:Author's Note:
This story was written for a fic contest for the prompt "Sign". It was a struggle with the word count...!
I hope you enjoy it!
Somewhere, there is a sign that the choice Riza has made is the correct one. Her search for it is perpetually fruitless— it evades her deftly in the confines of her own mind, laughingly obliterating every aspect of order she has so painstakingly established there. Her need for it bursts forth from every comforting place and familiar memory. Any confirmation, any at all to tell her that she is right, any justification for the actions she has taken—she knows it is there, somewhere.
The choice had ultimately been hers, of course. Roy is always pushing—probing, trying to find what tactic he would have to employ to make Riza understand why he needs her so badly, so desperately as to be unavoidable and necessary. Her heart reflects his own, but—she was the one who had drawn the line firmly between their feet, pulling up the transparent wall to separate them. She had watched as Roy pressed his hands against the barrier, and turned away as he lost faith and let his fingers slide away. When it came time for the divide to fall, the choice was hers—she tore it down. Riza is the one who invites him home for dinner, and Riza is the one who allows him to stay for the evening, and linger.
Anything, anything to tell her that she is right—
The animated sparkle has faded from Roy's eyes with the passage of hours, and the way he gazes at Riza now as he lays beside her is warmly content, his smile listless. Just a short time ago, there had been a question burning in his eyes, begging to know are you alright, am I, is this— and it was. She had told him plainly that his place was with her, and he hardly had the inclination to argue. With a sudden tenderness, Riza had pulled the covers up over his shoulders and crossed the treacherous distance around the bed, laden with doubts and chances to leave, none of which she had taken. So they stay, watching one another: Roy makes no attempt to move any closer, and is satisfied to revel in a glow of self-composed happiness. Riza wants terribly to take this as reason enough that she has made the right decision. The clock on the bedside table ticks away the seconds, coldly, rending her faith.
Time collapses to its knees; waves of emotion close in darkly over its head, banishing it from the realm of human perception. A decision seems to well up from within her over a course of years—but it is pure physical impulse as the clock records a single second, and Riza takes Roy's chin gently in her hands and places a shy kiss on his forehead.
This solitary sign, so unexpectedly and inadvertently provided by reflex over cognition, loosens Riza's tenacious hold on doubt. Her compulsive chase lies down to rest, for a time. The night passes; together they dream their respective dreams, back-to-back.