Authors note:// this is NOT an official chapter. It was how I was planning on ending the story originally. I've since changed my mind. I thought you might like to see it. (and read something until I finish chapter 8)

Havoc stopped next to what was once Central Command and looked at the rubble. Parts of it were completely gone, others barely holding together. He stepped carefully up the stairs and towards the door he had seen more years ago than he wanted to admit. The door fell off its hinges when he nudged it open and when it fell, it rose a cloud of dust. The inside was virtually the same, the same shelves and desks, the same walls and books. His next step had him tripping over a frame. The picture was slightly singed, but otherwise in good condition. His smile was wry as he looked at it before tucking it into his pocket. He then stepped up to the bookshelf and pulled off Alchemy – The Study of Hope and opened it. The piece of paper inside was yellowed and old, crinkling. The ink was fading, the words barely recognizable.

Alphonse: Fuery and Falman, Breda

Well, he thought, Alphonse is in Risembool with Winry, but Fuery, Falman…missing, perhaps dead…they have been for years. Breda was in an asylum, completely insanse.

Mustang: Hawkeye, Havoc, Hughes

Hughes had lived, and raised his children and grandchildren with happiness, until he suddenly died. Hawkeye had died. He himself, he was all right he supposed. Mustang. Dead. Long gone. And Edward? He asked to himself. He was also dead.

The winner(s) will receive a prize of two thousand five hundred senzu.

I guess I won, he thought grimly. Mustang and Edward had one of those fast ceremonies out at the base before leaving for the final battle. Had they known? Havoc pondered. Had they known they weren't going to return alive and tried to make the most of it? He would never know, his friends were dead, dead for years now. All of them, some maybe in mind.

He trudged slowly out of Command and to the old cemetery. The last people to be buried in it died over fifty years ago. Half a century. Half a century since the Flame and Fullmetal Alchemist and Hawkeye had been laid to rest here. Their graves, the most decorative and large, stood on the edge. His hand pressed into the worn stone, the etched grooves of the name "Roy Mustang" and "Edward Elric". Another man appeared behind him.

"You miss him too, right?" Alphonse's voice was sad. "Can you believe it was 1917 when he died? He was eighteen years old. I'm sixty seven years old now? That I have grandkids? And great-grandkids on the way?"

"Youngest person to ever become a State Alchemist, and the youngest State Alchemist to die." Havoc muttered.

Havoc and Alphonse stood side by side, looking down on the two graves. "It was so long ago we went on that quest to retrieve the philosopher's stone, so long since that suit of armor, I still have it, we were so young. They even have his cloak in the museum of famous people, they have Mustang's gloves too. I miss him." Alphonse continued. "I miss him so much. He gave so much…and got so little in return."

Havoc pulled out the picture and held it in front of Al. They were all smiling, and Edward with his big golden eyes, held in Mustang's arms, grinned with glee, and Mustang had his smirk on. Fifty-one years ago was the last time he had seen this picture, fifty-one years ago everyone had been alive and whole, fifty-one years ago this picture had been taken, fifty-one long years ago they had promised to return, to take a picture to match this one. He gazed down at it for a moment longer. As a wind blew, he let it go and watched it tumble in the air, flashing the picture once more, before finally disappearing; once again, we repeat.

The End.