Notes: Well, hello again. School is taking over my whole life now and I'm sorry that it is. I have so many ideas in my mind on what to write. I was thinking of the time between the orginal series and the movie, the other side of the gate, continuing the manga after chapter 108, and now there's this idea.

It's set during Ishval, during the time in which Riza joins. God, do I love Hughes, so he'll be in here quite a bit. If the beginning seems boring, I'm so sorry, but you must understand that I have to build up to the main part of the story, you know what I mean? But yeah, enjoy!

Obviously, I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. It belongs to the goodness of The Cow.

Imbrication

Overlapping and forming a regular pattern

He wished that they could have met again somewhere else, God, anywhere else but here. She, the Riza he knew with the amber eyes, shouldn't be among all of the bloodied corpses and men that were slowly losing there senses. She shouldn't have been here and yet. There she stood before him, the same look in the eyes as his. Then she had to speak. Of course, introductions should be said, but not at times like this. Although, it's not like it could be helped.

"It's been a while Mr. Mustang," And she stood so still as she spoke, but he still had this horrible feeling that she would collapse (she did look tired.) (she hadn't slept well in days.), "No, perhaps I should call you Major Mustang now," God, how he wished that she hadn't used those words. Major was such a title for someone like himself. It was like when a person who seemed so horrible, received such happiness. It wasn't deserve, and yet, here he stood with the stars on his shoulder to prove it. He had begun to look at her closer, debating if it was mud or blood on her face, until she spoke.

"Have you begun to remember?" He remembered everything from their first meeting with the formal hellos to watching her from the train window as he left for East City. (Just for the record, he would have come back if she had called him.)

"...How could I forget?" Roy Mustang was always one to state the obvious. Of course he could never forget. He could never ever erase the memory away of her baring her back to had never forgot when he had left her standing on the train platform with swollen kissed lips and a heartache that was begging for some medication that didn't exist. His eyes adverted from hers to Hughes, standing beside him. He raised an eyebrow, as if suggesting that she was a former lover. Everyone had already known of his demeanor, although to date he had only really ever been with her. The rest were just harmless flirts and sweet little touches and fumbling in the darkness and loveless fucks. He didn't want anything serious. Besides, as a few other soldiers has told him, there were always the whore houses around. He dared not to set foot into one though, although he had tried to once out of desperation, but he couldn't get her out of his mind when a young blonde started to serenade him with experienced touches and kisses, whispering words all the while.

Roy excused himself from Hughes, asking him to met him back in the tent at a later time. He grabbed Riza's arm, leading her off to an area where they could talk without the sounds of screams and gunshots pounding in their ears. She spoke immediately to him, not holding anything back, "I was...afraid of my father because the sight of him absorbed in his research as if he was possessed or something. Yet still, I believed in my father's words that this great power would bring happiness to many people. I believed that. Alchemy would give people dreams and hope, and that the military would protect this country's future...Please tell me Major. Why are soldiers who ought to protect citizens, killing them instead? Why is alchemy, which ought to bring happiness to the people, being used for murder?"

Hughes watched as Mustang stood just outside the tent, heaving up what he had managed to eat for lunch. She had just decided to confide in him the words that he had been thinking all this time and yet. He was sick over them because he never would have thought that she would say such things. Somehow it just didn't connect very well inside his mind. He then, after much grief from his stomach, sat on his cot across from Hughes, not quite sure on what to say yet. Hughes watched as Roy had now taken to pouring himself a glass of something to drink; his hands moving shakily as he tried his best to bring the glass to his lips.

"What did you two do out there?" Hughes asked, making Roy take another drink. It was whiskey, Hughes had known from the color and the smell, knew that Roy had hidden it underneath the cot in the far corner. Roy wanted so badly to laugh at the question. Of course his good friend would want to get to the point. It was bloody fucking Hughes they were talking about.

"She said some things that shouldn't have been said," Simple truth.

"That's all...? Aren't you two..." Take another drink.

"Lovers?" Of course the man would think that. She's a woman who knows you from before the war, so he had a right to think that there was something there. Now, there was something there, but it was far more complex, what they had, besides lovers. No one had really invented a word for what they had yet, so yes, you could call them lovers for now. It might fit for a little while, until you notice the something more part, "It's not like that Hughes. She's my Sensei's daughter and I'm not really in the mood for telling you about how we met and shit, so please no more questions,"

"But why is she here? There aren't very many women soldiers, you know," Damn you, you sick fucking bastard. That was just like taking a person's face and shoving it in all their life mistakes. Damn you. Roy knew very well why she was here and it was partly because of a few words and a few touches in places that he really shouldn't have touched, (or even seen for that matter). When he was sitting on the train, watching her vanish through the window, he had this horrible sinking feeling that she would follow him. He desperately wanted her to call so he could tell her that she was just being plain stupid, but there were no phone calls or letters. He would have written or called, honestly, he really would have, except that he hadn't known where she was living. After her father's death and with the house sold, she had told him that she would rent an apartment somewhere in East City where they could be in close contact and yet. He had never seen her in the streets or run into her at the market. He even looked at the whore houses, praying to a God that he didn't believe in, that she wouldn't be there, couldn't be there. He never found her there, even though he asked several times for a blonde with amber eyes, but he always ended up going home with one that looked like her, but wasn't.

If a sentence could be manage after such a thing, well, in all actuality, Mustang was beginning to think that words were useless. Of course, they could explain why she was here and how he had know her, but could it really explain that slight tension that was there whenever the two were together. Or the way that it seemed she pulled towards him, subconsciously? It's very hard to put words to things that you quite don't understand and yet. He sat here trying to explain them the best he could to Hughes. He began at the middle, because the greeting and the months of awkward hellos were rather uneventful. He told him about how he left, even though he really hated to leave her behind with that man, who was so lost inside himself that he wasn't sure where he was anymore.

He tried so goddamn hard to leave out the part about the tattoo on her back. God, did he tried, but it began inevitable when Hughes had asked about her father's research. He was too ashamed to look at his friend in the face as he told him of innocent touches and the nights that things happened that never should have. Accident was such a small word compared to what had happened. Accidents would have been like accidentally walking in on Riza naked and seeing her tattoo, but no, the way things happened were, in his words, so fucked up.

"So, what are you exactly then?" Hughes, God bless him, was just trying to help a poor man in denial. Lovers would have been to sweet and soft a word. Love didn't exist in such a place like this, let alone could survive among the mangled bodies and murder. Obviously they were surviving, or what they thought the definition was, so no, they weren't lovers, not here at least. Friends was too light a word also. The words to describe them haven't been invented yet.

"You know, I'm not quite sure yet," Mustang said, as he looked over at Hughes. Hughes had that stupid grin on his face, the same one that occurred whenever a letter from Gracia arrived or when he babbled about how when the war was over he was going to propose to her. It made Roy mad, to say the least. He just had this horrible gut feeling that Hughes was thinking something and he felt the right to know what it was.

"Come on. I bet they're waiting for outside," Maes told him as he stood up and reached out to put his hand on his friend's shoulder. Roy would have rather stayed behind and rediscover his love for a good drink, but that was exactly why Hughes was asking him to come along, forget about the hidden stash of alcohol. Roy was beginning to think that Maes Hughes was too smart for his own damn good.

Goddamn him. If only he had his gloves on. Kimblee's words had sliced her own wound even deeper: "...you don't have even a little moment when you feel a sense of achievement in your work?" Of course she didn't you fucker. She would stay up later in her tent, couldn't sleep, wouldn't sleep because she was so haunted from all that she has done. The moments were constantly replayed in her mind: the buck of the gun, people falling over, dying. It was a tape that would play and then rewind itself. She couldn't stop herself from remembering and she didn't want to forget this. For some reason, she felt the need to remember everything. She wanted to remember the feel of sand in your teeth and those cries in the night. She felt so very much out of place with the world.

"Don't forget them. They won't forget you either," Kimblee said, feeling a grin reach his lips. Roy was too shocked to notice that Riza's hand were shaking so uncontrollably that she had dropped the cup she had been holding. He wished that Hughes would have reached a hand out or done something to make this feeling that lived in him now, go away. He watched as Kimblee walked off and wondered how someone could be so pleased with killing people and live with himself. It haunted him every single chance it got to.