JeniOctavia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jenioctavia) wrote2006-10-09 11:23 pm
jenioctavia) wrote2006-10-09 11:23 pm
FMA Fan fiction: In the City Part 2
Same stuff as before, only now with more modern goodness and Jeni freaking out! 8D
Name: In the City, Part 2
Fandom: FMA
Genre: AU, Self insertion, First person narration, drama, humor, suspense
Rating: PG13
Parings: None
Additional notes: A lot of this comes from a strange history I have with a little game called Chrono Cross and my over all view of paranormal activity in general. So there's going to be some parts where the narrator starts rambling on about some paranormal babble. I'm going to try not to go into it TOO much, but if anyone doesn't get anything, they can ask me. I already know how little I can make sense sometimes.
It was not happening. It could not be happening. I was going to wake up at any given second, safe in my bed, undamaged from both MAX train and black berry bushes, and I would not be staring in to the all too familiar gold eyes of one Edward Elric, a man who was supposed to be nothing more than colored ink on a television screen. At least in my realm of existence.
That's what I kept telling myself, anyway, but clearly the mental mantra of 'wake your stupid ass up' was doing as little for me as beating my head against a brick wall would have done.
Hell. I would have preferred the brick wall at that point.
I could tell that Ed was feeling about the same as I was. His darting gaze, slightly pallid features, and nervously twitching hands were pretty good indications of that. He definitely had an air of 'I screwed up' about him, though I didn't want to even begin to think of what it was that he could have screwed up to land him and his younger brother in the middle of a field in Beverton, Oregon, United States of America in the year 2006. Then again I was too busy freaking out over the fact that everything I had studied, everything I'd even shown remote interest in for the past six or so years of my life was right. I seemed to be saying as much, too, in a voice barely loud enough to be heard as I pressed my hands in to my hair and stared at the ground in confusion, worry, and fear.
"Holycrap..." I was muttering, "Its all true. It has to be. That's the only way this can be happening. Oh man...oh man what am I gonna do...I can't just leave them here..."
"Hey, lady," Ed finally snapped, seeming to get irritated by my incessant rambling, "Are you going to be okay?" he said in a voice that said he was more concerned about me freaking out in a situation that he should have been doing the freaking out on rather than my actual mental well being. I jerked my head up, hands still curled in to my hair and causing my bangs to stick out at all angles, and let out a very strained laugh.
"You're the one that fell from the sky and you're asking me if I'm okay," I said in a tone far too high pitched for my normal self, "That's rich. There's something very screwed up about that," I added a second later in the same muttered manner I'd been using before. Ed didn't seem to appreciate my lame attempt at humor and showed as much by giving me a glower with his head slightly tilted to the side. If he was thinking ill thoughts about me right then, he chose not to voice them and simply dragged his legs out from the sloshing creek, stumbling awkwardly to his feet as if he'd just come off a boat after several months at sea.
He walked a few steps and dropped back down to his knees, giving the younger boy still unconscious in front of me a light shake of his shoulder, leaning down close to his face as he did so. Swallowing the lump that rose in my throat, I scooted back to give them both room, watching in silent worry as my mind raced a million miles a minute in an attempt to figure out just what to do from there. My earlier statement was the hardest one on my mind; I couldn't leave them in that field to fend for themselves, but getting them to somewhere safe without them panicking at the world they'd dropped themselves in to was proving to be a problem I couldn't quite wrap my mind around.
"Sorry..." I muttered after a few seconds of watching Ed check the still unconscious Al for injuries. His head jerked up suddenly, indicating that he'd actually forgotten I was there, his expression highly unreadable as a mix of emotions crossed through his eyes.
"...for?"
I pursed my lips tightly and shook my head, turning my face towards the mid afternoon sun in the bright blue sky, finding it hard to believe that just moments ago the entire atmosphere had been so ominous and dark.
"I didn't mean to freak out," I finally answered softly, sighing far more heavily than I had intended to. Ed straightened, fixing me with a surprisingly soft stare, his hands resting on his knees and his automail features glinting slightly off the bright light filtering through the trees above.
"Where are we?" he asked, his eyebrows knitting upwards slightly. It was almost as if he didn't want to know the truth, but knew that he was going to find out sooner or later. I felt a strange chill run down my back as my mind surfed over the gamut of possible things I could tell him and ways that I could put it. Anything I would say would raise a million questions, and I only had so many answers.
I opened my mouth to answer, but was halted by a soft groan that caught both our attentions and brought them back to Alphonse. The younger Elric stirred and muttered something unintelligible beneath his breath, shifting an arm over his eyes as he struggled to bring his groggy mind back in to the land of the conscious. Leaving Ed to tend to him, I forced my own legs to rise as somewhere in the distance and above I heard what could have been voices drawing near. Turning my head, I stared up the ravine for a moment before deciding safe was far better than sorry and checking out the source of the noise was the best option.
Ignoring the fact that my poor legs felt like swiss cheese from all the brambles that had sliced in to my skin, I began crawling back up the hill at a slow but steady pace, using roots and hardened sections of ground for leverage. Ed seemed to take an interest in what I was doing as a few seconds later I heard him softly tell Al to stay where he was and the sound of leaves and grass rustling just below me. I paused and looked over my shoulder, giving a frown as Ed stared right back at me with an unnervingly even expression.
"...stay low, okay?" I finally said before returning to the climb, reaching the top of the incline in a few seconds, a few stones from the gravel-lined track falling from my grip on the edge. Ed popped up next to me and both of our gaze locked on the vanishing point of the tracks where a little blip that was the back of the MAX train could be seen, along with several dark spots of motion that were slowly getting bigger. I squinted at it, desperately trying to get more detail despite my poor vision and glasses. A frown tugged on my features and a sigh escaped my lips. The closer the dark figures got, the more I realized that those weren't TriMet uniforms they were wearing, they were police uniforms.
"Shit," I hissed between my teeth, turning to Ed and gesturing with a nod of my head to his brother down below, "Is he okay to walk? We need to get moving,"
I could tell a million questions were running through his mind, the gears were turning hard and there was a deep urge to start assaulting me with said inquiries, but at the same time he was reluctantly putting trust in me to keep him and Alphonse out of trouble. Something about my expression had said as much to him. Wordlessly he slipped down from the hill and dropped in to a crouch at the bottom, moving to where Al was now sitting up, asking him in a hushed tone if he was alright to move. There was a brief exchange that I opted to ignore in order to continue keeping tabs on those moving towards us, my ears picking up bits of conversation through the silence of the tracks. The only thing I could disconcert from my position, though, was that they were trying to account for people on the train. That, of course, included me. Though Krissie and I weren't the most noticeable people in a crowd, there was a fairly certain guarantee that some one would have noticed us getting on together and might mention my sudden absence before any stops that I could have gotten off at.
I slid back down the ravine, wincing as a particularly thick thorn caught my shin and tore in to my skin. Hissing, I dropped to the bottom and bent down to examine the damage, wiping a bit of blood away that snaked down my skin from behind my pants and the tear that had occurred. Glancing up the sky, I briefly considered muttering something about being punished to whatever higher powers were listening at that moment, but figuring it would only earn me more cuts from flora and fauna, I simply looked back to Ed and Al. Both were standing now, though Al seemed terribly shaky and unbalanced, which worried me.
"You gonna be alright?" I asked, biting back the urge to add his name to the end of that sentence. So far I'd managed to refrain from using either of their names, afraid of what the repercussions of doing such a thing could be. It would have to be dealt with eventually, but that was a bridge best crossed when reached. Al blinked a few times, making a terrible face but returning my question with a silent nod a few seconds later. The footsteps were more audible now; gravel crunching under heavy steps only so many feet away.
Trying desperately not to think of what would happen if they caught up with us, I ushered the two boys out of the right side of the ravine and in to the nearby field that stretched onwards in to a street some six hundred feet in that general direction. After they got ahead of me a few paces, I paused long enough to adjust the messenger bag I still had slung over my shoulder and glance behind me at the MAX tracks. I silently prayed to that same deity that might have been listening before that Krissie was having a better time of this than I was...
Back on the MAX train...
Unknown to me, Krissie wasn't having anything resembling a better time than me. Rather she was being faced with an irritating game of Twenty Questions, questions being posed by the Beaverton PD and a Trimet operator. Arms crossed over her chest, eyes narrowed in clear annoyance, she tried to remain calm and even toned as they repeated the same inquiries over and over again.
"Look, lady, we're not trying to cause trouble-"
"You're doing a decent job of it,"
"-but we just want to know where your friend went. If something happened, we're only trying to help," the smaller and younger of the two officers continued on, seeming completely un-phased by Krissie's blunt interruption. The rest of the train had been emptied out, the passengers being examined by a medical crew as they waited for a shuttle bus to take them to the nearest transit center. Some one had mentioned to the police as they boarded that they thought some one had left the train before their arrival, leaving Krissie to do what she could to keep them at bay.
Giving a sigh, she sat up straight and looked both officers in the eye.
"Look, I'll give it to you straight, I did get on the train with some one, but when the lights came on she wasn't here anymore," she said with an uncaring shrug of her shoulders, "I'm sure she's around. Its not that big of a deal."
"Well, who was she? What's her name?" the older officer demanded, clearly getting irritated with Krissie's reluctance to work with them.
"I don't have to give you any more information,"
"Why are you being so difficult?" the younger asked, frowning lightly, "I already said we just want to help,"
"You can help," Krissie snapped, standing up from her seat and grabbing the jacket she had sitting next to her, "by letting me get back home. Where ever my friend went, I'm pretty certain she didn't go skipping off in to some dangerous situation. The MAX broke, we were all pretty worried there for a bit, but nothing's blown up and no one's died. Now, can I please go home?"
The two officers and the still quiet Trimet operator exchanged wary looks, the younger finally sighing heavily and stepping away from where Krissie was standing, gesturing to the open door and the shuttle bus that was pulling up on the nearby highway, ready to pick up the passengers and take them to the nearest transit center. Krissie thanked them curtly and headed for the door, exiting the train and heading for the shuttle bus and the line of people that were getting on. She paused and glanced back at the train one last time, frowning lightly.
"I hope this was all worth it, Jeni..."
Back in the field
The sun beat down hot on me, seeming to mock my decision to wear heavier clothes in light of recently colder temperatures. My shoulder back laden with notebooks and other various items wasn't helping matters any. Sweaty and sore with my ankles throbbing from all the tiny cuts that had been bit in to my skin from the brambles, I was in no mood to be dealing with anything at that point, but I knew full well that if I was going to have to deal with something eventually, be it Ed's impending questions, how to get them to my place without people getting too terribly suspicious, dodging any officers that might be still looking for people from the train, or what exactly I was going to do with the brothers Elric once I got them to my place.
As I tromped through the field, heading for the nearby side road that seemed rather deserted and devoid of life and car, Ed finally left his brother's side and came to walk beside me, seeming to have no trouble going through the dense undergrowth and tall, uncut grass. I, on the other hand, was clearly out of shape by the way I was huffing and puffing. He cast a briefly concerned look in my direction, but seemed determined to just plain get down to business, as a second later the following question was uttered from him.
"Are you going to answer me eventually, or am we going to be forced to find out for ourselves?"
Ed's questions for the win.
I walked a few more feet in silence, my eyes locked on his as I did so, before I finally stopped in the middle of the field, which of course warranted both Ed and Al to also halt. Though the younger of the two was being fairly silent, and I was certain a part of that was just simply mild shock from it all, he still seemed to be the more wary one. I didn't know, obviously, what took place before they'd wound up over here, but I could have only imagined the conversation that went on between them before hand if it was as much Ed's fault as I was guessing from his earlier behavior.
"Look," I started, putting my hands up in the air, "right now, we need to worry about getting you two somewhere safe. My end of things is a fairly long explanation, and I'd bet my right leg that your end is even longer, but for now I'll just tell you that you're in a place called Beaverton, Oregon, in a country called the United States of America, and the year is two-thousand and six, okay?"
Al's face visibly paled while Ed simply raised both eyebrows high.
"Two-thousand and six?" the younger boy said, putting a hand on his head as he ran that number over his mind and tongue simultaneously. He looked at Ed, panic stricken and afraid. For the moment the blond was ignoring him, though clearly not out of negligence of any kind. The expression he wore could have been on anyone's face, and I would have recognized it in a heart beat. He was going to be stubborn, and being stubborn meant making things difficult for me.
"Yes, two-thousand and six. I told you it was a long explanation," I said, my voice taking on a clearly exasperated tone as Ed refused to look away, "I can explain it better when we're back at my house, okay?"
Trying to give a final note to the conversation, I snagged Al by the upper arm and dragged his slightly ill looking self along with me, praying that Ed would get a clue and follow.
No such luck. That whole stubborn thing, coming back to bite me in the ass.
I turned after about twenty paces or so to see Ed, now turned in our direction but arms crossed over his chest as he refused to budge.
"Christ, why me..." I hissed between clenched teeth. I didn't want to get mad at him, but he wasn't making it easy for me to turn the other cheek in this situation. It surprised me to be looking at a clearly older-than-the-series Edward and still be seeing the same difficult teenager that I'd watched for fifty one episodes of one insanely amazing anime, and it managed to irritate me at the same time because, of course, things couldn't just go smoothly in something like this.
"Why is there so much to explain? So we went forward in time, so what? Not exactly what we intended to happen, but its not like we can't fix it," he said very nonchalantly, his voice raised to make himself heard across the small distance.
My mouth dropped open like some one had just told me part of the world broke off and was free floating in space, and within seconds I found myself stomping back over to him with my hands in my hair, sputtering something about how he could say that so calmly. I managed to stop, breathe, and compose myself long enough drop my hands back down.
"Doesn't it bother you that I seem just a little freaked out about all this? Doesn't it even concern you a tiny bit that I not only met you where you fell, acted like a total spaz, and now seem determined to get you somewhere where other people aren't going to see you?"
"Well, now that you mention it..." Ed muttered, looking upwards as he tapped a finger against his chin, "that is a little odd. So, don't you think you should explain? I'm sure I'd understand better if you did."
"I'm going to."
"Now?"
"No, at my house, now come on."
"I think you should explain now. Really, we don't have to go anywhere with you if we don't want to."
"GWAAAH!" I raised my hands dangerously close to Ed's neck only to have my arms forcibly dragged back down by Al, who had, in the past few moments, approached us without me noticing. Twitching in obvious irritation, I yanked one hand away from the boy and reached in to my messenger bag, thrusting a small paperback book in to Ed's hands. He glanced down at it in confusion, and as I moved my hand away he and Al both were treated to the cover of the FullMetal Alchemist manga that I had just recently purchased a few days previously. The expression he had back in the field when I first spotted him down in the ravine, that terrible sense of guilt and fear that had momentarily gripped his heart, was back, causing him to look far more vulnerable than I ever would have liked to see him. Al's face went even whiter, and I found myself subconsciously moving closer to him, afraid that he might just faint right then and there.
"You don't belong here, Edward and Alphonse Elric," I said, my voice amazingly calm, "I know more about you two than you know, your names being the least of those things, and in this world you are fictional. You did not travel forward in time, you went to another world, a world where your life is nothing more than entertainment. But so help me, you're both standing in front of me, flesh and blood as I am, which means that something obviously went wrong. This is why I wanted to wait until we got to my house, this is why I didn't want to burst your little bubble in the middle of a field. Got it?"
Slowly I pried the book from Ed's fingers, though he didn't move, his hands seemingly locked in the same position as he stared at the ground where the book once blocked his line of sight. I chewed nervously on my lip, feeling terrible for being so harsh to him and feeling even worse for dropping it on Al like that. I ran my hand through my hair and tilted my head to the side.
"Whatever happened, there's got to be a way to fix it. One advantage to this world is that we have more technology than you can shake a stick at. We'll figure something out, but for now, let's just get going. The sooner we can get you looking like you belong here, the better," I said, stuffing the book back in my messenger bag. Ed gave a numb nod, and in a few moments we were moving again, albiet slower and with much more tense, uncomfortable silence.
Though Ed's reaction had me concerned, it was Al's condition that had me far more worried. The pallid tone to his features hadn't gone away, and the closer we got to sounds of the nearby busier roads and the transit center, the more twitchy he became. I was convinced that by the time we got to the depot that we were going to have to be dragging him simply because he'd be far too jittery to walk on his own.
Quite the opposite happened, in fact. We made it to the busy hub that was the Beaverton Transit Center with little difficulty, and after the long trek through the field as well as part of an apartment complex and another small field leading up to the place, both boys seemed to shape up significantly. The sight of all the large, roaring buses and the one MAX train that went zipping by on the tracks did managed to jar them both quite a bit, I was able to get them on the next train going to Hillsboro without protest from either. Despite my insistence that we go unseen, I was sadly without car or license due to a nasty irrational fear of being behind the wheel of any vehicle and Krissie had moved to Oregon without her car, I realized we still needed some way to get back home.
Trying to keep things as unnoticeable and memorable to other passengers as possible, I instructed Ed to keep his automail hand in his pocket at all times while we rode from the transit center to two stops up, the Milikan Way Park and Ride. From there we went to a small alcove bus stop to wait for the bus that would take us up to the road that I lived on. Though I lacked any ability to drive without panicking horribly, I knew my way around like an expert and luckily had one of the country's best transit systems to help me out.
While waiting, Al sat next to me on the bench, looking stiff and uncomfortable while Ed leaned against one of the glass walls, his gaze set on a distant building that resided behind the parking lot of the small TriMet owned area.
"I'm sorry," I finally said after so much conversational silence, "I didn't mean to be so harsh on you two, but you didn't leave me much choice, Ed,"
Ed glanced at me, one eye looking mostly through his messy bangs. His lips pulled tight in a not-quite frown as he gave a shrug and looked away once more.
"You were trying to help. Don't worry about it so much," he said quietly, giving me probably the closest thing to an acceptance of my apology I was going to get.
Al finally canted his head towards me, giving a light and vaguely forced smile.
"You know our names, and so much about us, but we don't even know your name," he pointed out, causing me to blink in sudden realization that I'd never formally introduced myself.
"Jeni," I said, "My name is Jeni, and trust me, you'll find out plenty when we get to my apartment..."
(TO BE CONTINUED! Because I'm tired of writing this part. XD)
Name: In the City, Part 2
Fandom: FMA
Genre: AU, Self insertion, First person narration, drama, humor, suspense
Rating: PG13
Parings: None
Additional notes: A lot of this comes from a strange history I have with a little game called Chrono Cross and my over all view of paranormal activity in general. So there's going to be some parts where the narrator starts rambling on about some paranormal babble. I'm going to try not to go into it TOO much, but if anyone doesn't get anything, they can ask me. I already know how little I can make sense sometimes.
It was not happening. It could not be happening. I was going to wake up at any given second, safe in my bed, undamaged from both MAX train and black berry bushes, and I would not be staring in to the all too familiar gold eyes of one Edward Elric, a man who was supposed to be nothing more than colored ink on a television screen. At least in my realm of existence.
That's what I kept telling myself, anyway, but clearly the mental mantra of 'wake your stupid ass up' was doing as little for me as beating my head against a brick wall would have done.
Hell. I would have preferred the brick wall at that point.
I could tell that Ed was feeling about the same as I was. His darting gaze, slightly pallid features, and nervously twitching hands were pretty good indications of that. He definitely had an air of 'I screwed up' about him, though I didn't want to even begin to think of what it was that he could have screwed up to land him and his younger brother in the middle of a field in Beverton, Oregon, United States of America in the year 2006. Then again I was too busy freaking out over the fact that everything I had studied, everything I'd even shown remote interest in for the past six or so years of my life was right. I seemed to be saying as much, too, in a voice barely loud enough to be heard as I pressed my hands in to my hair and stared at the ground in confusion, worry, and fear.
"Holycrap..." I was muttering, "Its all true. It has to be. That's the only way this can be happening. Oh man...oh man what am I gonna do...I can't just leave them here..."
"Hey, lady," Ed finally snapped, seeming to get irritated by my incessant rambling, "Are you going to be okay?" he said in a voice that said he was more concerned about me freaking out in a situation that he should have been doing the freaking out on rather than my actual mental well being. I jerked my head up, hands still curled in to my hair and causing my bangs to stick out at all angles, and let out a very strained laugh.
"You're the one that fell from the sky and you're asking me if I'm okay," I said in a tone far too high pitched for my normal self, "That's rich. There's something very screwed up about that," I added a second later in the same muttered manner I'd been using before. Ed didn't seem to appreciate my lame attempt at humor and showed as much by giving me a glower with his head slightly tilted to the side. If he was thinking ill thoughts about me right then, he chose not to voice them and simply dragged his legs out from the sloshing creek, stumbling awkwardly to his feet as if he'd just come off a boat after several months at sea.
He walked a few steps and dropped back down to his knees, giving the younger boy still unconscious in front of me a light shake of his shoulder, leaning down close to his face as he did so. Swallowing the lump that rose in my throat, I scooted back to give them both room, watching in silent worry as my mind raced a million miles a minute in an attempt to figure out just what to do from there. My earlier statement was the hardest one on my mind; I couldn't leave them in that field to fend for themselves, but getting them to somewhere safe without them panicking at the world they'd dropped themselves in to was proving to be a problem I couldn't quite wrap my mind around.
"Sorry..." I muttered after a few seconds of watching Ed check the still unconscious Al for injuries. His head jerked up suddenly, indicating that he'd actually forgotten I was there, his expression highly unreadable as a mix of emotions crossed through his eyes.
"...for?"
I pursed my lips tightly and shook my head, turning my face towards the mid afternoon sun in the bright blue sky, finding it hard to believe that just moments ago the entire atmosphere had been so ominous and dark.
"I didn't mean to freak out," I finally answered softly, sighing far more heavily than I had intended to. Ed straightened, fixing me with a surprisingly soft stare, his hands resting on his knees and his automail features glinting slightly off the bright light filtering through the trees above.
"Where are we?" he asked, his eyebrows knitting upwards slightly. It was almost as if he didn't want to know the truth, but knew that he was going to find out sooner or later. I felt a strange chill run down my back as my mind surfed over the gamut of possible things I could tell him and ways that I could put it. Anything I would say would raise a million questions, and I only had so many answers.
I opened my mouth to answer, but was halted by a soft groan that caught both our attentions and brought them back to Alphonse. The younger Elric stirred and muttered something unintelligible beneath his breath, shifting an arm over his eyes as he struggled to bring his groggy mind back in to the land of the conscious. Leaving Ed to tend to him, I forced my own legs to rise as somewhere in the distance and above I heard what could have been voices drawing near. Turning my head, I stared up the ravine for a moment before deciding safe was far better than sorry and checking out the source of the noise was the best option.
Ignoring the fact that my poor legs felt like swiss cheese from all the brambles that had sliced in to my skin, I began crawling back up the hill at a slow but steady pace, using roots and hardened sections of ground for leverage. Ed seemed to take an interest in what I was doing as a few seconds later I heard him softly tell Al to stay where he was and the sound of leaves and grass rustling just below me. I paused and looked over my shoulder, giving a frown as Ed stared right back at me with an unnervingly even expression.
"...stay low, okay?" I finally said before returning to the climb, reaching the top of the incline in a few seconds, a few stones from the gravel-lined track falling from my grip on the edge. Ed popped up next to me and both of our gaze locked on the vanishing point of the tracks where a little blip that was the back of the MAX train could be seen, along with several dark spots of motion that were slowly getting bigger. I squinted at it, desperately trying to get more detail despite my poor vision and glasses. A frown tugged on my features and a sigh escaped my lips. The closer the dark figures got, the more I realized that those weren't TriMet uniforms they were wearing, they were police uniforms.
"Shit," I hissed between my teeth, turning to Ed and gesturing with a nod of my head to his brother down below, "Is he okay to walk? We need to get moving,"
I could tell a million questions were running through his mind, the gears were turning hard and there was a deep urge to start assaulting me with said inquiries, but at the same time he was reluctantly putting trust in me to keep him and Alphonse out of trouble. Something about my expression had said as much to him. Wordlessly he slipped down from the hill and dropped in to a crouch at the bottom, moving to where Al was now sitting up, asking him in a hushed tone if he was alright to move. There was a brief exchange that I opted to ignore in order to continue keeping tabs on those moving towards us, my ears picking up bits of conversation through the silence of the tracks. The only thing I could disconcert from my position, though, was that they were trying to account for people on the train. That, of course, included me. Though Krissie and I weren't the most noticeable people in a crowd, there was a fairly certain guarantee that some one would have noticed us getting on together and might mention my sudden absence before any stops that I could have gotten off at.
I slid back down the ravine, wincing as a particularly thick thorn caught my shin and tore in to my skin. Hissing, I dropped to the bottom and bent down to examine the damage, wiping a bit of blood away that snaked down my skin from behind my pants and the tear that had occurred. Glancing up the sky, I briefly considered muttering something about being punished to whatever higher powers were listening at that moment, but figuring it would only earn me more cuts from flora and fauna, I simply looked back to Ed and Al. Both were standing now, though Al seemed terribly shaky and unbalanced, which worried me.
"You gonna be alright?" I asked, biting back the urge to add his name to the end of that sentence. So far I'd managed to refrain from using either of their names, afraid of what the repercussions of doing such a thing could be. It would have to be dealt with eventually, but that was a bridge best crossed when reached. Al blinked a few times, making a terrible face but returning my question with a silent nod a few seconds later. The footsteps were more audible now; gravel crunching under heavy steps only so many feet away.
Trying desperately not to think of what would happen if they caught up with us, I ushered the two boys out of the right side of the ravine and in to the nearby field that stretched onwards in to a street some six hundred feet in that general direction. After they got ahead of me a few paces, I paused long enough to adjust the messenger bag I still had slung over my shoulder and glance behind me at the MAX tracks. I silently prayed to that same deity that might have been listening before that Krissie was having a better time of this than I was...
Back on the MAX train...
Unknown to me, Krissie wasn't having anything resembling a better time than me. Rather she was being faced with an irritating game of Twenty Questions, questions being posed by the Beaverton PD and a Trimet operator. Arms crossed over her chest, eyes narrowed in clear annoyance, she tried to remain calm and even toned as they repeated the same inquiries over and over again.
"Look, lady, we're not trying to cause trouble-"
"You're doing a decent job of it,"
"-but we just want to know where your friend went. If something happened, we're only trying to help," the smaller and younger of the two officers continued on, seeming completely un-phased by Krissie's blunt interruption. The rest of the train had been emptied out, the passengers being examined by a medical crew as they waited for a shuttle bus to take them to the nearest transit center. Some one had mentioned to the police as they boarded that they thought some one had left the train before their arrival, leaving Krissie to do what she could to keep them at bay.
Giving a sigh, she sat up straight and looked both officers in the eye.
"Look, I'll give it to you straight, I did get on the train with some one, but when the lights came on she wasn't here anymore," she said with an uncaring shrug of her shoulders, "I'm sure she's around. Its not that big of a deal."
"Well, who was she? What's her name?" the older officer demanded, clearly getting irritated with Krissie's reluctance to work with them.
"I don't have to give you any more information,"
"Why are you being so difficult?" the younger asked, frowning lightly, "I already said we just want to help,"
"You can help," Krissie snapped, standing up from her seat and grabbing the jacket she had sitting next to her, "by letting me get back home. Where ever my friend went, I'm pretty certain she didn't go skipping off in to some dangerous situation. The MAX broke, we were all pretty worried there for a bit, but nothing's blown up and no one's died. Now, can I please go home?"
The two officers and the still quiet Trimet operator exchanged wary looks, the younger finally sighing heavily and stepping away from where Krissie was standing, gesturing to the open door and the shuttle bus that was pulling up on the nearby highway, ready to pick up the passengers and take them to the nearest transit center. Krissie thanked them curtly and headed for the door, exiting the train and heading for the shuttle bus and the line of people that were getting on. She paused and glanced back at the train one last time, frowning lightly.
"I hope this was all worth it, Jeni..."
Back in the field
The sun beat down hot on me, seeming to mock my decision to wear heavier clothes in light of recently colder temperatures. My shoulder back laden with notebooks and other various items wasn't helping matters any. Sweaty and sore with my ankles throbbing from all the tiny cuts that had been bit in to my skin from the brambles, I was in no mood to be dealing with anything at that point, but I knew full well that if I was going to have to deal with something eventually, be it Ed's impending questions, how to get them to my place without people getting too terribly suspicious, dodging any officers that might be still looking for people from the train, or what exactly I was going to do with the brothers Elric once I got them to my place.
As I tromped through the field, heading for the nearby side road that seemed rather deserted and devoid of life and car, Ed finally left his brother's side and came to walk beside me, seeming to have no trouble going through the dense undergrowth and tall, uncut grass. I, on the other hand, was clearly out of shape by the way I was huffing and puffing. He cast a briefly concerned look in my direction, but seemed determined to just plain get down to business, as a second later the following question was uttered from him.
"Are you going to answer me eventually, or am we going to be forced to find out for ourselves?"
Ed's questions for the win.
I walked a few more feet in silence, my eyes locked on his as I did so, before I finally stopped in the middle of the field, which of course warranted both Ed and Al to also halt. Though the younger of the two was being fairly silent, and I was certain a part of that was just simply mild shock from it all, he still seemed to be the more wary one. I didn't know, obviously, what took place before they'd wound up over here, but I could have only imagined the conversation that went on between them before hand if it was as much Ed's fault as I was guessing from his earlier behavior.
"Look," I started, putting my hands up in the air, "right now, we need to worry about getting you two somewhere safe. My end of things is a fairly long explanation, and I'd bet my right leg that your end is even longer, but for now I'll just tell you that you're in a place called Beaverton, Oregon, in a country called the United States of America, and the year is two-thousand and six, okay?"
Al's face visibly paled while Ed simply raised both eyebrows high.
"Two-thousand and six?" the younger boy said, putting a hand on his head as he ran that number over his mind and tongue simultaneously. He looked at Ed, panic stricken and afraid. For the moment the blond was ignoring him, though clearly not out of negligence of any kind. The expression he wore could have been on anyone's face, and I would have recognized it in a heart beat. He was going to be stubborn, and being stubborn meant making things difficult for me.
"Yes, two-thousand and six. I told you it was a long explanation," I said, my voice taking on a clearly exasperated tone as Ed refused to look away, "I can explain it better when we're back at my house, okay?"
Trying to give a final note to the conversation, I snagged Al by the upper arm and dragged his slightly ill looking self along with me, praying that Ed would get a clue and follow.
No such luck. That whole stubborn thing, coming back to bite me in the ass.
I turned after about twenty paces or so to see Ed, now turned in our direction but arms crossed over his chest as he refused to budge.
"Christ, why me..." I hissed between clenched teeth. I didn't want to get mad at him, but he wasn't making it easy for me to turn the other cheek in this situation. It surprised me to be looking at a clearly older-than-the-series Edward and still be seeing the same difficult teenager that I'd watched for fifty one episodes of one insanely amazing anime, and it managed to irritate me at the same time because, of course, things couldn't just go smoothly in something like this.
"Why is there so much to explain? So we went forward in time, so what? Not exactly what we intended to happen, but its not like we can't fix it," he said very nonchalantly, his voice raised to make himself heard across the small distance.
My mouth dropped open like some one had just told me part of the world broke off and was free floating in space, and within seconds I found myself stomping back over to him with my hands in my hair, sputtering something about how he could say that so calmly. I managed to stop, breathe, and compose myself long enough drop my hands back down.
"Doesn't it bother you that I seem just a little freaked out about all this? Doesn't it even concern you a tiny bit that I not only met you where you fell, acted like a total spaz, and now seem determined to get you somewhere where other people aren't going to see you?"
"Well, now that you mention it..." Ed muttered, looking upwards as he tapped a finger against his chin, "that is a little odd. So, don't you think you should explain? I'm sure I'd understand better if you did."
"I'm going to."
"Now?"
"No, at my house, now come on."
"I think you should explain now. Really, we don't have to go anywhere with you if we don't want to."
"GWAAAH!" I raised my hands dangerously close to Ed's neck only to have my arms forcibly dragged back down by Al, who had, in the past few moments, approached us without me noticing. Twitching in obvious irritation, I yanked one hand away from the boy and reached in to my messenger bag, thrusting a small paperback book in to Ed's hands. He glanced down at it in confusion, and as I moved my hand away he and Al both were treated to the cover of the FullMetal Alchemist manga that I had just recently purchased a few days previously. The expression he had back in the field when I first spotted him down in the ravine, that terrible sense of guilt and fear that had momentarily gripped his heart, was back, causing him to look far more vulnerable than I ever would have liked to see him. Al's face went even whiter, and I found myself subconsciously moving closer to him, afraid that he might just faint right then and there.
"You don't belong here, Edward and Alphonse Elric," I said, my voice amazingly calm, "I know more about you two than you know, your names being the least of those things, and in this world you are fictional. You did not travel forward in time, you went to another world, a world where your life is nothing more than entertainment. But so help me, you're both standing in front of me, flesh and blood as I am, which means that something obviously went wrong. This is why I wanted to wait until we got to my house, this is why I didn't want to burst your little bubble in the middle of a field. Got it?"
Slowly I pried the book from Ed's fingers, though he didn't move, his hands seemingly locked in the same position as he stared at the ground where the book once blocked his line of sight. I chewed nervously on my lip, feeling terrible for being so harsh to him and feeling even worse for dropping it on Al like that. I ran my hand through my hair and tilted my head to the side.
"Whatever happened, there's got to be a way to fix it. One advantage to this world is that we have more technology than you can shake a stick at. We'll figure something out, but for now, let's just get going. The sooner we can get you looking like you belong here, the better," I said, stuffing the book back in my messenger bag. Ed gave a numb nod, and in a few moments we were moving again, albiet slower and with much more tense, uncomfortable silence.
Though Ed's reaction had me concerned, it was Al's condition that had me far more worried. The pallid tone to his features hadn't gone away, and the closer we got to sounds of the nearby busier roads and the transit center, the more twitchy he became. I was convinced that by the time we got to the depot that we were going to have to be dragging him simply because he'd be far too jittery to walk on his own.
Quite the opposite happened, in fact. We made it to the busy hub that was the Beaverton Transit Center with little difficulty, and after the long trek through the field as well as part of an apartment complex and another small field leading up to the place, both boys seemed to shape up significantly. The sight of all the large, roaring buses and the one MAX train that went zipping by on the tracks did managed to jar them both quite a bit, I was able to get them on the next train going to Hillsboro without protest from either. Despite my insistence that we go unseen, I was sadly without car or license due to a nasty irrational fear of being behind the wheel of any vehicle and Krissie had moved to Oregon without her car, I realized we still needed some way to get back home.
Trying to keep things as unnoticeable and memorable to other passengers as possible, I instructed Ed to keep his automail hand in his pocket at all times while we rode from the transit center to two stops up, the Milikan Way Park and Ride. From there we went to a small alcove bus stop to wait for the bus that would take us up to the road that I lived on. Though I lacked any ability to drive without panicking horribly, I knew my way around like an expert and luckily had one of the country's best transit systems to help me out.
While waiting, Al sat next to me on the bench, looking stiff and uncomfortable while Ed leaned against one of the glass walls, his gaze set on a distant building that resided behind the parking lot of the small TriMet owned area.
"I'm sorry," I finally said after so much conversational silence, "I didn't mean to be so harsh on you two, but you didn't leave me much choice, Ed,"
Ed glanced at me, one eye looking mostly through his messy bangs. His lips pulled tight in a not-quite frown as he gave a shrug and looked away once more.
"You were trying to help. Don't worry about it so much," he said quietly, giving me probably the closest thing to an acceptance of my apology I was going to get.
Al finally canted his head towards me, giving a light and vaguely forced smile.
"You know our names, and so much about us, but we don't even know your name," he pointed out, causing me to blink in sudden realization that I'd never formally introduced myself.
"Jeni," I said, "My name is Jeni, and trust me, you'll find out plenty when we get to my apartment..."
(TO BE CONTINUED! Because I'm tired of writing this part. XD)
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Also, I finally got my scanner fixed! I'll scan that hei pic tonight <3333 ^_^
And I will be at Sakuracon and Kumoricon next year, theoretically (I actually live four blocks from Sakuracon, so my place is Sakuracon-central that time of year ;)
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PLOTBUNNIES! Wouldn't it be crazy, though? I feel bad for them, and I feel bad for snapping at Ed the way I did, even though its not REAL. Silly me. xP Writing thier reactions was difficult, but I think I managed.
YAY HEI PICTURE! I finally get to post it in my deviantART, which has been suffering under the weight of my OCs due to this 100 theme challenge thing I'm doing.
Anyway, I'm rambling now. I'll try to get more story up next week. Waaai, work tomorrow! TT_TT