I lazily poked the thing on my tray that the staff of the mess hall insisted was food. I could have sworn that it was staring back at me in all of its sludgy glory. I glanced up at Maes who was looking at it with equal trepidation, turning slightly pale when it continued to jiggle for several long seconds after it was touched.

He commented absentmindedly, "Does science even allow for that?"

I looked back at the sludge apathetically, "Nope", making sure to pop the 'p' like the irreverent teenager I am.

He shivered, "All right, with that out of the way, how are you doing?"

It was the 5th Wednesday meeting, though he hadn't made every Wednesday, and I was the farthest I had been from quitting. That first Wednesday had been killer. Maes had barely walked in the door of the mess hall and I was hanging from his back like a demented koala bear, begging him to smuggle in some caffeine for me. He had promptly shrugged me off into a chair and slid an old-fashioned (to me at least) bottle of soda onto the table. He was halfway through asking if I needed help opening the top when there was a soft 'pop' and suddenly half of it was gone.

Apparently, my thought about soda in the mess hall was spoken out loud and remembered by the considerate Lt. Colonel. I had been worried about finding a fix for my addiction because of the cultural differences between Amestris and America, but the term soda still came from the sodium salts in carbonated water. Lucky me.

I looked up at Hughes, trying to read his expression. The first few weeks he'd had trouble leaving me behind in this place. That very first meeting, after the whole soda incident he finally got a good look at me. I was even skinnier than when he had first seen me, a frightening sight to behold. Every part of me hurt in ways I didn't know were possible and the food was looking at me.

When I told him the last part he had lightened up a little, but still kept asking if I was sure I wished to stay. When he asked why I would just shrug, and change the subject. The real reason was my sanity. I hadn't had anything close to an attack while in the boot camp. There was no time to slip too deep into my mind; I had to focus all of my energy completely on survival, and even in my off moments it was easier to keep myself here.

By the fifth meeting he attended I no longer hurt all the time, and had put on a little bit of muscle. Not enough to look strange on my small form, but enough to cling to my ribs and keep me alive in the exercises. I was built like a gymnast, and still had too little weight for 'lady problems' to even think of tripping me up every month (praise be whatever the fuck is looking after me). All in all, I was doing pretty well. Not to mention I was kicking ass in the theory work. When they said we were moving the afternoon exercises into the classroom the training unit I was in had been split down the middle in reactions. Half were horrified at going back to 'school' and the rest were thrilled to be getting away with the torture of the physical workouts. When our first test was the day after the material was introduced I knew that this was going to be mainly to test dedication. They wanted to see who would get the material, work their ass off until nightfall and then study until lights out.

I'm pretty sure I blew the instructors' minds with my perfect scores in every test. When it came time to move on to weaponry any sort of rifle was ruled out because most of them were bigger than me. I was decent at most handguns, but I was certainly no Hawkeye. Putting it together and taking it apart was no problem, because once again, memorization. Overall my scores were okay.

I grinned at Hughes, "I'm alright, I think. It's getting a bit boring now, there's nothing really new being introduced lately." He rolled his eyes.

"That's probably because it's your last week; they're winding down, and smoothing out those last few quirks. I doubt they have anything new left to teach."

I looked up from my tray, eyes wide and brain stalling, "It's the last week?"

He nodded, looking a bit amused, "Yeah, on Friday I'll be back to pick you up and take you to your new living quarters on base, if you decide to stay that is. After you drop off your stuff we'll go through the paperwork for everything, and find a place for you."

Only another day and a half until freedom. Well, sort of.

By the time Friday rolled around I was bouncing around the place like some sort of pixie on crack. I was waiting by the main door to the training compound, an officer sitting at his desk nearby, waiting to sign out anyone qualified to leave. I had a small military-issue bag that included two sets of uniforms (complete with pants, I had the option to refuse the skirt apparently, and boi-howdy did I), toiletries, and the paperwork to apply for a weapon. I would have to get a military ID number before I could turn those in. The most interesting paperwork I had was a completed copy of my records. Apparently, there were few enough females in the military that they were usually roomed apart from the general rabble in the 'barracks' simply because no one wanted to waste the space on building an entire area for the very few single female soldiers there were who had no spouse to live with. Therefore, I got housing as if I had a spouse but no children, an entire apartment to myself. My pay took a slight hit for it, but the privacy was no doubt worth it.

I scanned again for Hughes and finally spotted him, I tried to run towards him only to be intercepted by the officer. "Not quite yet, we have to get you signed out first before you can leave."

I scowled, but nodded, waiting impatiently for him and Hughes to finish their customary greetings (the peacock show of compulsory salutes) and then the required paperwork. After what seemed like an eternity Hughes was leading me out of the building and over to another one on what seemed like the other side of the compound. It was a grueling walk, and normally I would have been huffing and puffing and terrorizing pigs in stick houses, but after over two months of military training, I was feeling pretty good. Better than I had felt in a while actually. Maybe my bullshiting about vegetables and pushups was actually right.

My apartment was on the 3rd floor, in the east section of the main headquarters compound, with a tiny bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen/living room. I wasn't complaining, though, especially when I saw my bag from home on the small couch, accompanied by my carefully folded jacket, pockets undisturbed. I could probably thank modern quality for that, the inside pockets most likely wouldn't even be found unless you knew where they were already.

We sat down at the small table in the kitchen/living room and he spread the paperwork in front of me.

"Normally new recruits aren't given anything more substantial than grunt work for the grunts, but according to your test scores in certain areas, I'm willing to bend things a little. I've had you assigned to my unit in investigations. I hope you can handle long hours and little sleep."

I almost couldn't believe my luck. I got where I needed to be, with minimal effort. Of course, I had gone a little above and beyond for any bit of work that could be tied into the investigative branch, so maybe I had skewed my chances in my favor. A little. Still, in this case, all hail nepotism.

With a signature and my ID handed to me as well as a small amount of cash for food and other such necessities, which I assume was training pay, I was left to acquaint myself with my new home. I decided to put off the shopping for food a bit, and instead enjoyed my first HOT shower in a long while. After dressing in my, once again, military-issue sweat pants and undershirt I resolved to buy some casual clothing and drifted to sleep.

A few weeks into my new life and I had been faced with almost every criminal investigation imaginable, from fraud to drugs, with a murder here and there. Hughes didn't really question my ability to keep every file in his office meticulously in place, but worshiped it whenever paperwork seemed to be breeding and he could just hand it to me to fix the problem. I knew quite a few people around the base and the staff in the main cafeteria knew my routine well enough that they could hand me what I wanted without me saying a word, which was a blessing to my socially anxious self.

Hughes wasn't joking about long hours and little sleep. If I hadn't had a caffeine dependency before I would have developed one quickly. On top of the ridiculous caseload we had, I had taken it upon myself to stay fit, even after leaving boot camp. This was the best I had ever felt, and if getting up before the sun to make my lungs regret life was what it took to make that continue, then so fucking be it. I ran at the track on base every morning around dawn, switching up the theme of the day, between how long I could go and how fast I could make a certain number of loops around. My small size made for ridiculous speed, which I was grateful for because I was positive that my future would be full of running away from the conflict to leave room for the real fighters to do their jobs.

My nights, when not filled with endless streams of paperwork, were dedicated to finding whatever I could in the state library that had to do with alchemy. I even went so far as to locate Doctor Marco's books and give them a read-through. However I was by far no alchemist and couldn't spot the code for the life of me, so I left it alone. First starting out I had been terrified of alchemy for several reasons. One being that something would wrong and I would accidentally kill myself with it, and another being that it simply wouldn't work because of the fact that I wasn't originally from this dimension.

My first transmutation had put one of those fears to rest. My slightly demented statue of Batman had come out looking more like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. But it had happened. I began planning ruthlessly for Hughes' death, centering any theory I had to save him on my newly acquired alchemy (and what a hack that shit is), and doing small-scale experiments to test the likeliness of their success. It took me 3 weeks to finally come across a plan I liked that didn't seem overtly stupid at first or even second glance, and I began slowly gathering the supplies needed for the real thing, taking the money out of my food budget and cutting back a little on luxuries like dinner that I didn't quite need for survival. While some bits of it bordered the lines of human transmutation I took heart at the fact that I wasn't touching human souls, so technically I was clear. (right?)

I was getting close to ready, really close, when it happened. I was sitting at my desk, in the corner of Hughes's office calmly going through photos of a dismembered woman for the wrap-up of a cold case when Hughes swept in, grabbing his gun from his desk, as well as several other items and stashing them in his trench coat.

"Come on Steph, Roy's got some trouble brewing at Eastern command, we have an express military cargo train waiting for our team and a few others going for other reasons, we should be there before sundown."

I looked out the window behind his desk at the dark sky, not even showing a hint of the sun rising yet, and sighed, but grabbed all of my gear anyway. I pulled on my own trench coat and added my handgun to the holster, and grabbed my bag.

"What kind of trouble, boss?"

At the first mention of the nickname 'boss' a few weeks ago Hughes had protested venomously. I had only been making a reference to NCIS Special Agent Gibbs, but if it bothered him that badly I was gonna keep it, because I'm a little shit like that.

He had stopped rolling his eyes by now, it was slightly disappointing.

"Fullmetal trouble, with a side of insane bio-state alchemist."

Tucker. Alexander. Nina. Hughes' death was getting close and I was running out of time. I ran after Hughes, determined not to let him out of my sight, even if his death was a ways off. By the time we were on the train to Eastern command I was over the shock of the progression of events, and attempting to prepare myself for the crime scene ahead of me.

Dead men- handled.

Dead women- hitting a bit close to home, I am female myself after all.

Dead children- …no one can really stomach that.

[And if it hurts all the more because I knew this child was done for but could do nothing to stop it, only knew that it would, not when or how to help-]

I leaned my head against the window attempting to catch some sleep; I hadn't been home yet from the night before and was desperately in need of some shut-eye. The murder scene would still be there when I woke up. Unfortunately. As well as the guilt and insidious whispers in my mind that told me I should have done something about this, despite the lack of resources or solid timeline.

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