be as many mistakes
What the hell is going on here?
Alphonse thought as he sleepily watched the scene before him unfold.
He had just been awoken from his drunken haze of a nap to the noises of his brother Edward's yelling. This was not such an odd thing, considering that when his brother usually talked it was in a yell, but this felt different. He looked different. Ed's voice sounded furious but Al could tell that the anger was hiding the fear that was causing his voice to waver slightly. While his eyes glared into thin as if ,as if the person he was talking to was sitting in the room in front of him, his clenched hands were shaking and his chest was heaving as he sucked in air in an oddly erratic rate. Something was clearly very wrong.
After pushing himself up, Al slowly made his way over to his brother at a stumbling pace. Winry was already crouched near him, asking what was wrong but he ignored her completely. Glancing at Winry, she shrugged before trying to distract Ed again; Al decided to let him continue with the conversation but sat down to the side of his panicked brother.
"What's going on?" Al heard Roy grumble from across the room.
"I have no clue," Maes whispered back.
And then suddenly as if an alarm had gone off, Ed's expression changed in a flash and he dropped his phone to the floor, resulting in a small thud onto the carpeted surface. Ed's left hand was still suspended in the air, clearly showing that Ed was in so much shock that he had not noticed him slacking grip in the least. Winry moved closer to Ed before she tried to get his attention. Al tried to hear what was happening on the other line of the phone but it just sounded like a bunch of garbled noises before the line clicked off so he had no clue what had happened.
"Edward?" Winry asked tentatively
Ed slowly brought his head up to look blankly into her eyes. Then something happened that left Al in a slightly shocked state: Ed had started to cry. His shoulders shook even more now but Al could tell it was not just from the fear or sadness but of pent up rage.
"Edward?" Winry asked again. "What happened?"
It took several moments for Ed to find the right words he needed to say. During that time more and more of their collapsed friends were being roused by others and Al could see something quickly overtaking the shocked look in Ed's eyes: it was pure wrath and it scared Al slightly.
"Sammy…" Ed said quietly as more tears rolled slowly down his checks.
"What?" Winry asked, slightly confused.
"He…" Ed panted.
"He? Who's 'he' Ed?"
In a split second, Ed had completely lost control. He let out a wounded, furious noise from the depths of his soul, forced himself up into a standing position before anyone could stop him, and charged out of the room leaving everyone in a haze. Edward had slammed the door to tightly on his way out that a small shock wave seemed to resonate from it and freeze all of the occupants of the room for a moment.
Winry was the first to break away from the daze. She sprung up and ran to the door, calling after Edward into the dark. Al came to senses soon afterwards and followed Winry out the door just in time to witness the panicked conversation that went on between Ed and Winry.
"Just tell me what's wrong!" Winry shouted at her van; it took a moment to realize that Ed was inside, most likely trying to escape with it before he was stopped. "Edward!"
"It's all my damn fault!" Edward shouted. Al could just barely make out the form of his brother through the dark windshield.
"What's your fault Edward?" Winry asked in a slightly gentler voice.
"Everything!" he shouted after a moment before the blinding lights of the van were thrown on and the old engine roared to life.
"Edward! What the hell are you doing?" Winry roared as she attempted to pull open the passengers' side door but he appeared to have stopped her.
"Let go Winry!"
"Whatever you need or think you need to do you can't drive wherever! You don't even have a drivers permit!"
"I don't care!" Ed yelled childishly.
Alphonse began to run down the stone steps and over to where the two were slowly gaining more and more attention from passing cars and other guests of the Motel.
"Brother!" Al hissed as he peered through the open passengers' window; he could see Ed's shaking form, his white knuckles on the steering wheel, and his furious, slightly luminous eyes glaring at the open windshield. "Brother, what's the matter?"
"Something about the foster kids," Winry muttered pathetically.
"Ed!" Al yelled. "Just tell us something!"
"He took them!" Edward spat, turning his head to look at the two furiously. "That fucking bastard took them and has them somewhere I don't know and it's all MY FUCKING FAULT!"
After giving the dash board a more-than-firm kick (one that Al was sure had cracked the plastic covering) Edward then collapsed onto the steering wheel. Neither Al nor Winry knew if Ed was done with his tirade yet but Winry took this moment of weakness to slip into the car and turn off the van.
"Edward," Winry whispered as she put a soft hand on his automail shoulder. "Do you mean that…that Kimblee has taken the kids somewhere?"
Ed nodded miserably before pushing himself up onto his elbows.
"And I should have already driven back up there to make sure it didn't happen," Ed whispered. "Dammit."
"Ed, how were you to expect that would Kimblee take them away?"
"It's not that I should have seen Kimblee behind this but the fact that Kyle's been missing for a while now and I should've went back up there for that," Ed snarled into the windshield. "I should have been there for them. I'm supposed to be the one to protect them. God! How can I be so stupid?"
"Edward, you're just a kid. You're not supposed to be responsible for three kids-."
"Well I am alright? It doesn't matter that I shouldn't. And now it'll be on my shoulders if something happens to those kids."
"No it won't Ed. Kimblee's their legal guardian, not you. You won't be arrested just because you wanted to take a vacation."
"But it will stick with me because I know that I caused it when I could have stopped it," Ed snarled at her.
"Well what do you think is the best thing to do?" Winry asked, clearly unaffected by his anger.
"…I need to go find them," Ed whispered.
Somehow, through all of the madness that was the next half and hour, the group of friends had made their way back to Al's house, woken Hohenheim, Sig, and Izumi, and briefed them on what had just happened. Through the entire experience, the adults all kept quiet until Ed was done with his story. The overly crowded room was quiet for a few moments afterwards while adults and a few of the lesser informed friends mulled it all over. Finally, Hohenheim spoke up.
"Edward, may I see your cell phone?"
Ed didn't respond but dug into his pockets for a moment until he found the item and passed it across the table to his father. Ed wanted to laugh as he father struggled with the piece of technology for a moment ("how the devil do you open this?") but fought it.
"Um…there is such a thing that shows what numbers called you right?" Hohenheim asked, sounding hopelessly confused as he stared at all of the teens, hoping one of them might take pity on him.
"Yes," Maes said with a small laugh before he walked over and showed him. "There you go."
"Oh. Thank you…?"
"Maes."
"Yes, thank you Maes," Hohenheim said with a small smile before he focused his attention back on the phone. "No ones called you since then right Edward?"
"Yeah. I think he called more than once though."
Hohenheim stared at the glowing screen for a moment before he began to smile slowly. It was no ordinary smile that went along with average happiness or kindness. No, it was a smile that went along with watching someone you hated mess up big time; and that was what Kimblee had just done. There, right in front of his eyes, was a number with an area code that told him what area of the country Kimblee had just called from.
"Edward? Come here. Do you recognize this number?"
"No but…" Hohenheim then grabbed a finger at the first three digits of the number. "That's the area code from back home!"
"You mean he's still back there?" Roy asked in disbelief.
"Right now he is but we've got to get moving," Hohenheim said briskly. "He could be moving and quickly. Kimblee's always had men everywhere willing to help him whenever he asks them to."
"What should we do first Dad?" Al asked.
"We should put out an Amber Alert (1) for your county or even state. If we get it out fast we could stop him before he tries to escape and farther."
"But what do we do after that?" Ed asked quietly from his spot across the table, looking both confused and annoyed at his father. "Do we just sit here?"
"Of course we don't Edward; not like I would have expected you to anyways," Hohenheim added with a small smile. "We have to go back there."
"But driving takes an entire day!" Winry cried out. "We'd never make it in time!"
"Well of course not Winry. We'd fly."
"Huh?"
"We'll fly there."
"Um, alright," Jean said skeptically. "But even if only a few of us go, we're going to need to find a thousand dollars or so lying around."
"I have that covered," Hohenheim said.
"But Dad-," Al began in disbelief.
"Alphonse, don't you remember how much my job pays? And with not taking care of you boys for the passed few years, I've got quite a bit more than necessary lying around."
Edward looked up at his father for a moment; stunned beyond all belief but incredibly thankful for it. He didn't know if he would be able to last an entire day of waiting in a car and at least know the hours spent waiting would be extremely decreased.
Now all he hoped was that Sammy, Terry, and Kyle could wait the next few hours until he arrived back home.
(1) Amber Alert is an alert that goes out onto the television and the radio and it tells people that a child has been abducted and tells you information on the captore and the child.
I loved writing Hohenheim getting all confused with the cell phone.
But they're going back! Next chapter will get into some more action and suspense!
Can't wait until next chapter!
-FSK