"...What is he doing?"

Maes looked over his shoulder. Breda was just stepping into the observation room, his eyes widening as he stared past Maes, through the window to the interrogation cell. Maes turned back to the window and clenched his jaw.

"I'm not sure..." he answered quietly, "He's been doing it for the past fifteen minutes."

Havoc was still in the interrogation room, waiting for Maes to come back and continue questioning him. At first, he'd just sat there at the featureless table—still carving things into it with his nails—occasionally jerking or shuddering in what Maes could only guess was some sort of spasm. After about ten minutes or so, he'd started rocking back and forth and fidgeting, his whole body twitching as he mumbled to himself.

Now, though, he was really acting strange.

Now, he was on the floor, abandoning the chair and table in favor of the cool grey tiles. He was leaning against the wall, his injured legs drawn up and his cuffed wrists resting on his knees as he slowly and rhythmically slammed his head back against the wall. He'd bow his head forward, then pause, then throw it back against the solid concrete—probably not hard enough to really injure him, but still hard enough to make the wall behind him rumble dully with each blow.

Bow... pause... slam! Bow... pause... slam! Over and over again. Mindlessly. Expressionlessly. His face was entirely blank, though his lips still moved a little as he whispered nonsense to himself, his blue eyes half-lidded and empty. Occasionally, he'd break his hypnotic rhythm by going completely rigid and covering his face with his hands, loosing a strangled, wordless scream that was so loud that Maes could hear it clearly even through the window's thick glass. Then Havoc would fall motionless and silent again for a few seconds before returning to hitting his head against the wall.

Bow... pause... slam!

Bow... pause... slam!

"There's something wrong with him, sir..." Breda breathed, the horror in his voice seeming to take on a solid form that fell like a cold, dead weight into the pit of Maes' stomach, "There has to be. Something happened to him while he was AWOL. It's the only explanation..."

"Or maybe he just went ape-shit," Maes countered uncertainly, "It wouldn't be the first time that a soldier's snapped under pressure..."

"But he wouldn't just snap for no reason! Something happened," he insisted, watching his best friend through the window.

Maes sighed, heart clenching. He didn't want to believe that Havoc was a victim, too. He wanted to hate him. He wanted him to pay for hurting Roy. He wanted to believe that he had had done this out of malice and violent rage... but now it was becoming more and more obvious that something within Havoc's mind was going wrong. Breda was right... something must have happened to him—something terrible—as much as Maes didn't want to accept it.

"...He's getting worse," was all that Maes could force himself to say.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They made it to Roy's apartment without much incident. The cab driver gave the mismatched trio some odd looks on the way there, but didn't go so far as to ask any questions about the short blond teenager, the antique suit of armor, and the clearly intoxicated man in a hospital smock who was sitting between them in the back seat. He just looked at them bemusedly through his rearview mirror, probably already formulating an entertaining story to tell his wife about them when he got home tonight.

Roy didn't mind the half-amused, questioning glances in the slightest. He did, however, feel a little more comfortable once he got into his apartment and changed into some decent clothes. He didn't know where his uniform was—it was probably bloody and torn anyway—so he opted to slip into a pair of black slacks and a white button-up shirt. Alphonse had to help him with his shirt because he kept missing buttonholes, his mind too full of the pleasant buzzing of prescribed narcotics to pay much attention to dressing himself properly. Worse than that, he nearly staggered back out to the cab without any shoes until Ed pulled him back inside and helped him put his boots on. His head was just swimming and he felt like he couldn't focus on anything for more than a few seconds at a time. He knew that Ed was laughing at him, but Roy couldn't really find it in himself to care much.

He felt good.

Roy had quite forgotten how much heavy painkillers tended to affect him. It had been years since Roy had been on them, and back then it was only for dental surgery and whatever he was on now had to be at least ten times stronger than that stuff had been. He felt like he was floating, detached from his body, flying alongside the cab as it sped toward Headquarters.

Ed seemed to find the whole situation hilarious and kept asking Roy questions—random, often difficult questions that involved deep thought... which was a state of mind that Roy was having a great deal of trouble achieving at the moment. More often than not, Roy would either answer wrong or forget what the question was entirely, distracted by something he saw out the car window or by another wandering string of thought that really had nothing to do with anything.

Admittedly, in his chemically-altered state, Roy had to agree with Ed that it was pretty funny, though. Everything was funny. And beautiful. And good. The colors seemed brighter and everything was just so... alive. Everything had a pulse. The trees were breathing. The sky sang. Even the cab they were in thrummed with life, the engine pumping like a huge, angry heart to make the vehicle run. He'd tried explaining these thoughts to Ed and Al, but by the time he got to talking about the breathing trees, Ed was biting his lip hard to keep from laughing aloud. Only then did Roy pause for long enough to realize just how high he was and that he'd been in a babbling state of euphoria for the past twenty minutes.

That had been the slap in the face he'd needed to collect his thoughts and try to shake off his daze. The world was really not as wonderful as it seemed through these morphine-tinted lenses. For one thing, he was injured... and pretty badly, at that. He wasn't in much pain at the moment, but his condition was still fairly serious and he knew that he was going to have to be careful for a while so as not to tear his stitches.

Even more distressing than his recent injury, though, was Havoc. Havoc had betrayed him, had tried to murder him... That was a savage blow that Roy was still reeling from. Beyond Hawkeye and Hughes, Jean Havoc was his most trusted ally. Havoc knew of his aspirations to start a revolution, of leading this country away from the wreckage of pointless war and into a golden age. He knew that Roy was actively seeking to overthrow the current government and take it over, placing himself at the apex of power. Oh yes, Havoc knew intimate details about Roy's desire to become fuehrer... he had even helped chart out years-long action plans to make it happen. He had always been a loyal and irreplaceable asset to Roy's team...

What the fuck had happened?

In all the years that they had been working together, Roy had never once doubted his loyalty. He had doubted his tenacity and his responsibility—not to mention his fluctuating ability to pay attention—but his loyalty had never come into question. Never. Havoc, like the rest of Roy's staff, had been hand-picked, carefully scrutinized and selected to help him reach his goals. How had Roy never caught on to his deception? How could this have happened? How could Roy have trusted this two-faced attempted-assassin for so long, never knowing the dark thoughts that lurked behind his eyes?

God, what if he'd been working for someone else this whole time? What if he was a spy for Bradley? Was Roy really that bad at judging a person's character...?

"I am an excellent judge of character!" Roy declared abruptly to the occupants of the car at large.

There was silence for a beat, then Fullmetal snorted and bent double, giggling into his gloved hands. It sluggishly occurred to Roy that the car had been mostly silent for the past several minutes—before he'd broken the lull with his declaration, that is—and, moreover, no one in the car was privy to his inner musings, and therefore must think it quite out of the blue for him to so earnestly tell them what a great judge of character he was without any sort of preamble.

"...Well, I am," he insisted, brow furrowing.

"No one is saying that you aren't..." Alphonse said soothingly as Ed burst into new peals of mirth. Al shot him a look and he sobered himself quickly, trying to disguise his laughter as a coughing fit.

"Then how could I not see this coming?" Roy demanded, angry with himself even from underneath the medicinal haze, "Why didn't I see that he could betray be like this? How could I have been so blind? This could destroy everything that I've worked for..."

There was a silent pause for a moment as the car pulled to a stop in front of the stately white HQ building.

Edward sighed, his laughter truly subsiding now. "Aw, don't beat yourself up about it... I guess you never really know a person. It happens."

"Not to me, it doesn't. I do know people. I know how people think, I know how they behave..." he stopped, trying to compose his fuzzy thoughts into something that he could relate. He rubbed his face, frustrated by his own grogginess, "Damn it, I cannot think like this!"

Fullmetal bit his lip and exchanged a glace with Alphonse. Finally, he cleared his throat, "Come on, Colonel. Let's get you inside... then someone else can look after you."

Roy scowled at him, not in the mood to be patronized, but Ed just grinned back impishly and pushed open the car door. He paid the cabbie and then he and Al helped Roy out of the cab. He winced a little as he stood, the movement stretching his wound. Ed caught the brief grimace and his eyebrows knit together with silent worry. His half-hidden concern was both touching and irritating and Roy chose to ignore it. Instead he rested a hand on the boy's shoulder and used him as a living crutch as the three of them slowly made their way into the building.

And Roy did okay for a while. He was a little out of breath by the time they actually made it into the building, but that was probably to be expected. He had, after all, just undergone some fairly major abdominal surgery... he was bound to be a bit weak for a while... but he did okay. Ed was both silent and surprisingly patient with him, carefully guiding and supporting him as they shuffled through the building, stopping without comment or complaint whenever Roy needed to pause for breath.

Which, by the time they made it halfway there, was becoming increasingly frequent.

Roy was already exhausted. It seemed like every few steps he'd have to stop and focus on breathing, leaning against a wall for balance—and each time he stopped, it was getting harder and harder to get started again. The pull of drugs in his system was distracting and kept his thoughts in a giddy haze, but the more he moved around, the less they were doing to actually block his pain. His gut twinged with every lurching step, his insides aching in a sharp and constant throb that was getting worse with every passing moment. Soon he was trembling, his heart pounding so hard that each beat was like a physical hammer-blow to his chest.

"M-maybe this... wasn't s-such a great idea..." he gasped, half-laughing, clinging to Ed desperately as they staggered down the hallway.

"Colonel, this is stupid..." Ed told him with an exasperated sigh, coming to a halt without needing to be asked, "You need to go back to the hospital before you keel over and die. I'm going to be in enough trouble with Hawkeye as it is without you dying on me."

"What Brother means," Al added quickly, "is that we're worried about you. We can both see that you're in pain. It really is too soon for you to be walking around like this. You could hurt yourself..."

Roy shook his head, still breathing hard and not about to admit how good collapsing back into that hospital bed sounded. He'd made it this far and he wasn't going to turn back now. Moreover, there was no way in hell that he'd be able to make it all the way back to the hospital without collapsing, anyway.

Frankly, he wasn't entirely certain that he was even going to be able to make it to the end of the hallway without taking a nosedive into the floor, with or without Ed's support.

"...Roy?"

The voice came from behind them, sounding shocked and incredulous, and Roy recognized it instantly. He stiffened and grimaced, not looking forward to this confrontation.

He looked down at Edward and silently mouthed, Run for your life.

Ed blinked at him as if not sure whether or not to take him seriously. And so, instead of fleeing to safety as any sane person would do, he turned and the two of them took in the vaguely intimidating sight of Maes Hughes rushing toward them, arms outstretched anxiously.

"My god, Roy... what are you doing here?" he asked, eyes huge. He came to a halt in front of them and looked Roy up and down with a critical eye, a worried frown carving itself into his face. "I didn't even know that you were awake. How could they release you so soon? You look terrible."

Roy tried to think up some kind of witty response to Maes' last statement, but his mind was full to the brim with the cotton-fluff of medicine, crippling fatigue, and suffocating pain... and that left very little room for any clever banter. And so instead he said, very intelligently:

"...Maes, I n-need to sit down or I think I'm going to faint."

Maes immediately swooped in and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, supporting him much more effectively than little Ed had been able to. Roy let go of the teenager and allowed Maes to guide him down the hallway and into a dark little room. He didn't pay much attention to his surroundings and just sank gratefully into the chair that Maes led him to. His wound complained as he sat down, but he just bit the inside of his cheek and tried to ignore the intensified pain, leaning his elbows against the scratched, paper-strewn table in front of him and resting his brow against his clenched fists, breathing as evenly as he could.

"...What is he doing here?" Breda asked, sounding both startled and concerned. Roy looked up at him, only now realizing that he was in the room. He was leaning against the wall next to a largish window that opened out into another chamber. It took a moment for Roy to recognize that he was in the observation room, but then his pulse quickened and he turned to look through the window, already knowing who would be waiting beyond.

And there he was, not seated at the table as Roy would have expected, but on the floor, his gaze distant. His hair was in disarray, blond strands hanging haphazardly in front of his fathomless eyes. His eyes themselves were red and unfocused, looking too bright in the room's dull light, as if he'd recently been crying. Roy stared at him, anger, hurt, and trepidation bubbling just below the surface of his skin—though the intensity of his emotion was dramatically dulled by the drugs in his system. All he could hear was a soft buzzing and the warm pulse of his heart, his mind calmly trying to convince his still-reeling mind that his lieutenant—his friend—was an enemy, now.

He's an assassin. He has betrayed us all. He is the enemy, he told himself, unable to look away from him, still trying to work past his disbelief.

"...Roy, are you listening?"

Roy jerked his head up to look at Maes, who had apparently been trying to talk to him for a while, now.

"Ah, what...? Sorry, I'm not... all here..." he apologized blearily. Now that he was off of his feet and not worrying about falling over or struggling to breathe, the morphine was catching up with him again and all he really wanted to do was put his head down on the table and fall asleep.

"He took a pretty big hit of painkillers before we left the hospital," Ed explained to Maes and Breda with a smirk, "He was babbling like an idiot the whole way here."

"Why'd they let him out of the hospital to begin with?" Breda asked, looking between Ed and Roy, "I can tell just by looking at him that he's not well enough to be discharged."

"Well... he wasn't discharged... exactly..." Al mumbled, ducking his head like a young child in anticipation of a dire scolding.

"Al, shut up!" Ed hissed, kicking him in the shin. There was a loud clang as metal struck metal and it rang in the small room, making bright colors burst from behind Roy's eyes. He watched the dancing spots of color for a moment then shook his head, trying to clear it.

"They were going to find out eventually!" Al defended himself, "Why bother hiding it?"

"Wait, wait, wait..." Maes said, waving his hand, "You're telling me that he wasn't discharged? So, what then? You just... took him out of there? Just like that?"

"Um, yeah. Basically... yeah," Fullmetal said, clearing his throat.

Maes and Breda both stared at him for a moment as Al took a step back. The youngest Elric looked as if he was trying to become invisible, a thought that struck Roy as hilariously funny, considering that the kid was a huge fucking suit of armor. Ha, they should have run when they'd had the chance...

"What the hell were you thinking, Edward?!" Maes shouted finally, slapping a hand to his forehead, "You can't just take people out of hospitals like this! What if something had happened before you got here? He just got stabbed for heaven's sake! He's been in a coma for the past three days!"

"But he told me to!" Ed sputtered, gesticulating wildly at Roy with one defensive hand, "He said he had work to do! Get mad at him, not me!"

Maes turned and glared at Roy, "And what the fuck are you smiling about?"

"...You know, I'm not entirely sure..." Roy rasped with a little shrug.

Maes rolled his eyes at him and ran a hand through his hair. "Whatever. Breda, if you could please take Colonel Mustang back to the hospital and tell the orderlies to make sure that he stays there this time."

"Yes, sir," Breda saluted, looking as if he'd had the same idea in mind.

"No, wait," Roy protested, trying to sober himself a little—with only moderate success, "I didn't come all the way here to be sent away again; I want to know what's going on with Havoc."

Breda sighed and opened his mouth to speak, but at that same moment a low, muffled scream resonated from the interrogation cell and all eyes turned to stare out the window. Havoc had gone rigid, his tight jaw angled upward, his teeth bared. He dragged in a harsh, desperate gasp and screamed again, saliva glistening on his lips. It was a haunting sound that sent a frigid chill down Roy's spine, inflicting him with an alarmed kind of queasiness.

Havoc fell sideways onto the floor and curled in on himself, covering his face with his cuffed hands. His whole body shook as if he were under a great strain, the veins in his forearms popping up from under his sweat-damp skin, looking—in Roy's warped mind—like a clutch of thin, flesh-colored snakes slithering all over him.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" Havoc shrieked between screams, his frightened, enraged declaration dulled by its passage through the wall and into the awaiting ears in the observation room. "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

He loosed another grating scream, but then it abruptly cut off with a strangled, choking sound. His body relaxed a little, his hands falling limply from his face to rest on the floor beside his head. The tenseness in his face subsided and his eyes closed, his brow smoothing. He suddenly looked almost serene and Roy could swear that he saw the faint curve of a calm smile stretching the corner of his wide mouth.

Roy sat back in his seat, his heart suddenly racing again. Oh... Jean...

"...What the hell just happened...?" Ed asked breathlessly, voicing Roy's exact thoughts.

"We... don't know," Maes said, shifting uncomfortably, "He keeps doing it. It's getting worse but he wont say anything about what's wrong. He either dodges my questions or ignores me completely. And then, every once in a while, he just... freaks out like that."

"We think something happened to him while he was AWOL..." Breda added. Maes gave him a sharp look and seemed as if about to say something, but then changed his mind and stayed quiet. "That has to be why he stabbed you, but he won't talk about it. Do you remember him saying anything before he attacked you...?"

Roy leaned his head back against the seat and tried to think. He looked up at the ceiling, doing his best to ignore the fact that the room seemed to be spinning a little and tried to focus on the last thing he remembered before waking up in the hospital.

"He was acting strangely..." Roy said finally, grasping at the wispy, membrane-thin memory.

"How so?" Maes asked.

"I dunno... I can't really place it. It was just... weird. It was hard for me to meet his eyes without feeling... something..." He shook his head. "I don't know."

"Well, that was vague," Ed muttered, crossing his arms.

"Look, I'm trying here," he snapped back, rubbing his face, "I just woke up from a coma and I'm high as a kite, I'd like to see you do better."

"Pfft. Jeez, sorry, then..."

"Anything else?" Maes prodded, ignoring Ed.

Roy thought hard. "Well... he was walking a little stiffly. I didn't really think much about it at the time, what with there being a knife in my digestive tract and all... Last thing I remember is him saying he was going to go after Hawkeye next, so I shot him... I don't remember a whole lot after that."

He looked up at Breda and got a brief flash of something else. He saw the lieutenant clearly—standing out amidst the other, fuzzy memories—hovering over him, talking to him...

"Come on, Colonel. Stay with us."

Roy had never seen him look so terrified. Even then, lying in a pool of his own blood and just fighting to breathe through the agony in his torn body, Roy had almost felt bad for him. He'd looked absolutely sick, glancing between his bleeding superior and his bleeding best friend, his hands trembling as they held his crumpled uniform jacket to the gash in Roy's stomach.

Yes... Roy remembered that.

Breda coughed uncomfortably and looked away, making Roy realize that he'd been staring blearily at him while mulling over his violent thoughts. Clearly, Breda remembered it, too, and not too fondly. Though the terror in him had subsided, a lingering anxiety remained and a sense of misplacement, as if he wasn't sure what to do with himself. It was an odd thing to feel radiating from such a typically confident man.

"...Hey, Roy."

Roy looked over at Maes again and cursed inwardly, realizing that he'd spaced out again and missed what Maes had been saying.

"Sorry... what?"

"I asked if you wanted to stay here and watch while I go in and talk to Havoc. I'm taking you back to the hospital afterward, though."

"Actually, I'd like to talk to him myself," Roy replied, slowly pushing himself to his feet. The already-dim room abruptly decided to go pitch black and Roy's knees buckled, forcing him to quickly sit down again. Pain lanced through his gut, spreading through his innards to stab at the base of his spine and constrict his lungs. He gasped and hunched over, ears roaring.

Maes appeared at his side, gripping his shoulders hard.

"You okay?"

"Ugh... yeah," Roy replied, trying to blink the spots out of his eyes, "Just stood up too fast..."

Maes pursed his lips doubtfully before continuing. "I think it would be better if Havoc didn't see you, though. He thinks you're dead and I'd like him to keep thinking that for a while. He feels victorious, cocky... If we take that from him, I think he'll be even less inclined to talk."

Roy nodded, "You're right. Then I'll just stay here and watch."

Maes nodded in return but then paused and looked intently into Roy's eyes for a moment. "Wow," he remarked, "You are really high, aren't you?"

"Mmm-hm."

Maes' mouth quirked in a worried smile and he patted Roy's arm affectionately before turning to the lieutenant.

"Lieutenant Breda, if you'd like to accompany me," he said, speaking with a soft quality that sounded almost apologetic, "I'm sure you have a few questions that you'd like to ask as well."

Breda straightened, saluting gratefully. "Thank you, sir."

"Fine. Now..." he turned to Ed and Al, pinning them with a feral gaze, "you two. You are going to stay here and keep an eye on the colonel. You brought him here, so he's your responsibility."

"What?!" Ed whined, "I am not going to babysit—"

"You will if you know what's good for you. I'm angry enough at you as it is, but if you let anything happen to him... Just take care of him, okay?"

Ed gave an irritated sigh and scratched his head, looking over at Roy with a disgruntled expression souring his young face.

"Don't worry, sir," Alphonse assured, "We'll look after him."

"Maes, I really don't need them to—"

"Yes you do," Maes said emphatically, rounding on him, "and you don't get any say in the matter, so shut up. Just behave, alright? Watch through the window and tell us if you notice anything. We'll be back soon."

Roy glowered at him, but knew that there was no point in any further protest and watched silently as Maes and Breda filed out of the room and reappeared a moment later in the interrogation cell. Havoc didn't even look up as they entered. He was still curled on the floor like a dead dog, completely motionless.

Edward roughly pulled a chair out from the table, the wooden legs scraping the floor loudly, and dropped himself into it. He propped his elbows up on the table and leaned his cheek on his fist sullenly.

"I better be getting paid for this crap," he griped.

Roy snorted at him, more amused than exasperated, and then focused himself on the window again, waiting for the interrogation to begin.