Apprehension

Author's Note: Havoc and Breda are assigned to the field office (tent) for Ishval Relations in Ishval after the Promised Day. Assumes Havoc was assigned to clean-up duty during the Extermination Campaign. Fits into The Toll around Chapter 13 but can be read apart from that.

Jean didn't like to wear the white desert coat. That was even before he noticed the Ishvalans were less jumpy when he didn't have it on. The uniform itself didn't make him think of his part in the Civil War nor did his guns. Those were comfortable and familiar. But the desert coat meant one thing only.

He was completely at ease with Scar and other Ishvalan warriors. War was war and however it had started, it was a soldier's job to fight. Death and injury were just part of the territory. Sometimes he could also relax around women of a certain age if he thought of them as female soldiers, like Hawkeye or Catalina.

But the old ones and the children made him go stiff and blank, as he had been during the Civil War. It scared him. That was how he'd shut off his feelings so he could do what he'd done then. It made him afraid he might do it again.

Then Mistress Shan had shown up in the Ishval Relations field tent. She'd sat there on the Ishvalan side and he'd sat at his table, staring at paper and pretending to work until she'd gone.

"I wanted t'shoot her," he said to Heymans back in their tent after dinner that evening. "I mean no, more like I was scared I might. I mean, I know I could."

Heymans had the bottle of whiskey and was pouring drinks, but Jean knew what he was doing. If he had to pay for it with a hangover, that would be the least of his problems.

"You won't Hav," said Heymans. It gave him the creeps to see him like this. It reminded him that if Jean could have done that, he was capable of it too.

Jean held out his tin cup. "More. I don' believe you yet."

Heymans only sipped at his own drink. That was partly because he needed to stay sober enough to help but partly because this kind of drinking was affecting his taste for whiskey.

"We could get someone else, you know," Heymans suggested.

"Then you are worried?" asked Jean.

"I'm worried about you, Hav, not about what you might do."

Jean threw back the drink and held out his cup again for a refill. "Yeah, well, all ya gotta worry 'bout is if I can do the job."

"Then I'm not worried."

Jean finished the shot again, but when he held out the empty cup, this time Heymans grabbed the wrist holding it.

"Look at me, Hav," he said, waiting for him to raise his head and meet his eyes. "Now listen carefully. I. Am. Not. Worried. You got that?"

Hav dropped his eyes and mumbled. "Yeah, yeah, not worried."

"Not good enough," Heymans said. "Look at me!"

Jean raised his head, a glum look on his face.

"What did I just say?" Heymans asked.

"Booze first."

Heymans filled the cup and let go of Jean's wrist.

Jean tossed it back. "Y'said yer not worried 'bout me."

"Close but no cigar," Heymans answered. "Try harder."

Jean giggled. "Don' want a cigar. Wanna cig'rette."

He grabbed the pack by his cot and shook one out. There was so much the camp needed that they couldn't count on always getting luxuries like cigarettes, so Jean had carefully rationed them. But this called for breaking into the ration for tomorrow.

He lit the cigarette and got it started. Between the alcohol and the nicotine he was finally starting to relax.

"'Kay," he said. "What was I sayin'? Oh yeah. Not worried. Glad you aren't coz I am."

"Well, that's because you're an idiot," Heymans said. "You're gonna have to go by my judgment on this one."

Jean looked at him with eyes wide and trusting. "Really?" he asked. "Don' mean th'idiot part, I know that." Then speaking slowing and carefully so he didn't slur too much, "Yer really not worried 'bout me?"

"Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc is not gonna go crazy and start shooting people up," said Heymans. "No, I'm not worried."

Jean grinned tentatively. "If you say so, smart guy."

"I'll drink to that," said Heymans. And they both did.