DISCLAIMER: I own nothing of FMA. Least off all one 2nd Lieutenant Heymans Breda.


It was 0700 hours when 2nd Lieutenant Heymans Breda walked into Eastern Headquarters. He trudged up the steps in the morning drizzle. Aside from the sentries at the main entrance, the building appeared to be fairly empty. Of course it was a full hour before most of the headquarters staff started their day. Military Police, Line Units, and other non-headquarters personnel generally operated at all hours. While HQ was manned around the clock, most the administrative work occurred during 'business' hours.

One of the sentries snapped to attention and saluted while the other opened the front door. Breda returned the salute and nodded to the Private holding the door open. The main hallway wasn't any busier then the entrance had been. Heymans smiled, not that he was particularly surprised, after all he figured the coming discussion was best served by having as few potential prying eyes and ears around as possible. He continued down the hallway at a leisurely pace before heading up to the second floor where Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang's staff had their offices.

Upon entering the outer portion of their offices he was not surprised to see a pair of black military overcoats hanging from the coat rack. The first undoubtedly belonged to 1st Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, Lt. Colonel Mustang's chief of staff, body guard, and more often then not his keeper. Heymans had yet to see anyone arrive at the office before the blonde sharpshooter, not that he tried all that hard to beat her himself. The second would have been a surprise on any other day. Lt. Colonel Mustang was generally the last to arrive at the office. The Lt. Colonel could get away with running late on a daily basis, he was the senior officer and besides that he was the Hero of Ishval. Heymans often wondered who would be the last to arrive for work if Mustang was a fellow 2nd Lieutenant. It would be a hard fought race to last place between himself, Havoc, and Mustang.

Breda took off his own overcoat while walking over to the coat rack. The inner doors to Mustang's office were closed and no one was in the outer office. Heymans paused after hanging up his coat. He was never one to allow himself to be distracted by being nervous, unless some nasty mutt happened to be around somewhere. There would be no turning back after he knocked on the Lt. Colonel's door. With a slight shrug he started for the second set of doors. Heymans already had a good idea of what was going on. He was, after all, a rather perceptive individual. So unless he had made a truly epic misjudgment of character, there was only one possibility. The 2nd Lieutenant knocked on the doors; one had to be polite after all. After a few seconds of silence dragged by there was a command of, "Enter."

Opening the door Heymans walked in with a huge grin on his face, "I see congratulations are in order." Mustang was seated behind his desk, with his fingers interlocked in front of him. Hawkeye stood by one of the two chairs in front of the desk in a position of rest. Both of them raised an eyebrow in unison before Hawkeye turned slightly to look at her commander.

Heymans closed the door behind him and continued to nonchalantly walk across the office towards the pair. "Youngest man ever promoted to Colonel." Upon reaching his designated spot a few steps in front of the desk he stopped. Coming to a perfect position of attention he snapped an equally perfect salute. "Congratulations Sir."

"Hmph," the Colonel snorted, "at east Lieutenant." The pair watched as Breda assumed a similar position of rest as the 1st Lieutenant was currently maintaining. Mustang glanced briefly at Hawkeye before returning his attention to the 2nd Lieutenant. "It hasn't been officially announced yet."

With a smile Heymans replied, "No sir, but that doesn't make it any less worthy of congratulations."

"I believe the Colonel might be curious as to how you may have become aware of such a possibility." No one in the room missed Hawkeye's choice of words.

Showing an even wider smile, Heymans said, "I'm your intelligence officer. It's my job to know things." Mustang smiled and Hawkeye almost imperceptivity rolled her eyes.

"True," Mustang waved his left hand towards the remaining empty chair. "Take a seat Lieutenant." While Breda moved forward to take the offered chair, 1st Lieutenant Hawkeye walked around the desk and came to a stop directly behind the Colonel's right shoulder. "So are you going to answer Hawkeye's question? Or are you going to mercilessly leave us wandering around in the dark, alone, abandoned, with out any information." There was another nearly imperceptible roll of the eyes, this time accompanied by what may have been a sigh.

"Major General Mosquito may have unhappily muttered a curse about the matter to one of his subordinates while I was headed to lunch yesterday. He really should watch his blood pressure." Heymans was still smiling.

Mustang smirked, "Is that so."

"They going to keep you around boss or are they transferring you elsewhere?" Heymans smile shrank slightly as he moved on to business.

"I'll be staying around." Mustang leaned back in his chair and re-crossed his fingers in front of him. "I'll be taking over all of 2nd Brigade."

His earlier sense of nervousness started to creep back. Heymans shrugged it off and looked the Colonel directly in the eyes. "And after that sir?" He felt the 1st Lieutenant's eyes on him, but he never looked away from the Colonel.

Mustang shrugged and sat up in his seat, he looked over his hands at Breda. "Don't know, ours is not to reason why or in this case where?"

"Perhaps, but you definitely seem to have a specific destination in mind." It was becoming increasingly harder to shrug off the nervousness. The very cold and flat look of Mustang's onyx eyes as he peered over his hands at Breda wasn't helping. Nor, when he later thought about it, was the slight shift in Hawkeye's stance. A stance which would allow for quicker access to one of her various handguns, all of which she was eminently skilled with.

The office remained perfectly still and quiet as time seemed to slow. Eventually, after a minute or two Mustang lowered his hands and in a completely serious voice asked, "What did you think of Ishval?"

Heymans eyes briefly looked past Mustang at a not so distant memory.

"We gave you what we wanted! We told you where the warriors were hiding!" A teenage Ishvalan girl wailed at the Armestrian soldiers. "You promised you'd let our families go."

A younger Heymans Breda turned towards the Major in charge of the unit. "They did exactly as they promised sir."

"So they did, what's your point Lieutenant," was the Major's gruff reply.

Heymans looked shocked. "I told them if they helped us track down the warriors responsible for the raids we'd let them go." He gestured towards the small collection of Ishvalans. "They're only civilians."

"That they are, and yes you did." The Major now turned directly to face Breda and glared at him. "I on the other hand promised no such thing." The Major turned back towards the Ishvalans and shouted out, "By Presidential Decree the Fuhrer has declared you all enemies of the state." The soldiers raised their weapons.

The girl glared at Breda as he stood impotent.

"FIRE!"

Heymans eyes came back into focus and returned a glare just as hard as the Colonel's back at him. "It was an abomination."

They stared at each other for another minute. Finally, it was Hawkeye that broke the tension. She shifted back to her original position of rest. Mustang glanced back, black eyes met reddish brown. Heymans carefully watched as neither Mustang nor Hawkeye spoke a single word and yet managed to hold a nearly complete conversation.

Finally Mustang turned back to the 2nd Lieutenant, the cold, flat look was gone. "I agree." He leaned back into his chair, "I intend to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. I intend to protect everyone below me. They will in turn protect those below them." He paused and looked out the window at the rising sun as it emerged behind some clouds. "But to truly accomplish this I will need to occupy a chair far above my current seat." Turning back toward Breda, the flat look of his eyes was back, but this time with out the coldness. "I need capable individuals who share that objective. Interested?"

"Yes sir."


Author's Note: So... how many of you thought I was going somewhere else with Roy and Riza behind closed doors?

I've always felt that aside from Riza and Maes, Roy had never blatantly told any of his other subordinates what his plans were. I have likewise felt they were smart enough to figure out where he was generally headed.

I've got at least 2 more chapter ideas for this set of stories. There will probably be more.

Any suggestions on a title... I'm not to happy with "Intel."

Please review, praise, criticize, and or comment.