Disclaimer: I don't own Monty Python and the Holy Grail, either.
7-A City of Flame
Later that night Havoc was on sentry duty and I had retreated back into my tent. No matter how I tried to lead my mind onto other subjects, somehow it kept returning to the incident involving a particular Major. No fraternization. The thought echoed around in my head as I absently brushed my fingertips over my lips. No fraternization.
I glared at the blank ceiling, spiting it for its lack of distraction. The moon faintly created a halo of light obscured by clouds of fading smoke, thinning like cotton spread over too large an area. Another wave of guilt crashed into me like a giant wave as I remembered how I had left that broken man in his tent alone on the floor when someone should have stayed with him. I knew he wouldn't try anything, he wanted to be Führer too badly. I couldn't keep myself from remembering the look in his eyes as he had stared at that pistol during the sand storm.
A muted gunshot tore me back to reality. If I hadn't been awake, chanced are, I wouldn't have heard it. I heard a faint grunt of pain that could only have come from Havoc. I sat up and reached instinctively for my silver pistol, switching off the safety. I slunk, near silent to the tent flap, where I peered around the edge of the canvas. The silhouette of a man (whom I could only hope was Lieutenant Havoc) was doubled over, stumbling down the dune towards my tent. In case the man wasn't Havoc, I adjusted my grip on the pistol. The man almost fell though my 'doorway' when he came to the threshold. I pointed my gun at the intruder, daring him to try something. He held up a hand in surrender and called out my name in a harsh whisper.
"Hawkeye, thank God," he sighed, clutching his leg. I bent down to feel his hand which had a small amount of blood seeping out of it. He winced slightly at the pressure, but a wry smirk tugged at his mouth, "'Tis only a flesh wound. Didn't hit a bone, I'll be fine. There are some Ishbalites that I figure are remnants from the city around a mile away."
I nodded and stood again, "I'll rouse the others, you stay here." Jean sighed and leaned back against the taut tent canvas.
"No arguments here."
I dashed out of my tent and into Finch, Haywood and Mustang's tents consecutively. When I shook Finch awake, I was greeted with a long stream of swearwords as he batted my hand off of his shoulder. He glared groggily up at me as I frowned down at him.
"The hell do you want?" He grunted my frown deepened, but I stood up straight.
"Get up, Finch, we're under attack," I said curtly before briskly leaving him to wait for my words to make it from his ears to his sleep-clouded brain. Haywood was clutching a rifle to himself with clammy hands while he slept. I woke him more gently than I had Finch, for I was afraid that he'd shoot me if I spooked him. He groggily opened his eyes and took a second to focus.
"Luten'nt… Hakkay," He slurred near unintelligibly. I stood straight and saluted to my superior before pointing to the rifle still clutched in his hands.
"You'd better load that, sir, we're under attack."
Haywood's eyes widened and he gained his regular tremble from head to toe, as if he still heard gunfire and artillery for the first time. His eyes held a pleading in them which broke my heart below my cold façade, "Why me?" he mumbled, "I have a family. A two-year-old and a newborn."
I shook my head and frowned, letting my mask fall slightly. I just looked at him with as sympathetic an expression as I could muster at the time and said softly-
"The enemy doesn't care, sir."
With that, I entered the Major's tent. He was asleep against the tent wall, the candle in center of the floor which had previously been fresh was now flickering at the end of its life. Lord knows why, but the entire scene managed to banish me to the entrance for a split second, my body hesitating where my mind did not. The second seemed to drag on before I shook my head and hesitantly strode inside, feeling for all the world like some invisible force wanted me to bolt back to the door.
I touched his shoulder and –I must admit- shook him awake more violently than was needed. He jumped under my touch and groggily fixed his blurry eyes on my face.
"Riizaa?" he blinked up at me, still not fully awake. I felt my face heat up and proceeded to back away. He shook his head, clearing the fog of sleep from his mind. I saw his gloves lying close to my feet, so I picked them up and tossed them over to Mustang (his reaction time still down, they hit him in the head). He blinked at me, as if to say "What the hell is going on?" before I saluted.
"We're under attack, sir. Lieutenant Havoc sustained a graze from a sharpshooter perhaps a mile away. He reasons that they must be remnants from the city. Your orders, sir?" I asked, staring straight at the wall. Mustang stood quickly, slipping his gloves over his hands. Staring me straight in the face, he ordered-
"Assemble the troops. Get them here now. I don't care whether they're still half-asleep. Now go!" He waved his hands in a manner to indicate I should go quickly. I briskly gathered the rest of the troops, allowing Havoc to lean on me while he limped back to Mustang's tent. I could see a flicker of concern cross Roy's face when he saw Havoc's leg, but that disappeared when he started issuing our orders.
"Each take one personal item from your tent and meet me outside. We are temporarily abandoning the camp," He said firmly. Finch growled in protest.
"But sir, we can fight them!" he argued. Mustang gave him a sharp look.
"I am not going to take unnecessary risk when the lives of my men could be at stake. If you wish, you may stay behind and fight, however, all those willing to come with me will leave. Who's with me?" he asked, looking at each of us individually. I stepped up beside him, as did Havoc (with my help) followed by Haywood. Finch glared at all of us before stalking out of the tent and perching on the top of a dune. He loaded all of his weapons and placed them somewhere on his person. I shook my head and looked towards Roy. His face was as stony and emotionless as ever. He collected a letter and stuffed it in his pocket before hurrying the rest of us along to get our one personal item. Haywood took a picture of his family; a very pretty young brunette smiling, showing a baby to the camera. Havoc got me to bring him a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I packed a small bag full of ammunition and quickly grabbed a framed medal from beside my pillow. The plaque beneath it read:
In honour of
Colonel Hawkeye
For sacrificing her life for the sake of her subordinates
You will be missed
My mother's. Presented to me and my father after she died. The military was truly in my blood. My grandfather, my mother and now me. I didn't bother looking fondly at it like I often did, knowing that time was of the essence. I hurried back to the Major, who was waiting outside his tent for me. Havoc leaned on Mustang's arm and Haywood clutched the photograph and the rifle to him as if they were the only things securing him to this world. I hurried over to them and Roy asked Finch-
"Are you sure you want to stay and fight?"
Finch nodded and smirked, "I can take those bastards any day. It'll be nothing."
Roy shook his head and looked pleadingly up at the Second Lieutenant, obviously not really prepared to leave him to die. I expect that he only left because gunfire started erupting from over the dunes. We hurried away, following Mustang wherever he was going. I turned my head to look at Finch again; he was on his stomach on the dune, shooting at the enemy with a rifle. It was the last we ever saw of him alive.
I don't remember how long we walked through the sand, but a blood-red sun was just starting to appear over the horizon when we reached it. The Ishbalite city that the Major had been ordered to burn along with all of its inhabitants. Buildings were blackened and crumbling, sand had been melted into glass which the red sun bounced off of, making it seem as though the city were still in flames.
Roy, even in the sun's fiery light looked paler than usual. He shook his head and continued into the city, for all the world trying to ignore the black bones, the rippled glass and the thick layer of ash that coated the ground. He drifted off a few times, as was evident in that he tripped over a bottle encased in hardened ash. I knelt down to help him up and he clung to my arm like a small child. He never looked me in the eye, though. I noticed in his hand he clutched a small golden locket. It was small, made for a child. The gold casing was melted open and a singed picture inside depicted three Ishbalan people. A man, a woman and a girl that couldn't be more than ten. Mustang saw me staring and smiled bitterly.
"A reminder; so that I never forget the sins that I committed in the name of the state," he said quietly. I nodded and looked behind me to the other men. Havoc and Haywood limped along behind us, the latter looking as if he were going to jump out of his own skin. He still clutched the photograph to his heart with his free hand. Havoc winced when he put pressure on his leg, but overall looked fine, if a bit pale. I looked back at Mustang and noticed some blood dripping to the ground.
"Sir, your hands are bleeding," I remarked. Mustang blinked and looked down at his hands, which were littered with cuts ranging from shallow to deep ranging from his fingertips to his lower palm. He swore and started sucking on the bleeding cuts, spitting out the shards of glass that came with the blood. He shook his head and told me that he'd be fine, but he grudgingly let Haywood bandage his hands before we set off again.
We heard gunfire in the distance and the bullet hit a patch of ash by our feet. Lieutenant Haywood nearly jumped out of his skin. I took Havoc from the Lieutenant and we hurried into an alley. Haywood was so shaken that I almost had to order him to clean Havoc's leg wound, him being my superior notwithstanding. I stood lookout from the mouth of the alley, my silver pistol at the ready. I flicked a piece of blond hair out of my vision and scanned the streets like the animal I was named for. Hawkeye.
No movement could be seen anywhere. I was nervous, though. I must have resembled a small, nervous horse; constantly shifting my weight and looking around for possible danger. It wasn't only me that was excited; Havoc and Mustang were also quite fidgety. If we were scared, Haywood was frantic. Or he must have been inside. An odd calm had settled over his outward features as he bandaged Major Mustang's hands; as if the fear he had constantly carried with him had just up and left. The look in his eyes, though, said that he was far past afraid. His emotional core couldn't handle the amount of fear that was packed inside that mousy frame of his. To distract him, Mustang started talking to him about his family.
"So, you're married?" he asked. Haywood nodded.
"Yup, and I got myself a lovely daughter, too. Her name's Emily. She's turning five this year," he said, a bit of pride leaking into his voice and a small smile gracing his face.
I focused my attention back on the streets. The sunlight was casting long shadows across the ground and in corners, making it near impossible to tell what was shadow and what wasn't. I cursed beneath my cold façade and concentrated even more to try to distinguish animate object from inanimate. There! The flash of metal caught my eye. I had barely yelled "Everyone down!" before a gunshot ricocheted off Haywood's medical case and into a wall. We all dropped to the ground instantly. Except for Haywood.
"Get down, sir!" I yelled at him. He stood there looking like a deer caught in headlights. I looked back at Mustang, "Sir, make a wall or something!" Mustang nodded, but paused, evidently trying to remember the transmutation circle for it. Another bullet exploded against the wall above me. "First Lieutenant, get down!" I cried as realization crept into his eyes. Mustang was almost finished. He slapped his bandaged hand onto the circle and the wall started to go up. As it did, another gunshot rang through the crisp air. A small gasp of pain drew our eyes away from the thick stone wall that had, just seconds before, been solid earth, Terra Firma. We looked over at Haywood. An expression of surprise was plastered on his face as he fell forwards into the sand and the ash.
A/N: Another chapter bites the dust! Ha! I do feel that this will end within the next two or three chapters. However, I may be willing to write a sort of continuation of the story. I have an idea pertaining to Ed and Al's childhood that I could do. (I'm feeling rather evil). Until then, ciao!