I sat at my computer, building this up so it would break 1,000 words. I got stuck at 999. It seems my karma is against me... Then I fixed it and was satisfied enough. It was a pain in the butt, but it was fun to write. :)

It was raining. The mesmerizing patter of soft drops hitting the window were soothing. Yet, they did nothing for Roy. In fact, they only managed to annoy him further.

The Colonel was having a rather gloomy day. He had a mountain of paperwork that wasn't going to be done any time soon, and it was already 10:30 PM. He missed dinner, and had gotten little sleep the past few days. The Elrics had failed to report in that afternoon, per usual, and were late by FIVE HOURS, running on six, now. His slight hangover from the night before was not helping.

His date the previous night had not gone... exactly as he planned. He had been drunk, pulled out his ignition gloves, and after a large boom, was thrown out of the bar. His date had left him, probably embarrassed to be seen with him, and he really did like her...

There was a new murder case; a man who had killed a state alchemist by exploding their brain. (Roy shuttered at the thought, then wondered how that was possible. He winced as his headach spiked in rebellion to his thoughts.) The military had dubbed the killer "Scar". Hughes was in charge of the case, and it had him up at the crack of dawn, so naturally, his best friend had to suffer from sleep loss, too. Maes had called him more than three times that morning, all before Roy had had his coffee, and the phone was going to need replaced.

Havoc and Breda had pulled a prank on him that morning, resulting in his hair being bright pink for half the day. Havoc and Breda were in the infirmary with minimum burns. There were scorch marks around his office, and he knew he'd have to pay to get them repaired later.

Hawkeye had grilled him to finish his work that day, and he just didn't want to. He didn't say much, just groaned and moaned and whined like a child. Hawkeye had left the office that day with a need to buy more bullets and maybe a headache from the cooperation she recieved from her superior officer that day.

Speaking of bills, he had gotten a rather large one from Fullmetal's latest 'adventure'. They had destroyed a bridge, an inn, and a coal factory. The last one left him with a foreboding feeling. Edward hadn't been able to fix his damage because he had destroyed his automail arm (again), and they were run out of town before Alphonse could fix it.

The Elrics had to stop in Risembool on their way to Eastern Command, and it had taken days off of the time they were supposed to report in. Roy was getting complaints from the townspeople when he didn't even know what had happened there. (But he had a very good idea...)

He sighed. Roy thought he might be catching a cold, too. The weather had been stormy and just plain wet the past few days, and it was really pulling down on the colonel. He was not looking forward to his required mission to Briggs the next week.

Roy warily eyed his paperwork, contemplating wether to burn it or not. On second thought, most of it was going to the Fuhrur himself, so maybe not...

Mustang groaned and dropped his head on the desk, the loud thump increasing his headache. He winced. Not smart. Why the hell was it raining? Roy rubbed his temples and sighed. Damn rotten day. Maybe his karma had caught up to him.

He sighed, and picked up his pen again and started scratching his signature down on one of the evil sheets.

A flash of movement through the window caught the colonel's eye, and he shot a quick look towards his door (He was never quite sure about Hawkeye), then he warily turned to look out his gloomy, dark window speckled with rain drops.

In the dim lamp-light on the streets, he saw a small, distorted - from the rain on the window - figure run, then slide in the slick puddles on the sidewalk.

A much larger figure ran after the smaller one, holding an arm up if to say, 'Slow down, you'll hurt yourself!' but slipped and fell themselves.

The small one turned back and started laughing. The large one swept the legs of the smaller one out from under them in response. Soon, an all out battle was going on, and something seemed familiar the way the two moved.

Then it clicked in Roy's muddled mind. The red overcoat, and form of the larger figure... Edward and Alphonse were playing in the rain. He smirked. Not something one saw every day. It seemed the brothers were taking a break from their hard lives, (Disregarding the military, mind you.) and having some childish fun. But truthfully, they deserved it.

They were probably coming to the command center to deliver a report that was long overdue, but Roy had a feeling that the report was going to be nonexistent by the time the two made their way to his office. The poor sheets were probably falling apart from wetness. Not that Roy wanted any more work at that late hour. He was content to just watch the two boys.

Edward fell on his butt, splashing up water, and drenching himself even more, if that was possible. He laughed and launched himself at his younger brother.

Maybe something in this dreary day was looking up, if not for Roy, for someone else.