What's this? A fic that isn't Fullmetal Alchemist? Yes. Yes it is. A oneshot drabble, at least. I had so many feels about these two when I finished the series, I had to write something.

Feedback, as always, is appreciated - especially since this is so different from what I usually write.

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KarmaHope

The ashtray was his.

She had lifted it from his desk before the new Enforcers had been assigned. Ginoza had caught her in the act, but had said nothing. The look he gave her told her he understood – at least to an extent.

She doubted he truly understood what it was that drove her to her actions.

She hardly understood it herself.

After all, it was ridiculous for her to be feeling this way. He had broken his promise to her, knowing full well what the consequences would be. Would it have been any different if she had told him the truth? If she had told him about the exception she had requested for him – and had been granted?

Sometimes, she wondered.

Mostly, she wondered where he was now.

She hoped that, wherever he was, he was safe.

It was a naïve wish, and yet she wished it all the same.

She couldn't say exactly when she had begun buying the cigarettes. There had been a day, months after she thought she had moved on, when she had walked past a man in the convenience store who had smelled strongly of smoke. Of him.

She hadn't meant to, but the next thing she knew she was walking out of the store with her necessities in one hand and a single pack of his favorites in the other.

For God's sake, she hadn't even known the man for a year! And yet …

He kept her sane, which was ironic, considering he was the one with the crime coefficient of a latent criminal.

He kept her focused, which was unbelievable, as he was –at the very least – hundreds of miles from her current case.

He kept her grounded, which was surprising, because from the first day onwards he had always been the one to unhinge her the most.

Ghosts leave more of an impression on society than living people do. There is something inherently more influential and threatening about that which people cannot see or perceive. There is nothing more frightening than not knowing exactly what you're afraid of.

Shogo Makishima was a ghost.

Kirito Kamui was a ghost.

The SIBYL system itself was a ghost.

Shinya Kogami was her own personal ghost, an unknown that fought the even more unknown, embodied in the stench of cigarette smoke and intertwined with the logicalities that allowed her to perform her job well.

One was avoidable, to an extent. The other was not.

She avoided neither of them; rather, she embraced both of them.

Every time, she swore it would be her last. Her determination then waned with each stub that burnt out, until 'this time' became 'next time' once again. And again. And again.

Twenty cigarettes a pack. One pack a week. Fifty-two packs a year. Two years ... and counting.

It had to stop sometime.

Next time.