The rest of the trip passed easily and soon they were pulling into the station in Central. When they arrived, there was a car waiting to pick up Adrienne. Nina recognized the driver as the same who had driven her the night she had gone to Dr. Rothstein’s for dinner. Nina couldn’t remember his name though she thought it might be Jeffery.
Adrienne got his bags and the driver took them and put them in the trunk. Adrienne then took Nina aside and hugged her close. As he did he whispered in her ear. “I’m going to see if I can get into my father’s lab. If he has Amy I’ll find her.”
Keeping up the act that they were just saying their good-byes, Nina snuggled into him a bit as she hugged him back. “I wish you wouldn’t do it alone but I know I can’t stop you, just be careful alright? Let me know if you find anything.”
Letting her go he smiled at her and nodded giving Nina her answer. “Love you,” he said softly putting his hand to her cheek then gently withdrawing it as he turned to go.
“You too…” she said softly.
Edward then came up behind Nina and put his hand on her shoulder. “He’ll be alright Nina. Come on, we have to get you and the boys back to the dorms. Classes start again first thing tomorrow morning. We can’t let anything appear out of the ordinary.”
Nina felt like her heart was breaking as she watched the car drive away but she knew that her father was right, they had to get moving as well. Taking up their bags they all piled into another car that Mustang had arranged for them and headed off to the school.
When they arrived at the school, there were droves of people doing the same as they were, returning to the dorms. As they got out of the car, Nina spotted Julia and waved.
Edward looked at the girl she was waving too then back at Nina. “Who’s that?”
Nina just shook her head and laughed. “That’s my roommate, Julia. I’m surprised you don’t recognize her, she’s Winry’s daughter.”
“Your roommate is Winry’s daughter? Huh, I never figured that she’d send her here…”
“That’s what I said when I first saw she was my roommate. From what I could get from her I guess it was more of her dad that allowed her to come here not Winry.”
“Yeah well, Winry never was a fan of alchemy…” Edward said shrugging it off. “Oh well, come on, let’s get you settled in.”
Edward picked up his bags and Nina’s and went inside, Nina following close behind. Riley and Austin had already gone on ahead of them when they saw Breda and Fury waiting for them. Edward dropped off Nina’s things then headed down to the main office to find out where they wanted him to go. As part of his temporary transfer, it had also been arranged that Edward would stay in the dorms in place of the current advisor so he could better keep an eye on things.
“I’m sorry about what happened to Amy,” Julia said as Nina was putting her things away. “I hope they find her soon.”
Nina stopped what she was doing and hung her head. “Yeah, I hope so too…”
“Is it true that you and Riley were there when she was taken?”
Nina nodded. “Yeah and there was nothing we could do to stop it… look… I appreciate that you’re concerned but would it be alright if we didn’t talk about it?”
Julia smiled and nodded. “Yeah, sorry, I know it’s gotta be rough…”
“It’s alright. So how was your break?” Nina asked trying to make conversation that wasn’t awkward.
Julia just shrugged. “Pretty boring honestly, but then such is life when you’re surrounded by nothing but obsessive automailers,” she replied with a laugh. “Even worse when you live with one.”
Nina couldn’t help but to laugh. “Yeah, my dad’s told me what a gear head your mom can be though she never seemed to act that way when we were there…”
“Yeah well, Mom acts weird when he’s around. I have no idea why, at least not why she’d be like that now. I guess it doesn’t exactly matter really.”
“Yeah, Dad gets a little weird sometimes when talking about her. I guess there are just some things in the past that no matter what you do you can’t completely forget them…” Nina said now wishing that this hadn’t gotten brought up. She had hoped for a conversation that wasn’t awkward but this one seemed to ea as awkward as it got. “I’ll be back in a little bit,” she said needing to escape. Nina hated to admit it, but right now she actually wanted to be around the Moron Squad.
Julia nodded and Nina left the room heading downstairs to Riley’s room. When she arrived, all four of the Moron Squad was there. That figured, it was rare when they weren’t all joined at the hip. Seeing Nina at the door didn’t surprise them in the least.
“I was wondering how long it was going to be before you showed up here,” Riley said with a laugh.
Nina stuck her tongue out at him. “I couldn’t take the awkward conversation with Julia and we already know I’m not the most popular person around here so…”
“Yeah yeah, I get it. You’re always welcome down here though Nina, I know things aren’t exactly easy right now.”
Going over and sitting on the bed next to Breda and Austin, Nina slumped a bit and sighed. “Thanks for that Riley…” she said softly. “Ever since I got back, things seemed to feel worse. It’s like they’re glowering at me because here I am, supposedly this super prodigy of an alchemist and I couldn’t even save my own sister…”
Seeing Nina like this, Austin couldn’t help but to give her a hug. It was a good thing Julia hadn’t come down here with her to see it or things would have REALLY been awkward. “It’ll be alright, we’ll find Amy. Those people out there, they don’t matter, let them think what they want. We were there; we know the truth about what happened, they don’t. You don’t normally let them get to you or care what they say so don’t start now alright?”
“You’re right Austin,” she replied nodding. “It just sucks that’s all. I wish they’d remember I’m no more or less human than they are.” Nina just rolled her eyes. “Idiots…”
This made the entire room laugh. Something about Nina calling the rest of the school idiots was funny in its irony because next to her, they all pretty much were.
As they were laughing, Edward appeared in the door. “Well it’s good to see you guys are laughing for a change,” he said grinning at them.
“Hey Dad, what’s up?”
“I just wanted to let you guys know that they’ve got me in the room just by the entrance to the rest of the student rooms if you need me. Don’t forget, not a word to anyone about what we talked about on the train, though I’m sure Riley and Austin, you’ve filled in your other two friends here. I’m pretty sure the walls around here have ears and their hearing is damn good…”
Riley nodded. “I have and they’re going to be helping us out if that’s alright.”
“That’s fine, we already know that they’re safe to trust and we can certainly use the help.”
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