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A warm summer evening in Alabama on what was supposed to be Ed’s night off found him in the back of the ambulance with a medic, a scared boy, and a relatively new-to-him coworker.
The case was a tough one, but luckily they had made it to the warehouse in time to find one of the victims fighting with the kidnapper while his sister looked on in terror. The kidnapper, who was known to do unspeakable things before disposing of his young victims with a timeline with a strict deadline the team was sure had passed. Except, it seemed, the kidnapper had not counted on Daniel, who was resistant to the sedative and wasn’t going down without a serious fight.
By the time the team got there, the man was in and out of consciousness from where the boy had used a length of a rusty piece of rebar to defend himself and his sister, his own hands bloody from where a jagged edge sliced open his palms as he fought. Ed, who had kicked down the door, had immediately holstered his gun and approached slowly, hands out in reassruance as the rest of the team filed in behind him.
The boy was nearly catatonic, and Ed and Prentiss helped him to the stretcher and away from the body of his kidnapper.
“Is he dead? Did I kill him?”
“Hey Daniel, listen to me.” Prentiss said as she leaned over the stretcher after they loaded him into the ambulance. She and Agent Elric elected to stay with the boy while JJ and Reid went with the sister and the others stayed behind to handle the scene. “What you did to help your sister was so brave. You kept her safe and saved her life. A real life superhero.” she smiled reassuringly at the boy, no older than thirteen.
Tired eyes moved to her’s and he scowled. “Don’t tell me that. You don’t know what I’ve been through. Superheroes aren’t brave, they’re invincible.” The boy spat back. He looked small and frail against the white sheets of the stretcher, the paramedic on his right side tending to the small cuts and scrapes on his body. A dark black eye was forming and he held handfuls of gauze to his face to help stem his bloody nose and bleeding palms.
Ed blinked next to her. His face was grim, and Prentiss wasn’t sure what to say in response, but Ed began speaking before she could do anything.
“I know a little something. I was in a similar position when I was your age. Only, the man had my friend, not my sibling.”
Prentiss felt her train of thought come to a complete halt at this tidbit of information. She hadn’t been working with Elric long; he was a little odd, sure, but this was definitely not in his dossier she received.
“... You’re going to have people telling you that you were brave, “Ed continued, “and believe me, despite that terror you felt, you were. You saved her and yourself. You were able to think and act through the fear.”
The boy opened his mouth again to protest.
Ed huffed and offered a small smile before he could say anything in rebuttel. “You’re right though; invincible superheroes aren’t brave. Guys like you and me, who can be crushed and defeated, but pick the fight anyway? We’re brave. Don’t discount the bravery in what you did to survive because you were scared. You were brave because you were scared and fought back anyway.
“Don’t let it weigh on you. The guy got what was coming from him and he will never be able to hurt you or anyone else again.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“So, Ed. What sparked your interest in catching serial killers?”
Ed didn’t look up from his dinner. They were gathered at a Chinese restaurant following their case, killing time before they were ready to board the jet home.
“Rossi kidnapped me from the University.” He pushed a piece of chicken around on his plate before stabbing it viciously with his fork and bringing it to his mouth.
Prentiss laughed. “That’s not what I meant. You had to have some reason to actually want to join.”
Ed paused and he frowned, deep in thought. He knew what she was doing; he just had to decide whether or not to humor her.
“I had a run in with a few when I was younger.” He said, finally, pushing his plate away from himself and wiping his mouth with a napkin. He could feel all eyes from the table focus on him.
“You had a run in. With not one, but multiple serial killers?” Prentiss’ voice cast her disbelief. “How young is young?” He was young *right now*, she thought, only in his mid twenties.
Ed sighed and looked up. “Yeah. I was like… twelve, with the first. It wasn’t the first near death experience I had, but the first time I thought someone was going to kill me. It was right after-never mind, that part doesn’t matter.” Nina Tucker’s loss hurt still, as well as what it meant when he passed his exam after spending those months with her and Tucker, only to return to find…
“Anyway, there had been women in the area that had been found chopped to pieces. They didn’t have a lead on it and forensics, well… Not really a thing in that time and area.”
“What do you mean, forensics weren’t really a thing? Where was this?” Her eyes narrowed. Germany, if she remembered correctly. He was from Germany. Foresnics was *definitely* a thing in Germany.
“Not in this country.” Ed rolled his eyes. What he wouldn’t give to have had some of this technology and knowledge in Amestris.
“But if he only targeted women, why were you involved? And at twelve years old?” She could hear herself needling. This already sounded like A Story. She braced herself with his next words.
“A friend came from my hometown to visit me as a surprise. She was taken and I followed them to an old butcher shop. When I went in, I saw this woman, crying in the corner… She had a baseball bat hidden and used it to knock me out when I wasn’t expecting it. Turns out, she wasn’t a woman at all; the guy dressed as his dead wife to lure people into his traps.”
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“He… tied me to a chair. Had my friend hanging by her arms in chains in front of me with the intent of making me watch as he… I was able to break free of my ties, and got him away from her but… He was chasing me with a cleaver. I fought him off as much as I could. I finally was able to knock him down right before he got me and I almost…” Ed took a deep breath. “The authorities showed up just in time. Swooped in, like how we do for victims now. Saved the day.”
“That had to be very traumatic.”
Well, Reid thought to himself, that would maybe explain some of the nightmares Ed seemed to have on occasion still. They rotated who bunked with who in the hotels, but Reid was a light sleeper, and he lost count of the the times he woke up to Edward in a fitful sleep the next bed over on the occasions they shared a room. The back of his mind itched though, he didn’t think this was the sole cause of Ed’s nightmares.
“It was. It shook me up for a while.”
“Of course it did, you were just a kid.” JJ said, horrified. The cases involving kids made her stomach turn, and the thought of Ed enduring the same horrors as what she saw across her desk and in the field…
Ed shrugged. “It’s in the past.”
“Life hasn’t been kind to you, has it, Edward?” Rossi asked. He was frowning, putting pieces together in his head. Could this be the reason Ed was in Wit-Sec? No, Roy was in it too; his background was just as sparse and as fabricated.
Ed let out a bark of laughter. “You have no idea. Some of it is from my own hubris, though. Roy always said I shouldn’t dive headfirst into things on my own; should have told someone where I was going. That it was only luck that Hu- that the investigators on the case figured out where Winry and I were in time.”
“I’m amazed you were able to escape unscathed.”
“Eh, not entirely. I got this scar” Ed lift his bangs to show the thin scar on his forehead above his right eye, “and my first concussion from the baseball bat. And another across my left collarbone and trapezius from the meat cleaver. I was lucky in that I dodged that one a little better; he didn’t go too deep and sever the brachial plexus nerve complex like he intended.”
“Jesus, Elric.”
Ed popped a piece of chicken in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Not the worst injuries ever.”
“... And there were others? Before the BAU?”
“The other guy I met several years later. He was a mission based revenge killer. I was just kind of a bonus, but he had a real thing for Roy and anyone that was involved with a certain conflict in the military. I can’t really blame him.” Ed was quiet for a moment. “He was one of the few serial killers I’ve ever met who I’d say was justified in what he did. He also stopped killing and worked on some political stuff later on to help his people.”
“Wait, he was never imprisoned? And why were you a bonus? How does Roy play into all of this?”
Ed snorted, “Okay, that part is kind of complicated and you’d have to understand the international politics at play there… that I am not at liberty to discuss.”
“You know, I have contacts at Interpol who can verify all this.”
Morgan, from across the table, saw Ed bristle. “I’m not lying and I don’t care if you think I am. I swear you guys, one day you might get my life story from me, but you wouldn’t believe half of it.”
“What a hell of a story it must be, judging from what little we’ve been able to squeeze out of you over the last few years.” Morgan offered placatingly. He’d initially chosen to stay silent during this exchange, but he could see Ed’s temper flare at the implication of accusation of lying. “You gotta admit though, you’ve got an unusual background.”
“Are you even from Germany? None of this sounds like anything I’ve heard of happening in Germany.” Prentiss asked candidly as she stared him down from across the table. ,,Do you even speak German?,, she asked, her German pronunciation clear and well practiced.
Ed hated himself as he hesitated. That was all the answer they needed. He wished Roy were here, Roy was far better at manipulating people, telling half truths and spinning believable tales thjat justified their existence in this world. Hell, he figured Roy would not have made a terrible profiler himself, except the man had zero interest in those kinds of people puzzles.
But Roy wasn’t here. And he assumed that outside of his immediate BAU team, very few people even within the Bureau knew that his background was entirely fabricated. He assumed Garcia had something to do with that. Even Strauss, when he met the woman who claimed to have an entire dossier on him, he had bristled, wondering if he was going to be escorted out of the building and possibly into a jail cell for the not-so-legal documents and manipulations it took to make it that far into even the FBI academy… only to discover that she only had what Ed’s US Marshall contact had provided Rossi. The rest of Ed and Roy’s sleight-of-hands in documentation had gone unnoticed by the Bureau.
Or at least, Garcia hadn’t called him out on them yet.
He hadn’t worked with Prentiss long. All he had known about the woman was that she had previously worked for the BAU and was now head of Interpol, which meant that she was a heavy hitter in terms of her knowledge of international conflicts and contacts. That made her a wildcard in Ed’s carefully constructed facade.
He didn’t try to deny it. He was surrounded by a team of the best psychological profilers in the country. Lying would bring even more questions and they already overlooked so many of his quirks.
,,I speak a dialect as my native tongue,, he answered in flawless Amestrian. It was similar enough that it may as well have been a dialect of German. His dialect was foreign enough it meant she wouldn’t be able to pin down any specific region in Germany that he’d be from, which didn’t exactly help his cause. ,,Please let me know if you figure out where I’m from. I’d like to go home.,, He half-joked.
“I understood you, but I haven’t heard intonations like that before. You speak English really well, I’d honestly have never guessed you weren’t a native speaker.”
Creta and English were similar enough, and Ed and Roy’s miraculous knowledge came from the fact that Truth didn’t decide to screw them over completely when it dropped them into this universe, Ed thought to himself before he answered, somewhat bitterly. “It was a gift I didn’t want.”
Prentiss wasn’t sure how to answer that.
“If we can be done with this interrogation, my food is getting cold.” Ed complained.
His team took the deflection for what it was, and left him in peace to enjoy the remainder of his meal. He pushed it around his plate and found he had lost his appetite in favor of a sense of longing for home.
This isn’t my home, he reminded himself bitterly. I’ll get us back one day.
The team let several minutes of silence pass, an awkward air about them. Ed was about to stand and go pay his portion of the bill when JJ cleared her throat awkwardly.
“Henry’s birthday is coming up. Will and I are hosting a party next weekend, if anyone is interested in joining. It will be an outdoor party, lots of water guns and water balloons. He’s going to a sleepover at a friend’s after, so Will and I figured if anyone wanted to come help, we’d open the bar once the kids were gone. Significant others are welcome, of course.”
Ed had a really, really hard time saying no to JJ.
“Yeah, Roy and I will be there.” With that he stood and made his way to the register.
“Where on Earth did you find that guy?” Prentiss asked the table.
“He wasn’t lying when he said Rossi kidnapped him from University.” Reid said.
“It wasn’t kidnapping!” Rossi protested.
“I don’t know, man. He was creepy at that seminar.” Morgan said. “But you didn’t exactly give him a lot in terms of options from what I heard.”
“He hung up on me the first three times I called him.” Rossi said, rolling his eyes.
“But you also didn’t take no for an answer.” Morgan pointed out.
“How could I? He’s brilliant. Just a little sketchy.”
“A little- We don’t even know what country he’s from!” Prentiss poined out.
“And he has been a valuable asset to this team for several years now.” Rossi said frankly. “Don’t go rocking the boat and ruin a good thing. He’s not the only one with a past he doesn’t want to share.” He looked at he steadily.
She huffed a breath and grit her teeth.
She didn’t know what about Elric that set her on edge, but this Mysterious Past bullshit Elric was playing at was not kosher and she couldn't believe the rest of the team just accepted it.
In time, she thought. She knew a thing or two about playing the long game.