"Sorry Lieutenant. There's only room for one."

"You liar!"


For anyone to call Central anything other than a warzone was deceiving themselves. And while Roy was a great expert at deceiving himself, even he had to admit what it was that he saw. It had been many years since he had seen such carnage as this on the battlefield, but he recognized the scents and sounds long before he stepped foot on the streets of the capital.

He had not missed it one bit.

The entirety of the city had suffered under the attack of the invaders. Entire neighborhoods were decimated, their occupants crushed under the ruins of what had been their businesses and homes. Blood and screams lined the streets wherever someone went. Fire and water broke out and spread even to the houses that still stood.

Central was a smoking graveyard.

Roy climbed out of the underground city having completed the task given to him by the Elrics. The Gateway had been sealed, with the secrets of the invading army and the Elric brothers on the other side of it. And despite the knowledge he may have just sentenced those young boys to their deaths with an army such as that on the other side, Roy was feeling lighter than he had in years.

Not happy exactly, but there was at least some closure to a piece of his life now. He may not have liked the way that everything had played out, but he was content knowing that those two boys had each other now, and that was really all they really wanted in their lives. Besides, whatever trials awaited them on the other side of the Gate they would be able to handle.

All the trouble they had encountered and put themselves through on this side of the Gate gave him the confidence in that at least.

Roy blinked at the bright sunlight as he emerged from the bowels of Central. His hand shielded his only eye as he carefully stepped over bits and pieces of stone rubble on the streets.

What was he to do now?

Despite the command he had taken during this battle, he had still resigned from being a general. His actions, despite being a large part of keeping the city from falling from the invaders, were still insubordinate and he could be court martialed for his actions. What would he do then? Was there anything he could do then?

Shaking away any thought about possible futures that had yet come to pass, Roy continued down what had once been a busy bazaar. The remains of goods and produce lay crushed and abandoned under stone and wooden carts that had once held them. Soldiers were running back and forth, attempting to assist the injured that stared into the nothingness that they had been exposed to.

Not that the soldiers looked any better. Half of them shared the shell-shocked expressions as they half-carried bleeding children from the rubble.

Roy felt a twinge of sympathy. It was likely these men didn't have the combat experience that he had. They simply looked too young to have experienced the war in Ishval as many of the older soldiers had. They never had to confront the mortality of men in such a brutal way before and couldn't begin to understand how to process it.

Roy kept walking.

One day they would learn. And that was something they had to do for themselves. He couldn't help them.

He need to get back. He needed to find whom he left behind again.

The walk back to Central Headquarters wasn't one that was easy. What once had been clear streets were blocked and crowded. Some by people, some by the rubble and death. Roy made the conscious effort to breathe through his teeth when the scent of blood became too much. He couldn't afford any flashbacks now.

Soldiers were still scrambling all over Headquarters, frantic and yelling. Generals were barking orders, which the few who could hear over the sounds of the lingering chaos followed. Roy lingered on the side, watching for a single individual. But no matter how much he strained his remaining eye to look, he couldn't find the familiar walk, the familiar twist of hair, or the voice he had been blessed to hear again for the briefest of moments since he stepped back into Central.

"General Mustang! Sir!"

Roy spun to see Sergeant Fuery making his way toward him with a large radio in his hands. He didn't bother to correct Fuery about his rank. That wasn't what was important at this point in time.

"Where's the lieutenant Fuery?" He asked instead.

Fuery stopped. Roy noticed the way the young man's arms were shaking under the weight of the heavy radio, and how Fuery ignored it. Fuery's eyes no longer were looking at the former general, but had wandered to stare at a section of town that was missing from the skyline. Plumes of smoke seemed to be coming heavily from that section.

Fuery took a deep breath and shifted the radio in his hands.

"I expect she would be near the water district, sir." Fuery said after a few moments in relative silence.

"Water—?"

Roy spun his head around to look in the direction of the water district. That had been were the destruction by the invaders had been the worst. What was she doing there? A small voice in the back of his head that it would have been likely that she would be there under orders by her commanding officer, but something wasn't sitting well with the way Fuery had delivered it. Something wasn't sitting right with Fuery in relation with the lieutenant, and he wasn't telling Roy about it.

"Where Fuery? Where is Lieutenant Hawkeye?"

He took a few steps closer to the young man and Roy towered over him. Fuery had always been on the slight side, but with the added rubble Roy was standing on, the height difference became even more pronounced.

Fuery winced, although Roy was unable to figure out if it was due to the glare he was giving the sergeant, or due to the weight of the radio he was shifting in his arms once again.

"I shouldn't."

Whatever semblance of composure Roy had been feeling earlier after completing the task to keep the two worlds separate was gone. There was a panic setting in that was only reminiscent of the time he thought he had lost his bodyguard once before. He closed the distance between them and gripped Fuery's shoulders tightly. To Fuery's credit, he didn't take any notice to the tightness of the grip.

"Where Fuery? Where's Riza?"

It had been years since he felt that name roll off his tongue. It felt foreign and right in the same breath. Roy tried not think about it.

"She's," Fuery took a deep breath. "She'll be at the building on the corner of Rose and Talcum. But I ask you sir, please don't go. Let her have the time she needs."

But Roy wasn't listening. He was already thinking about the fastest way to traverse the damaged streets to get to her. There would be no way for him to drive in a vehicle, with the destruction of Central's buildings and with the military still swarming throughout the whole city. Any other method of travel would take to long to even set up to get to her.

His hands dropped to his side and he took a few steps back slowly, his eye tracking the path of least resistance for him to run, before he spun on his heels and sprinted down and through the rubble.

Fuery shouted at Roy to stop, but it was lost in the sounds of the military scrapping together what they could to help their citizens and to the sound of his heart beating in his ears as he weaved between rubble and soldiers.

Roy left Fuery behind and raced to find the one member of his old team that had been at his side through nearly everything. What would she be doing down in the water district? The corner of Rose and Talcum was deep in the heart of the water district, certainly too far for the military to have cleared a path to yet. She had ventured out on her own, but why?

By the time he arrived in the water district Roy was heaving with every breath and step he took. The years he had taken at the small outpost in the north had done him no favors in keeping in shape for such endurance running. He stopped to rest his hands on his knees as he gathered his breath before taking in what appeared before him.

The district was gone.

If Roy hadn't known better, he would have guessed that a large bomb went off. But the transmutation marks were clear to his eye as he passed them. And in comparison to other areas of the city, there was a strange sense of calm here. Roy could hear the flames consuming everything they could reach instead of the frantic work of citizens and military pulling what they could to assist others. Water rushed in the background, but Roy was unable to tell if it was from the river a few streets over or from the broken pipes of the exploded buildings.

Then there was a lone scream.

Roy's ears tuned into the sound of distress and he straightened his spine. His quest to find the missing member of his team momentarily forgotten, he looked for the individual who needed his help.

His pace picked up as he ran through what had been streets, and he went even faster when he heard another scream followed by what was unmistakably a sob. That was when he heard another voice, one that unmistakably male respond to the other, whom Roy finally recognized a woman's voice.

"No, you can't go in there! The structure is collapsed! It won't hold your weight!"

As Roy ran closer, he recognized the voice as lieutenant Havoc's voice. He was close. Perhaps only on the other end of the crumbling wall. Roy's step slowed to a slow walk.

"NO! She's in there! I have to get her out of there!" The woman's voice was distraught and there were a few grunts from Havoc. He must have been restraining her from leaping into the crumbling structure.

"Just wait a moment! I already called for backup, we need to wait until they can get here and clear the area for us!"

Roy turned around the corner of the crumbling wall and saw Havoc struggling to contain the smaller woman in his arms as she attempted to claw her way out and to the building across from them. Roy took notice that the woman was wearing the blue uniform of the Amestrian military like Havoc and Roy. He couldn't see her rank, but he supposed it didn't matter. Havoc knew the woman well, and even if he didn't Havoc was doing the right thing.

Roy glanced at the building she was fighting to enter. What had once been a two-story building was reduced to a half story, with much of the brick crumbling in on itself. There was a small fenced-in grass yard in front with small assortment of kids' toys tossed there and covered in the dust and grime of the battle. A sign that miraculously remained standing told him that this building had once been child-care center.

His heart plummeted at the thought of all the children that would have been in there during the battle. They wouldn't have stood a chance against any attackers. Not the children of their ages. He understood why the woman would be fighting so hard to get inside now. It was likely that her daughter had been attending this daycare.

"NO!" Havoc shouted as the woman finally broke free of his grasp.

Several things happened at that moment in time. One was that Roy finally got a clear look at the woman who had been restrained by Havoc as she lunged toward the crumbling building. He saw blonde hair, falling out of the dark brown clip. He heard her scream in an almost inhuman voice the name of her daughter, as Havoc yelled hers.

"HAWKEYE!"

Roy found himself colliding with the collapsed wall behind him as Hawkeye—Riza Hawkeye—leapt through the doors into certain death.


A/N: So, this AU been floating around in my head for a good year at this point, and I finally sat down the other day to write it. If it wasn't obvious by now, it's post Conqueror of Shamballa and I'll be attempting to keep it within the 03 universe as much as possible.

Please, leave a comment. Until next chapter.