AN.. This ficcy is dedicated to my friend Sophie-chan (aka imagining-dark-roses) for pushing me to finish this and for her help with the last chapter and the summary!! Hugs and Duckies, Rissy-chan

With The Dawn: Riza Hawkeye

The day that Maes Hughes died had been a very painful one. The many that had loved and cherished him and held him so close to their hearts stood around his grave and wept for him, without exception. Even if they hadn't shed a single tear during the service, each and every person standing in the assembly that day returned at some point in the weeks that followed to be alone with their dear fallen comrade and to cry for the loss of him.

That day held a great amount of personal significance for Riza Hawkeye. It was the day that she made up her mind to die by her Colonel's side. It hadn't been the first time she'd ever been in a graveyard, but just seeing all of those nameless headstones, lost as they were in the sea of dull and lifeless grey and knowing that someday there would be graves enough that Hughes' would just be another one of those many- knowing that as time passed they may not even be able to find the grave again… That was when she made her decision.

Now, on the morning of her lover's funeral, she had already made up her mind that she would not be in bodily attendance. Someday, his grave would just be another one in a million, but the day would never come where it was lost to her. She wouldn't let it.

Riza Hawkeye let out a sharp, harried breath as the cool metal of the gun brushed against her bare thigh and jolted her back into total awareness. The clock was ticking- she had to do this fast. She had to assert her right to a place at his side for all eternity before she lost him altogether.

Slowly, she slipped into the bath full of warm soothing water and felt her tense muscles immediately relax. Looking around her, she saw that all was in order and managed a weak smile. Her note of farewell and her will were on the white marble counter by the sink, kept securely weighted in place by a small vanilla-scented candle that she had lit just before climbing into the bath. Across it, she had strewn pale pink rose petals, fragrant and beautiful. It hardly seemed like the sort of place destined to become the state of a suicide, but chains and blood-splattered walls were hardly her style.

Laying back against the cool edge of the tub, Riza reached with one hand for a beautiful red stemless rose on the counter, just a little to her right. Cupping it in her hand securely, she trailed the familiar FN Model 1910 handgun down the valley between her supple white breasts, then, closing her eyes, she fired a single round into her chest and let the flower fall to rest on top.

The world seemed to stop spinning, but Riza refused to open her eyes and ruin her idyllic last sight of the perfect rose by seeing the dark blood that she could feel pouring down her chest into the warm bathwater around her.

Though the pain was great, she neither cried, nor screamed. She just kept her eyes squeezed tight shut and waited in agony for the rose pink colours of the coming dawn to set her flying on dreams unto the new day.

'Soon.'

She wasn't sure whether or not the word had actually come from her own lips, or from another's, or even if it were the pure product of her fevered imagination, all the same, she heard it and smiled.

"Soon," she breathed out in a choked reply, throat and jaw tight from pain.

'I'll see you again.'

"…Roy."