A/N: I'm sorry I've kept everyone waiting for an update, especially considering where I left off. On the plus side, my arm is completely better and I can write (unless I'm busy, which seems to be a lot lately). -_- By the way, the grammar might be off a bit, because I have a relatively new computer and I'm trying out voice typing. It's an experiment of sorts.

Last chapter: Ed (being his normal devious self) decides to read into profiling right under everyone else's nose, which can never be a good thing. The others have decided to include him in helping them with their investigation, hoping that he will be able to help them.

Have you figured out the cameo yet? My other fic, "It's Complicated" has several clues, otherwise, you'll have to figure it out the hard way. Sorry...well, not completely. You still have a little while to figure it out. _

Varnienne: I'm glad that you like it so far. I'll admit that it's been tricky with all of the research and going back and forth. As for Ed getting home? Well, Truth likes tormenting his alchemist too much as we all know and he still needs to find Al after all. Where his brother is would be another matter altogether. ;)

Trancy1317: I'm trying to update as much as I can, but a lot is going on right now (like seriously); I mean it took me a few days to write this with all of the interruptions. -_- I will do my best, though.

Black Dragon on the Rocks: I've always enjoyed watching Ed stretch his more creative and intelligent side, and sometimes we don't get to see that. (I guess it really depends on if you're a fan of FMA or FMAB, though.) Thank you for telling me about Reid's driving. I really do appreciate it. I suppose since Ed doesn't have a license, this will just have to be a little OOC for Spence for a bit. XP

Chapter Four: Following the Evidence

Ed had been caught up with the case and read the files, which was something he admittedly usually wouldn't do. He flinched when he came across the picture that had the little girl that he had tried to save, and he tried to look unaffected as he saw the other pictures of the crime scenes. It reminded him too much of his days as a state alchemist, and when he had been forced to look at scenes just like these. He was tired of looking at these pictures, but I knew this was the only way to find the person that was doing this. He hadn't said anything about it yet but he knew that this was a work of a serial killer, much like Scar was. He had seen it up close and he remembered all the people that had been killed by him. He still remembered the fear he felt when he and his brother were forced to fight him. He could still hear his brother calling out for him to run, and all the while he was forced to face his inability to protect not only himself but his little brother. it had been all-consuming and frightening, but he was not sure exactly what to feel when reinforcements had finally arrived. He finally looked at his brother and had assessed his condition. He would openly admit that they both looked like they had just been through a war, but at the moment he was just relieved. His brother on the other hand was not as relieved as he was, but I had looked at him rather angrily as he remembered him trying to bargain with the murderer to leave him alone. His brother rarely got angry at him but when he did it was almost scary in a way. In Ed's opinion, as long as his brother is still alive he could figure out how to get his own body back, with or without his help. It was the same. it was always the same thing with the people that he could never save, but he was never going to be able to forget the first person that he wasn't able to save. He was forced to look at yet another reminder of his failure, as he looked at the picture of the little girl he had tried his best to save.

Shaking himself out of his memories, Ed looked at the puzzle pieces for what they truly were. A gruesome puzzle that needed to be solved before another family was killed. What he needed was more information about the families. He needed to see one of the scenes personally, but he hoped that it wasn't going to be the Miller place. He needed to see bigger pieces of the puzzle, to get a more accurate picture of what was happening.

Reid looked at Ed's body language as he looked over the files, especially the Millers. He seemed to be focusing on that, and not in a good way. He tensed slightly, as his eyes glazed over. If Reid had to venture a guess, this was probably not the first time something like this had happened. He was about to ask if he was alright, but Ed seemed to have shaken it off on his own and started looking at the rest of the file. He'd admit that he was a little surprised to see him go from what he'd seen in some people with panic attacks to what could be described as a determined and perhaps pensive look. He wasn't sure why, but he found it to be intriguing.

"I want to go to one of the houses, just not this one," Ed said, speaking in his native tongue, surprising Reid and Morgan.

Ed slid a picture towards him, initially surprising him at the accuracy and speed. It was a picture of the Miller girl that he had tried to save. He felt a wave of sadness flow through him, immediately followed by understanding. If that had happened to him, he wouldn't be so quick to return to the scene either. The only thing strange was him switching back from English since Reid knew that Ed was more than capable of understanding and speaking quite well. Since Reid figured he was trying to keep it between them for one reason or another, he responded the same way.

"I guess I can understand that. I can have one of them take you to the Crawfords. Would that be better?"

Ed looked at Reid, trying not to glance around the room or give off any sort of signal for them to read. After reading that book on profiling, he realized that he had been doing it unconsciously for a while; both here and back home. He knew that the one thing he had to do was keep it casual with Reid, making it look like he was just trusting the first person who understood him. The reality was that he probably had been clinging to the person who reminded him of Alphonse, which was perhaps the only thing keeping him stable while he was separated from his real brother. Part of him just wanted to keep a constant eye on him, just like he did with his own brother, making sure nothing happened to him. In his mind, he knew that his team was more than likely quite capable of keeping him safe. On the other hand, something told him that Reid was the kind that constantly got in trouble. He sighed inwardly, knowing he only had the one option if he was going to keep the others out of the loop. He may trust Reid and maybe Morgan, but the rest of them he wasn't too sure about quite yet. Reluctantly, he nodded at Reid and acquiesced to the decision of basically splitting up for the day or so.

"Is Morgan coming with me? I don't think I trust them as much as the two of you yet." Ed told him, almost wanting to deny it. He knew he could the both of them not to tell the others about him not quite trusting them yet, which was in his favor. He knew that they would understand.

Reid did understand and by the look he had given Morgan, he knew that he had too. It made sense. After so much time with no-one understanding him, they were the first to be able to speak with him.

"I'll see what I can do."

Looking at the picture one last time, he turned towards Hotch and hoped that this wouldn't be too hard of a bargain. He figured that they were going to one of the houses anyway.

"Hotch? You were planning on going with Morgan to the Crawford house, weren't you? Ed wants to take a look and try and maybe-"

Hotch looked between Ed and Reid, looking somewhere between interested and not too sure about the entire situation. He was usually pretty hard to read, but Ed had been around Mustang for quite a few years and learned to read him pretty well; not that he'd ever tell him that. He was sure by the looks of those around him that the others could read their leader just as well as he could read Mustang on most days. When the man looked him in the eye, he stared back with a resolute look of his own. Ed knew that Reid probably was faltering in his explanation and decided it was time for a rescue before someone had a chance to argue.

"I want to look at how the family lived and what their life was like." Ed went on. "There's something about this that doesn't make sense, I guess."

"Ed?" Morgan asked, prompting him to continue.

Ed momentarily looked up, before he started tapping his chin in thought. The whole thing just didn't make that much sense.

"Were there any suspects at all?"

Reid shifted on his other side slightly uncomfortably, remembering the interrogation with Eric Miller. He hadn't enjoyed the process of having to all but break the man by profiling his background, but it had been necessary to get his defenses down. He nodded at Ed's question grimly, not wanting to remember the whole thing. He didn't want to remember his fear of the situation, either.

"There was one at the beginning, which I'm kind of surprised you didn't know about already."

Ed frowned at this, as he started to connect the dots. Did that mean that there was someone else in the house that he had missed somehow?

"You've probably figured out by now that someone else had at some point come to the house. It was the ex-husband, Eric Miller. I don't know how you didn't cross paths. Maybe he just decided to flee, not knowing she was still alive. I don't know. But-"

"He was innocent, wasn't he?"

There were different reactions from everyone, varying from slight shock to almost smug. Some of them had come to learn that Ed was far from stupid. After all, it wasn't your run-of-the-mill average Joe that could basically speak English in just a few days, on top of being able to read it. Profiling and coming to such a conclusion didn't seem too far for someone so smart. Hotch was one of the first to recover and narrowed his eyes slightly. He hadn't been at the interrogation, which was how Reid had come to such reasoning; so how had Ed figured it out?

"Why would you think that?"

Ed smirked a smug 'I know something you don't' look that was scarily reminiscent of Mustang in a way.

"For one, we wouldn't still be investigating if he had been guilty. Plus, there's the fact that Reid here looks just like…" Al, he finished silently. "Well, I guess he reminds me of someone that looks like he's done something wrong. If I had to guess, he ran away from the police thinking he'd be blamed and was probably covered in their blood?"

Reid blinked, looking at Ed surprised at what he'd come up with. Looking around, he noticed that he wasn't the only one in shock. Everyone was surprised at what he had come up with. Hotch seemed...almost impressed. Ed looked over at Reid in thought, obviously wondering what had happened to make him feel so guilty. Something had happened and he could only hope that it had ended okay. He heard Reid sigh and Ed raised an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation of sorts.

"He fled, thinking that he'd be blamed of course. But he wanted to know what his son had painted. That was the last thing he asked before I left. But I noticed that he was still wearing his wedding ring."

"So he wouldn't have killed them, because he still loved her." Ed finished. It made sense, of course. But what sort of connection did this have with the other family? "Are they connected with the Crawfords in any way?"

He saw the blonde in the corner flip through some paperwork, obviously looking for information before she shook her head. He hadn't heard her name yet, but he figured he would get an introduction to everyone eventually.

"There's been nothing so far as we can tell, but we're still looking into it."

Ed tapped his chin again and thought about what possible connections these families could possibly have. He didn't have all of the information they did yet, so he needed to get all of it before he started jumping to conclusions.

"What's the next step then?" he asked, looking at their team leader.

Hotch looked at Ed for a moment before looking at Gideon and gave him a significant look.

"Alright, then. Gideon and Morgan will go with Ed to the Crawford house and see if they can find something that was missed. Reid and everyone else will stay here and work on a profile in the meantime."

Ed, Morgan, and Gideon were at the house and looking around, mainly to try and see how the family had lived. Gideon looked outside before looking at the ceiling.

"The yard is overgrown. And like the roof, Chris Crawford's car is in need of maintenance. And Allison Crawford's S.U.V. is in pristine condition."

Morgan looked at a file, which Ed had "borrowed" earlier, and glanced at Gideon.

"Says here that Allison drove the kids to school. If they were educated privately, maybe it was just an attempt to show the other parents wealth."

Ed wandered around and made notes in his head while listening to the other two talk about Allison's spending ventures. It made him wonder about the family and what kind of money they actually had, versus what this woman was spending. Morgan looked at him and basically invited his opinion on the matter.

"Everything here looks pretty on the outside, but if you look at the ceiling you can see the damage. Apparently, she was spending money on quite a lot for appearances, but it makes me wonder how much they really had."

Morgan frowned at that and nodded a bit. It made plenty of sense, of course. Gideon walked on into the next section, silently assessing Ed's statement.

"Get Garcia to check their financial status."

Ed frowned at that, as he hadn't come across that particular phrase before or merely missed it somewhere.

"Morgan, what does that mean?"

Morgan looked back at Ed, not altogether surprised that he hadn't heard about finances in whatever books he'd been reading.

"It just means he wants her to look into how much money they have and what they are spending it on."

Ed nodded and followed Gideon after giving one last glance at the room. Something about the whole thing just didn't make sense, but he just hadn't been able to place it yet. Gideon walked into the kitchen, finding a painting on the refrigerator by a girl named Emily. It was only black, which was strange. He remembered watching Nina color, and it was always in several colors.

"Why only black, I wonder?" Ed wondered out loud, mumbling to himself. They both looked at him as he walked around the rest of the kitchen looking for another painting. There weren't any, so he had nothing to compare it to. Maybe she ran out and only had the one color left? He shook his head, deciding that was probably not the answer. A 47% chance at most, he'd say.

Morgan shook his head and walked out of the kitchen towards the back door, looking at the bottom.

"No dog collar was found, right?"

Ed looked at the door, thinking back to the other house, and remembered there had been a dog there, too. That couldn't have been a coincidence, right? Or did that many people around here have dogs?

"Maybe the dog didn't have one," Gideon remarked, still studying the painting. Morgan shook his head, still looking at the door, before looking at the both of them.

"He'd have to have one. Come here. See that? This dog door opens automatically via a chip in the dog's collar."

Ed studied the door for a moment and kicked it a bit, though not hard. It was pretty solid. The only way someone could get in was if the person both took the collar and was pretty small. Either that, or he was one of those weird people that could move like those homunculi. Ed unconsciously shivered just thinking about it. Of course, someone could force their way in, but some alarm might go off and he'd read in the report that the alarm hadn't gone off at all. He'd also read that this guy could do some form of martial arts called judo, whatever that was. He looked as Gideon pointed a finger at the back of Morgan's head.

"I've got a gun to your back. Maybe you could take it from me, but your children are in the same room; and if you fail, they die."

Ed got a mental picture, remembering all of the different situations he and his brother had been in. A lot of them had been remarkably similar in a way. The only difference had been his brother had protection in some ways. But in other cases, like with Scar and when he had been taken by Greed? The choices that were before him were constantly wrought with consequences and Al had already suffered too much. Coming out of his thoughts, he saw Gideon go to the window he had been looking out of earlier and mentally shrugged. He saw Morgan follow and decided to do the same as Gideon started talking again.

"Bound or not, Allison would have put up a hell of a fight. Emily and Sam would've been sobbing."

"Crawford didn't kill his family, and there's no evidence that Miller was even in the house or knew 'em; just like Ed had pointed out."

Ed almost jumped a foot in the air when Gideon started yelling by the window to prove that other people obviously would have been able to hear if they asked for help. It was a good point. Why did none of them scream for help? Ed sighed and let his head fall down. He'd been in the same position several times before. It was irritatingly simple.

"Why did no one hear them scream for help?"

"Simple," Ed answered, trying not to remember what had happened to him. "He threatened them all, saying he'd kill the others if they did anything."

Morgan looked back at Ed grimly, unable to deny the inevitable truth of the statement.

TBC

Next Chapter: They're going to be heading back to the BAU to start their profiling soon enough, and they'll have to figure out what the families all have in common.