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Hawkeye never did understand Mustang's blind hatred for paperwork, but after being buried in it for the past few days, preparing for their transfer to Central, she's beginning to.

She barely has time to search for an apartment. Curled up on her couch at night, eating Xingese takeout, she'd pored over the rent ads in the Central Times, circling the ones which professed that they allowed pets in pencil. She found a few somewhat-affordable places, but she'll have to tour them to find out if she'll be able to sleep there or not.

Hawkeye requires a cold room with heavy locks to sleep in. Temperatures over 15 degrees Celsius at night remind her too much of Ishval. Thankfully, she's got room in the budget for a military hotel stay until she finds a suitable place.

It's these thoughts which occupy her mind as she signs file requests and requisition forms. She's glad she has Milliways to do extra paperwork in; she'd never get it all done otherwise.

Mustang appears in the doorway, prompting a salute from everyone in the office.

"Lieutenant, we have to go to Central," Mustang croaks, his eyes glassy. "For a funeral."

A stone sinks in Hawkeye's stomach. Only one man's death could bring Mustang to his proverbial knees. One man, who shouldn't be dead. A man who works in Intelligence, at a desk, and should not be dead.

"Whose?" Hawkeye says, drawing a shuddering breath.

"Maes Hughes'."

The next sighting of Scar, the alchemist killer, isn't really a sighting at all: there's an explosion on the Marl River, and Hawkeye pulls his bloody, yellow jacket from the debris. Mustang is determined to catch him because, from his logic, if the teams in Central can't handle the case and he can, his "stock would go up," enabling him a better shot at the Fuhrer's office.

The colonel orders Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc to dig through the exploded sewer debris for Scar's body. On the fourth day with no results--except for a dozen bloated bodies dredged from the river that are too decomposed to identify--Mustang sends Hawkeye to supervise.

Hawkeye adores Havoc, but it never fails to surprise her just how much he can whine about a job. Granted, this is a particularly nasty one, dealing with waterlogged corpses.

"The colonel said he can't relax on dates until this job is done," Havoc starts, trying to light up his third damp cigarette of the hour as his men canvass the river. "But he's got us working here day and night, no breaks, so when am I gonna be able to go on a date, huh?"

Hawkeye smiles briefly, wrinkling her nose at the odor. "I'm sure you'll be able to go on one soon. Just find Scar."

"'Just find Scar,' she says." Havoc scoffs, puffing away on his cig. "As if it's that easy. Meanwhile, I could be meeting babes."

Hawkeye doesn't laugh, but she's tempted to. "The colonel doesn't care about your love life, Lieutenant. He wants results."

"Right, right, he doesn't care," Havoc says sullenly, "except when he's stealing my girlfriends!"

Hawkeye exhales through her nose. Havoc, sensing the impending storm, wisely shuts up.

On the hunt for the Elric brothers throughout East City--before Scar, the alchemist killer, can get to them--Hawkeye drives.

Of course she does. Hawkeye loves the man, but Mustang can't drive his way out of a paper bag. His knee jiggles continuously on the ride to Shou Tucker's estate. This annoys her, but she doesn't tell him to stop, merely concentrates on getting to the boys as soon as possible.

In the seat behind her, Second Lieutenant Havoc lights up a cigarette. He's not in the office, and he's nervous, so clearly he thinks smoking in the field is fine. There are eleven soldiers all together--including the large Major Armstrong, the Strong Arm Alchemist--speeding along the streets in three separate cars.

When they arrive at the Tucker estate, screeching to a halt on the curb, they find that the boys are not there. Clearly there's been a fight; residue from alchemical equations are everywhere.

"Where could they be?" Havoc says, puffing along like a chimney.

"Put that out," Hawkeye says, and he obediently drops the cig to the ground and crushes the lit cherry under his heel.

East City smells like rain and car exhaust and desperation. The clouds roll in, dark and thunderous, pregnant with a storm. The first few scattered drops fall on the soldiers' heads, and Havoc won't quit grinding his stupid cigarette into the asphalt.

"Drive," Mustang orders, his voice rough. He can't lose a subordinate. Not the Elrics. Not them. "Drive around until we find them. They can't have gotten far."

So Hawkeye drives.

When they finally find Ed and Alphonse Elric, Scar, an Ishvalan, has damaged both of them. Scar's right hand deconstructs and explodes things: buildings, water, people. Alphonse lies in an alley, his empty suit of armor blown out at the middle, and Ed's automail arm is completely destroyed. The contingent of soldiers scrambles to get out of their cars and aim their weapons, not having been noticed by the serial killer, who is intent on destroying his prey.

The golden-haired Elric lies listlessly in the street as Scar advances. He inches closer to the blond, lowering his hand to the boy's head, muttering about the will of Ishvala. Alphonse is screaming.

Mustang shoots a pistol into the air, shocking the killer into a stupor. "That's far enough, Scar!"

The ambulance ride away from the third laboratory where Mustang burned Lust to death is... long. Too long. With a cauterized puncture wound through his kidney, Roy clings to life stubbornly, jostled by each unavoidable pothole. Havoc rides in the van ahead of Mustang and Hawkeye, but she can't even spare a thought for the second lieutenant. Her eyes are locked onto Roy's pale face, her heart in her throat, as she waits for him to wake up.

It hurts that she can't bring herself to take his hand, etched with a transmutation circle by memory. They never touch, aside from accidental brushes of their fingers when handing each other paperwork, and she fears that touching him now will break her thin veneer of self control. That she might do something she'll regret later, like kiss him.

The paramedic gets to hold his wrist, pressing her thumb into the soft skin and veins to feel for a thready pulse, and Hawkeye envies her with all of her irrational being.

Instead of focusing on his colorless face, Hawkeye thinks about what she'll have to do once her superior dies. If. If he dies. She has a spare key to his apartment. If he dies, she'll have to go and clear out anything incriminating.

"Lieutenant," he says, his voice--tight with pain--snapping her focus back to him. She leans over his face, noticing that he smells of sulphur and burnt Homunculus, noticing the way his pale lips are slick with fat from Lust's melted flesh.

"I'm here," she whispers, swallowing her bile.

"You might have--" he starts, his eyes rolling back into his head. He can't finish; he passes out.

Might have to do what? Go on without him?

She opens her mouth to tell him no, she can't, she'll follow him wherever he goes, and that includes into Hell, but no words come out. She licks her dry lips.

Then the ambulance stops and the paramedics rush him out the doors and into the hospital. Riza has to run to keep up.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but you can't go into the operating theater," a nurse says, white cap placed jauntily on her blonde head.

Hawkeye could scream. She could pitch a fit, demand that she be let through, that she be allowed to see his surgery. And she's tempted, oh, so tempted. But she knows throwing a fit wouldn't do any good; that's a sterile environment and she's covered in sweat.

So she leans against the wall. Takes a breath. Holds herself together.

***

Eleven hours later, hours in which Hawkeye stands at parade rest outside the sole entrance to the operating theater, the surgeon comes to speak to her. He rattles off a laundry list of injuries: internal bleeding, lacerated kidney, burn wounds. They had hooked Roy up to a breathing machine, pumped saltwater into his veins to replace lost blood, closed puncture wounds, treated the burns... They'd done everything they could, the surgeon said. And yet. Mustang is still at risk for infection, pneumonia, and inflammation. If he survives the night, his chances are better. Not good. Better.

Riza is so tired and sore from standing stiffly--and from her own battle with a Homunculus--that the neutral statements sound distant to her, as if she were watching herself hear them. She finds herself asking about Havoc. He's still in surgery, the doctor says. For his spine.

Then Hawkeye is escorted to a recovery room. Roy lies supine and unconscious in a bed which looks like it's about to swallow him. He's hooked up to an intravenous line and oxygen, pale and drawn. Riza notices stubble on his cheeks. Maybe he'd like a shave later.

***

Hours later, Hawkeye is horrified to find that she'd allowed herself to fall asleep in the uncomfortable, straight-backed chair one of the nurses provided her by Mustang's bedside. People had tried to relieve her several times, but she'd refused; she has to be with Roy when he dies, or wakes up.

Her frantic, visual check of Roy finds that he's breathing evenly. Looking up reveals Havoc in the other bed, also passed out. She stands, cursing herself for sleeping, and pours herself a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand. She drains it, and checks Roy again, only to find that he's looking at her.

She pours him a glass of water, too, and holds it up to his lips. He drinks.

"You gave up," he croaks, and she resists the urge to take a step back, stung.

"Yes," she says immediately, owning her mistake.

He closes his eyes again and sleeps like the dead.

Riza feels sweat beading on her upper lip despite the chill air. She shivers in the dark, clutching her jacket more tightly around herself.

She's nervous.

In Ishval, she asked Roy to burn her, to destroy the evidence of the tattoo condemning her to be a notebook for her father's Flame Alchemy. She wants to be free of those chains. She wants the secret to die with Roy. She wants Flame Alchemy to never again harm another person.

She can't always get what she wants, but in this case... Roy promised to burn her.

So she waits outside the isolated Hawkeye homestead--now even more dilapidated than it was when she was living there--for him to arrive. There are no neighbors to hear her scream.

It's a blazing hot summer in the Hawkeye household. Riza tries not to melt into her seat. Her father had instructed her to balance the budget, so she's dutifully flipping through the checkbook and making notes.

"Boy!" Master Hawkeye calls, startling Riza out of her thoughts. "Come in here!"

Roy enters the room soon after being summoned, as is his usual wont. Riza notices immediately that something's odd about him.

Ah. He has no sleeves.

Her gaze lingers on sweaty, muscular arms and a straight back, until he catches her looking at him. Heat fills her cheeks, hotter than the summer sun outside, and she rips her gaze away and frantically directs it to her notes.

"Yes, Master Hawkeye?" Roy says, his toothy grin entirely too smug for Riza's liking, based on her stolen peeks.

"Get that package," the master says, pointing at a package above Riza's head, on a shelf.

Roy practically skips over to her, and reaches his--well-muscled, Riza's traitorous mind supplies--arms above his head. His flimsy, white shirt rides up, giving her a great view of his just-as-muscular abdomen.

When did he get those? Riza thinks, feeling her mouth start to salivate. He's so close to her, she could reach her tongue out and lick the condensation off his pale skin.

"Thank you, boy," Hawkeye says, jerking her back to the present moment. She tears her eyes away from Roy's expanse of flesh and buries herself in her notes, blushing fiercely.

"Lieutenant Breda," Hawkeye says, offering him some paperwork across the desk where they both are seated with the rest of Mustang's team at Eastern Command. Breda stands and accepts the ream of papers.

"Right. Sheesh, the colonel is letting his work pile up again, huh?" Breda complains. He sits down, placing the paperwork on the desk, and turns to his companion seated to his left. "Hey, Havoc, give me a hand with half of this, would you?"

"I've already got my hands full over here," Havoc whines. "Let's see, who is this?" He points to the papers, and the picture of a mustached man.

"Lieutenant Yoki," Breda says.

Falman, a gray-haired man, speaks up. "He's the crook who was lining his own pockets with the Youswell coal mine concessions. The Elric brothers exposed his misdeeds, and he's currently on the run."

Hawkeye ignores the banter. "Master Sergeant Fuery, how is the radio coming?"

"The receiver has had it," Fuery reports. "I'll have to change out the part."

Edward Elric surprises him by clapping his hands together and touching the radio, fixing it with alchemy.

"Oh! Edward! Alphonse!" Fuery says, greeting the brothers.

"Welcome back, you two," Hawkeye says, inclining her head very slightly. "The colonel is expecting you."

Edward does not look pleased.

***

Two years ago, the Sewing-Life Alchemist, Shou Tucker, created a chimera--a beast made by "marrying" two or more dissimilar beings into a new, complete form displaying attributes of both--capable of human speech. The chimera simply said, "Let me die," and refused to eat until it perished. This netted Tucker his state certification. To keep it, he transmuted a second chimera.

Edward and Alphonse exposed Tucker as using his daughter and dog to create the second chimera, and his wife as a component in the first. Now, the two brothers sit in the rain on the steps of the Tucker estate, hopeless and despondent, as they were friends with Tucker's daughter, Nina.

Tucker explains this through a busted jaw which neither Hawkeye nor Mustang ask about. The Sewing-Life Alchemist is euphoric, his voice soft and reasonable-sounding, despite the insane content of his words.

With Mustang, Hawkeye examines the chimera. It's white, with long, red hair, four legs, and a thick muzzle. Hawkeye can see remnants of the five-year-old girl in it.

And it can speak.

"Daddy," the girl-turned-monster says, in a voice too thick for her age. She nuzzles Tucker's hand--bloody from wiping his nose--with her muzzle. "Daddy."

"If there was ever an act of the devil in this world, this case would definitely have to be it," Hawkeye whispers, her voice clogged with unshed tears. She knows how to make her face a mask and keep her tone flat; she's sure only Mustang can hear the emotion threaded through her words.

"The devil, huh?" Mustang says, with a grim twist to his lips that Hawkeye can hear.

Hawkeye follows him out of the home, descending the rainy steps and listening to him continue to speak. "Then again, State Alchemists must be willing to act, and not refuse when ordered to take another's life. As far as dealing with others' lives, Mr. Tucker's actions and our own positions are not that far apart."

He pauses in his descent next to Edward. "And we chose this path knowing that full well. Isn't that right, Fullmetal?"

Edward doesn't answer.

"You'll probably come across cases like this later on," Mustang says, his hands in the pockets of his black coat. "You may have to get your own hands dirty as well. Are you going to come to standstill every time this happens?"

Edward wraps his arms around himself. "Whether we get called Dogs of the Military or cursed as devils, Al and I are going to get our bodies back."

Mustang and Hawkeye watch him. He continues.

"But we're not devils, let alone gods," Edward says, standing up. "We're human." He raises his head and screams, "We're human!"

Hawkeye and Mustang continue down the steps, saying nothing. The rain falls upon all their heads and washes away Edward's tears.

The next thing he says breaks Hawkeye's heart.

"We can't even save one little girl. We're just insignificant humans."

Four Years Earlier

"Lieutenant Colonel, they're not in the back eith--what is this?" Hawkeye says, entering the back room of the Elric brothers' home and spotting a large amount of blood staining the floor in the middle of a huge alchemical array. Lieutenant Colonel Mustang and she had come to Resembool in order to recruit a promising young alchemist named Edward Elric, only to find a disturbing mess in their storage room.

"Where are they? Where are the Elric brothers?" Mustang snarls, and Hawkeye's eyes widen as she turns her attention to him. She hasn't felt fear since the war in Ishval, but with the rage and desperation her commander is showing, alarm bells ring out in her head.

Hawkeye and Mustang soon find the brothers at the house of elderly Pinako Rockbell, the neighbor, an automail engineer. Mustang bursts into the home to the protests of Pinako, with Hawkeye following close behind. He strides up to the eleven year old Edward, who is sitting in a wheelchair with a suit of armor behind it, and picks him up by the shirt collar. It's only after Mustang drags the boy towards his face that Hawkeye notices that Edward is missing his left arm and his right leg.

"We went to your house. What was that over there?" Mustang yells. "What did you make?"

Edward says nothing, merely lowers his head. Hawkeye's heart goes out to him. Then the suit of armor moves. "We're sorry," he says. "Please forgive us. We're sorry. We're sorry."

"You're..." Mustang says, blinking at him.

Mustang drops the boy into the wheelchair and turns to ask Hawkeye to wait in the hall. Her hair falls over her right eye as she inclines her head very slightly, and takes her leave. She seats herself on a bench in the hall, resting her hands in her lap, and waits for her commander to finish his business.

After a while, a girl with long, blonde hair approaches. Hawkeye thinks her hair is pretty. "Here you are," the girl says, offering Hawkeye a cup of tea.

Hawkeye takes the tea, thanks her, and introduces herself, offering her hand for a shake. The girl doesn't take it.

"Miss Riza, have you ever shot anyone?" the girl asks, and Hawkeye blinks.

"Yes," Hawkeye says, after a moment, withdrawing her hand.

"I hate soldiers," the girl says. "My mother and father were taken to a battlefield, and killed there." She lowers her head. "And now you're trying to take Ed and Al away, too."

Hawkeye doesn't hesitate in answering, not looking at the blonde girl. "It's up to them to decide whether they will go. Yes, they will decide for themselves. Whether to move forward, or whether to stay still. The boys will be the ones to decide."

The girl frowns. "Miss Riza, why did you become a soldier?"

Hawkeye's smile is small and subtle. "Because there is someone I have to protect."

Mustang exits the room where he was talking to the Elrics, and announces that they are leaving. Hawkeye places her cup on a side table and stands, crossing over to him. "Yes, sir."

As they are leaving, the girl catches up with Hawkeye, and offers her hand. "It's Winry."

Hawkeye smiles again. "Okay, Winry," she says, taking her hand. "I hope we'll meet again."

As she and Mustang drive away, she asks him if the boys will be coming. He says they will.

Hawkeye isn't so sure. "That boy had a spiritless look in his eye."

Mustang grins at her. "You think so? Those were eyes that had flame in them."

"Looks like you underestimated your opponent, Fullmetal," Colonel Roy Mustang says, chastising his subordinate, Edward Elric, for losing the Freezing Alchemist. Edward had been chasing the rogue alchemist down in Central City, where Mustang and Hawkeye had been summoned by Fuhrer King Bradley to capture the Freezing Alchemist.

Now, Hawkeye stands near the desk where Mustang was seated with her hands resting in front of her, interlocked. She closes her eyes as she listens to Elric protest.

"Who is that guy?" the Fullmetal Alchemist whines.

"I thought I told you to listen to the briefing," Mustang says, and Hawkeye exhales silently through her nose, inwardly amused. "But no, you had to go right after him--"

"Yeah, yeah, all right, I'm terribly sorry," Edward interrupts, and Hawkeye opens her eyes in time to see him holding up his hands.

"Listen carefully when your elders speak," Mustang says.

Mustang goes on to explain that the Freezing Alchemist is Issac McDougal, a former State Alchemist who took part in the Ishvalan War of Extermination, and then went on to join the antiestablishment movement. "Taking him into custody is a matter of top priority. We may have to kill him, depending on the situation."

Edward frowns and places his metal arm along the back of the couch. "I'm not about to kill anyone."

"Suit yourself," Mustang says. "All we're after is your performance." He stares at Fullmetal for a few seconds, and then smiles. "By the way, have you found any leads on getting your bodies back to normal?"

Hawkeye watches Edward stiffen. "You never give us any time to!"

Then Lt. Colonel Maes Hughes bursts in through the door. "Yo, Roy! Hell of an order you drew, to take the Freezing Alchemist into custody!"

Mustang tells him to go home. He doesn't; simply introduces himself to the Elric brothers and invites them to stay with him, his wife, and his daughter at his house, bringing a picture of the latter out of his breast pocket.

The brothers leave, and Mustang returns to his desk, sparing a look at Hawkeye before he settles in for the night.

***

The next morning, Mustang briefs Hawkeye and the Elric brothers, saying that the Freezing Alchemist snuck into Central Prison during the night. Mustang orders them to find him no matter what, and proclaims that he is also going out to look.

All's quiet until the evening.

Mustang confronts McDougal on a roof, but he escapes, bursting a water pipe and soaking Roy and his men. Later, the Freezing Alchemist triggers his alchemical arrays all around the city, creating massive glaciers that join in a circle.

The military tries to blow up the glaciers, to no effect. Mustang, drenched from head to toe, picks up new gloves from a case Hawkeye holds and puts them on.

"Don't underestimate my flames!" he yells, blasting the hell out of a iceberg.

"Good grief," Hawkeye murmurs, closing the case. "Please, only try to be useless on rainy days, okay?"

***

In the end, Fuhrer King Bradley kills the Freezing Alchemist, while Mustang and Armstrong destroy the transmutation circles creating the glaciers. Bradley gives Mustang the credit, to which he and Hawkeye are both suspicious.

"What's wrong, you upset?" Hughes says cheerfully. "Just graciously accept the compliment. Haven't I always told you, listen carefully when your elders speak?"

Mustang blinks at him, and Hawkeye almost smiles.