A/N: A darker version of the future.

Fellow Soldier

It was something he had learned at a young age that had only amplified over time. The ability to keep moving forward after some of the things he had seen, some of the things he had done. Some people called it strength but as he continued to live, continued to survive he saw it as a curse. It was their punishment to remain in a world where they couldn't escape their past.

"Sir?"

They were long past formalities but some old habits never die. He gazed up from his desk, his eyes looking towards the familiar voice. It should have been a comfort to him that they were in this together, but it only deepened his guilt.

"I just need a minute." He answered simply, afraid to explain why he wanted to delay the inevitable.

She eyed him suspiciously; words could have so many different meanings. Instead of arguing she nodded curtly and left him alone, falling into subordination as if it were still her job. They were both creatures of habit and while she was playing her role he wondered if his had been the real reason why their lives had been ruined.

He stared at the watch in front of him with the alchemist symbol; such power and so much damn pain. The military had quickly become part of his life, a way to make something of himself in a world where his options had been limited.

The military had given him a hard line to walk, a mindset that wasn't meant to be challenged. It was kill or be killed. Veteran soldiers knew the orders of killing turned even the most gentle hearted into hyper aroused fighting machines, ready to snap at the sound of an order. There had been times, some not as far away as he pretended, where the sound of gunshots and the hair-raising screams of agony woke him up at night. To be honest there were many nights where he just sat awake, reliving every nightmare as if it were real enough to touch. No one walked away from war unscathed; yet they had taken it for granted that invisible wounds still needed to be healed. The military nurtured a hungry monster that ripped its way free as you fought on the lines. The trouble was caging it away when you returned to your life, when you returned home.

Feeling tired and aged beyond his years, he rose from his chair, fighting the urge to slam the offending watch and all its atrocities against the wall. They were the cause of this fresh wound; they were the last straw in a series of terrible events. How befitting and utterly cruel that the very hands that had once been begged to scar his wife's back, to stop the horror, were the same ones that had passed it on.

Riza was waiting for him as promised and with one look he could see the excruciating time and effort she had put into her old uniform, the lines pressed and the buttons shined. She was beautiful as ever, but something had been taken away from her and it seemed so obvious he could hardly stand to look at her. By the same token he wondered how she could look at him and not think about what was now lost. The faint lines of gray in her blonde hair reminded him that they weren't two officers anymore, they were aging humans who had outrun everything but time.

He had thought he understood the Elric brothers desire to bring back the dead when his best friend was killed and nearly Riza. How easy would it have been to trade his life for theirs, to give everything away so that they might breath again. No rational thought could prevail when faced with this death and the pain on her face when he returned home alone. They had been prepared to lose one another; prepared to take a fall they had thought would have come sooner. But this…no one should ever have to prepare to lose something of this magnitude.

The service was short and both he and his wife gave brief statements for their loss, none of which could even begin to make amends. Atonement was no longer an option for either of them. From that moment on they would spend the rest of their lives trying to figure out how they could have stopped him, what they would have done differently. Roy would be forever haunted by the look on his sons face as he returned from the front, the glorified reports of his flames only dead bodies in his son's eyes. If he had only talked to him them, made him see sense.

The traditional flag covered the casket and he pushed aside the urge to tear it off. His son wouldn't have wanted it there... not after what he had been forced to do, the killing machine they had turned him into. The men in uniform greeted them with respectful words of condolence and notes of character towards their deceased son. He nodded and shook hands because after burying his 19 year old son, he didn't know what came next. Riza leaned against him and he settled his arm around her shaking shoulders. Misery was their constant companion and for the first time since he had found the remains of his son, he couldn't help but wish he had the strength to end this.

Maes Mustang was being honored as a brave young soldier, the son of a national hero and the conqueror of a war. No one looked at the broken man who left with his head held high in his parent's footsteps only to return with the pieces of himself no longer fitting together. Like his namesake, he was gone before his time.

The night was dark as he sat with Riza in their empty house, void of what used to be a family. He knew without a doubt she was running herself ragged thinking that her strict upbringing had brought this upon him, had forced him into the service. While he mourned over the hours he had spent teaching his son the secret to a fire that would eventually take his life. And when he thought of all the lives he had taken in the Ishvalan war he thought of the children and how their parents felt.

Riza's hand ghosted over his. "Stay with me."

Roy held on tightly, sure that if it weren't for her watching his back he would have found that gun of hers too comforting. It occurred to him that he would have done it a long time ago if it weren't for her. His son's decision was one he had almost made. Hell, he should have been there to stop him as Riza had loyally done for him, wasn't his son owed the same?

He thought of all the soldiers that never came home. With just one glance at Riza he recognized the dead look, the missing faith and the broken heart. No one liked to talk about what had happened to soldiers like Maes, no one wanted to talk about the numerous suicides that took place after the war had ended. It was a hollow pain, a source of suffering that would shadow them like the guilt on their conscience.

They might not have gone to war this time, but it was still there. Their love had brought them back in the past, but was it enough to bring them through this? The secret of the deadly flame would die with them as it should have a generation ago and in the end it would be the two them. Locked in misery, forced to relive their nightmares, new and old until at last death would release them.