Morning came too early for everyone. Riza rolled out of bed after a restless night, Havoc and Breda both woke with bad headaches and intense feelings of embarrassment, and Fuery and Falman each woke up with almost no will to face the day. When Mustang was jolted awake by his alarm radio, he cursed it, picked it up, and threw it across the room. It landed next to the whiskey bottle he'd hurled at the wall the previous day. However, when he attempted to return to a state of unconsciousness, he found himself unable to rest. He grudgingly sat up, and was immediately knocked to his knees. His head was pounding inconceivably, and when he finally regained his vision, the edges of it were tinted a light red color. He had run out of alcohol in the early afternoon the day before, and so he gathered up what cash he had and stumbled down the street to the corner store to spend it all. He didn't even bother to wait until he reached his apartment again to open one of the bottles. When he did finally make it up the stairs, his phone was ringing. He carefully set down the bag and picked up the receiver just to stop the blasted thing ringing.

"Hello?"

"Colonel Mustang, sir. It's Lieutenant Hawkeye. Are you coming to work today?" Roy had suddenly become uncomfortable.

"Hawkeye. Listen. About yesterday-"

"I was out of line, sir. Please accept my apologies." After a moment, Mustang let out a small sigh.

"Of course, Lieutenant. And I apologize for my words, as well. I was discourteous."

"Not at all, sir. You were perfectly within your rights." Mustang grimaced. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Riza spoke again. "Do you need me to take you to Command, sir?"

"No, Lieutenant, that won't be necessary." He looked sidelong at the bottles on his floor, and guilt and yearning flooded him at the same time. He quickly tore his gaze away. "Actually, I won't be at work at all today, Lieutenant. I have… business here to attend to."

Riza hesitated, but she knew her Colonel. There would be no persuading him from his course of action after he'd decided.

"Very well, sir," she said. "I'll inform the team."

"Very good, Lieutenant. Have there been any developments that I should be aware of since my absence?" Riza told him about Havoc. Roy listened in silence as she relayed the previous day's events. When she finished, he let out a small breath.

"Well. He's free of it now, you're sure?"

"I've been watching him fairly closely, sir. So have the others. He seems to have recovered from his momentary lapse."

"Good. And the others?"

"Breda seems to be taking it best out of all of them, sir. His only real display of grief was yesterday in Havoc's apartment."

"Hm. Not surprising, I suppose. How is Fuery holding up?"

"Not too well, sir. He's silent about it, but sometimes when I see him he's crying. He functions normally, though. He's stronger than people give him credit for."

"Yes. And Falman?"

"Falman… he's hard to read, sir. I can tell he's affected. He's working even harder than normal. He's picked up a lot of information, but seems to think that none of it is worth anything. He apparently has it all memorized, though."

"Then he's taking it hard. He'd never waste all that time memorizing documents he had at his disposal. Keep an eye on him, Lieutenant. It's men like him who break when you least expect it."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I had better not keep you any longer, Lieutenant. You'll be late. Are you handling everything all right without me?"

"Yes, sir, although there is some paperwork that requires your presence."

"Is it urgent?"

"No, sir, not particularly."

"Good. Thank you, Lieutenant."

"Have a good day, sir." Roy managed a harsh laugh.

"Right. You too, Hawkeye." Riza clenched her jaw as the Colonel hung up. She berated herself mentally for the slip as she drove to Command.

Throughout the day, she took Mustang's advice and watched Falman a little more closely. Whenever he came into the office, she studied his expression, his movements, his tone of voice, and compared them to the past. He was being even more analytical than normal. The day passed, however, without incident, and at the end of the day, while no one was particularly happy, at least no one had broken down. Fuery still had the occasional tear streaming down his cheek, but Havoc and Breda seemed to be doing well, considering the emotional strain they'd both undergone the previous afternoon. Riza decided to check on Falman, just in case the Colonel was right. She called him into the office before she left.

"Falman. A word?" Falman stepped inside the office, and shut the door.

"What is it, Lieutenant Hawkeye?" Riza looked him straight in the eye.

"Falman… are you all right?" He returned her piercing stare with a blank one.

"I'm fine, Lieutenant. What makes you ask? Is my work not satisfactory?"

"It's not that, Falman. It's a bit of the opposite, actually. You're throwing yourself into your work almost zealously. It's of some concern to me… you're not your normal self, Warrant Officer."

"With all due respect, Lieutenant, no one's really their normal selves right now."

Riza stared him down. "Sit down, Warrant Officer." Falman sat. "Now listen. We're all hurt by this immensely. I wish we had time to grieve, but we don't. We have far too much work to do, and we can't afford anyone else being emotionally traumatized. You are the oldest and the most sensible of the Colonel's subordinates. That puts you in an authority position. Since the Colonel is indisposed at the moment, that means that you and I have to look after the others. Havoc, Breda, and Fuery—especially Fuery—need to see us being strong, indomitable, and above all normal. We may not feel like everything is the same as it always was, but in times of crisis such as this, we must act like it. I'm sorry to have to force this burden on you, Falman, but no matter what we do, we must not fall apart. We have worked far too hard for that. So tomorrow when you come into work, I'll expect you to act and work as you would normally do. Can you do that, Warrant Officer?"

Falman sat, staring into space for a long time. Then he stood up, nodded, and left the room. As he drove home, he mulled over the Lieutenant's words. She was right. He needed to be strong. Not only for the others, but also for himself. He sighed, and passed his hand over his face. He was tired. He hadn't been able to sleep very well just recently. When he finally got home, he opened the door to his first-floor apartment, and greeted the two exuberant children that came bounding towards him as soon as he stepped inside. He forced a smile onto his face, not that he wasn't genuinely happy to see them, and asked them to tell him all about their days at school. They both started speaking at the same time, and Falman laughed and told them to slow down.

"Let your sister go first," he told his son.

"Whyyyyyyyy?" he whined.

"Because you're older." Falman picked up his daughter, who stuck her tongue out at her brother.

"Mommyyyyyyy!" the young boy ran to his mother, who was cooking dinner. "She stuck her tongue out at me!" Falman's wife laughed, and ruffled her son's hair. Vato went over to her and kissed her on the cheek. She beamed at him, just like always.

The family ate, talked, laughed, cleaned up the kitchen, and then the parents put the children to bed, and Falman poured himself a brandy. He sat at his coffee table, flipping through some papers he'd taken home with him. His wife came and sat next to him.

"The children are asleep now, Vato, and you've been strained all night. You've been strained for the past couple of days, actually. What's happened? I hate to see you suffering like this." She placed a gentle hand on his forearm. Falman hesitated, then put down the papers, and covered her small hand with his.

"Honey, you remember Maes Hughes, right?" His wife nodded. "He… He was killed Monday night." Falman's wife gasped. Falman looked away.

"Oh, Vato," she whispered, shocked. "Honey, I'm so sorry. Why didn't you tell me?" Falman tightened his grip on his wife's hand as that horrible feeling began in the pit of his stomach. He turned his face farther away from his wife when he felt the tears start to well up. "Vato?" she asked gently, concerned.

"Because," he managed to choke out, "every time I tried, I thought about his wife and daughter, and I just…" The tears began to flow. "I just couldn't…" Falman turned to his wife, and took her shoulders in his hands. "I just keep thinking that it could have been me. I could have been the one in that phone booth, I could have been the one to leave you a widow to raise the kids, I could have been the one to die and leave you alone, to devastate you, and that scares me. It scares me so much. And every time I remember him pulling out a picture of his child, I see my children, and every time I remember him showing us pictures of his wife, I see you, and I imagine how sad they must be, how distraught, and I see that expression on your faces and it scares me. I don't want to do that to you. I never want to see you cry.

I want to see my children grow up and get married and have children of their own, and I want to get old with you, and I'm so scared that I'll die and leave you alone just like the Lieutenant Colonel did. I'm scared of that. I'm so scared. Why should he have been the one to die? Why should his family have had him snatched away from them? It might have been any of us. It might have been me. Hughes didn't deserve to die. He was such a good man. And I just can't come to grips with the fact that my kids get to grow up with a father while his little girl has to grow up without one. It isn't fair. It shouldn't be this way. I shouldn't be this lucky. I shouldn't be alive while he's dead. I have no right to be. I could never be as good a man as he was. Why did he have to die?" Falman buried his head in his wife's shoulder and wept as she held him, soothing him, shedding tears of her own.

"Would you rather have died in his place and left me and the children alone? It's not your fault, Vato. It's horrible, and things like it shouldn't happen, but you can't blame yourself for a murder you didn't commit."

"I know. I just can't help feeling like I have no right to be alive while he's dead. I keep thinking of his daughter. Does she even know what happened? Can she even understand it yet? She must be so confused…" He trailed off, clutching his wife closer to him. They sat for a long time, holding each other. Falman's wife attempted to comfort her husband, but he was inconsolable. Eventually, she helped her morose, guilt-stricken husband to his feet, and put him to bed. He fell quickly into an uneasy sleep, but she stayed awake for a long time, crying quietly to herself in the dark. The sleep she did finally fall into was restless, and when she woke the next morning, there was a black envelope in the mail.