Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story. For the main part, they belong to Arakawa Hiromu, but the Roy look-a-like belongs to the many fanfic writers out there who blatantly OOC him.

Chapter four: Counting girls, panicked calls and verbose nurses.

The day had becoming bearable, in the "you experience this sort of crap every day, not just when you have some whacked-out version of your boss is hanging around you" sort of way, when Flame had left Headquarters. At first Havoc was attacked by the idea that the man would go back to his place and trash it while he was out, but then he realised that Flame didn't have a key, and something inside him decided that no-one would be stupid enough to burn the door down just to get inside. He didn't think Flame used any other sort of alchemy. He hoped Flame didn't use any other sort of alchemy.

His work had been boring at the best. So breath-takingly boring – so ordinary that he was able to handle it without so much as one growl of frustration, unlike some other chores he had now been given care of.

Happily entering the building his apartment made its nest in, Havoc climbed up two sets of stairs and paused warily at the distinct lack of one disgruntled other-worlder. His door was still blissfully intact, but he braced himself as he turned his key in the lock – he would not be surprised by any mess, destruction or arsony. Outraged, yes. Devastated, yes. Surprised, no. The door was flung open to reveal–

Nothing.

A tidy little apartment with maybe one or two things out of place – just the way he had left it. He cautiously entered, before searching the flat. No-one at all. He was the only person in there. It was oddly unsettling.

He took two strides to the phone and picked it up.

A tuneful whistle echoed around the platform. The other inhabitants looked at the man for a moment before averting their eyes so as not to seem rude. The few who had taken the time to speak to the man also averted their eyes, but they did so in the hopes that he wouldn't meet their eyes and restart their conversation. All people on the platform waited impatiently for the train.

Soon the whistle was accompanied by the chka-chka of an engine, and faces peered around the corner. To their contentment, a train pulled up before them in a smoky haze. A stream of people rushed out and those already on the platform fought to maintain their position, and then to finally get into a carriage.

Flame strode in happily, taking note – seven, eight – of each of the female heads that turned ever-so-slightly in his direction as he passed them. Nine, ten, eleven. He walked down the carriage, trying to find a compartment. Twelve. The platform had not been as full as it might have been, but the train seemed to be well occupied. Thirteen, fourteen. Most of the compartments he stuck his head into – fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen – were almost completely filled, and if they weren't – nineteen, twenty – then the inhabitants included at least one fiercely featured male, who for the sake of his mirror, he decided not to risk.

Half way down the train – thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four – he had found a compartment – thirty-five, thirty-six – that wasn't too crowded. He asked the three already seated whether he could join them, and received a hesitant assent. Number thirty-seven hadn't said anything, she just watched him with wide eyes. He gave her a confident smile, and settled down opposite her.

The Colonel was looking fine, they had said. He would be discharged the following day, provided there were no complications. Hawkeye strode out of the hospital, the last of the Colonel's work tucked neatly under her arm. She would hand it in at Headquarters, and then head home – it was already completely dark out.

She made her way through the corridors, but before she could get to the exit, a nurse walked up to her.

"Excuse me, miss, but are you Lieutenant Hawkeye?" the woman asked hurriedly, obviously having eyed Hawkeye's uniform and thought it was a safer bet the Lieutenant would be the woman in military clothing than one of the few obvious civilians.

"Yes."

"We have a phone call for you from a Lieutenant Havoc?" The nurse's tone lifted at the end, leaving her question unasked, and her statement questionable.

Hawkeye frowned. Why would Havoc be calling her at the hospital? If it wasn't urgent, it could wait until she was at home, at the very least. "Yes, I'll take it." Had something happened?

The nurse smiled and led Hawkeye to a phone at the reception desk. "Lieutenant?" came Havoc's voice on the other end

"Yes, Havoc. What has happened?"

"I don't know where Flame is." Her eyes widened. "I came home, and no-one was outside my apartment, no-one was inside it. I don't know where else to look for him, because he's been around for what? A day? I was just hoping, so that I don't have a part in having unleashed the world's greatest horror upon it that maybe he was there at the hospital with the Colonel . . ."

By this time, Hawkeye was tapping her fingers irritably on the counter. The receptionist spared her a glance and she laid them flat, resisting the temptation to continue to fidget. "I haven't seen him since I sent him out of the office. Unless he's arrived in the last minute or two, he isn't here."

She heard a sigh on the other end of the phone before the rushed voice began again. "He's the same person as the Colonel, right? Would you be able to ask the Colonel where he thinks Flame is, and come help me look?" He was grabbing at straws now.

"They may look the same, but they act completely differently, Havoc. I don't see how the Colonel could know where he is."

"Just ask him?"

She didn't want to ask the Colonel. Already, she half expected him to jump out of that bed and try to find the man just for an excuse to stretch his legs. He didn't need the extra motivation of Flame being out in the world. "Alright," she said hesitantly.

"Thanks. I'll see you in a few minutes, then."

She hung up the phone, muttering a quick thank you to the receptionist, grabbing the papers and heading back to the Colonel's hospital room.

As she entered, he looked up from the book he had been writing in blankly. "Not planning on sleeping tonight, I see" he said, referring to her previous reason for leaving as she came to stand by his bed.

"I received a phone call from Havoc as I was leaving, sir. Flame has gone missing–"

"What!?"

"Havoc asked me to see if you would have any ideas as to his whereabouts. If you were an intensely less stable version of yourself, where would you have gone?"

She could see the cogs in his head moving as he quieted down. His face reflected the gradually more depressing thoughts in his mind. "Where ever he is, people are going to think he's me," he groaned. "He could be destroying my name as we speak! Go call a nurse in – I need to be discharged."

"Sir, they want to keep you in another night."

"I know that, but it's just one night. I'll be fine. We need to get Flame now before he goes and gets me dishonourably discharged from the military."

Round, red eyes became rounder with their shock. Practical as she was, Hawkeye had not managed to come to that conclusion yet. "Right away, sir." She turned on the balls of her feet and marched out of the room to find a nurse.

Mustang remained in his bed, letting those cogs tick as far as he could get them to. If he went to the very end of his mind's concept of the man, surely he would be somewhere near what was actually happening. Flame had "popped in" for a conversation earlier that day – just before he went missing, Mustang supposed – and they had both been asking one another questions in attempts to learn more about each other's world. Maybe he could grasp some idea from that.

What did Flame seem to like so far? Mustang cast his mind over the previous day. His foremost idea of the man was that Flame was pompous, self-centred and arrogant. That meant that he could have been doing anything from primping and preening in a reflection that had caught his eye, to having a manicure at a salon. But the man also seemed to have some pride in his masculinity – he was more likely to be out introducing himself in his own spectacular fashion to the women of Central. Lady killer indeed. He also seemed quite set on the "Flame Alchemist" idea, so did that mean that wherever he was, he would be setting fires left, right and centre? Mustang scratched that idea out. He hadn't seen Flame light one fire as of yet. Now that he thought of it, Flame didn't even wear his gloves. Wouldn't he be wearing his gloves for his own self-protection? A pansy like that? Or maybe he had been asleep when Mustang had called him over. That could not be right, however: the man was in his uniform – unless he slept in his uniform, there was little chance of–

Oh. That was right; he had been with "Riza". Despite the fact that Flame's Riza was a completely different person to his own Hawkeye, Mustang's eyebrow twitched at the thought. Likely he had discarded his gloves for –ah– safety reasons. His face reddened and he swiftly emptied his mind of all thoughts of Flame and Riza. And himself and Hawkeye. What had he been thinking before?

Gloves. Fire. Women. Manicures. Flame. What else had the man been doing since he arrived? Staying with Havoc – he seemed to dislike that, from their previous conversations - trying to usurp Mustang's place in his office, and . . . snooping in his drawers! The letter! What had he done with it when he had finished reading it last time? Mustang patted where his pockets should be, forgetting that the hospital gown didn't have any. His glare moved from the now sufficiently death-stared foot of his bed to the bedside table. His fingers flicked through the items on it quickly. Book. Book. Letter! Yes! Snatching it up, he searched through it. Of course: in the top, right corner, just as it should be. An address.

Hawkeye was returning with a slip of a nurse just as he found the address, and he looked up to her, his face pale. Her eyes questioned him, but he addressed the nurse first. "I'm going to have to apologise for disobeying doctors' orders, but I cannot be in here any longer. I was merely being kept 'just in case', wasn't I?"

"Yes, Colonel Mustang," the girl replied, her expression betraying her confusion. "But if it is such a dire activity you hasten to, maybe it would be best to send someone else?" Just because she was young didn't mean that the girl was short of a vocabulary, he duly noted.

"It is less of an activity and more of a chore. I won't be engaging in any foreseen battle – one of my responsibilities has gone missing, and I need to find him before he does anything stupid."

"Yet, there is no-one else who could do it?" she repeated.

Mustang sighed. "My condition is not so terrible that a simple train ride would disable me, is it?"

She looked at him dubiously. No wonder she was here so young – the girl seemed set in her course to convince him to remain. It would only take being more stubborn than she was to get out of here.

"There is nothing wrong with me, nurse. There is no real reason to keep me here."

With a roll of her eyes, she nodded. "Very well, then. I'll just go and get you those discharge papers."

Mustang nodded his thanks as she departed, and when the girl was gone, he beckoned Hawkeye from where she stood at the foot of his bed and held the letter towards her. "Tell me what you see in that," he said.

Her eyes had scanned almost half the page before they widened in realisation. "Flame has gone . . . here, then?"

Sighing, he gave her a quick assent. She had picked it up quickly. "Who knows what he's looking for. We may as well just go and see what we can do."

The bright lights of the hospital made it easier for him to see the movement as she swallowed nervously. She did have a lovely neck. Mustang blinked the thought away. Evidently a few hours in the company of Flame was too much for him.

When the nurse returned with the forms, Mustang signed all of his information eagerly, and she gave him a hesitant smile before bustling off to get his belongings for him.

"We'll be going here, then?" Hawkeye asked hesitantly when they were alone once again.

"Yes. You, Havoc, and I. Call Havoc and let him know to meet us at the train station in three hours, with some spare clothes. Then call work and let someone know the three of us are taking some short-notice days off. Three days should do it. We'll have him and be back by then. Then go and pack some spare clothes for yourself. We'll meet at the station."

"You don't need a lift home?"

"Uhh . . . maybe if you could wait a little bit, and give me a lift home," he amended, choosing to ignore the slight curve her lips had just gained.

"Of course. I'll ask the hospital staff if I can use their phone to call Havoc. I need to go into work to drop off your papers anyway, so I can ask about leave then."

Yes. Ask. "Do you remember it all?" he asked her before she walked out the door. The nurse was just returning with his belongings.

"Yes, sir. Three hours to the train station; three people taking days off work; three days being taken off work. Always a pattern. This one's just more obvious than most." Now he could see her eyes laughing at him.

"Yes, yes. Go on. I can't get dressed with you hanging around," he said gruffly and she scampered off.

The nurse merely raised an eyebrow at him before placing his washed and folded uniform on the bed. She walked to the curtains and drew them, while telling him "make sure you take everything with you, and present yourself to the reception desk when you're done," before leaving.

He waited until she was outside and the door had been firmly shut before he leapt out of the bed and ripped the gown over his head. Even if he was in a hospital, and it was a hospital gown, being in a dress just wasn't Mustang's idea of a comfortable time. Especially when it didn't pull the whole way around and he could feel the edges of it imprinting into his backside when he sat on it for too long. He lovingly slipped back into his uniform, glad that they had washed the blood out. There were still a few tears and maybe a patch or two that didn't look entirely made up of blue, but they had done a good job of cleaning it up, altogether. His feet thumped back into his boots, and he was complete again.

What had he been doing? Oh yes, collecting the various items he had strewn about the room before presenting himself to the reception desk. He grabbed the books on the bedside table and glanced around. One card from the guys at the office and his house keys remained, but he snatched them up and after looking around for the letter. Had Hawkeye given it back to him, or did she still have it? Content that it wasn't with his own things, he decided that she must have taken it with her. Besides, even if she hadn't he knew the address off by heart. He had lived there for a time, after all.