Auther's note:
Hello! It turns out that when I wrote this before, it...wasn't my best. And I don't know what I was thinking when I named the main character... So I've fixed a few things, renamed the OC to a name that more then two or three people have heard before, and corrected a few things.
Hope you'll enjoy!
-Night
Prologue:
She walked back and forth in the hospital waiting room with Colonel Mustang and the rest of his subordinates awaiting news on the condition of her brother Kain Fuery. She was on a mission with her brother and Havoc when things went terribly wrong. She was fighting a wanted criminal named Abel Johnson when she let down her guard. He had a concealed gun and shot it. Fuery jumped in front of her and took the bullet.
The doctor calling her name brought her from her thoughts. She looked up at him and her stomach sank when she saw the look on his face.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Chapter one
Vanessa Fuery was brushing her short black hair after changing into a long sleeved black dress for her younger brother's funeral. "Why did he have to be so stupid?" she shouted as she threw her hairbrush against her apartment wall.
"Throwing stuff isn't going to bring him back." She thought.
She walked across the room to pick up the hairbrush. She heard a knock at the door. A bit surprised, she went to open the door.
"Second Lieutenant Fuery, the Colonel asked me to come drive you to the burial" Havoc said
"I see, please come in."
"Sure" he said kindly.
She opened the door a bit more to let him in, and then goes to her room to get her shoes. Havoc looked around her empty apartment. He sees a picture of her laughing with her brother when they where children. Kain was holding what looked like Vanessa's teddy bear and Vanessa was trying to get at it.
"I'm ready, I think."
"Alright," Havoc replied.
She walked over to him and gave him a hug. Havoc rubbed her back saying, "Shh, every thing will be alright in the end."
The hug ended, she stepped away from him, and she took a big breath. "He wouldn't want to see me like this. He would want me to be as strong as I always am."
"Yeah, that's just what he would want. Now we had better get going."
They got into the car and rode to the graveyard in silence.
Havoc got out of the car when they arrived.
"We're here," he said as he opened Vanessa's door.
She waited for a moment as if gathering her strength, and then got out of the car. They walked in silence towards the group of people gathered on top of the hill. When they got there, she leaned on Havoc's shoulder and just cried.
"How am I going to live, he was all I had." she said in a whisper so that only Havoc heard.
After everyone left, she fell down next to the grave crying. Havoc kneeled next to her and put his hand on her back trying to comfort her, not knowing if he was even reaching her, or if she knew he was there. Soon after nightfall, she fell asleep next to the grave. Havoc picked her up and carried her to the car.
When they got to her house, Havoc retrieved her keys from her purse, unlocked the door, and brought her inside. He managed to turn on the light and put her down on her bed in her room. He took off her shoes, coat, and then pulled the blanket over her. After turning off the light, he closed the door to her room thinking about earlier that day and about how he lied about the Colonel sending him to take her to the funeral. In all honesty he had been fond of her from the instant he first met her but as he grew to know her it evolved into something more. He went to the living room, got the extra blanket from the closet, and fell asleep on the couch knowing she needed someone there.
The next day he got up while she was still asleep. He went to the kitchen looking for some food to fix them for breakfast. Upon seeing that the fridge was practically empty, containing only a carton of orange juice, he went to the market to buy something for them. When he got back with eggs and bread, he went straight to the kitchen to make them some breakfast.
Vanessa woke up, remembered the day before, groaned, and was going to go back to sleep but she smelled something cooking. It hit her that she lived alone so who was cooking? She got up confused and she looked down at the clothes she was wearing. She was wearing the same dress that she wore from the funeral. She changed into some black Jeans, a black knit-shirt, and then went to see what was happening in her kitchen. Havoc had just finished making the eggs and toast when a very sleepy and sad Vanessa stumbled in.
"Morning" she said then yawned. She walked over to the table and sat down. He put the eggs on the table.
"Did you have a nice sleep?" He asked. She sighed, laid her head onto the table, and started to cry.
"Hey, it's going to be okay," Havoc said trying to comfort her. He scooted close to her and rubbed her back gently letting her let out her grief.
"I was fighting Johnson earlier that day and he got away... I killed my own brother." She started to cry harder then she ever had before.
"No you didn't kill your brother, Johnson did. If anything, I could be blamed because I was there as well remember?" She continued to cry onto the table and Havoc frowned at not being able to comfort her as much as he wanted to.
"Eat; it will make you feel better"
Without even thinking, she picked up her fork and started eating. Havoc moved his plate in front of him and started eating. When they finished eating, Vanessa took their plates to the sink and started washing them. She finished washing them then got her keys out of her purse.
"I'm going to the shooting range; please lock the door when you go out."
"I'll walk you there."
"No, really you don't have to."
"It's okay."
"Thanks. Why do you care so much?"
"My sister died two years ago so I know what's it's like to loose someone. Plus, Kain would want us looking out for his little sister."
"I see," she said.
The walk to the shooting range was quite and uneventful. Vanessa wasn't paying attention and she walked into Roy Mustang.
"Sorry sir." she said saluting him as a reflex
"At ease, you should be at home right now resting."
"Yes, sir" she replied, still in military mode.
"You don't have to be so formal with me right now; I understand what you are going through. He was a good soldier and friend. "
"Yes sir." she said as she started to relax a little.
"Havoc, would you mind talking to me for a moment? Fuery, you can go shoot at booth four. That is the only empty one. "
"Yes sir," they said at the same time.
Roy directed Havoc over to a bench. "Why are you walking around with her? You of all people know it's best for people to be left alone while they're morning."
"Sorry chief but it looked to me like she just needed a shoulder to cry on. In addition, she wouldn't have eaten at all if I wasn't there. All she had in her fridge was orange juice."
"I see, alright then. Now besides that, I have something else to tell you."
Meanwhile…
Why, oh why did he have to die? He knows that we are a team whether or not we are positioned together, damnit! She shot a few more rounds of bullets at the target and decided to call it quits. Someone put a hand on her shoulder, and she turned around quickly.
"It's only me." Havoc said, "The chief asked me to ask you when you thought you'd like to come back to work. There's a new position that he has an opening for."
"As soon as possible, do you know where it is?"
"No, unfortunately."
"I'll take it anyways." She needed a change of pace and a new location sounded great to her.
"That sounds like the girl I once knew."
They left the range and went to central headquarters. They walked into the office.
"Second Lieutenant Fuery reporting for briefing"
"Second Lieutenant Havoc reporting for briefing"
"At ease. Now you will both be serving under me for the time being."
"Where will we be serving?" asked Havoc.
"In a little town called Risembool."
"Isn't that the town where that little alchemist Kain was talking about all the time, came from?" Vanessa's hands turned into fists at the sad memory of her brother.
"Yes." Roy said not looking up from his paper work, "You may be excused now. Havoc you can go clean out your desk, and then you can both go pack. We will be leaving tomorrow."
They nodded and walked out of the colonel's office.
"Fuery will you wait for me?"
"Sure"
Havoc got a box out of the closet and went to his desk. He proceeded to clean out his desk. He finally took out a half-empty carton of cigarettes
"You know how bad smoking is for you, right?"
He choked and said "Yeah, that's what everyone keeps telling me." He then took one out of the box and lighted it. He put the lighter back in the box.
"Let's go, okay?" she said and turned around
"Yeah, sure."
They walked out the door, and onto the street.
"Fuery-"
"You can call me Vanessa."
"Okay then. Vanessa would you like to go have coffee?"
"As a date?"
"Only if you say yes, if not then this never happened."
She smiled, just ever so slightly.
"Coffee would be good but just as friends okay?"
Havoc's heart dropped a bit but as long as he could spend time with her, he would settle. "C'mon, I know of a really good coffee house just around the corner," Havoc said.
They walked around the corner. He put out his cigarette, and they walked into the coffee place. They sat down next to each other at a table close to the window.
"What do you like to drink? They have some really good muffins here as well," Havoc said.
"Coffee, black. What about you?"
"Coffee with cream and a cran-lemon muffin."
Just as he finished telling her what he wanted just as the waitress came to the table.
"May I help you?"
"Yes, she'd like a black coffee and I'd like my regular."
"So that was a black coffee, a coffee with cream and a cran-lemon muffin?"
"Yes," she said handing the waitress her menu.
The waitress walked away to get their orders.
"You come in here often?" Vanessa asked.
"Yeah, it's twenty-four hour shop, so I come here when I can't sleep."
"I never thought that you'd be someone with sleep problems..."
He shrugged. "Most soldiers have sleep problems. The regrets they have haunt them." He saw her shutter and clinch her fist.
Way to go Havoc, good way to win the girl's heart. You really are useless.
"Look," he said covering her hand with his. "I know that probably no matter what you will blame yourself for a while but until you rid yourself of the blame I will keep telling you that it wasn't your fought. It wasn't you hear me?"
"What do you know!" she snaps. "You have never lost someone because of a screw up that you made or because you lost your bearings one moment in a fight!"
A rush of anger floods through Havoc. "Yes, I have." He states. "My sister died because of a mistake I made. I shot her because I missed the target that was threatening her. Don't say things that you know nothing about!" He snapped back. "Your brother died saving you! Be a little more grateful for him!" He said the last sentence before he could catch himself. He saw the tears build up in her eyes and she stood quickly and ran out of the shop. The waitress walked towards the table with the two drinks and a muffin.
"Got dumped again didn't ya?"
"Yeah, Sarah.," Was all he could say. He wasn't really dumped but it sure felt like it.
"Really?" she sat down where Vanessa was sitting.
"Yeah, she just needed more time by herself, her brother died last week."
"Awww that's so sad."
"Her brother was Kain, you know the one I'm talking about right?"
"Yeah, didn't you go partying with him at that place downtown when he got promoted? He was so adorable!"
"Yeah, I remember that," he said.
FLASHBACK!!!
It was a Friday night, the friday night after Kain got promoted.
"CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!" everyone was shouting to Kain, and boy was he doing so! Who would think that Kain could hold so much liquor? Someone put her hands in front of Havoc's eyes.
"Guess who?"
"That's easy! Ummmmm... Vanessa?"
"How'd you know?" she sat down next to Jean, drunk.
"There you are! I was wondering where you where!"
"No use worrying about me, I can protect myself!" she giggled. "But it looks like big brother can't. She motioned her head toward her brother. Two big breasted blonds were hitting on him. Havoc sighed, "First, Roy takes all the women. I thought when Hawkeye reined him in that I would have them. It looks like Fuery is the ladies man now. I have no luck!" he said and took another drink of his beer.
"I know where we can go to get out of this crowd!"
"We really shouldn't-"
"Shouldn't what?" she said giggling
"Shouldn't go to your apartment and do things that you will regret" She just giggled and pulled his arm until he gave up and started walking. They walked out the door and out onto the sidewalk.
"So, where's your apartment?"
"Just a little bit farther" she pulled him along. They got to the apartment; she got out her keys and unlocked the door. The two of them went inside and turned on the lights. She pulled him into the bedroom and fainted onto the floor.
What do I do now? He sighed and picked her up off the ground, laying her on her bed. He took off her shoes, and pulled the blankets over her.
He shut the door. And just to make sure she didn't do anything stupid, fell asleep on the couch.
He woke up and heard someone scream "Owwww my head hurts!"
Remembering what happened he got up and went to her room. He couldn't help but grin at the sight that greeted him.
"Your head must be REALLY hurting from last night. Don't worry I made sure you didn't do anything stupid."
"That was my first time drinking and I don't remember a thing." She started to stand and walk. She stumbled and Havoc caught her. "I will never drink again," she muttered.
"I'm glad you're back to your normal self, Miss Fuery," he said with a grin.
END FLASHBACK!!!
He was broken from his memory when he relized that he had to go pack.
"I have to go now," he pulled out some money from his pocket, "This should be enough for the coffee and muffin"
He walked out of the cafe. As he walked to his apartment he remembered how serious she usually was, and how different she was from every other girl he'd met.He reached into his pocket for a cigarette, and realized he left his box in the cafe, he doubled back and before he got there he saw a little girl with a long black braid sitting down at the corner, crying.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing." she lied.
"I can tell when something is wrong, what is wrong?"
"I can't find my dolly"
"Do you want me to help you find it?"
"Okay" she smiled a week smile at the thought of getting her doll back.
"Where do you remember last seeing it?"
"Iwassittingonthatbenchoverthereandthenigotuptogoplayinthesandandthenshewasgonewhenicameback!"
He started rubbing his chin and tried to figure out what she said. He finally did after slowing the words down in his head.
"Let's go look around that bench."
She got up and walked over the bench, and Havoc followed.
"She was under the bench!" she said happily. She looked up at him. "You sure are smart Mr. Soldier Man!"
He grinned at the little girl. "I'm glad to know that you found her. Do you have anywhere to go now?"
"Yeah, I have to go to my cousin's house; she's going to baby-sit me because my mom is still at work."
"Do you want me to walk you there?"
"Okay, I can tell her what happened today and prove to her that I'm not making it up!"
"Do you make up stories alot?"
"Not THAT much, but... sometimes"
Havoc chuckled. He loved kids.
"Do you know your way there?" He asked.
"Yes! It's this way." she pulled on his arm with her free hand and they started to walk down the street.
"We're here!"
They stood in front of a large apartment building. He pulled the door open for her and they went inside. He was starting to wonder if Vanessa was her cousin. When they got to the proper apartment he found out that he was correct.
"Knock on the door!" she pushed him towards the door.
"Okay." he knocked on the door. What do i do now?