A brief explanation of the idea behind this: Taking place immediately after the movie (ergo, spoilers), this fic is the result of an overactive imagination wondering what would be required in closing the Gate. Ed and Al gave up their world to close it on the Earth side. So what about everyone's favorite ex-colonel?

Story started: 1/15/07

Chapter completed: 1/15/07

Disclaimer: Rallalon does not own FMA. Nor does she own any of its places, characters or items.

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Damn, his head hurt. It hadn't hurt this badly since he'd lost his eye and then, he had had the benefit of painkillers.

Roy Mustang, Corporal, gingerly sat up amidst the rubble and destruction. This was unexpected in several ways. First, he was alive.

Surprise, surprise.

Second, he was on the ground, the airship not even in sight. Well, what passed for sight. Vision no longer one of his strengths, Roy squinted around weakly, checking his blurry surroundings. Was that gunfire he heard or were his ears ringing that badly? Both, he assumed.

Damn, damn, damn his head. It felt like something had torn it open, torn something out and slammed the halves back together with no regard for the original configuration. Moving only made it worse.

"Colonel!"

Wincing at the noise before wincing at his own movement, Roy let out a weak cry of "Here!" Never mind that wasn't his rank any longer; he needed to get someone over here. He needed to tell them, tell them it was over.

The Gate was closed.

His entire body jerked back with that thought, falling back onto the rubble. His breath didn't so much catch in his throat as dig in there, jerking in and out in short, harsh gasps. Gloved hands grabbed at nothing, booted feet pushing uselessly against loose bits of concrete and stone. Debris scraped at his back, tearing cloth and bruising, scraping skin. An image flashed before his eyes –

his eyes both his eyes what was this? not important no because he could see! he could see again finally amazingly both eyes he could see

-- the looming door standing in sandy nothingness, shut, closed, locked forever, gone and lost and never again to be opened, never again to function. And yet the eyes still peered out, the hands still reached, grabbing, glaring, coveting, taking, always taking until it was all gone gone gone gone gone

"Colonel!"

It was gone. The world changed and flattened, darkening and disappearing on his left side. And above...

"Colonel, breathe!"

Hands caught his face and he lashed out, his feeble effort never so much as taking spark, his gloves torn, his fingers twitching. Pain flared beneath his skull as his head was moved, neck adjusted. Gasping, choking on dust-filled air, his body in rebellion against itself, the world flashed a color beyond description, the color behind the eyelid of an unconscious man, a dead man. He drew a shaking breath, straining against something he couldn't name, something long gone.

Gone, yet to struggle against all the same.

Focusing on his breathing, his eye attempting to focus on his fellow soldier, his mind dredged up some sort of list of recent events. The Gate was closed. He had closed it. He was certain. He had closed it on this side and Fullmetal... Ed was gone, this time for good. Alphonse Elric as well, as it turned out. He assumed. And on the other side, the Gate was closed as well. It was done. But what...?

"Colonel, are you all right?"

He coughed a bit. While the pain in his throat didn't rival that of his head, it was by no means minor. Focus. He had to focus. "Close enough." Cough. "Lieutenant," he added, noting the uniform. "Too much dust, that's all. You can let go now." Keeping the windpipe open was good, but he could definitely manage on his own.

"Sorry, sir," she replied, releasing his jaw from a slightly shaking grip. The lieutenant remained leaning over him, a very worried expression visible beneath her helmet. She looked like she either expected him to break into another coughing fit or to spontaneously combust, which was ridiculous.

Kimblee would have spontaneously combusted. Roy Mustang would have just started smoking around the edges.

"It's 'corporal', lieutenant," he said by way of reply. Couldn't she see the uniform? "No need for the 'sir'."

She frowned but thankfully decided to accept this. Straightening up, she offered him an uncertain hand. "Can you walk?"

"Let's find out," he answered, taking the assistance after only a moment of hesitation. This was going to hurt.

Somehow, it failed to hurt as much as it could have. The headache was fading bit by bit, his vision clearing. He wasn't even sure why the memory of the Gate had set him off like that. He'd had a feeling, he'd thought. A feeling that something... something was...

Well, whatever he had forgotten, it couldn't have been that important.

"What happened up there? Corporal."

Great, now she was being stiff. Misjudging his rank wasn't that big of a blunder, not with his record. Not with who he had used to be. "Alchemy," he replied, making use of this highly simplified answer. Non-alchemists tended to want to skip around the details. Hopefully, that would give him enough time to come up with an explanation of what he'd done. Of what they'd done and where the boys had gone. "It's complicated."

To say the lieutenant did not react in the predicted manner was like stating that Fullmetal became slightly irked when called a shrimp.

"I'd like an explanation, corporal," she demanded with enough force to turn his glance at her into a stunned stare. "I think I deserve one." The effect of her glaring eyes combined with the stern set to her mouth in such a way to inspire terror.

It was either that, or the fact that this very pissed woman was heavily armed.

Roy stared at her mutely, his remaining eyebrow climbing up his forehead, his eye wide. That was a tone he'd heard only a few times before and usually, the woman would be demanding to know why she'd woken up alone. That comparison utterly failed to make sense in this situation, however. He'd never seen this woman before, much less slept with her.

While it was true he hadn't spent much time with people recently, the former playboy retained enough sense not to start with his initial reply. Asking the ever-innocent question why in the face of feminine rage was the sure path to destruction. Thus…

"And you'll get one," he assured her, attempting a promising smile. "But it is complicated. I should speak with the higher ups about this first."

Once again, the lieutenant absolutely failed to react in the predicted manner. Instead of accepting the offer, she seemed to take it as a personal insult, glaring at him more fiercely than before.

"All right," she said icily. "Let's get you back to HQ."

What a change. First she was uncomfortably concerned for his wellbeing and then she was giving him absolutely murderous glances. Still, rescue was rescue. He followed behind by a few paces, noticing the sudden departure of his headache. At least something was getting better; he wasn't looking forward to explaining this to whoever was left in charge, not in the least. "Thank you. I appreciate it, Lieutenant...?"

She turned back to stare at him, equal parts anger and confusion in those amber eyes. "What?"

He blinked, but recovered well enough for a man who was half-hermit.

Roy gave her a questioning look and said nothing.

"Did you just ask for my name?" she demanded, finding this disturbingly offensive.

"That was my intention, yes." If he sounded clueless, there was a very good reason for it. It had been a long day. Setting minor injuries aside, he was tired, no, exhausted from his first alchemy in a year. Completely nerve-wracking alchemy, preformed at long range by a man who couldn't throw a paper ball into a trash can accurately. Add in the nightmare of the Gate and he was well within his rights to pitch a screaming fight. Being a only touch slow on the uptake wasn't too bad, all things considered.

She answered by asking him the question he'd stopped himself from posing to her mere moments before. "Why?"

"To learn your name," he said carefully, taken aback at the woman's vehemence. She was either completely incapable of dealing with stress or he had an unfortunate resemblance to some other one-eyed man. Roy wasn't entirely sure which yet.

The lieutenant went quiet, her expression flickering through emotions to quickly to catch. Finally, with a stunned sort of angry disbelief, she put to him one last question. Her tone would have been suitable for asking a doctor if her husband were to die, for asking her mother why daddy wasn't home yet, for asking God when the world would end.

"You don't know who I am?"

"No," he replied, an uncomfortable feeling building up in the depths of his stomach.

It was that tone and her resulting expression that did it, that unfathomable conflict raging behind amber eyes. Without that sight, he wouldn't have asked, wouldn't have found reason for asking.

"Should I?"