Wow does it feel good to be writing again. Especially since this is the first time I've ever completed a Fullmetal Alchemist fic... I've finally broken out of my Cardcaptor Sakura rut! Yay! So please, feed back of all kind is welcomed, especially if it is constructive and well-thought out. I always want to improve because goodness knows I'm a long ways away from perfect. And now, on with the fic.

Reflections

Her footsteps echoed jarringly off the high stone ceilings of the church as she walked slowly up the center aisle. She stopped by a wooden pew halfway up; it was no different from any of the other pews, being made of the same unpolished, raw wooden planks as all of the others surrounding it. Still, she sat. Head rested upon folded hands, shoulders hunched in exhaustion and not a little confusion; the soldier let the silence of the unoccupied ruin envelop her.

Floating somewhere above the mess of thoughts despoiling her mind, a single voice echoed the question she had faced time after time. Years had passed into the oblivion of her memory, yet still somehow the same question always found its way back to the forefront of her mind, asked in the voices of so many friends and enemies alike.

Why?

Why was she here with him now? Why hadn't she moved on years ago? Why was she doing all this? What was it about this man that inspired her to such loyalty and devotion?

She had been with him since the beginning, before any of the others, except of course for the Brigadier General, even knew of him. She had been with him through promotions and demotions, though battles and paperwork, through births and funerals, through heaven and hell and everything in between. Never once had she left his side.

The sun had yet to make an appearance, but still the young soldier was awake, sipping her straight black tea in the silence of the normally bustling mess hall. The bugles would sound in exactly twenty eight minutes, rousing the other soldiers for another day of basic training. Already she could feel the droplets of sweat trickle down her neck and spine; it was going to be hot once again, which was bound to make training in the afternoon nearly unbearable. Nearly, but not entirely. Nothing was ever completely unbearable, for if it was, she took it as a sign that she was not fit to be in the military.

Laughter sounded in the halls, alerting the young soldier to the presence of others approaching the mess hall. She looked down into the swirling brown depths of the remainder of the tea, trying her best to hide in plain sight. The voices that were rapidly nearing were familiar to her, but not necessarily in a good way. They belonged to two young men, soldiers assigned to the same company as herself. One of them had a knack for gathering information, while the other had a natural ability to lead (as well as being a notorious flirt). Between the two of them, they'd managed to cause more mischief in two weeks than her own stock of brothers had caused in all the years she'd lived with them.

"Good morning cadet!" called the one soldier in glasses. She looked up briefly enough to acknowledge his greeting before going back to staring intently at her tea. "I hope you're not too upset about yesterday," he continued even though she was most obviously trying to ignore them. "We thought it would be easier for you to win if you only had to hit the bull's eye once instead of six times."

"I do not appreciate anyone tampering with my guns," she answered curtly. "And for your information, I am an excellent shot and could have hit that bull's eye six times without your help." The other soldier, the flirt, snorted back a laugh at this, only to be hit hard between the shoulders by his comrade.

"Roy!" he hissed. "We came here to apologize!"

"She couldn't hit the broad side of a barn let alone the bull's eye of a target. Those blanks saved our company from utter disgrace."

"I can and I have," she replied heatedly, rising to the cadet's bait. "I was a better shot than any of my brothers or my father back home."

"Roy, stop," cautioned his friend. "You're making things worse."

"It's fine Maes, you just worry too much. We're getting along just…" the private named Roy reassured his friend but when he turned to look at the young woman, his words trailed off. In the few seconds he had turned to face his friend, she had vanished from the mess hall, tea and all.

"Well, if snipers won't take her, I'm sure special ops will," joked Maes.

… … …

She had been at the ranges for almost the entirety of their lunch break every day since her brief conversation with the two privates, practicing to prove both of them wrong at the competitions the week after next. Her last five targets were filled with holes, most of them falling close to the center.

"Not good enough," she mumbled to herself, and went to load another round in her handgun. The next series of shots let off were equally as deafening as all the others preceding them, but these were marginally closer to the center of the target. Again she reloaded and again she fired. Shot after shot, target after target. Time seemed to stand still so that when the bugles sounded off the end of the mealtime. Even with the official call, she was loathe to leave the target areas, but soon enough another company came, waiting to use the targets she'd had all to herself for that one precious hour.

The rest of the day's training was grueling, as it had been every day since she arrived. Drill sergeants barked orders out while the midsummer sun beat down heavily on their backs. Black boots and blue uniforms became dusty in the dry grounds of the training area as the soldiers trampled out a harsh beat against the ground. Sweat mixed with the blood of cuts and scrapes, causing the wounds to sting unpleasantly as they sat exposed to the world of guns, ropes, dirt, and knives. The sergeants drove the green privates hard till the dinner bugles sounded. Exhausted, the companies marched back to the mess hall for the brief respite that was dinner.

She hadn't even been in the hall ten minutes before she left again, pocketing a few pieces of hardtack for later when none of the overseeing sergeants were looking. She glanced behind her suspiciously before she completely exited the hall as she had done for almost the entire week, making sure no one had the same idea as she did. Practicing alone was infinitely preferable to company.

"Now where's she going do you suppose Maes?" muttered Roy to his friend as he followed the private's form moving virtually unnoticed out of the dining hall. Maes didn't respond, choosing instead to cast a sideways glance at his friend suggesting that they go and find out. Without another word, they did.

… … …

The shots were as deafening as before, each one reverberating throughout her entire body in the moments after being fired. She loaded the next cartridge, not even bothering to scrutinize the previous target. It wasn't good enough. Not yet. The clip clicked as it locked in place. A second later the first shot was fired, followed regularly by the others. She was so fully engrossed in her world of targets and bullets that it wasn't until she was on the ground completely stunned that she realized an intruder had made its way into the compound.

… … …

"You know, she's probably sitting around at the targets all day because of what you did the other day," mused Maes as they strolled towards the target range. "What you said that morning probably didn't help at all either… for such a lady's man, I'm surprised you and her don't get along better."

"It's precisely because I'm so popular with women that she and I don't get along. Face it Maes, there are some women who are like that. You can't win them all."

"I never thought I'd hear you say that… Hey don't just stop like that; I might trip over you or something! What's going on Roy?" Maes stopped short after nearly running into Roy's back.

"Maes, get to the Colonel's office. Someone has broken into the compound." Both young men were frozen, staring at the gaping hole in a dark obscure corner of the stone wall which could only have been made by alchemy. Without another word, Maes took off in the direction of the officers' quarters.

The tracks stemming from the wall were formed into two lines, though there were undoubtedly more than two intruders. One trail led towards the halls where all of the soldiers were currently eating and Maes had run off towards while the other… Roy felt an unfamiliar icy feeling momentarily pass through him. The second trail led right towards the ammunition shed, which just happened to be just beyond the shooting ranges. Without a second thought, Roy ran, his racing heart beat drowning out the stomp of his boots on the hard packed dirt.

… … …

"Cooperate and you won't be killed. Where is your ammunition stored?" growled a deep man's voice somewhere behind her. The blindfold they had tied over her eyes prevented her from seeing exactly how many rebels there were, but she had an idea that there were at least five near her with the possibility of there being as many as fifteen or twenty.

She remained silent, refusing to answer her captor's questions. For that, she received a hard punch just below her solar plexus. Her body tensed and froze up for a few seconds, finding it hard to draw breath through the pain and shock.

"What is the military planning to do on the Eastern front?" asked another male voice somewhere to her right. Again, she was silent. This time, it was her temple that was struck. Something warm trickled slowly down the side of her face; she knew it was blood. She wasn't entirely panicked though; she could feel the smooth contours the miniature pistol she had stashed by her wrist for emergencies as she palmed it, despite the fact that they had bound her hands.

"We're not going to get anything out of this one," she heard yet another voice whisper, though she couldn't distinguish whether or not it was a male's or a female's. "It would be easier if we just disposed of her. Damn military dogs… they don't deserve to live-," but the voice was cut of by a loud, low whoosh and the feeling of intense heat. Fire. Someone had set fire to the target range.

"Step away from the soldier," a familiar voice called out over the screams and the crackling of the fire. It was different, though, with more authority and seriousness than she had ever thought it could manage. No longer was it impassive or flirtatious or mocking. It had transformed into the voice of a leader. No longer was she confused as to why so many people followed him, though he was still a private.

That, and… he was an alchemist. She was at a loss as to how she'd missed that important bit of information.

The screaming had died down to whimpering and sobbing. She twisted her wrists only to find the bonds so charred that with only a second's work they dropped away. Had the fire actually come so close to her as to be able to burn through most of the rope? Not only was he an alchemist, but he was a skilled one at that. She had no doubt that he would try for the title of state alchemist in the very near future. Pulling down the blindfold, she was able to survey the damage. The fire he'd sparked to life had actually been quite controlled, spreading in a neat circle with him making up part of the edge. All of the invaders had caught the full force of the blast, though it had merely stunned and burned them, not killed them. They were curled on the ground, nursing large burn wounds with tears streaming down their eyes from not only the pain, but also what she suspected was the fear of failing the cause they served. All of them lay there… all of them… except for one.

"Don't move," she told Roy simply. Before the words to protest could escape his mouth, a single bullet flew from her miniature pistol. It passed so close to his head that he could feel its breeze against his ear.

"Cadet! Is that any way-," but he stopped when he heard the thud of a body directly behind him. One last rebel lay there, blank brown eyes staring at the unlit ceiling, a long dagger common to those of the eastern regions grasped uselessly in his hand.

"Bull's eye."

That day seemed almost like a dream now; back when life was simpler and all that counted was impressing the superiors at Central. Life changed slowly or quickly, depending on its mood. There were actually still days when she woke up thinking she was back in the first military bunks she'd ever lived in, but that dream would quickly fade into the reality she was facing, that everyone was facing. Ishbal had changed everything. There were days when he would come back from the front lines looking almost as if he were only a shell; a mere ghost of a human. She knew what had happened each time; she knew he'd had to do things which he thought unimaginable. She too had been ordered to do things which in a way made her less human. Through it all, though, she stuck by his side.

When he joked with the other men in his party about his goals, she knew what was truly going on. He might talk loudly of miniskirts and such, but it was all a façade. He wanted to become Fuhrer to fix what had gone wrong because of all the Fuhrer's in the past. He never said it, but she figured that out on that midsummer's day all those years ago. That was why she followed him. That was why she had never deserted, and that was why she would remain by his side fighting tooth and nail for him until the end, whatever end that might be.

The sun was dipping down to meet the horizon now; she had stayed longer than she had planned. Her knees cracked slightly as she stood up, stretching her muscles before walking back down the aisle. She hadn't made it two steps down the stone stairs of the church when a familiar blur of blue dashed up the street towards her.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye!" cried Fury, his glasses slipping slightly down the bridge of his nose in his hurry. "Lieutenant! Colonel Mustang is looking for you! Well, actually he's not looking for you… I'm the one doing the looking… but he says he needs you back at headquarters now."

"I was just on my way," she replied truthfully, descending the steps and walking towards headquarters in the same brisk fashion she did anything. Fury, looked at her, confused for a moment as to why she had been in a church, but as her silhouette shrank in the late evening light, he followed her back to the one man they both knew was their only hope of getting through these times.