At his apartment, Mustang's routine had remained unchanged since the funeral. After work, he would return home, maybe make himself dinner if he remembered he was hungry, and then read over papers in his study. More often than not they were old correspondences with Hughes from the war in Ishbar. For the most part they were just petty notes. In fact, they rarely had anything at all to do with the war. Then again, dwelling on the war even in his free time was bad for a soldier. Hughes and Roy had joked back and forth, poking fun at each other. Occasionally Hughes would code important information into the letters in the form of bad jokes, and it had saved Roy a lot of trouble, even his life, on several occasions. He had also been the first to notice how the red stones given to the alchemists seemed to be driving many of them mad. Roy had been stationed near Zolof Kimbley when he finally snapped, killing civilians and soldiers indiscriminately. If it hadn't been for Hughes' warning, he might have been among those he had turned into living bombs. He had also worn the ring as little as possible at Hughes' urging. In addition to the effects it had on the mind, the rebound from using it too often had already taken its toll on several of the alchemists. Roy often wondered how he would have ever survived the war without Hughes' protection. Never underestimate the importance of a good intelligence officer.

Subconsciously or not, after a few hours Roy found himself wading through a box of his old research papers, especially those from his darker days after the war in Ishbar. After Marcoh's visit, he had thrown himself into the research in search of a way to restore those lives he had taken in the war. Since the victorious side does not try its own soldiers for war crimes, the force of Mustang's conscience had taken over the job. The atrocities he had committed under the premise of just "following orders" haunted him, pushing him into darker and darker corners of his research. If it had not been for Maes Hughes, Roy realized, he probably would have worked himself to death, or worse. He had come to visit, and somehow talked him out of his self-blaming reverie. During those days, his apartment was probably the creepiest it had ever been. Earlier that week, he had gotten buckets of blood from the butcher, intent on testing the effectiveness of blood arrays versus other methods. He never got far in his research though, always fearing the consequences, Marcoh's dire warnings echoing in the back of his head. But it was still no reason not to push the research itself forward. If he caught up with the research the government had been doing covertly, maybe he could do something about it. Hughes, however, saw through his excuses. Sometimes his perception was uncanny, for the man did not look like he should be so clever. Undoubtedly a trick the intelligence people picked up.

"Look, you know I don't understand alchemy. But this is dangerous. I know you're researching that taboo, I can see it behind your eyes... Don't Roy. Just don't. The world doesn't need another crazed scientist. We need someone to lead us out of this mess."

Hughes' trust had been his inspiration to rise up through the military ranks, to actually do something about the problems he saw, rather than wallow in his own misery. He had decided then, rather than try to out-research the military on his own he would put a stop to the research itself. Make sure no one tried such desperate things. The leap of logic was shaky at first, but with Hughes' support behind him, his resolve soon solidified.

--

Mustang stood, stretched, and looked around. He forced a smile to prove to himself that he could still do it, and realized that in the end, the last thing Hughes would want would be for him to sacrifice everything just to bring him back. Maes Hughes had always been the self-sacrificing type, putting everyone before himself. Had Hughes not used his connections to help making a firm base for Roy to stand on, he would be nowhere near where he was today. It wasn't worth sacrificing all of that work, was it? But then there was his family. Work left unfinished. His most important, most treasured work.

The shrill ring of the telephone startled Mustang out of his stream of circular reasoning. Stepping out in the hallway of his apartment, he blinked to adjust his eyes to the normal lighting. Squinting into the fluorescent glow of his lights, he answered the phone.

"Yes?"

"Colonel, sir." Over the phone, Mustang could hear him straighten up to attention. "There's a problem at the lab we think you should know about." Mustang nodded, snapping back into his military mindset as the caller continued quickly, clearly very nervous. "We know that you've intentionally distanced yourself from the investigation at the fifth laboratory, but there has been some very suspicious activity around there lately. You were... actually the only one we knew we could call this late," the soldier added rather sheepishly.

"Go on," Mustang commanded, sighing inwardly. Hearing about the fifth lab now made his mood much worse, but he couldn't bee seen as shirking his duty, even at two in the morning.

"We're almost certain that there is someone else in the labs, sir. A few of the men have seen him, or it, or whatever it is, wandering the place at night when there are fewer guards around. Now, I know we weren't supposed to, but a few of the intelligence guys were looking through the records, and this thing isn't a chimera or anything else they were making here. Unless it's a ghost, ha ha. Errr... anyway, sir if you could come yourself and just take a look at this, maybe you'd have some more insight on it than we do."

Mustang nodded again, not really realizing no one was around to see. He assured the man he'd be there shortly, and ended the call. Two seconds later, he picked up the receiver and dialled his first lieutenant, telling her to meet him at the fifth lab as soon as she could.

--

Outside the lab, two soldiers were standing on guard, flanking the entrance. Roy nodded to them and continued through. More often than not, just flashing the array on the back of his gloves at the guards was enough to gain entrance to facilities. His reputation often preceded him, and most of the regular soldiers were wary of his smug demeanour and fiery temper. Normally he'd stop to warn the guards to be more careful about letting people without credentials inside, but he was in a hurry to disprove whatever had spooked the men and then head back to his apartment. He was more than a little apprehensive about what the intelligence men could have put their noses into. Making a connection between this lab and the chimera lab Marcoh had spoken of, Mustang feared the worst.

Inside, the lab was the same mess of rubble and ruined experiments it had been when he visited it last. Inside he knew that FullMetal and his brother had fought two men whose souls had also been affixed to armour. Absentmindedly, Roy wondered what price the alchemists who had performed the transmutation had had to pay. Or had they used the red stone instead? The law of equivalent trade could be such a fluid thing, so impossible to nail down to one consistent equation of cost. Surely those convicts had not volunteered to have their souls torn from their bodies and attached to suits of armour? Then again, the lure of immortality could be strong, especially when the government is prepared to take your life away otherwise. Affixing a soul still carried a heavy price, though. Surely there was not enough of the red stone to pay for all of these experiments.

Turning his mind back to the task at hand, he stared intently at some of the ruins. FullMetal's manipulation of the stone on the floor was actually much more thorough than the sort of work Armstrong did. The spikes had been created so the hardest materials were not only on the outside, but woven through the inside as well to make it less hollow. Most alchemists didn't have the power to propel the weight. No wonder the boy was considered a genius. Entire pieces of the walls had been sacrificed to the reactions, and the explosion later on had done nothing to help. The entire building looked like it was ready to cave in on itself and, Roy thought to himself, he wouldn't be surprised if that had been part of the plan in the first place. As soon as the operation was discovered, the whole thing would fall in on itself, destroying the evidence. It was a very military thing to do.

Following one of the few clear hallways Colonel Mustang pushed himself fully into his military mindset, personal troubles forced into the deeper corners of his mind and, for the most part, ignored. They itched at the back of his mind though. He straightened his uniform and made his way into the main room. Thanks to its convenient location in the centre of the facility and relatively intact condition, it had been made into a sort of make-shift headquarters for the investigation of the labs. A few of the soldiers were standing around, looking only vaguely nervous while sipping coffee and picking over a box of stale doughnuts no doubt left over from the earlier shift. A few were telling tasteless jokes. When they noticed the colonel's entrance, they turned to salute.

"At ease," Mustang said with a weary nod, and most of the men returned to their quiet chatter. One in particular turned to approach Mustang, and with a quick salute tried to explain the situation.

"Colonel Mustang, sir," he saluted. "I'm Sgt. Davis. It seems I've drawn the short straw, so I suppose I need to explain the situation to you. We've all been in here for days searching for evidence of what was going on in here, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if we'd all gone nuts over it, but there are some things in here that we really think you need to see. There's just no explanation for them, and we all know that you're great at debunking the crazy theories everyone comes up with... So, if you could just follow me, hopefully you can come up with a logical explanation?" The man babbled with complete disregard to etiquette, forgetting to let the colonel make the suggestion to look things over. Roy just shrugged, however, and followed him to one of the remote labs on the outskirts of the facility.

The room was surprisingly well-lit, but the light seemed to be coming from the walls themselves, and the obscure alchemy arrays drawn on them. The soldier turned to face Mustang as he walked into the room, and watched as he wandered through, frowning at the various artefacts strewn about. Sgt. Davis soon grew bored of watching the Colonel filing through the papers in the room, and began to fidget.

"Sergeant," Mustang said, noticing the soldier's discomfort, "Go get me some coffee. This is going to take a while."

Most of the research papers left in the lab were coded. Looking over them, Mustang was amazed at the detail put into it. At first glance, most looked like any layperson's idea of actual alchemy research documents. They appeared to be about manipulating the elements like fire and water, though the arrays on the walls clearly showed that something entirely different was going on. Hiding things in plain sight again... Roy wondered exactly how deep Marcoh had been involved in the research. The was without a doubt his lab. Running his hand across one of the arrays, he shivered, a vague memory of its purpose surfacing in his mind. Body alchemy...

--

It was several more hours before Roy could leave the lab. Though he had told the soldiers that there was nothing to worry about, that the building was just falling apart, the experience had left him more wary than before. Too much had gone on in the lab that he didn't understand, that he was never meant to know about. Naturally he couldn't show his reactions with the men around, but outside in the cold early-morning hours he was shivering more than necessary. At this hour, the thought of sleep was pretty much useless; he would have to be back at the office in three hours.

With a sigh he sat down against the side of the building and stared off into the pale sunrise. Not for the first time that week, he considered taking up smoking. It wasn't like he'd ever need a lighter. In fact, he was sure he would have picked it up sooner if the lingering smell Havoc left in a room didn't irk him so. He took off his gloves and rubbed his hands together to keep them warm. He found it ironic that if he ever tried to warm his hands with his gloves on, he'd probably end up a good deal warmer than he'd intended. When he caught his eyelids forcing their way down, he stood up to stretch and decided what he really needed was breakfast, a cup of coffee, and something to take his mind off of things. As he walked back towards his car, the sound of gravel crunching under car tires startled him.

"Good morning, Colonel," Riza said with the best salute she could manage while driving. "I only got your message when I got up this morning. I had a feeling you'd still be here." Behind her eyes there was more concern that a first lieutenant usually has for a colonel, but she did her best to hide it.

"Morning Lt. Hawkeye," Roy replied, dropping the formalities. "Want to come to breakfast with me? I'll buy if you drive."

The offer was so blatant that Riza could do nothing but accept. However, there were few places in town where two people in uniform could sit and eat in peace. They ended up at a small corner diner, staring out of the booth towards the street. Central was a city that slept late, and the lack of activity on the streets forced Riza's attention onto Roy. She had ordered only a cup of coffee, so she watched him eat instead. He seemed paler than usual, and a bit scruffy. He clearly hadn't slept much, nor bothered to shave for a few days. He was beginning to take on the look of a vagrant or a wino, though the cleanly-pressed military uniform did enough to distract most other people from Roy's sorry state. He snapped out of his introspective daze only long enough to order a second omelette. Waiting for it to come, he nursed his coffee and stared at Riza. After a rather awkward minute, he broke the silence.

"What's it all about, really. When you get down to it?" The only sound was that of his coffee cup returning to the table.

"I'm sorry?"

"I've been thinking a lot this past week." He paused again, tracing his fingers along the grooves etched into the table. Unconsciously, his fingers began tracing mundane alchemical arrays. He caught himself, surprised. It had been years since he had done anything other than flame alchemy.

"Sir?"

The omelette arrived. Roy stared at it, poked it intently with his fork.

"What time is it?"

"7:30"

"We should go visit Gracia."

With that, he turned his attention entirely to his omelette. Without a word, he paid the check, and walked back out to the car. Riza followed close behind and, unable to come up with anything appropriate to say, drove on to the Hughes home in silence.

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(Author's Notes: Yeah... New Chapter 3 will hopefully be up soon, when I finally get this one evil sticky plot point worked out.

Fox of burden: Thank you so much for that long review! I'm still thinking about what to do for that part.. but don't worry, the thought of genitals never crossed my mind. (-: I'm not sure if my random plot point will work around it a bit, or just make things worse. It depends on how much I want to torutre Roy.

Sketchyheart: STOP STALKING ME. I was hiding this for a reason darnit. It's your fault I decided to go back and actually write this properly. Hehehe... actually... yeah, I'm just gonna blame you.

Darkest Aphelion: My first reviewer... merci! But what do you mean by "that Roy"?)