Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or the song Jumper.

Roy Mustang – Jumper

Fuhrer Roy Mustang stood at the familiar spot, he had come her a lot lately. He looked down at the tombstone which marked his friend's grave. Maes Hughes, killed in action, survived by loving wife Gracia and daughter Elicia. Roy silently thought back to when this all started.

Roy sat in his apartment, he hadn't slept in days. He had quick notes scribbled on note pads and buckets of blood lying next to transmutation circles on his floor. He sat hopelessly, he pulled the revolver out of his drawer as he had done a few times and as he had done when this all started. He put the gun in his mouth as he had before but couldn't pull the trigger. As he tried to summon the courage to do it, he heard a knock on the door. He set the gun on the desk beside him. He opened the door and gave a small smirk as he saw Hughes standing there, holding a basket. "Got my girlfriend to bake you an apple pie, you want it?" Hughes gave an overly cheerful smirk as Roy let him in. When Hughes saw his studies he was shocked. "Roy," he started softly.

"It's called a taboo, forbidden alchemy, kinda funny." Roy gave a bemused look.

"I don't understand much about alchemy, but I certainly know what happens… to anyone who's foolish enough to commit a taboo." Maes gripped Roy.

"You can relax Maes, I haven't done anything." Roy released himself.

"Maybe not yet, but you were planning to. You're on the edge Roy, I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend."

"You just don't understand, I killed a lot of people out there"

"It was a war." Maes gentled his voice.

"Easy for you to say, you weren't there." Mustang turned away again.

"No, I wasn't, and if you didn't want to kill enemies in battle you shouldn't have been there either, you should have asked for a desk job like I did." Hughes said calmly trying to comfort his friend. "Did you think if you became a State Alchemist you could fix everything? Bring back anyone who ever died in a controversial war? Invent some utopian world?"

"I don't know." Mustang scoffed.

"The world isn't perfect Roy, that's what's so good about it." Hughes sighed. Mustang turned away, those would be words he would remember for the rest of his life. Maes hit Roy, getting angry now. "Is a taboo so easy to commit that you just need a little binge of studying to pull it off?" Roy felt where Maes had hit him. He had been icing over his secret pain ever since he had come back from Ishbal. When he left for Ishbal he had been a loud, proud person who wanted to serve his country. He had been the first to fight. And thanks to the philosopher's stone Dr. Marco had given him he had killed many in the name of the state, it hadn't really hit him until Brigadier General Basque Gran had ordered him to kill the two Rockbell doctors, and he obeyed. Roy simply couldn't live with himself afterwards. He had contemplated killing himself many times, he instinctively looked to the revolver he had left on the desk. "Or do you just want to wait and die?" Hughes spoke again. "Cause if that's the case there's plenty of easier means. Everyone I know has got a reason to say put the past away. There are things all of us don't like about our pasts. You could cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in and move forward, put the past away Roy. "

"I had it in my mouth Maes, and I couldn't pull the trigger. I was too afraid to end it." Roy looked down, ashamed.

"I hope so." Hughes responded.

"That's just the kind of cowardly human that I am."

"Every sane person is."

"Sometimes I wish I was insane, I must have been to do what I did, I was a child. The angry boy, a bit too insane." He gave a false chuckle and looked up, determined. "But still, even my life, detestable as it is, has some use. Maes, I've got a plan." Mustang turned to Maes, his new dream formulating in his head.

"Let's hear it Roy." Hughes said turning, ready to listen.

"I'm going to become Fuhrer Maes. I'll transform how this whole country runs. It's the only way I can justify taking my next breath."

"To do that you're gonna need someone who understands you and the system. And support you from the inside." Hughes, smirked, eating the apple pie he brought for Roy. "I'll work under you, stay close to the higher-ups and help push you to the top."

That's just the kind of person Hughes was, Roy thought as he brought himself back from his memories. If there was a dream someone he cared about was striving for, he would do anything he could to help them. On that day he swore he would never follow another order he thought was unjust. He also swore he would reach a place where he would no longer have to take orders, he could give them and make sure he could save people from senseless war. Then there was the day everything changed, the day he met the Elric brothers.

From that day on for some time he had lost sight of his own dream and started concentrating on the Elrics'. Maes knew that he had to also help the Elrics' dream so Mustang would be able to work on his. He thought back to the day of Hughes' military funeral.

He could still vividly remember everything from that day, the way the soldiers carried Maes' casket to the plot. The way his daughter Elicia cried to her mother. "Mommy, mommy. Why are they burying Daddy?" the child cried. "I don't like it! Stop them mommy, if they bury daddy he won't be able to do his work when he wakes up!" Hughes wife, Gracia bent down to comfort the child. Many of the soliders cried, including Major Armstrong. They barely knew him other then professionally and yet they were crying while he, his best friend, couldn't squeeze out a single tear. He thought to himself, mentally talking to Maes. 'You're the first to fight, you're way too loud. You're the flash of light on a burial shroud.'
There was a voice inside his head that day. It said: 'Save your tears till the day when our pain is far behind.' He liked to believe it was Maes, talking to him, but that was probably just a delusion.

"Well Maes, I'm finally at the top, and you did more pushing than you could have imagined." He stared at the grave with his unpatched eye. "I just wish you could be here too."

He silently cried on the grave when the voice from years ago came to him again. 'I never thought it would come to this. And I-I want you to know, everyone's got to face down the demons, maybe today. We can put the past away.'