Title: Cell Phones to the Dead
Author: Keraha
Warnings: None.
Notes: This was originally intended to be a post ep25 fic, except I never really addressed it. No spoilers. Inspired by a something I read about cellphones ringing on the day of the Spain bombings. It was written a while ago (not long after episode 25 came out), so it might be OOC compared to how characters act later in the series. I also took some liberties with the FMA universe.

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When the phone started to ring, everyone started. The sound hung in the air, a nasal, flat grasshopper chirrup, still echoing in their heads in the air, even after the phone itself stopped ringing.

Breda heard it, and he couldn't help himself. A thin, nervous laugh bubbled out of lips, and he heard, over the sounds of his own heaving breathes, a few other people giggle, too. He knew that it was inappropriate, that it was wrong, but he couldn't help it. How could he explain it? It was simply a wife calling a husband, and the husband not answering. It was a domestic fight scene in the making, except that it would never play out to its grand climax. This fight would never progress past the unanswered phone. It would end with a graveyard and a widow, with no loud drama in between.

Just the ring of a phone echoing.

The phone rang again, more insistently. It wasn't loud; it came from the pocket of the corpse, a "cellular phone" tucked into his pocket. The layers of the military uniform kept it muffled, but it was loud enough to shatter the silence that surrounded him.

Mustang, Breda saw, had a face of ivory, glinting cold and beautiful in the lamplights. The colonel was beautiful, he thought inanely. He had a round face, yes, and chinky eyes, but there was a set of iron that made him beautiful the way buildings were beautiful. They would always stand, always stand and support and be there. Mustang would always be there. He had to be.

Breda watched as the colonel bent down and unbuttoned the uniform, hands strangely steady. Breda could feel his own hands shake, and he wondered vaguely why he couldn't stop them. He wondered why the phone wouldn't stop ringing, why the sound wouldn't leave his head. He wondered why someone had to call him, why then, why now. Why did he have to have a phone? Why did they have to face a death this early?

When the corpse's jacket finally fell open, Mustang, still crouching by the body, picked up the phone. He held it for one more minute, listening as it rang, then again, and again. Breda knew that everyone was watching, that this microdrama was playing out before their very eyes, and that no one would turn away. That no one could turn away.

The phone rang again, plaintively, and Mustang flicked the switch and put it to his ear.

Breda wondered how Mustang knew to turn it on. Cellular phones were strange, unlike the normal phones they had in the office. They had buttons where there shouldn't be buttons and had too many places to press before being able to start a conversation. They were alien. How did he know how to turn it on?

"Hello?" Mustang's voice was low and didn't shake at all. Breda hated him for it. Breda hated how the man could bend down, pick up a dead man's cell phone, and answer in that infuriating, steady voice. He hated how Mustang knew how to answer it, he hated that Mustang was able to answer it, he hated Mustang. He hated this.

"Hello?" Mustang repeated.

Everyone was silent, waiting for some answer.

Mustang held the phone to his ear for just a little bit longer, before pulling it way as though it burned. "They hung up," he said quietly.

They hung up. Breda thought, strangely dizzy. It was surreal. A dead man was laying in a telephone booth, a picture of his family in his hands. They were at a park where little kids played, and a woodchip had somehow worked its way into his left boot. Someone called a dead man, waited for the dead man to answer, and when someone did, they hung up.

Breda wondered what would have happened if the corpse got up to pick up the phone, said "Excuse me" to Mustang, took the phone and answered it. It wouldn't make any sense, he thought. But it made less sense for someone to be calling a dead man -- they don't know he's dead, a voice said, and even less sense for someone to call, and then hang up --they don't know he's dead. Breda didn't know what would have happened if the person on the other end had listened for just a moment longer, if Mustang had to talk to someone.

He was dizzy, and the tension soared, until Mustang flicked another switch on the phone, and put it back. Then a silence spread, almost anticipating another ring.

Breda couldn't help it.

He laughed.