Vol.2 Ch.37 - Acceptance and recovery

About a week after the funeral and things seemed to be calming down a bit.Of course, losing Carter meant ARA would be taking a heavy blow, this goesfor Cecily as well. Although, she didn’t seem to be all too shaken up, at leastwhen viewed from the outside.Since Ed was still a bit gloomy, I had expected Cecily to still be bawling hereyes out, even now, but she’s actually doing quite the opposite.“Goochigoo! Peekaboo!” she said, tickling Nelly all over.It appears they’ve bonded quite well after a while. Guess even she noticedbeing mad at a baby wasn’t the best way to handle loss. I inquired about whatshe’s planning to do with her, since we didn’t manage to find her parents.“I’ll adopt her, of course!” She answered back with incredible speed.“A-Adopt?” I repeated after her, “Aren’t you too young to be a parent?”“Nonsense, Lune! You’re never too young to take care of this precious bundleof joy!” She said, raising Nelly up with her arms. “Besides, if I don’t takecare of her, then he’d probably be angry with me…” she said, slowlybringing Nelly close to her chest as she quieted down.…Yeah, he did his best to save Nelly, so us not following his actionsthrough would probably make him at least a bit mad. I know I’d be mad atEd if I suddenly died and he just went home or something…“In any case,” she turned to me, “let’s use this opportunity to practiceparenting!”And with that bold proclamation, we ran up to the Generals in search of anytips.“I wouldn’t know.” Said Aaron, suspiciously turning his gaze away from us.“I’m a General, not a father. I’m afraid I can’t help you young ones with thisproblem. ” Jorgen said as he sipped his cup of tea.“Obviously!” Max looked like he had an answer, “A healthy child needs tobe surrounded by love and affection.”We told him we already gave Nelly enough of that to begin with.“Not to her!” He yelled back, “Well, of course you need to give her love, butkids need to see their parents flirt and stuff. Imagine if you grew up withparents who bickered all the time, you’d probably grow up a bickerer too!”What he said made sense to me, but Cecily obviously couldn’t understand theanalogy Max presented to us. Even still, we didn’t really like the idea…Flirting was quite difficult with just the two of us alone, even more so whensomeone’s watching us, so we asked if he knew of anything else.“Well then,” he raised his eyes up-right as he tried to think of anything else.“Oh, that’s right! Right now, you don’t really have any info on Nelly safefrom her name, so you should probably get that put into the town registry.”“The town registry?” we asked.“Well yeah, every kid has to have their documents ready when they’re born.Stuff like full name, date of birth, their birthplace…” he started naming offall the basic stuff. “If they don’t have this crucial information in the registry,they won’t be able to get any legal documents, meaning they won’t beallowed to enroll in school, try for the ITA exams, meaning they won’t havethe ability to get passports, meaning…”I finished his sentence, “No leaving the country?”He snapped his fingers at me with a Bingo! and continued:“The whole process isn’t all that difficult, just go to the town hall and inquireabout it, I’m sure they’ll fill you in on the details.” He said with a smile.“Great!” We finished our conversation, “Thanks again, Max!”“Anything for the young couple!” He smugly added back as we left the room,making us jump a bit.And with that, we made our way to the town hall…!***The town hall was essentially just a bigger two story house, or at least that’swhat it looked like from the outside, but as we entered it we realized it’s alot more elegant than that. It had multiple people manning the register, andright next to the door was a porter who instructed us to pick out a numberfrom a box in front of us. He then explained that we needed to wait for ournumber to be called out before we could proceed to the booth.Cecily was a bit too overwhelmed by all this paperwork, but I was quiteused to it as Ed and I had to take similar measures when we were getting ourpassports done.We were sat for a few more minutes before our number got called up and avoice called out to us from booth #4.“Hello! We’d like to put this little girl up in the registry.” I said to the womanworking the booth.She looked at us funny, even doing a double-take, before asking the question Iwas all too afraid to answer.“Is this your child?” She said.Now I didn’t really know what to say, but technically speaking we are hercaretakers. I guess presenting ourselves as such would suffic-“Yep! Nelly’s our child!” Said Cecily, grabbing me from under my arm.Again, the woman couldn’t believe what she heard, and I was just aboutready to die inside from shame, but I guess she didn’t really feel all toojudgmental, so she continued with the registry.“Ooookay… Well then, if you want to register this girl, I’ll need a name, dateof birth, and birthplace for starters.” She said.“Nelly… Grimheart.” I said with a flushed face. “She was born here inBilgam, and her date of birth is…” I stopped after realizing I didn’t reallyknow when Nelly was born, so I looked over to Cecily, in hopes of herfinishing my sentence.“April 15th, 1020AD” She said after thinking in silence for a bit.But that’s the day of Carter’s… death.I looked at her with a worried expression, but she simply smiled back andwhispered That’s when he found her, right?“Alright then, so from your previous registry entries, this child willhenceforth be Nelly Grimheart, born on the 15th of April in the year 1020ADand is the daughter of Lune Grimheart and Cecily Grimheart, correct?” Thewoman working the booth said something embarrassing.“A-Actually! We’re not married yet!” I quickly corrected her.“Figures…” the woman said with a scoff. What ever happened to beingnon-judgmental, ya’ damned broad…We had to wait for their professional artist to show up and paint her portrait,so they could finalize Nelly’s registration, but apart from that it was basicallysmooth sailing.Leaving the town hall, I was quite frustrated with the whole ordeal. I neverreally liked paperwork, but I guess since it’s for Nelly's future, I had nochoice but to endure that damned woman’s tyranny... Cecily was giggling andsmiling to herself the whole way through, though.“What’s got you so happy?” I asked.“Oh, nothing…” She said, lightly blushing, “It’s just, when she mistook mefor a Grimheart, I just got really happy somehow.”Nelly’s officially our daughter as of now, but I still think she’s second toCecily in terms of cuteness… by a small margin, though.I don’t even know how it happened, but before I knew it I had apparentlyleaned in and kissed Cecily right on the lips. This shocked both of us, but I’dargue it shocked me more, honestly.“Where’d that come from?” she said with a flushed expression.“Guess that’s our first kiss…?” I answered back with a similar expression tohers.“Humu, I wonder about that…” she giggled to herself, as if rememberingsomething from the past.“Hey, what do you mean by that? Huh??” I started interrogating her on thespot, but she simply giggled on without revealing anything.Suffice it to say, Nelly was quite happy upon witnessing us flirting. GuessMax was right about that one…***Now that Nelly’s documents are done and dusted, we were left with thebigger issue at hand. Namely, Neo Urbana’s attack just a week ago that gotCarter killed. Cecily declared war on them back during his funeral, but Idon’t think we’re in such a position strength-wise to go up against them.We decided to lay back for now and regain our strength, so that’s why wehave so much time on our hands. I decided to visit Ed in the Medical Sectorto check up on him.“…Ed?” I knocked on the door of his room.“…….” No one answered back, so I had to enter without permission.“…Grim, ugh, fuck…” He said, lying on the floor hung over.His room was all but destroyed, or at least that's how it looked like. I guesshe didn't really take the news of Carter's passing all too well, and seeing hisburnt corpse was probably quite disheartening, but if Cecily and everyoneelse is trying their best to move on for the sake of the gang, then I don't seewhy he gets special permission on that front. Honestly, I just wanna drag himback out into the sunlight, as he could use some vitamin D...“Jeez, this place is a pigsty! Ed, since when were you a drinker?” I criticizedhis way of coping.“Since I started drinking, dipass!” He hissed back with an annoying retort,before barely picking himself up from the ground.“Whoa! You kept all the badges from the places we visited!” I stopped tocommend him for keeping those safe at least. “Remember this heart shapedone we bought when we entered Bilgam? We didn’t know a lick of the Hianiclanguage back then, and now look at us!”“Grim, get out of my room and leave me to drown in my sorrows.” Ed said,weakly pushing me to the door as he reached for another bottle.He tried chugging the bottle, but it was already empty. Honestly, that patheticsight kind of made me laugh at him. The person who's earned my respectthroughout my entire life decided to stoop this low, just this thought wasenough to make me sick. When I remember the little boy who used to talkwith Harper back in Springwood the whole afternoon, I... That's it!“What would Harper think, c’mon man! What would Anna think?!” I shookhim up by the collar.“They’d, ugh, they’d think I’m a failure for not saving my friend…” heslouched.“Wrong, they’d think you’re a failure for day drinking, now get the fuck out ofthis room and get a hold of yourself. Carter would laugh at you for lookinglike this much of a mess over him.” I tried reassuring him.“Shut the fuck up!” he lashed out, “How the fuck do you know how he’d reactto seeing me look like this much of a mess! We’re you his best friend?Huh?!”Hey, Carter was a friend of mine as well! And to act like I didn’t knowhim…!I promptly threw him out of the room.“Let’s go for a walk. For old time’s sake.” I said, a bit pissed off at him.We had made our way across town, with each passing store I had hoped tolift Ed's spirits as much as I possibly could. I know that losing someone istough, but if you don’t pick yourself up, then it’s basically like you died aswell…I decided to use this time we had to talk about our future plans.“We’ll be fighting Neo Urbana in a couple months, afterwards we’ll head offwith Cecily and Nelly to the next country. Got any opinions on that?”“……” He kept walking silently.“…Cecily and I adopted Nelly.” I said offhandedly, not thinking too muchabout the bombshell I just dropped.“You two did!?” He looked over at me with wide open eyes, “Heh, lookslike mine and Carter’s plan really did work out, huh? You’re already at thatstage!” He joked with a bit more vigor than before.“Y-Yeah...” I said with a flushed expression, “By the way, why did you guyseven try getting Cecily and me together?” I asked.“Well,” Ed reminisced with a warm smile, “to tell you the truth, it wasCarter’s idea. He noticed Cecily stealing glances at you from the start, so hetold me to help you guys out.”“Ya’ knuckleheads… Thanks.” I smiled as I gave him a one armed hug, "Hey,when Cecily and I get married some day, promise you'll stick around to bethe best man? You'll have to do Carter's job and be my brother-in-law aswell though...""I'd be honored." Ed finally smiled honestly for the first time in a while.We had made it to a tourist shop by the time Ed started opening up a bit. Iused the momentum to suggest we buy something as a memento for our time inGreat Hiana.“Sure,” he said, looking around for anything that suited the theme, “howabout this?”What he grabbed was a pocket knife, and while I do understand that that wassupposed to commemorate our time as Generals of ARA, I don’t like the ideaof having to explain to the border police why we’re carrying a sharp weaponwith us every time we have to pass a border…“Hmm, then how about… this!” He said, picking up a magnetic badge with ared Band-Aid plastered on it.Ed…To the rest of Bilgam, that badge refers to a local hospital with that logo, butto us, it reminds us of a certain red haired boy with a signature cool lookingBand-Aid on his nose…“Yeah… That’s perfect.” I ultimately wanted to immortalize him too, so Iwent ahead and approved of Ed’s choice.After we had made it back, Cecily asked about how Ed was doing.“He’s still recovering, but I think he’ll be fine.” I said as I reassured her.Just then, Aaron quickly ran up to us, looking like he just experienced the winof a century.“You guys!” He said in between breaths, “We just got word that Neo Urbanawasn’t behind the messenger attack! And the real Neo Urbana just barelywon against Gilgamore Gang!”“Okay…?” We said, waiting for him to explain what’s so good about thissupposedly disconnected turn of events.“It means” he elaborated, “Gilgamore Gang was behind that attack, and NeoUrbana just destroyed them! And on top of that, Neo Urbana is heavilywounded, more so than we are! We’re in a prime position to sign a peacetreaty between the two gangs and rise out on top of this godforsakenunderworld by splitting the pay between us 50/50!”This news was amazing, as we not only lost another enemy without somuch as lifting a finger, but we also got word of our final enemy wantingpeace! But this could also be a trap, so we must proceed with caution…I explained to Aaron this possibility, but agreed to follow him and sign thetreaty anyways. He was glad, and told me another interesting fact.“Ed said he’ll be coming, too.”“Whoa, is he gonna be alright?” I asked, just in case.“Lune.” Cecily pointed her gaze towards me, “He’ll be fine, believe in him.”“Yeah… Well then, prepare a wagon for departure. We ride at dawn…”