The old house is a ghost beneath the thick layer of snow and the overcast sky. What is visible of it doesn't seem to have changed much, from the faded paint to the fragile wood of the door and the window frames. What isn't visible, however, hangs heavily over the house; the façade is shrouded with memories of neglect and the undignified, miserable death of Berthold Hawkeye.
Roy lingers hesitantly by the gate. How long has it been since he last visited this place? It's a bother to count the time and the seasons he had spent here as a young, idealistic would-be alchemist, but he knows at once that he had never spent winter in the Hawkeye manor. The sight of it now is distant from what he last remembers of it.
When he finally enters the house, the floorboards creak under his careful steps. The only light illuminating the inside is gray and heavily filtered through the dirty windows, as if the sight of the house itself were a mere memory. Heavy coats of dust and spots of mold cover the peeling wallpaper, the cobwebbed decorations, the broken glass on the cupboard doors. The interiors have definitely changed much more than the exteriors, yet in his mind, he pictures the memory of his mentor's death as clearly as if he had just passed away yesterday.
He follows a trail of smaller, wet shoeprints cutting through the dust on the floor, and it leads him into the living room down the hall. There he finds a cracked leather couch and matching armchairs, a carpet riddled with holes, and her—huddled in front of the unlit brick fireplace, shoulders hunched over but visibly rigid, goosebumps raised on what little skin she has exposed. The sight is melancholy and ironic in many bitter ways that fill Roy with guilt. He quietly approaches her and sits on the floor next to her.
"Are you all right, Lieutenant?"
"I'm fine." Riza pulls her legs closer to herself. "It's just been so long."
He watches her closely; her brown downcast eyes, her tightly stretched lips, her gloved fingers interlaced around her knees. Behind all this, she suddenly looks sixteen years old again, orphaned by the loss of her father and yet permanently haunted by him in death as much as she had been ignored in his life. The atmosphere of winter around her appears almost unearthly, almost sacred, even, and Roy feels his presence to be irreverent around her, the only living reminder of abandonment in this house, this desolate shell of a dwelling.
She's shivering now, looking as little like herself as she could ever be. No doubt Roy has seen her cold before, having worked with her in the military through many winters and trips to the North. But here, her skin is colored pale by a different kind of cold, familiar if only because even in the warmer days of her youth, she never looked any different. Miss Riza Hawkeye and Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye were as different as summer and winter, in ways that had never been as clear to him as they are now, and the thought is as piercing as the snow outside.
He doesn't think as he strips his hands of his soaked gloves, and with trembling fingers removes hers as well. Riza doesn't react right away; she looks up at him only as he cups her hands in his, making her turn her body a little to him. There is only a little warmth between their freezing fingers, but he doesn't let go; he isn't able to.
"Sir?"
Roy holds her hands more tightly, leaning in to breathe some warmth into them. He is shivering now himself, but he does his best to ignore it. When he looks up at her, her eyes are a little more alert than before. Encouraged, he grasps both of her hands with just one of his, and with the other, he pulls her in. Their foreheads meet, and he closes his eyes. I'm here. I'm here.
"I'm sorry."
There is more he wants to say, but between freezing and not knowing what else one could say, he makes do with what he can manage. He could never make up for the years she had suffered with her father, could never be the one to, but his isn't the only fire she knows. Riza is fire herself, having forged her life against the winters of her childhood, so brilliant that his flame burns dull in comparison. He doesn't let go; there is nothing for him to do but to share his warmth, as she has shared hers.
"I'm sorry."
He feels her shifting her hands slowly, still trembling but considerably less frozen now, until both her hands keep his in between. They remain as they are for what seems like a very long time, foreheads touching and eyes closed. They don't know when their warmth turns to numbness. Neither one says another word.