It had been long enough.

Kimblee slammed his coffee cup down on the side table, standing abruptly from his chair. He paced across the room, gazing out of the window down towards the city streets.

He hated it when these sorts of obsessions popped up in his mind; he couldn't prepare adequately for them, and his mind and body would act in ways that made him uncomfortable. But this thought had been recurring for months now…

It had been long enough.

Kimblee had returned from Briggs feeling empty and unsatisfied. Shamed on the way there, helpless until the homunculi could descend to him with healing help (he could never forget that horrible feeling of being caught off-guard by his prey… that was worse than any physical pain could ever be), Kimblee had been kept from doing his Job by a multitude of obstacles.

That Job, of course, was to kill Scar, and capture Dr Marcoh. He'd been given that job three months ago, and had still neglected to carry it out.

It wasn't entirely his fault. Pride, with all of his snapping teeth and swirling blackness, had assured him that carving the blood seal in the North was far more important than a simple search-and-destroy mission. And once Kimblee had carried that out and arrived back in Central, Wrath, with all of his imperial authority, had given him little job upon little job to complete, with hardly any chance to returning to the job that he'd first been given upon leaving prison. Seemingly, the threat of Scar no longer concerned the homunculi, and Dr. Marcoh's capture was no longer a priority.

Kimblee wondered why that was.

After all, the job had seemed very important to Envy at the time.

The thought of Envy was unexpected; after all, Kimblee had had no reason to think of Envy for some time. They had let him out of jail, given him a job, and left him alone, and that was that. He hadn't seen them since that sunny day in October in the car, and since then, Wrath, and occasionally Pride, had given Kimblee his orders.

Envy, ever the enigma, had vanished from the face of the earth, and had left Kimblee trying to sort out the pieces of what his release actually meant.

All that he'd done since returning from carving the blood seal in Briggs was, essentially, running errands. Wrath would call him, and he'd do whatever inane little task the Fuhrer gave him. The jobs were tolerable, but hardly gave him the coveted rush of adrenaline that Ishval had given him years ago. Anybody could do these jobs, really—Kimblee was simply the most convenient tool available to carry them out.

But anyone could do them, and that's what bothered him.

If Scar wasn't important, and if Dr. Marcoh wasn't important, then why had he been released under that false pretense?

Surely they were important, and the homunculi only had other priorities at the moment, but...

Leaving a job undone bothered him terribly; Envy knew that, they knew far too much, and they had used that knowledge against him, to motivate him to complete the job—"You're not going to leave this undone like the other ones, are you?"

Kimblee let out a breath that he didn't know he'd been holding, leaning a fist against the windowpane.

Perhaps the reason why Envy had left him alone was that he hadn't been capable of completing the job that they had thought he would so enjoy…

Three months earlier...

"I did… miss you." The words felt far more sentimental than Kimblee had intended, and he amended them with a cough. "There wasn't much entertainment in prison, after all."

"O-oh, really?" Envy looked to the backseat briefly, the ever-present grin only slightly more sober than usual. "Well. Glad to know that I'm charming, fun to be around, amusing—"

"—all of that, and so much more," finished Kimblee wryly. He adjusted his hat sharply, and looked out the window. "What I mean by that is…" It was hard to word these things properly, somehow… "I'm wondering if things are going to be going back to normal now."

It was hard to even explain what he meant by normal.

Prison had been a form of quiet torture for Kimblee. Not in a physical sense, or even in the sense that ordinary people would mentally feel anxious, or worried, or desperate for freedom. It was a quiet trial for him, easily endured, but torturous because of that separation from the euphoria that Kimblee had only ever known in Ishval. The restlessness in his core hadn't left until today, until the warden had announced Kimblee's freedom, and Kimblee leaned against the seat's backrest, trying to alleviate the seven years' nervous tension in his muscles that had still not died away completely.

The normal that Kimblee wanted really wasn't normal at all, he supposed. He wanted a return to that bliss of years past: permission to kill, and the gift of indescribable power, and the scintillating conversations with the fascinating creature that he'd enjoyed cooperating with so very much. These concepts were the things that he'd held onto throughout these past years, and the promise of a return to that atmosphere was what kept him content all of this time. It was the normal that he wanted.

How silly, really; he almost felt… nostalgic, recalling such things.

"Normal, eh?" Envy didn't look back this time. "And normal is…"

"... working with you again." He might as well get straight to the point. The difficult thing was judging what Envy really did think of him. They had shared a strong kinship in Ishval; at least, Kimblee had felt that they had, but Envy did have other things to think about over these years, while Kimblee had not. It was hard to know whether Envy would take his answer in stride or would be puzzled about it. The way to keep from making a fool of himself was to downplay the question's importance. "We do make a good team, no?" He smiled, shrugging. "Of course it was a long time ago, so you might not remember."

The car slowed as it approached the red light, and Envy's grin, still more subdued than usual, looked back towards him once again. "No, I remember, don't worry," they said, more softly than he'd expected.

"Don't worry," Envy said again after a pause. The light was green again, and the car accelerated. "Don't worry. I've got lots of plans. I've got a lot to use you for. But you've just got to be patient, 'kay? We've got to take things one step at a time. You do these jobs- these jobs that I picked out for you because I thought you'd like them and be good at them—and then we'll see what happens."

The response was a curious mixture of flippancy and sincerity that Kimblee wasn't quite sure what to make of. He chose the route of resignation. "Ah, well, if you say so," he said lightly, looking down at his fingers, lacing them in between each other.

"Aw, you don't believe me?" Envy shook their head, continuing to stare at the road ahead. "Look, Crimson. Father… the others, well… they have specific ideas of what you're supposed to do, and they don't necessarily involve me anymore." They shrugged. "I have lots of responsibilities now, y'know. There's a lot of work for me to do. There's no time for rolling around on sand dunes anymore."

"I never did that," said Kimblee seriously, yet unable to hide his smile entirely.

"Heh. I beg to differ," said Envy with a grin. With a toss of their hair, they turned back to the road. "Anyway. Just do what you're supposed to, and we'll see what happens next. Understand?"

"Completely."

It was irritating, Kimblee thought, that the human voice was incapable of completely masking the feeling of discontent. Envy could hear it, he was sure of it.

"I didn't forget about you." It was uncanny how Envy could read his mind. "And I won't." They looked over the backseat with a smile that seemed almost genuine. "You're my alchemist, right? No way would I forget about what's mine." Once again, they turned back to the road. "Just do what you're supposed to, 'kay?"

Kimblee could certainly argue with that- he'd been "forgotten" for seven years, after all. But he chose to take the words as a reassurance. "If you say so," he repeated, smiling out of the back window, enjoying the looks of the curious pedestrians as the car sped towards his new job, a chance to finally make himself useful and active after so many wasted days.

The phone rang.

Kimblee only picked it up because there was nothing else to do. He knew that it would only be another job from Wrath, something that anybody could do, something that didn't require a specialist of any kind, something with no beauty. But he picked it up regardless.

"M-Mr. Kimblee…" The expected voice of the Fuhrer was missing, and in its place was another man's, young, quiet, generic, and nervous. "You're wanted down at the station. There's some sorting out to do…"

How… irritating.

"Elaboration, if you please," he said, leaning against the wall. "What exactly do you need me for?"

The man mumbled something nonsensical that Kimblee, to his annoyance, couldn't make out. "Excuse me?" he asked, holding the receiver closer to his ear.

"R-really, it's just a bunch of little problems around the city that've been building up…" The man coughed, then continued. "We haven't been able to focus on domestic matters for quite awhile because of all of the military conflict, and we've finally gotten enough men to work on settling some of these smaller problems. The Fuhrer wants you to head delegations since you're so good at that…"

Really? Domestic issues? How unflattering… Kimblee was no better than damage control, then.

"Surely you can handle minor disturbances yourself? I do have important matters to attend to…"

"Th-the Fuhrer said…" The man trailed off nervously, and Kimblee sighed. In his current position, he really couldn't protest any further, despite his longing to get back to the Job that really mattered.

"Very well. I'll be over to HQ as soon as possible," he said, hanging up before the soldier could stutter out another reply. He put on his hat carelessly, buttoned his coat, and strode out of the door. The sooner that he arrived, the sooner that he could return to his thoughts of completing his work. Really, there was no acceptable reason for Scar to still be on the loose. Once he completed these small tasks, perhaps he could broach the subject to Wrath–or even find out where Envy had vanished to.

Really, it had been long enough. He had to make some kind of progress today.

Delegations, it seemed, were more time-consuming than Kimblee remembered. Of course, the last time that he had done this, he had been consumed with the thrill of chasing Scar, but organizing and sending out groups of soldiers to deal with gangs of small-time criminals and other such domestic matters was hardly entertaining. He'd arrived here at noon, and the sun was beginning to set now as he shuffled through one last stack of files.

"Thanks for your help, sir," said the nervous young man who had called him here (Denny Brosh, was it? Kimblee would remember that). "If you don't need any more help, do you mind if…?"

Kimblee could see the apprehension behind the man's pleasant mask. Of course, it was only natural for him to be anxious around the murderer of five high officials. Well, Kimblee hardly cared if the young man went home. "Very well. You may leave, if that's what you want."

"Ah. Yes, sir. Goodnight, sir." Brosh turned to leave.

"Excuse me, wait." Kimblee stopped, staring down towards the file in his hand. "What's this?"

Brosh turned back, then winced. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm… rather new to this job and haven't sorted out all of the files yet…"

"No, I mean, when was this picture taken?" This photo looked interesting, very interesting, but Kimblee wasn't about to get his hopes up just yet.

Brosh leaned over Kimblee's shoulder, taking in the information on the paper with squinting eyes. "Oh. That's back from October, before your release."

The photo was of Scar—Kimblee recognized him instantly–but he didn't recognize the small girl standing next to him. Her face was unclear, blurred with movement, but Kimblee could tell from her dress and hairstyle that she was a foreigner.

"What do you know about this girl?" Kimblee asked, looking up. He kept his voice as casual as possible; there was really nothing immensely exciting to most people's eyes in this photo, and there was no sense in putting Brosh on edge over a potentially-trivial photo from months ago.

"H-honestly very little," stuttered Brosh. "This is the only photo of the two of them… but if you're asking me, I'd guess that they're allies. After all, she's not running from him, and he's not attacking her."

Brosh had a point–although Kimblee doubted that Scar was targeting children, given his previous targets and his history, an ordinary child would hardly stand happily nearby a wanted criminal. It was certainly possible that they were allies in some capacity. Scar, it seemed, was less worthy of Kimblee's respect than Kimblee had anticipated; what "good" man would bring a child with him into danger? But the connection of a second party with Scar was very interesting; other than the missing Dr. Marcoh, Kimblee hadn't known that Scar was associated with anybody else.

This girl, if she was indeed closely connected with Scar, would help him considerably. If he found Scar, this girl, or the doctor alone, then there was a chance that either of the other two would be close by… of course, that was one of many, many assumptions, and the photo was a few months old at this point, but the idea that he had found even the slightest bit of a lead stirred up a thrill in his core that refused to subside.

"Sir?" Brosh stared curiously downwards. "Is… is there anything else that I can help with?"

Kimblee paused; there was no need for him to remain. "No… no thank you, soldier. You may leave. I'll tidy up."

Brosh, nodding gratefully, made his way out of the door, leaving Kimblee alone with his thoughts.

This photo was a small lead, barely a thread. But finding something, anything new related to the Scar case was unreasonably exciting. Now that he had found a new piece of information, the running thoughts that had been burning in the back of Kimblee's mind for weeks were doubled in force.

He'd find Scar. He'd kill him. Then he would find Marcoh and bring him back here; they'd wanted him before, so surely they could use him for something now.

It was only a matter of getting away from Central to carry out the deed… It seemed as though he would need to pay Wrath a visit. Kimblee would plan out his case carefully. If all went well, he would be allowed to leave without any difficulty.

And if it didn't go well… Kimblee would find a way to leave without the Fuhrer's permission. It had been far too long without completing his symphony.

A/N: Erm... so I'm finally starting a Kimvy longfic...! Please forgive me for mistakes; this is the first serious long story that I've ever attempted to write, and I'm sure that I'll make all sorts of errors with pacing and overarching themes and whatnot; I aim to improve as the story progresses. It's probably going to take a little bit to get into the action, so I hope that it isn't too boring to begin. If you've read my other Kimvy stories, you'll notice as time goes on that it's related to a certain AU of mine, but it won't be exactly the same and will hopefully expand on some of those small ideas I introduced in one-shots.

Updates will probably be slow-ish, unfortunately; I'm a very slow writer, but I'll see if I can do it weekly. Big thanks to the writer Sevv for beginning a Kimvy longfic and getting me into writing this one that's been bouncing around in my brain for months now. Thank you for reading; I hope you enjoyed it!