Well, I am glad to finally get something up on I hope the locals here will like my story .

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Fullmetal Alchemist. As much as I greatly would, I'd probably just screw it all up.

The storyline where my fic takes place is a little sketchy, but it takes place before the movie...I think. I dunno. Don't think it really needs a place in the storyline, but w/e. Enjoy 1st chapter.

Chapter One

His head started to ache. What was he thinking? Frustrated to the brink, he knocked the stack of papers off of his desk along with the lamp and his coffee, and hit the wood as hard as he could.

He'd been thinking about this for about a week now, what was taking him so long to figure it out? His life was falling apart left and right, ever since that day. He burried his face in his hands and ran them though his ebony hair. It was never the same. And it never will be. Ever again, he remorsed to himself.

Why did it have to happen to such a warm, carassing soul? His life-long friend? A dutyful father and husband?

It was just not fair. It should have been him. He didn't own as much as Hughes did. Nothing would have changed if he wasn't there anymore. But no, Fate had to sacrifice an innocent life.

"Dammit" he shouted as he cringed into himself.

The room was engulfed in darkness, save for the light that creeped under the door from the hallway outside his office. 'I can't. It's forbidden alchemy! Besides,' he relaxed, 'he wouldn't like it if I did...'

"So, Chief?" asked Havoc the next day at work.

"What is it, Havoc?" sighed Roy. " And it's i no /i if it's about that 'smoking parlor' request," Roy responded while not looking away from his paperwork.

"No no, it's not that ­­--even though I've sent in a request form over a month ago--," he grumbled.

"Then what? I don't have enough time for petty talk, Lieutenant."

"Well, you've seemed a little...out of it today, sir. Are you feelin' okay?"

"What, the Colonel's sick?!" exclaimed Breda once he decided to listen in.

"Oh my! Maybe you should go see a doctor!" suggested Feury.

"I agree with Sergeant Feury," replied Falman.

"Sir, if you didn't feel well, you should have called--" started Hawkeye.

"I'M NOT SICK!" shouted Roy to his subordinates.

The room was silent for a moment before Havoc spoke up again, "I'm just sayin', Mustang. Maybe you should see a doctor or something. Because your depressed mood is starting to piss me off."

"Do you still want that parlor, Lieutenant? Because it wouldn't pain me to deny your request," Roy glared at Havoc. Havoc returned his suspicious glare before he turned away. "Shoot yourself."

The four other officers were a little tense at the atmosphere the two had created. They all returned to what they were doing before the arguement. But they never stopped worrying about their commander. His performance affected their duty. And he hasn't been this distracted since the death of Brigadier General Hughes. That was a few months ago now.

They left the Colonel alone for the rest of the day. Save for the short moments where they had to hand in paperwork or recieved a command from the Colonel. When it came time to a lunch break, they all left the office to leave Roy alone.

'It's just too hard without...,' he thought.

"Oi! Mustang!" came a farmiliar voice.

He looked up to see Fullmetal at the door storming his way into his office. "I've come to give you your report. So listen 'cuz I'm only gonna say it once," he said in his usual gruff tone. "I killed another homunculi." Roy's stare didn't change as the news was delivered. "I want your report in written form, Edward. And hand it into me by the end of today, got it?" Ed just scowled darkly but said nothing as he left and slammed the door.

Roy's headache came back. He couldn't do it, the Elric Brothers were proof enough. They'd gone though too much for children so young.

"But...," his brain started to think, "They were children. Inexperienced."

He began to whisper to himself, "Soul...blood...if I just...," and something clicked, "Yes, it should work."

About half an hour later, everyone reported in for duty after they returned back from the Mess Hall.

"Colonel Mustang, I have some documents that need your approval before they are sent away." "I have your coffee, sir." "These papers are from General Haruko and need to be in before the end of the day, okay Chief?"

He sighed as another stack of papers was dumped onto his desk and everyone returned to their stations. He moved for his pen and started approving and signing away until the end of the day.

"Have a good evening, Colonel Mustang," said Hawkeye as she closed the door behind her to return to her apartment. Roy leisurely waved at the closed door. Everyone had left the building, except for a few janitors and overtimers. He slowly stood up, grabbed his coat, locked the room and made for his apartment also. But he was going to make a stop on his way.

His mind was made up.

He exited Central. Walked about six blocks to the store. Picked his groceries and walked home with two bags of supplies.

Water; 35 liters

Carbohydrates; 20 Kilograms

Ammonia; 4 liters

Calcium; 1.5 Kilograms

Adenosine; 800 grams

Phosphorus; 800 grams

Salt; 250 grams

Nitrogen; 100 grams

Sulfur; 80 grams

Fluoride; 7.5 grams

Silicon; 3 grams

Iron; 5 grams

Assorted trash elements and compounds; 15 grams

The components of an average adult human body.

He set the bags aside by his couch in his large livingroom. He knew he was crazy to attempt this. But he had to try. He related his situation to that of Ed and Al's, when they preformed a human transmutation on their deceased mother. They didn't have the resources he did back then. He reached into his pocket to grab a pouch of Red Stone he swiped from Archer's workplace. He could definetely lose his job over this. Only if someone found out that is. But he wasn't going to think about that right now.

He used a drawing for reference as he drew the transmutation circle. He emptied the contents of the bags into the center. He set the Red Stone in front of him. He heard the wind pick up outside. Earlier that week, he had requested Gracia to allow him to have a doctor extract some blood from young Elicia-chan. When she asked why, he lied to her by telling that it was to make sure Elicia didn't have the infant disease travelling around. He had the vile in the freezer, just in case he changed his mind about this. And he did.

The blood from Elicia held enough of her father's DNA so that it should call his soul from behind The Gate, even though it is diluted by Gracia and Elicia's own blood. He let the red essense drip onto the circle. He took a breath and gently placed his hands on the circle, and hoped to God that it worked.

The pat on the window said that it was raining now. The swirl of alchemy englufed the room in a torrent of light and heat. A hue of red whistled between the cascades from the Red Stone. He watched as the red soon began to immerse the rest of the alchemy energy. 'Something's wrong...' The caressing sound of the transmutation soon took on a violent, ungodly sound. 'But I made sure everything was...' The soothing warmth began to burn his skin. 'What did I do wrong...' The energy started tearing at his body. "I was so sure...!"

A dog across the street could be heard barking as a scream was heard from inside the apartment across the street.

He was left crying out in pain as he clutched the side of his face. His blood started staining the floorboards and his clothing. His eye! What happened to his eye?! Warm blood leaked between his fingers as he tried to stop it from bleeding.

He was alarmed when he heard wheezing and sputtering from the center of the circle. 'Did it work...' He brung himself up on one elbow while still holding his face, and looked beyond the steam and smoke at the creature in the middle. "M...Maes?" Wheeze! "Is it...?" Gasp! His one eye widened in horror when he saw the deformed, bleeding, pulsing flesh in the center of the transmutation circle. "W-What...? But the Stone! I was positive! Blood...ingredients...!" He was threatening to shed tears. "Hughes..." He held them back. "Why didn't it...work?"

A couple hard knock shook his little condo. "Hey! Mustang!! Keep it down in there, some of us are trying to sleep!" said his neighbor from across the hall.

He didn't acknowledge the guy's anger. More on his failure. His own loss of his eye. The heavy loss of his friend, once again. But overall, the disappointment he must have caused Hughes' soul by preforming this stunt.

"Hey! Are you listening?!"

Roy's body suddenly got tense and he held back his tears once again. To no avail though. He growled at the salty liquid spilling from his onyx eye, "Dammit!" He slammed his fist on the floor, "Dammit, dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!!"

"Mustang? Hey! Are you alright in there?"

He looked up though blurred vision from the tears in his eye, and slowly crawled over to the mound of flesh. He reached out with a shaky hand, but didn't dare touch it. "I...I'm sorry."

His neighbor knocked harder, "Hey!" he shouted to the other neighbors, "Someone help!" --"What?" "What's wrong?" "Ugh, It's two in the morning, Clyde!"--

Roy blacked out.

He heard a soft voice calling to him. Mumble. He groaned at the sudden pain. Mumble mumble. He tried to move his body. Mutter...okay...grumble...sir...mumble. Someone was trying to talk to him. This time he tried to open his eyes, but remembered that he had lost one last night. He shot awake immediately. Last night! He sat up quickly with his eye searching the room he was in.

"Sir! Calm down!" came Hawkeyes voice as she grabbed his shoulders to keep him in his hospital bed. "Colonel Mustang!" a male voice cried. He looked over at Havoc. "Lieutenant Havoc? Lieutenant Hawkeye?" He frantically looked around, "Where am i?" Hawkeye coaxed him to lay back down, "You're at North Amestris Hospital. May 16th, 1945. Four o'clock in the afternoon." He looked away from her. He was only out for a day. He felt the bandage covering his eye.

"Hey, Mustang? Mind explaining yourself?" asked Havoc. Roy looked at him, he was sitting in a guest chair by the window where the orange light leaked though the curtains or his room, arms crossed and unlit cigarette in his mouth. And looked away in shame at his actions from last night. "I was..." Jean's serious face tightened, and Riza's expression turned to a little bit worried. "Cleaning my apartment and I fell, his my eye on the edge of the table," he lied.

"Come on, Colonel. We all know that's not what really happened. I'm sorta disappointed at your excuse. Now, tell us what really went on in there."

"Sir, we didn't find your missing eye. You had a massive amount of blood missing and there was a giant transmutation circle in the middle of your livingroom. Please give us a reasonable answer," Riza said calmly while looking into his eye. But then realization hit him, "What? What about the mound of flesh in the--...?" he stopped, not wanting to rat on himself. "Sir?"

Havoc bit hard on his cigarette. He stood up and stomped over to Mustang's bed. Roy looked frightened at him, and cringed away when Havoc grabbed the metal bar on the side, "I sure as hell hope you didn't do what I hope you didn't do, Mustang!" "Lieutenant Havoc, what are you doing?" shouted Hawkeye as she grabbed the hem on his sleeve, "Colonel Mustang is unwell, please let him rest!"

She saw Roy turn away from the two, "No, Riza, Jean is...right." She looked at him, horrified, "But, sir--" Havoc growled at Roy, "Okay, Mustang! Who was it?! That is a forbidden alchemy! You could get yourself fired! Now spill it!" He didn't respond. Havoc grit his teeth, "Was it Brigadier General Hughes?" Roy and Riza both looked at Havoc in shock, "What?" she looked at Roy, "Colonel, is that true?"

Roy obviously couldn't hide it from them now, "...Yeah..."

"You know, Mustang? Don't think that you're the only one in this academy that misses him. Sure he was always a pain in the ass, but he was an excellent friend. Do you realize what you've even done? The Council is going to chew you up and spit your out on the street! And the rest of us will be left without a commander!"

"Lieutenant Havoc! Please!" insisted Riza. "If you were put in his position--" "I wouldn't have done it!" Roy officially felt like shit. More than last night even. Havoc was right. "We never recovered a 'mound of flesh', Mustang," continued Havoc. He eased off and Hawkeye let go of his uniform.

He turned from the two at the bed and sat back down in his chair. "We'd better keep this to ourselves," he said in a meditating state. Riza relaxed and nodded, "Agreed." Roy looked at the two in shock, "What? Are you two crazy? You could get fired with me!" Havoc looked at him, "Nothing compared to the level of crazy you attempted. So just keep your mouth shut and maybe we could keep you as colonel, got it, Colonel?" he smirked.

Roy let Havoc's devotion sink in before he turned away, even more shamed now that his two most loyal cohorts could go down with him if he was caught. "Thanks."

"Colonel. I think you should get some rest," advised Riza. The now warm atmosphere in the room; orange hue to the white room, a couple of the best collegues he could ask for, and a night of misery, was starting to make him tired. The buzz of the machinery in his room was soothing. The unit of blood that was donated still feeding him it's essense. The needle in his arm still annoying, but harmless either way. He started drifting.

After a few minutes, the two lieutenants saw that the Colonel was sleeping now. "So, split into groups? I take clean-up and you take care of cover-up?" Havoc proclaimed. "Sure." Even though Havoc was still going to give Roy more shit when he woke up, they probably couldn't work with another Colonel other than Mustang. He knew that most of the others wouldn't last long alone and out of the job. Even though Breda, Feury and Falman did nothing, the Fuhrer and The Council would probably still catch them for felony treason. Being allianced with himself and Riza, all that jazz. The three of them will obviously get the worst of it for conspiracy or something stupid like that.

"Well. I'm off to get that shit off of Roy's floor. Tidy up so it looks like an accident before Central gets a clean-up crew to investigate his apartment after it's reported," said Havoc while grabbing his jacket. "I'll make sure that the hospital records the medics wrote at the scene are destroyed and replaced. Substitute the Colonel's neightbor's statements, too."

"Ja. Good luck, Hawkeye," he said before he walked out the door.

Hawkeye smiled calmly at the empty door, "Same here, Lieutenant." She too walked to the door, looked back at Roy, "Get well soon, Colonel," and left.

"Okay, guys. Get to it," said Havoc to his team of not-so-professional team of cleaners he hired from the local House Cleaners Clinic.

"Wow, sir. That's a lot of blood...," remarked one of the cleaners, "And a lot of calligraphy," and pointed to the black marking on the floor. "Agreed,sir," another. "What happened in here, sir?" asked another. Havoc leaned on the doorway, "My friend's 8 year old kid, quite an imagination actually, crazy with a pencil. Also had a major nose bleed in here. He asked that you clean it up so that it looked like nothing every happened, you know, 'cuz his wife would kill him if the floorboards had any stains." He quirked an eyebrow and pointed to the floor, "$800 boards, you know. I wouldn't even walk on 'em."

One of the cleaners rubbed his chin, "Thats a lotta blood for just one kid." "I agree." "Yes, a lot." Havoc rubbed his temples, "Did I say 'kid'? Sorry, I meant 'kids'. Three boys. Big brawl over the remote," he made a gesture with his hand to emphasize, "Shit happens all the time with this kinda thing." He turned, "I'll trust that it'll all be gone before my friend's wife returns, right? I'll even give ya $50 extra if you get it done within 3 hours." The cleaners saluted comically, "Hai!"

Hawkeye walked up to the female clerk behind the hospital desk. "Excuse me, can I please see the medical records for a 'Roy Mustang', please?" she asked. The lady looked up from her writing, "Pardon, but you need to be an authorized personal or authority to aquire such documents, Ma'am." Hawkeye held her hand under the tag she had on her uniform, "Second Lieutenant Victoria Blenner, authorized in the military at Central Headquarters." The lady squinted to get a better look at the tag, "I apologize, Lieutenant Blenner, please wait while I retrieve the folder for Mr. Mustang," and she got up out of her chair and down the hallway.

When Riza thought that she was gone for sure, she walked over behind the clerks desk and started typing on the keyboard connected to the computer. She opened a file that told her the related documents involving Colonel Mustang's incident. The medics statements for the accident were located in File Holder C, Drawer F2 in Room 110 under the filename of 235-PT.

She exited all the windows that she put up and returned to her place in front of the counter. Just before the clerk arrived behind the corner holding in her hands a yellow folder. "Here you are, Lieutenant, Mr. Mustang's records." Riza did a small bow and opened the folder on the desk-counter. She quickly drotted though the file, 'Strange markings...eye...unconcious at scene...defibrillator...massive blood loss...breathing for approx. 10 seconds...no reminents of eye.' She scanned the file for anything that could possibly be remembered, but spotted nothing significantly remarkable except for the part where Roy's breathing stopped for a matter of seconds.

"I apologize in advance for this," she said. She took out a small spray can of Lorazepam and squirted it once creating a small cloud that wafted towards the lady. The clerk barely had time to protest before she swayed a little and fell, Hawkeye caught her before she made any noise involving the ground. She slowly dragged her behind her desk and layed her on her chair with her head resting on the desk so that it looked like she had just fallen asleep.

Hawkeye took a new folder from behind her back that she had kept hidden from the woman and replaced it with the real one. She set it on the counter next to the woman so that she would think she forgot to put it away. She then started to find Room 110.

The next day.

"Wow," awed Feury, "He looks like a sleeping angel, doesn't he Lieutenant Breda?"

"Hm, I've seen prettier..."

"Oh, where?"

"...When you're older, Feury."

Kain looked away with a confused expression on his face, "Okay..."

"I don't advise you get too close to the Colonel, Sergeant Feury. You never know, his bad luck might be contagious," advised Falman. "And I imagine he would dislike it that another male was so close to his person."

Kain reasoned with himself and agreed with Falman, the Colonel had a thing about guys not getting too close. He let go of the metal bar on Mustang's bed and returned to a spot beside Breda and Falman.

"Geez," pitied Breda, "I guess it would be pretty difficult to know you lost your eye to a table! Wonder how Colonel Mustang will adjust..." Kain and Vato nodded in agreement, "I don't even know why he would take the time and effort to do it himself."

Breda was in a relaxed state with his chair backwards and his arms weaved over the top of the plastic back. Falman sat sophisticatedly with his leg crossed over the other, reading a magazine. Feury was now only at the end of Mustang's hospital bed, still waiting for him to wake up.

They all sighed, "The Colonel's been sleeping ever since we got here, guys. When do you think he'll wake up? I've got military work to do you know?" whined Breda.

"Give the Colonel a break. He was just permanently injured, I know I wouldn't want to wake up that soon. And besides, Edward-kun will want to 'talk' to the Colonel about the incident, also. We all know that the Colonel isn't one to just slip and lose an eye," said Feury. Then he leaned towards the other two, "I heard a rumor in the hospital that Colonel Mustang had two visitors yesterday, Lieutenant Hawkeye and Lieutenant Havoc by the looks of it." The two looked puzzled, "And..? What does this have to do with anything? So Havoc and Hawkeye visited the Colonel, so?" Feury shook his head, "The nurse that was taking care of the Colonel said that she heard the three talking about a 'cover-up' and a 'clean-up'." Breda shook his head in discontent, "You're crazy Feury. They were probably talking about make-up. You know that stupid comercial on TV, "Maybelline" or something like that."

Feury sulked down. "I was sure I was onto something there. But oh well."

And the day went on, the grey sky outside announced that it was going to rain again today.

"Hey have you guess heard of that new tournament..."

She watched the group of men in the hospital room from across the street on a nearby building. "I thank you greatly, Colonel Mustang. A new pawn is added to the game now." She carassed the Red Stone in her palm, "He shall be my greatest creation."

And she disappeared.