Alright, well, I think I've read too many Death!fics, because now I'm writing them. Just for you, Ed :3

Anyways, I'll probably make this a series of deathfics that will be updated whenever I'm in the mood required to write this kind of depressing stuff. Not trying to blow my own horn or anything, but I'm pretty proud of this one, since I usually don't do very well with any kind of angsty stuff. Or Parental!Roy. Or writing period.

So, please do enjoy and ALL reviews are VERY appreciated!

How could such a simple memory be the one that haunted him forever? The one that made his nightmares of Ishval look like cheap ghost stories told by a campfire?

It was a rainy day, so naturally Roy was irritable, and even more so when Edward had come in to give a report. Despite the crappy weather, it was a day like any other. Nothing of any significance had been happening, and both Flame and Fullmetal had been their usual selves. Everyone in Mustang's team was in the office, doing their usual business.

The appointment started with it's usual door slamming and glaring and apologies from Alphonse about his brother's behavior. Edward had looked at his superior with a sense of slightly false loathing, the fire in his golden eyes being canceled out with equally potent cold slate in the Colonel's onyx ones. The mutually unpleasant conversation began with a: "Just short of finding it again, I see." from the Colonel.

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING TOO SMALL TO EVEN RIDE AN ANT?!" Ed had ranted, followed by a few snickers from the office crew.

"Let's see this report, Fullmetal. I've got better things to do than to listen to ranting from a pipsqueak." Mustang replied, not looking up from his paper work. Grumbling unpleasant things about his superior, Edward walked forward and slapped the unsurprisingly thin file onto the Colonel's desk. Picking it up and opening it, the dark haired man scowled. The report was a piece of notebook paper, mildly scrunched up and a little torn in some places. The only thing written on it was in barely legible handwriting in the center of the paper:

Nothing of importance happened.

Mustang growled irritably and stuffed the paper back into the envelope, shoving it to Edward afterwards.

"Fullmetal, you need to start making better reports. I can't even do anything with the crap you give me." The Colonel said, his voice raised and eyes glaring at his subordinate.

"Why would I want to give you some long, written out essay about another one of the hundreds of dead ends you send us on?"

"We all have to do things we don't want to, Fullmetal."
"We all have to do things we don't want to, Colonel."

Dulled copper eyes stared up into panicked, slate black ones with sickening determination. Ed coughed again, sending another rush of rust colored blood up past the teen's lips, dying them another shade darker. Filthy strips of golden bangs matted themselves on his face, some brushing against his eyelashes and making him blink in irritation. His weakening body was lying on the gritty cement ground of the alleyway, staining the surrounding stone with the too-big pool of both fresh and old blood. It was pouring and oozing and seeping from countless wounds on the teen's body, but it gushed at a frightening speed from a hole in his heart, the wound a desperate Colonel was trying to plug shut with various scraps of cloth torn from Ed's coat.

"What do you mean, Fullmetal? You don't have to die. The ambulance will be here any minute to pick us up and you'll be fine." Mustang said shakily, recoiling internally from the sheer determination in Ed's eyes. The determination to stay strong as he died.

Grunting with pain and effort, Edward moved his arms to push himself up against the dumpster, causing more blood to spurt from the wound in his chest and making him cough violently.

Tugging Ed back onto the ground, Mustang scowled in fear. "What do you think you're doing?! You're going to make it bleed more!"

"I don't want to die on my back like an old man in a bed. Please-" Another bout of coughing and a sickening gurgling sound cut the blonde off, but the dark haired man felt a horrible pain in his chest at the pleading in his subordinate's voice. The fear in his voice. Ed's face was so pleading, so afraid, so fearful, so determined.

Despite his protests, the teen managed to sit up and rest his back against the dumpster. A few, excruciatingly long seconds passed in dreadful silence as Mustang worked to keep the bullet hole in Ed's chest from bleeding anymore, and he began to realize that Ed hadn't been talking for a bit.

"Hey, Ed."

No reply.

"Ed!"

The blonde's eyes snapped open from they're half-lidded state.

"Ed, I need you to keep talking, okay? Don''t fall asleep on me. It'll be harder to get you to the ambulance when you're all limp."

"O-okay. What should I...what should I t-talk about?" Ed's voice sounded slightly joking, but it held a sinister, resigned feeling. Like he had already given up and was just humoring his superior. This tone was not wasted on the Colonel.

"Uh...How about you tell me what you and Al are going to do when you get your bodies back?" A good question. One to remind him of the things waiting for him, Mustang thought.

This brought a small, barely noticeable smile onto Edward's extremely paled face. "W-well, Al's got a wh-whole book of what he's going t...to do." More blood seeped through the cloth and onto the Colonel's soaked gloves, and Ed's eyes got a little more clouded and dull.

"Alright, and what are you going to do?" Mustang, not even looking up from the bullet hole.

"I...I don't...I d-don't r-really kn...know."

Another short silence.

"Hey...Mustang..." The man looked up and met his subordinate's moist gaze.

"Y-yea?"

Tears started making their way down both men's faces.

"I don't want to die."

The words were spoken with such clarity that they were distinctly set apart from all other's he had recently spoken. They were saturated with longing and pain, the dying emotions of a teen. But there was something else. Guilt. This time, Mustang didn't counter Ed's statement of his imminent death.

"I know I-I'm b-being selfish b-by saying th-that but.." He took a ragged breath.

"But what, Edward?" The Colonel couldn't take the silence. He needed to hear Edward's voice. He couldn't bare the thought of not being able to hear it anymore.

"T-thank y-you...f..for n-n-not letting m-me die...a-alone..."

With that, the golden eyes glazed over and shut slowly, as if drifting off to sleep. Like all the other times, he looked a lot younger than when he was awake. But he looked a lot paler, too.

And just like that, Mustang forgot. Mustang forgot what his subordinate had looked like when he was healthy. Was he tan, or pale? To be this pale, he must have started out like that. And his eyes, were they gold or dull copper? What lines did his face make when he scowled or yelled? What did he look like when he smiled? What did Ed look like when he was happy? What did Ed look like when he was alive?

Roy didn't know.

Alphonse leapt out of the ambulance that had barely pulled to a stop, and the medics as well as Lieutenant Hawkeye soon followed.

Making his way down the long alleyway, the younger Elric called for his brother, and finally stopped in brief relief when he saw the Colonel crouched figure, who was surely keeping Ed alive on the other side of his body.

"Oh, thank Truth! Colonel! Brother!" Al hurried over to the crouched figure, who made no move to greet Alphonse. Or even look at him. Something was up. Ed looked awfully pale.

"Hey, Brother! We're here to take you and bring you back."

No reply.

"Brother?"

He always was a heavy sleeper.