A/N: My friend told me to watch Fullmetal Alchemist….Obviously Mustang and Hawkeye are absolute soulmates meant to be together forever and always and you can pry that fact away from my cold, dead hands. Also, I don't know if I've ever watched a show where I love so many characters so much. Edward Elric is the best protagonist ever, don't me.
With this story, I mean, I've only seen brotherhood, not the original or read the manga or anything, but I know vaguely some stuff about Roy and Riza's history. So some of this is kinda fact, some I made up, and I really don't care much if I got it wrong. Okay, cool, good, yeah. They're just so imperfectly perfect, I love them.
Hey, kinda warning: part of this may seem like I'm shaming the decisions and lifestyles of some people but I promise I don't mean to. I just feel like what I've written is the way Riza would react to the situation based on what I know of her. If I offend anyone, I am very sorry.
000
1915
"Lieutenant, are you awake?" he whispers softly, voice gently pulling her to consciousness.
She opens her eyes.
Everything is dark, and blurry and oddly muffled. Her throat is pulled tight and vaguely she thinks it should hurt, it should be absolute agony, but it's all just a haze instead. The colonel's in a seat by her bed, gripping her hand tightly.
She feels the bandages around his hands and everything comes crashing back.
"Keh-," she garbles out wetly, but it's all she manages besides a puff of air. Desperately, frantically, her free hand scrambles to her throat, scratching at the gauze and bandages there.
Her voice is gone.
Her voice is gone.
And her colonel can't see her.
Roy Mustang has seen her cry twice, possibly three times in all the years that they've known each other. But all it takes is one sniff accompanying her soundless sob, and the blind colonel just knows, his free hand reaching gently, carefully to find her face and wipe the tears from her cheeks.
"Hey, hey, shhhh, no don't cry. Don't cry, it's alright. You just had surgery to fully repair the tear, it's just a couple days. Just a couple days then you can talk again. You're fine, I promise you're fine."
Instead she grips his hand with both her own, curls up in a ball and cries harder.
"Oh, Lieutenant," he sighs, stroking her hair. God, she's so weak. So foolish. She can't talk for two days, and he is blind, honest to God, can't see a thing blind now, and he's the one comforting her.
She bites her lip so hard she tastes blood, and all she wants to do is scream and wail.
But she can't.
"Damn, you must be on a lot of drugs," the colonel whispers, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Drugs. Oh. Oh, yeah maybe that…huh. The colonel looks toward the closed door with sightless eyes as though watching for someone.
A habit. A useless habit now.
"Fuck it. I'm blind, you're hurt, if anybody reports us they're assholes. Scoot over." If Riza had her voice she would say no. She'd reprimand him, give him at least 27 different reasons why this is a stupid idea, an idiotic idea, inform him that they are absolutely not waylaying his path to the top even further by being caught in bed together of all things…
Instead she scoots over.
The colonel gently rubs his hand up her arm to ensure it's not the one with her IV, then carefully climbs in to bed. Everything about him now is so….gentle. There's a slowness, a caution to every single movement he makes. It's all dissected and thoroughly evaluated before the execution, because he can hear, he can feel but he can't see, and it's making everything he does so very deliberate.
Which is why Riza is rather shocked when he wraps his arms around her, pulling her curled body to his chest and cupping the back of her head with his hand.
"We'll be alright, Riza," Roy whispers into her ear, and Riza pretends she can't feel the tears dripping onto her head. "I promise we will. I might not see you again, but I'll hear you. I will, we'll be alright."
He sniffs, and Riza grips the front of his shirt in her hands.
"And even if I didn't, even if your voice didn't come back, we'd still be okay." Riza looks up at him at that, another useless habit.
He doesn't see her do it, but he feels it, and Riza sees the soft, sad smile on his face. "We'd be okay, Riza. You know me, and I know you. We've never really needed words, have we? No matter what happens you're stuck with me. For better or worse, remember?"
Riza can't help her small grin at that.
"I don't care if I can't see. I don't care if I can't hear you. I wouldn't care if I couldn't move or breathe on my own or speak. As long as I can still feel your heartbeat I don't give a damn," he says breathlessly. "They can have everything but you. As long as I have you, I can survive anything."
Riza doesn't stop crying for a long, long time.
000
1911
"Oooh, go get him, Riza," Rebecca says, wagging her eyebrows and pointing discreetly to a brown haired man down the bar. "He's been eyeing you all night." Riza looks at the man out the side of her eye. He's handsome, certainly, thick brown hair and wide blue eyes. From here he looks tall, which is always a nice perk, and the hand reaching for his glass of whiskey is large.
That's a nice perk, too.
Riza doesn't normally enjoy going out. She's perfectly happy to go home and read a book, maybe listen to a radio serial with a glass of wine and go to bed.
But Rebecca's in town. And sometimes, sometimes Riza just doesn't want to be Riza. She wants to leave behind the uptight Lieutenant with her perfect uniform and her scarred back and her damned soul. She wants to get dressed up at let the hair she's growing out loose from its bun and have fun.
She wants to forget about the two broken little boys she met last month whose souls are just as damned as hers.
She wants to forget about the colonel she's vowed to protect, promised to follow to the ends of the earth. The colonel she will be with always, who she can never actually be with. The colonel who's currently on a third date with a woman named Vanessa.
Vanessa is not one of his "sisters", one of his secret informants or witnesses.
Riza certainly checked.
So she takes Rebecca's advice and looks down the bar, catching the blue eyes before winking and smiling prettily. He smiles back widely and walks toward her.
She was right about him being tall.
"Can I get you a drink, Miss…?" he asks, voice deep.
"Elizabeth," Riza answers, relishing the name, her full name but one used sparingly, only when she's undercover playing a simpering fool. Only with him.
She's taking her name back.
Riza feels a soft prod on her back, and, without looking, fishes her apartment keys out of the pocket of her skirt and hands them back to Rebecca.
"Be safe," she whispers, and Riza can just hear the smirk in her voice. Somewhere in the back of her head there's a voice that sounds vaguely like her long dead mother, telling her she's being rude, Rebecca's her guest she can't just abandon her.
Riza will apologize tomorrow.
She and the man, Richard, chat for a bit, as Riza finishes the drink he bought her. He's from Central, in town for work. He's in finance, and just so happens to be staying at the hotel down the road.
"And what do you do, Miss Elizabeth?"
"Oh, a little of this, a little of that," Riza responds.
Riza knows she's good at this, she knows all the right lines and glances, the ways to dress and the time to bite her lip, to look uncomfortable and too afraid to ask:
"Want to get out of here?"
Riza nods, and Richard smiles, enveloping her hand in his warm one and leading her out of the bar.
It's like a game; usually to her it is a game, an exercise to find the solution, to crack the case and win.
Winning tonight is just a bit different.
They walk a few deserted blocks, Richard with his arm lazily across her shoulder. It alarms Riza how many times she stumbles. She's…she's drunk. That last drink put her over the edge, she realizes, she's truly and actually drunk and that hasn't happened for a while.
The realization sobers her a bit. She's drunk, she's abandoned her best friend to go home alone, and she's walking to a hotel with a strange man, a very large strange man, she's never met before. She's angry and spiteful and hurt and drunk and it's making her stupid.
Riza Hawkeye is not stupid.
Even for Elizabeth, this is a bad idea.
"I—Richard, I'm sorry," She shouldn't have to apologize, doesn't have to apologize, but she will. She will, and then she will go home. "I need to go, I'm doing this for the wrong reasons. I need to get home to my friend-,"
"Ah, c'mon Elizabeth," Richard says lightly, hand around her shoulders tightening, "She'll understand. I saw you give her the keys, she'll be fine. I know you want this."
This man, this idiotic man trying to tell her what she wants, trying to act like he knows one thing about her.
Trying to steer her toward the mouth of the dark alley they're about to pass.
"Well, I changed my mind. Let me go." She says it quietly, attempting to pull away from him.
His large hands just grip tighter.
"I know you'll like it," he whispers, starting to pull her toward the alley.
And Riza Hawkeye attacks.
She lets her weight go dead, grabbing his hand to drag him down, making him fall to the side with the abrupt change in balance before stomping his foot, elbowing his gut, and shoving her palm up painfully under his nose.
When he crouches over in pain is when Riza goes for his crotch.
"You don't know one fucking thing about me," she growls at him, curled up in a ball on the dirty sidewalk.
"Who the hell are you?" he whispers, eyes wide. Riza's eyes go hard.
"I'm the person who's going to shoot you in the dick if you ever try to do that to a woman again. No means no, asshole." She says it coldly, before opening her purse and dropping a few coins on his still crumpled form.
"There. That's for the drink, since you seem to think I owe you something." Richard crabwalks back until he hits the wall, then stands up and runs, eyes wide with fear. Riza gives a disdainful snort and turns, prepared to let the bastard crawl shamefully back to his hotel and stalk home herself and file a report with the police when she sees a shadow at the end of the street.
Roy Mustang is standing not twenty feet away, gloved hand held out to snap and eyes wide with shock.
"Oh my fucking God, did you follow me?" Riza asks sharply, rushing over to him, "Did you fucking follow me, Colonel? Oh my God. Oh my God."
"Are you drunk, Lieutenant?" he asks quietly, finally putting down his hand and grabbing hers, attempting to usher her away.
"Of course I'm drunk, it's a Saturday, I'm off duty, am I not allowed to be drunk? Now answer my fucking question!"
The colonel's eyes widen, his mouth a hard line. "No, I wasn't following you, I was in a bar with Maes down the road and I saw you pass when the door was opening. I just—I just wanted to be sure-,"
Riza's stomach is lighting up with something she desperately wants to be hate, wants to be dread, anger, fear, anything really besides what she knows it truly is.
She also really, really wants to know why the hell Colonel's at a bar with Maes Hughes when he had a date, a third date, with Vanessa tonight, but even a drunk Riza has too much pride to ask.
"I can take care of myself, Colonel. I could kick your ass and wipe the floor with your face if I wanted to." She says acerbically, wriggling her arm out of his grasp and turning the corner to finally leave stupid Richard and the stupid alley and stupid, stupid Elizabeth behind and go home.
"I know," the colonel whispers, stopping Riza in her tracks. She whips around to stare at him; he's much closer than she realized.
"I know you don't need anyone to take care of you." Roy grabs her hand again and looks her hard in the eye. "That doesn't mean I don't want to."
That stupid, wonderful, terrible thing lighting up her stomach:
It's hope.
000
1909
"You promised me," she says quietly, gut roiling. "You promised you would do it, you said you'd get rid of it, nobody else can know-," she says, talking faster and faster until—
"Riza, I could kill you. Do you get that? I could—I don't know how to control it well enough, all I know how to do is kill, and you want me to—you could die, Riza!" he shouts to her up the stairs.
"I don't care!"
Silence.
"What?" he whispers, eyes dark.
"I can't live with this, Roy, I can't. Nobody else can know about it, nobody else can see this, it's too dangerous." You're too dangerous, she doesn't say, but he knows. He always knows what she's thinking. "Even if I killed myself, they could dig up my body and see it. Do you even realize how many people want to know? How many people, not just in the military, other countries, Roy, everyone wants to figure out how you do it. It has to be destroyed, and if you won't do it I'll find a way myself. I will."
It's impossible not to hear the honesty ringing in her words.
Roy drops his face into his hands.
They're both on leave for the next month, before they're expected to report to East City. They've both been promoted. And instead of visiting family, instead of celebrating with friends and getting drunk, or seeing that counsellor they both really should be paying a visit, they are here. At her house. At her father's overgrown, crumbling estate. It's ugly and dusty and far beyond abandoned.
It's perfect.
Nobody will hear her scream.
She takes a hard seat on the once magnificent, now rotting staircase and shoves the heels of her hands into her eyes. She's never been so angry with him before.
She's never been so angry with herself before.
Riza shouldn't have trusted him, not with this, she should have just kept it to herself and run away, hidden out until she found a solution, and not returned until it was all gone. But the problem is, it's on her back. She literally, she just can't reach it, she can't see enough of it to guarantee that she'd get it. There's no good way alone to solve her problem.
Plus, Roy fucking Mustang would never let her disappear. Not now. Not without telling him why.
She feels a hand on her shoulder and startles abruptly.
After Ishval, it's surprising that anyone can sneak up on her like this. But, of course, Roy fucking Mustang can.
He squats on the stairs in front of her, hand still on her shoulder, dark eyes boring into her own. It should feel patronizing, but instead, God damn him, instead it just makes her feel safe.
Roy fucking Mustang.
"You don't ever," he growls, "Ever fucking talk, don't even think about killing yourself ever again. I don't care about the context, you don't think it and you sure as hell don't ever try it. You promise me that, and I'll do this."
Riza should be mad at this. He already made his promise, how dare he take it back, add his own stipulations and conditions after the fact. She should be furious.
Instead she's just relieved.
And ten minutes later, as she lists to the side of the cold tub of water, her frantic shrieks and wails still echoing throughout the bathroom, Roy's voice in her ear begging her, "Riza, just pass out, oh my God, Riza, fuck, pass out, just pass out—," as he pours cold water down her naked, horribly burned back:
She's just relieved.
000
1908
When Riza spots the Ishvalan sniper nested in the bell tower far across the square, readying to shoot the Flame Alchemist in cold blood, Riza doesn't hesitate to take the shot.
It's the first kill she doesn't regret.
The man's body tips over the edge and falls fifty feet down. Even from here, hundreds of yards away, Riza can see the blood beginning to spread.
She does her best not to puke.
Then she does puke, and goes down to meet her doom.
"You must be that cadet they're all talking about. The Hawk's eye, is it? Certainly an appropriate nickname," the man takes a seat next to her later that night, shaking her hand. He's a few years older than her, tall and dark haired. His glasses are reflecting the flames of the fire before them, but through the red Riza spies a pretty, distinctive green.
It makes her miss grass.
"Maes Hughes," the man says, offering her a hand. She takes it. "I have to thank you, actually, my buddy Roy would be dead in the ground without you there today-,"
"God, Hughes, quit talking about me when I'm not there," a voice grumbles from behind Hughes.
And then he's there.
Two years gone have changed Roy Mustang, and not completely for the better. He taller, certainly, his hair longer than the last time she saw him. From what she can see beyond the baggy uniforms, he's less lanky, more filled out and muscular.
But he's still skinny, cheekbones hollowed, and dark circles under his eyes. His lips are horribly chapped, his pale skin tanned and burned, and his eyes….
His eyes look as dead as Riza feels.
She stands up to meet him. Riza should probably salute, that's what they taught at the academy and Roy is a major now, after all. But Riza is also a sniper. And saluting an officer is a very easy way to make a valuable target known to the enemy.
So she stands and stares at him, and he stares at her, mouth dropping open in shock.
Then, he glares, and drags her into the empty tent behind them
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asks her, voice a dry whisper through his cracked lips. Maes, trailing in, looks stunned.
"Doing my duty, Major Mustang, sir." Roy stiffens. Because he's Roy, he's her Roy, and not using his name, using a new name, so different and formal feels like a betrayal of who is he to her, of what they mean to one another.
But to be here, to protect him (to protect everyone) she has to do this.
She absolutely hates it.
"You told me you were at school," Roy says, his voice cracking, "You said you were in Central-,"
"I was, sir." Riza can see Roy grinding his teeth.
"Well I wasn't sending letters to the fucking military academy, I know that much."
"I had them delivered to my friend Rebecca's parent's house. They live in Central." He doesn't bother to ask why. The both know why. If Roy Mustang knew Riza was at the academy, nothing would have kept him away, would have kept him from dragging her out and back home.
She wouldn't be anywhere near Ishval if Roy Mustang had any say.
"But you—you're not old enough, Riza, you can't be finished yet," Roy says desperately, and Riza can almost see the cogs in his mind turning, trying to find the way, trying to find a loophole, a reason that proves this is simply a nightmare and she isn't there.
"I'm not. They sent me out early since I'm a good shot."
And Riza watches Roy regret every single time he took her to the backyard for target practice.
"You're a sniper?" he asks, sounding horrified. Riza's heart breaks in half.
She is horrifying. There's no reason he should think any differently.
"One of the best," Maes says softly from behind Roy, gently reminding them both he's still there. "She saved your life today, Roy."
"That was you. Fuck, Riza," Roy puts a shaking hand over his face, "I didn't, Riza, I didn't tell you those things to try to convince you to join. I was, I don't know, trying to justify it to myself. Make you proud? I don't know. You—you shouldn't be here, you're not supposed to be here, you're supposed to be in Central, safe, at school and happy and-,"
Roy has tears in his eyes.
Riza bites her tongue and tries desperately not to cry.
Soon enough she will tell him. She'll tell him why she's here. She's given him power, so much power (maybe too much power) and unchecked it is dangerous, and she is terrified. So she will watch his back, she'll be his shadow, his eye in the sky. She will protect him, and she'll protect the world from him.
"I'm sorry, sir," Riza says softly instead, bowing her head.
It's silent for a moment.
"I missed you, Riza."
And then, Riza just can't help it, because he sounds so sad and broken and it's Roy, her Roy, and he's right there and she hasn't seen him in two whole years, and letters from the front lines of Ishval haven't gotten through for months and God, she's missed him so much. She's been fucking terrified and stressed, and now she's in the war, too, and she's a murderer and she's killed so many people and everyone just keeps congratulating her and it's sickening. It's all sickening and she is horrified with the world and herself and she's only eighteen and all she really wants is a hug.
So she takes one from Roy.
Riza pretends she doesn't feel the teardrops landing on her head as Roy squeezes her so tight breathing becomes difficult.
"You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be doing this," Roy whispers into her hair, as Maes slips out of the tent. Riza can see his feet on the other side, guarding the flap.
She's glad Roy found at least one good friend here.
"Neither should you. But it's too late for that," she says into his shoulder, and Roy's breath catches.
"I'm so sorry, Riza. I'm sorry, I—I, I'm sorry, I've just, I'm-," what is he sorry for? For her being here? For her new death count? For the warped way he's now put her father's years of alchemic study to work?
For the lives he's taken and the pain he's caused?
Well, she's got no right to be his confessor for that.
Riza looks up, and raises a hand to cup his chin, forcing their eyes to meet.
"For better or worse, remember?" Riza says quietly. "T-this will be our worst. But we'll make it better. We will. We have to. Right?"
Her question is small and soft, feebly spoken, because she doesn't know the answer, doesn't know if ever they can make anything about this, about Ishval or their lives or their consciences right again.
She doesn't even know if they'll make it through tomorrow.
But Roy grins. It's slight, and horribly sad, but he does grin and pulls her back into a hug.
"Yeah, we will. For better or worse. We can do this."
000
1903
"You're such a prissy little city boy," Riza teases as she helps Roy get the fish off the hook.
"Those stupid fins cut me! Look, look at it Riza, I'm bleeding. I'm going to die of some horrible tragic fish disease and it's all your fault," Roy whines, holding a rag to the cut on his hand.
"A drama queen, too," Riza mutters. "You should be happy, you caught your first fish!" Riza cries, trying to distract the boy from the trace amounts of blood on his hands.
"It doesn't seem worth it," Roy sniffs as he watches Riza pulls the fish off the hook and throw it into the bucket.
"You won't be saying that after you eat the fish I cook," Riza says with a grin, but Roy doesn't return it. He's looking at her oddly, head titled, like he's trying to figure something out.
"I'm done with fishing, let's go sit." Roy says simply, dropping his rod and grabbing her hand, dragging her to the edge of the little dock to plop down and let their bare feet swing over the edge. His legs are much longer than hers, but he is three years older, so she supposes its fair, for now.
"Where'd you learn to do all this, Riza?" Roy asks quietly, staring out across the lake.
"What, you mean fishing? Cooking the fish?"
"All of it."
"Well, I found the recipes for the fish in mother's old cookbook, but Dad, he's the one who taught me to fish, who taught be to clean them, that's really gross, you won't like that part, Roy, but it's not too hard and-,"
"Does your father fish with you often?" Roy asks softly, eyes sad like he already knows the answer.
Well, he does already know the answer. So why the hell is he asking Riza such a painful question?
"You know he doesn't, don't be stupid," Riza says heatedly, "He's got time for nothing but alchemy, hasn't had time for anything but that since Mother died. Don't be mean."
Roy looks stricken. "Riza, I didn't, I just wanted to know-,"
"You knew what the answer would be. You know him. You know him better than I do, probably." Riza scoffs. Roy doesn't deny it.
"You deserve better than him. He shouldn't treat you the way he does. You do all these things for him and he doesn't even notice. He's your dad, he shouldn't be like this. It's wrong, Riza. It's not equivalent."
For some reason, the statements make her face blush and fill her with shame, and she looks hurriedly away from Roy, toward the forest. It's not her fault, she knows it's not her fault, and Dad should treat her better, he should do more, she shouldn't have to do all the cooking and cleaning and shopping, shouldn't have to teach herself, and get herself to school every day unprompted and make sure she washes behind her ears.
He should do those things. He should tell her those things.
He should care.
But he doesn't. And now Roy Mustang pities her.
And that's it, isn't it. The pity. She sees it sometimes in the village, at the market, at the flower stand before she goes to the cemetery, at school when teacher sees her walk in late. They pity her because she is a nuisance in her home, unwelcomed and unloved because she looks like a ghost, a thirteen year old version of the person her father would give anything to have back.
"He just misses her," Riza argues, the old excuse she'll always have to fall back. "He's never been the same since Mother died, he loved her so much. And I don't think equivalent exchange really works with love, Roy." Riza sees Roy turn sharply to stare at her out of the corner of her eye.
"Why's that?"
"Because-," Riza begins softly, looking back at the lake, "Because equivalent would be each person giving half their heart, half their lives, right? They have an agreement and they turn it into something new, something they both have. But, sometimes, I think, when people love each other a whole lot, they just—they just give their heart away. It's not like they have a choice. And if they're lucky, the person they love will give them their whole heart in return. It looks like equivalent exchange on the surface but….I don't know, nothing really changes besides the person who holds the heart. Love is love, and love's supposed to be infinite, but when the person you've given your whole heart to dies, don't….don't you die, too?"
Roy wraps his arm around Riza's shoulder and pulls her in to his side.
"Maybe so," Roy says, and he sounds a bit like he's catching a cold, "But, you know, love's the only thing in the world capable of perfect human transmutation." Riza looks up, confused, and Roy grins softly. "I don't know if you've had the other 'how babies are made' talk, Riza, and I'm certainly not giving you that one," Riza blushes, and Roy laughs a little, "but parents and kids, that love….Riza, your mother and her love, it will never die as long as you're here, and the fact that your father can't see it proves just how foolish he is."
Riza glances around quickly, terrified that Dad will pop out, running and screaming at Roy to get off his property and never return because he's such a disrespectful pupil; Riza wouldn't be able to bear that.
Roy grips her tighter, because he know exactly what she was doing, who she was looking for. He always knows.
"Hey, Riza?" he says softly, looking down at her. She turns up to meet his gaze.
"I love you." There's a blush on his cheeks when he says it, but his voice is strong like he's simply stating a fact.
Riza wants to cry, and opens her mouth to contradict because, no, he doesn't, he'll pretend to love her because her father doesn't, he just pities her, he's—
"I'm not just saying it," he says fiercely, because he knows her. He knows what she was going to say before she even finished the thought herself. "I'm not. You're so important, and good and talented, Riza, you are, and you're my favorite person in the world, my best friend, you're-,"
He doesn't continue, but Riza knows. Because Riza knows him too, knows this boy who has been her older brother and best friend, her protector and this….fact. A fact in her life. Roy Mustang is important. Like the sky being blue and the grass being green, Roy Mustang is important, and a life without Roy in it hardly seems like a life at all. He's a promise.
Riza remembers a story her mother told her once, about the earliest human beings. They were said to have two faces, and four arms and four legs. But the gods up in the heavens thought the beings too powerful and split them in half. And humans today, they all ended up divided, all continuously searching for that other half they were separated from eons ago.
"They're called your twin flame. And, my dearest Riza, if you're lucky, you'll find them. You'll find your opposite and equal in life, that person whose fire in the soul matches yours."
"But how do I know if I've found them?"
"Oh, sweetheart, trust me, you'll know. They'll just, they'll make your heart sing, Riza. And for better or worse, don't ever let them go."
Riza sniffles, and runs a hand across her wet cheeks. "You won't leave, right? You won't—you won't leave?" she doesn't mean physically leave, she knows that someday Roy will finish his learning. Someday he'll be an adult, and have to go out in the real world and get a job and finally leave this house and these happy days out in the sun and be away from Riza.
But Roy Mustang knows what she means. He understands her like nobody else in the world.
"You're stuck with me, Riza."
"For better or worse?" She asks quietly, and he grins.
"And for richer or poorer? In sickness and in health? You want me to go through them all, we're a bit young for this, kiddo." Riza flushes happily. She always likes it when he calls her kiddo.
"No, I didn't mean all that, just the 'for better or worse'. You promise you won't leave, for better or worse, Roy?"
His face sobers, and he grabs her hand.
"I promise."
And Riza's heart keeps on singing.