Because that was always the way with these sort of things.

--

Glitch.

"Roy..?" there is no answer, not to say that she'd expected one.

They'd met during simpler times, beautifully innocent times when they were just grinning, wide-eyed catastrophes. When they were young and painfully naive, and when all roads had seemed beautiful and untravelled, as all the paths, now, lead to a final and bitterly decided destination.

He's different now; his eyes aren't quite as deep, his hair isn't quite as gleaming, his touch isn't quite as warm, and his voice isn't quite as filled with the joy they had once known. But again, she's not the same girl she was either, she supposes, the young blonde, sparkling amber eyed girl who'd only ever awed at a gun, never touched one. The young Riza, free of all loyalties and ties and bonds that now held her down like a bird in flames.

Not that she'd change a thing, even if she could. Well, perhaps she'd free him of the duties that held him down.

Still, if only he'd give her something, anything, really. Anything to show her, tell her in the smallest of hints, that he was still in there. The youthful boy she had once looked up to with wide eyes as he explained teh simplest and most basic rules of alchemy, the innocent teenage boy that had held her close as he first taught her how to shoot a gun, the same starry eyed man that she had so readily pledged her life to by protecting, using that same gun.

Well, there was pain. Inevitably, there was pain; after all, he was leaving to the North. Leaving her protection, leaving her. She'd like to be able to say it was a miserable, rainy day to match the bleak and desolate suffering that she felt, but the sky was never one to agree with whatever she felt. In fact, it was a beautiful evening, the setting sun brilliantly splaying its many colours over the picture that was the horizon.

But she looks at him, "Between unspoken words, and.. lifeless breaths." she whispers, to herself, to him, to anyone, even, who would care to listen to her, "So, this is how the story ends." She knows better than to try and persuade him out of it, despite everything, he would never listen to her once he'd made up his mind on things and situations like this.

His beautiful obsidian eyes, though clouded now with the suffering brought invariably from the pains of growing up and apart from everything they'd ever known, those eyes she's gotten lost in more times than she cares to count, turns to her. "Forgive me, forget me. Please, for my own peace of mind, if anything.. live your life, there are.. countless others who would gladly take the chance to be the one by your side. Please.. just. You're better off that way, you know that. Life quietly from now on, Riza, please. Live for you not me."

Her amber gaze flickers, and he wishes she were unbreakably infallible like they all thought she was. He whises he wasn't the only one able, capable, of hurting her. He hates how vulnerable she is against him. Still, at the same time, it holds a dangerous kind of happiness to him.

"But you.." his words are soft, and gentle, so that only she can hear, "You never were one to be like that, were you..?"

"I want to be just like you. That's what I said.. when we were so little. I didn't know.. that I actually would."

He laughs, devoid of any humour, "When did you.. become so much like me? Why did you decide to be so much like me, you would've been so much better off without.."

"No." And despite her faltering voice, and teh tear that she wishes was non-existent as it rolls down her face, the word is sure, and he doesn't doubt her. "We.. we're all glitches in the system, Roy.. all of us. Some just fuck up more than others."

He grins, "That's us, the screw ups. But I.. where you are, is where I wanna be. But.. I have to go. Just for a while. This is not the end of the story. I promise. Our threads are still intertwined, Riza. They always will be. Just.. you've waited so long, and I know, God, do I know, but.. just a little while longer, I promise. This isn't the end. Not by a long shot."

"I know. I.. I know." her forehead is up against his, and his arms are around her, and it's the only thing she can feel. She doesn't know how long it is that he held her for the first time in much too long, but hears his whispered, See you..

And then he's gone.

And the pain's still there, but at least she got to see him once more. The first time she's truly seen him since before Ishbal, in fact.