Author's Note: My second FMA fanfic, third if you're counting songs.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, never have, and probably never will.

Warning: Spoilers for series and movie, character deaths, violence, profanity.

Chapter 1: Discovery

"Give this to General Mustang immediately."

That had been the order given to the young private, and he had jumped at the opportunity to carry it out. He had smartly saluted his superior officer before grabbing the medium sized brown envelope off the desk and walking out the door, shutting it behind him. It wasn't every day that someone of his low status got to see a person as important as the General. Hero of the Ishbal Rebellion, the Flame Alchemist, the one who had revealed the true identity of the former Fuhrer Bradley, and, more recently, the man who had vanquished the beings from the other side of the Gate. The young private's idol.

He proceeded down the hallway toward the General's office, which was located on the other side of the building. He walked in a way that was so rigid and formal that as he passed a group of female officers, one was heard to make a crude remark . He held his head up high and kept walking, keeping his mind focused on the goal. With his free hand he pulled out a few imaginary wrinkles in his already stiffly starched uniform, then smoothed down his already twice-combed and slicked down thick, dark brown hair. After all, one never gets a first chance to make a first impression, and this was one first impression he didn't want to screw up.

He had joined the military three months earlier. He had come from a big family of farmers out in the countryside. His mother, father, aunt, three brothers, and five sisters all lived on the outskirts of a small town that no one knew or gave a damn about. For a living they planted crops, harvested them, fed the animals, and collected their shit to make fertilizer to do more farming. He felt choked in that life. Choked by the hard labor of plowing, choked by the distinct smell of chickens and pigs, but most of all choked by the dullness of it all. He could see his life stretched out in front of him: he would meet a nice girl from around the town, marry her, have some kids, die of old age, and be buried under a tombstone bearing the words "loving father" or "hard worker" or some other mundane bullshit like that. He couldn't have that; he had to make his mark on the world, to be remembered a hundred years from now as someone important, someone who had made a difference.

And so he had awakened one balmy summer night, packed up money, food, and a change of clothes in a worn haversack, and left his house behind, leaving behind him only a note telling his mother not to worry. He was merely seventeen at the time. He had reached Central within a week, and had immediately applied for a position as a private in the military. They had rejected him, saying that he was too young, and so he had hung around the city for a few months, doing odd jobs to earn money, and counting down the days until the day he turned eighteen. Then he had reapplied and been accepted. It was the best birthday present of his life. The chance to rise from the ordinary to the ranks of the extraordinary.

The young private was violently jerked out of his thoughts by the sound of a single gunshot being fired off. He looked around, but the halls were deserted. In fact, the majority of this side of the building near the General's office was unoccupied, as most of the people who normally occupied those rooms had not reported for work yet. He broke into a jog, then started running flat out as he got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Later he would say that he knew something horrible had already happened even as he raced towards his destination.

He reached the office door and stood there for a moment, breathing hard from running down the hall. He opened it with a mingled feeling of dread and a terrible curiosity. The inside of the room was dim; the lights were off and the blinds were closed. The sunlight that filtered in through the cracks illuminated the room with a pale, shadow-ridden glow that somehow appeared ominous. At first glance, though, nothing looked out of the ordinary. The room was arranged as always, with oak shelves facing each other, a black leather sofa on the wall with the door, and a large desk facing the door with a comfortable swivel chair for the General behind it. Then he saw it. A dark liquid forming a puddle that seemed to originate from the space behind the desk. And the young private knew in his heart, even if his brain was in denial, exactly what had happened. That same terrible curiosity that had lured him into the room compelled him to look behind the desk.

He found a raw scream tearing itself from his throat, found himself hurtling out of the office in horror, back down the hall, yelling at the top of his lungs, yelling for someone, anyone, to come and help.

"Suicide," the medic repeated. "No doubt about it. The angle of the weapon, the way he was found: it couldn't be anything else but that."

"Thank you, sir. You understand, I just wanted to be sure." Jean Havoc sighed heavily, then pulled a cigarette from the pack in his pants pocket and lit it. He tried not to look at the large dark red stain that now marred the carpet of the office, nor the black body bag that now contained the corpse of the man who had been his superior officer and comrade for many years. And yet he couldn't keep the images out of his mind: Roy lying dead on the ground, his right hand still limply holding the gun that he had used to take his own life. Roy's face, the eye not covered by the eye patch, the right side of his face bloody and gruesome from where he had fired the single bullet that had entered right at his temple.

To keep himself from breaking down right then and there, Havoc looked around the room. The medics were still hovering over the area behind the desk, writing stuff down on official-looking clipboards and talking in quiet tones. Breda, Falman, and Fuery were talking amongst themselves, all with varying looks of somberness on their faces. Fuery had tearstains on his cheeks. Havoc spotted the private who had found Roy in the first place. He was sitting on a chair in the corner, looking very pale, pasty and on the verge of collapse. Havoc was willing to bet that he had never before seen a dead man up close.

Havoc took a long drag on his cigarette before taking it from his mouth. "Hey," he said, walking up to the young private. "Are you okay?" It was a stupid question; no one would be all right after having seen the man they had idolized with a piece of lead through his skull. But it was the only decent thing that Havoc could think of to say at that moment.

The guy looked up at Havoc before shaking his head slowly. "Why did he do it?" he asked, a significant quaver in his voice.

Jean looked at the private with a gaze that told of both his own sadness and the pity he felt for the man he was talking to. "I think he had his reasons."

"What? Why the hell would he do something like that? He had everything! Wealth, fame, popularity, status! Why would anyone - "

"No." Havoc suddenly interrupted, and looked at him sharply. "He didn't have everything. He didn't have her." And with that he replaced his cigarette in his mouth, knowing that before the day was over, the entire pack would be gone.

Author's Note: Wow. Can't believe I wrote this stuff. One morning the idea popped into my head and it just wouldn't leave me alone. I'm glad no one knows where I live, because I have a feeling that a few fangirls may be after my blood. Oh well, don't forget to review.