Hey all, for those who don't know me, I'm Amelia.

Of all the fanfictions I've written, this is by far the shortest one. On my word document, it was one page in size 10 font. P: Amazing. And here I thought I wouldn't be able to shut up.

Consequently, the story might seem...cut off, but that's how I intended it to be. It's not a thinking story and it's not full of fluff and it's not romance and it most certainly is not full of hardcore...whatever you may think. The two characters are Roy Mustang and Maes Hughes and the entire thing is set during the Ishbalan Massacre. You'll get it.

Factum Est -- It Is Done

It was silent and dark when Roy found the shoe. The lights had long since gone out and snores were echoing across the encampment. How anyone could find sleep on such a night was beyond Roy. It took him nearly forty-five minutes at the water trough before his skin felt clean enough to be re-clothed. He'd thrown up what little dinner he ate soon after. Hughes had convinced him into going into the tent to rest, but he could find none of the sort. Instead, he'd stared at the canvas wall until he heard multiple snores around him, and played his own restlessness off by visiting the latrine.

The shoe was small as any child's foot would be. Its laces circled over the top and around the back, a sign that the little boy or girl who used to own it liked to be rough and run about. They had probably been on the outskirts of town with a stick in their hands and a wooden hoop in the other, wondering what strange, military-uniformed being was standing on the hill above them raising their fingers in a snapping motion and ohgodI'vekilledthemall-

Roy dropped the shoe with a loud shudder and nearly collapsed against a nearby tent. He swallowed with his dry mouth several times, trying to work the muscles of his throat into producing some form of sound. All he could manage was a low moan, and then his legs gave out (he was so tired and he'd been walking all day...) so that he was in a graceless kneel. The edge of his pajamas were stained by the dirt underneath him as he stared at the shoe.

It was bloodstained. He squinted at it (oh not again, not again, please...) just to ensure himself. It was only dirt. That's all it was (but it was blood he knew it).

"Roy, you're up?" A tired voice spoke from behind him. Startled, Roy flinched and looked over his shoulder at the figure who was rubbing at their eyes and yawning.

"Maes," Roy managed to choke out before he looked down at the forgotten shoe. "I...I was a little-"

"Are you going to do this sort of thing every time we take a break?" Hughes asked, stepping closer to his best friend and offering a hand. "It's late. You need your sleep for tomorrow."

"Why? So I can go out and kill some more?" Roy asked bitterly, turning away from Hughes' hand. He heard Hughes sigh lowly like he always did when Roy became stubborn.

"No, Roy. So you can stay alive tomorrow. Be alert during battle."

"I'm tired of being alert!" Roy snapped a little too loudly, but Hughes didn't shush him. "Dammit, Hughes, look around us! We're camping on a battlefield. It's like bedding down with guilt." He gingerly reached out to pick up the shoe again. Hughes leaned over and stopped him like a parent chastising their impatient child.

"You'll sleep," Hughes said, though his voice held no tone of force or negotiation. It was when the breeze blew at the tiny shoe, causing it to flutter off a few yards, that Roy accepted Hughes's hand.

Roy did sleep. He refused to even touch the bloodstained cot where a Private Hemley died three days before. At first, the obsidian-haired man curled himself up on the ground with a thin blanket around his shoulders near Hughes's cot instead. For an hour or two, he dreamed like that. When Hughes woke up again to Roy thrashing around and whimpering, he grabbed the younger soldier by the arm and manually turned him until the younger man's cheek was nestled on his arms on the edge of the cot. Hughes watched over him for the majority of the night, his chin on his palm and a cigarette in his mouth. The sun rose over the battlefield slowly, staining Roy's pale cheek with gold. The other men in the camp began to stir.

The night was over, Hughes decided. What was to be done, should be done like before.