Title: The Legionaire's Lament (formerly "Dear")
Pairing: Havoc/OFC
Spoilers: for series up to ep 32 or so.
Warning: Angst, OCs. Set pre-series, during the Ishvar War
Rating: PG-13
Author's notes: This fic was originally written for the kinkmeme, which can be found at livejournal under the comm name "fmakinky."

Dear, Havoc wrote, and then stopped.

John Havoc sat doubled-up under the tent covering, a little pocket of civilization on the wide-open baking plain. If anything it was hotter under the heavy dark canvas, in the claustrophobic dust-filled space, but at least it was out of the sunlight. A slate was balanced over his knees, a sheet of paper spread out on it; the charcoal in his hand poised and ready to write.

Anna, he finally wrote.

I am writing to tell you

Stopped again. He'd been trying to write her for weeks now, but there had never been time, never been supplies. He'd been assigned to the 352nd now for almost two months, double the time that anyone was supposed to stay on reconnaisance duty, and paper was scarce out here on the edge of nowhere, mail runs scarcer.

But the courier had just come in and he'd finally managed to get the paper and get an hour off duty and alone, and while there was no ink and the alchemists hoarded all the chalk, there was never any lack of charcoal. Had time had space had paper. Now all he needed to find were words.

to tell you that I won't be coming home

He stared at the words. That made it sound like he was dying. Was that true? No way to tell. He'd be home someday. Probably. Maybe. That wasn't the point.

coming home next summer like we planned.

Plans. That was the thing. They'd made plans, he and Anna, back in Central before he left. Back in his other life, where the rain fell on the smooth shingled roofs and ran out the gutters, where the trees and grass grew coolly up in the cracks in the flagstones. He and Anna had laughed, his arm over her shoulder her arm around his waist as they walked the streets under a cool cloudy sky, and made plans.

I'm sorry

There had been a cafe that they liked to visit, a cafe which served hot strong drinks and cold sweet ones, and crumbling pastries. They'd sat in the wrought iron chairs by the entrance and watched the streets come and go. They'd talked for hours, things that had seemed important... Havoc didn't remember any more, what they'd talked about.

to have to break the engagement after all this time,

How long had it been, since he'd left her behind to join the army, march off to fight for his country? Defend Amestris, defend Anna, hadn't that been the plan? Three years now, four years?

but I don't know when I'll be coming back and I can't

Can't do this any more. Can't sit up waiting for letters that don't come for months and months because of the security blackouts, because the roads have been cut again. Can't sit dead at his post dreaming of the city where green things grow, where girls with laughing eyes and curling red hair dance in the summer rain.

Can't live a double life any more, can't be two people any more. Can't be the boy who sat in the back seat of the motorcar with the girl on his lap, laughing and screaming at the top of his lungs as they tore up and down the flagstoned streets of Central. Can't be the man who lay under the sheets with you, whose hands ran over your skin in the darkness, whose mouth tasted the salt on your neck and swallowed your moans. Can't keep on being in love with you any more.

make promises I won't be able to keep.

Outside, someone was screaming about something, the words lost in endless, incoherent bellow of rage. Nobody else in the encampment, even him, really heard it any more.

Please be happy, Anna.

That seemed to be the right thing to say.

I never stopped loving you but

Well, he hadn't. Didn't think he had. Didn't know how to explain to her what it felt like when love turned inside out, when what used to make you live and grow turned into a torment for the things that you could never have, never have again. Didn't know how to explain to her how when you'd gone thirsty in the desert for so long that a drink of water hurt like hell.

No, he'd never stopped loving her. But he wanted to.

but this is the best thing for both of us.

He scanned the letter again, his eyes dry in the desert dust, hands shaking and shedding little pieces of charcoal. There was nothing else to say. He signed the letter, sealed it, wrote the address on the outside. Stood up and walked out of the hot darkness into the blasting sun, made his way over the fallen rubble towards the courier's stand. Then hesitated.

"COMPANY FALL OUT"

The bellow rang across the narrow encampment, and Havoc jolted out of his daze, all senses coming back on alert. All senses coming back to the here in the desert in the now two months into deployment four years into the tour. He left the courier standing there startled in the dust as he swung around and pounded for the tent, scrambling to grab his gear and go and go and go.

Mail was abandoned, left behind. Letter to Anna DeVries, 824 Elysian Court, Central, stayed behind on the slate. Letter to John Havoc, 352nd division, mail code blacked, location blacked, lay forgotten in the bag, the top cut open because all mail to the 352nd was read by the censors these days. Part of the edge of the paper still peeked out, the letter only carelessly folded and stuffed back in the envelope.

Dear John, the letter began.

~end.