two for the road
He finishes writing – there's no way of getting his thoughts sorted while travelling, anyway, he just jots down the important facts and puts the little notebook in the inside pocket of his coat. He makes a frustrated and self-pitying sound.
`Things didn't quite exactly turned out as I had planned,´ he says.
Hawkeye nods and closes her eyes for a moment, arms crossed as it's familiar and comfortable between them.
`But we should be glad we were able to help those children,´ she points out, quietly, then turns her face away from Roy, staring out at the lines of trees and treetops passing them by slowly.
It surprises him, that comment. He can't help but notice that she is becoming (returning to?) an optimist these days. Maybe he is rubbing off her in that sense.
She is still looking out, her face turned to one side and so the curve of her neck looks perfectly tense and beautiful and he is looking at her thinking that she looks a bit like the little girl he used to know but he is not looking at her with the eyes of the Roy Mustang of those days and that's a bit complicated.
Hawkeye catches him looking and Roy thinks of all the days spent together and all the little, imperceptible things that have led to this moment and-
And then at that very moment, a sharp stone on the road and one of the wheels breaks free and the horses make a angry stubborn noise and everything stops, dust on the road on their tracks, dust everywhere.
xxx
Roy stares at the road in disbelief. Maybe the driver is right. It doesn't look like their transport is going to be fixed any time soon. Time goes slower in the countryside, he guesses, and everybody is being very polite but very careless about it. Hawkeye seems to resign herself to the situation as well and has already started carrying their bags out of the cart without so much as a word of complain.
They are going to miss the train, that much is evident. They are going to have to find some place to stay tonight, some local bed and breakfast or something. He is going to have to write a expense report as soon as they arrive back in East. The expenses were travel only, not stay. And now he is going to file a report about hotel rooms and dinners and Roy doesn't want to be seen like that, like a spendthrift. He doesn't mind if people think he is arrogant or his superiors can't stand him. He doesn't care that he is going to lie in the report about the Elric brothers. But he doesn't want to lose points with petty things like this. Paperwork. Details. Small, silly things that could cost him.
And in the back of his mind he is also imagining the sort of thing some of the men will be saying – about him and Hawkeye spending the night out of the city, in a hotel. He can just picture the kind of ridiculous jokes, and the teasing, and the "did you get two rooms or just one?" conversations. It makes him nervous. It makes him think. How he has wondered the exact same thing but needs to push it deep and deeper because... Well, he can't afford to wonder now. And he can't afford too think ahead. And he'd better not look too closely into the how or why or when he has began doing this, all this wondering.
Hawkeye hands him his bag and they start walking along the road, on short grass, the town not even a tiny glimpse in the horizon.
`What luck,´ he sighs. Hawkeye gives him a gentle, careless glance. Roy nods. `No, you are right. It's a nice day for a walk in the countryside.´
xxx
The fields to their side look orange and perfect-summer golden.
The day closes in on them, with clean skylines and the murmur of insects becoming louder and lour as they walk; it's alright, they can see the town's lights nearby and Roy is almost sad that their journey on foot is finished. They have spoken very little since they started walking. But it's a good thing. They are able to take joy in each other's company without having to explicitly acknowledge it. It's just something that they do easily, just one of those surprising gifts or tokens they have learned since she's become his subordinate, how easy to fall into a pattern, and how easy to fall into a rhythm, in sync.
Hawkeye knows he is replaying the events of the day in his head as they walk – she is very good at that too, Roy thinks, giving him space.
He locks his hands behind his back, willing images of the inside of the Elrics' house out of his mind.
`I'm hungry,´ he says, as they step on the first thing that resembles a street, with houses and shops. `How about some dinner?´
`First we should phone East to let them know we missed the train,´ Hawkeye offers, reasonably. `And then we should find a place to stay the night.´
For some reason that gives Roy pause.
xxx
Roy fiddles with the telephone cord as he dials HQ. He feels restless. He can hear the people in the restaurant noisily going about their dinner and every time the door opens and closes – somebody is going to the toilets, one of the guests goes upstairs, retires – he catches a glimpse of Hawkeye, back straight as an arrow and somehow looking awkward and out of place among the villagers, waiting at hers and Roy's table.
He is being ridiculous of course, they spend a lot of time alone in a daily basis. They spend most of their time alone with each other. They don't normally go out for long walks in the fields or have to share hotel rooms, but they spend most of his waking hours together and they are trying to change a whole country together and all this is not new.
This is ridiculous. The girl connecting Roy through at the other side of the phone line has to call out to him twice before Roy replies, lost in these thoughts as he was.
`What's wrong?´ Hawkeye asks when he comes back to their table and they order, rather conservatively, soup.
`Nothing is wrong.´
`Your hair is a mess, you've been running your hands through it. You do that when you are worried,´ she tells him flatly.
Roy sighs and starts eating.
xxx
The worst case scenario turns out to be a double room in a little family bed and breakfast on top of a little tavern.
The sheets smell of lavender, but so do the drawers and closet.
Roy offers to let her go to the toilet first but Hawkeye refuses. They are old enough to avoid feeling self-conscious about that, being half-naked in each other's presence; it makes Roy feel so much of an adult that it's almost disparaging. Except that he knows he will never ever be comfortable enough around Hawkeye like this, so he is still wearing trousers when he comes out of the bathroom and waits until Hawkeye is inside before he gets into bed and takes them off, under the sheets and thick covers.
He is thinking about that, the certainty of this tension, he is lying in bed, when Hawkeye comes out and turns the lights off. She is wearing her brown undershirt and little more, but the room is in almost complete darkness so it's alright.
The light from the street – strangely vibrant starlight for one, again a countryside thing, lamps and light from the windows in the buildings opposite – catches her and Roy finds himself staring at the same spot on her shoulder as before, the same tensed muscles of her neck.
Roy talks to brush the moment away.
`Next time we should pack for accidents,´ he comments; he gives Hawkeye an amused – but slightly appreciative – look from head to toes.
She gets into her bed (he thinks she might have smiled but can't be sure) and Roy thinks about how few the few inches between hers and his are, he thinks rumors at the office, he thinks many things.
`I'm not planning on us getting stranded in strange villages very often,´ she replies.
`No,´ he puts his hands under his head. `And it's not like wearing the same clothes for two days is going to kill us. We've been in a war.´
These are the days when they can talk about the war with responsibility but without guilt.
Silence falls, somebody drops a pan or some cutlery in the kitchen below them and the noise cracks through the walls; for a moment Roy thinks Hawkeye is not saying anything because she has gone to sleep already but he hears her breathing and knows she is awake.
He waits.
This is ridiculous, he tells himself again. And dangerous, possibly. This is Hawkeye and though this doesn't come as a revelation – he has been veering towards this kind of dangerous thinking for months, probably years – it doesn't make him any less aware of it, or awake, right now.
Then, so sudden that he almost misses it when she starts talking, Hawkeye says,
`Can I ask you something?´
Roy swallows hard. Is this about the way his breathing has changed, become difficult here lying in bed or the way he stared at the curve of her shoulder through waning light when she came out of the bathroom? So if the question goes along those lines Roy is not sure he can give a straightforward answer. But this is Hawkeye so he simply says,
`Of course.´
`Do you think they are going to be alright? Those brothers?´
Her voice is sort of unsure and it's comforting to check that Hawkeye is not always 100% confident about things, it's sort of nice when she reverts to the naïve, curious little girl Roy once knew and how nobody suspects that of her.
He smiles, looking at the ceiling, and finally relaxing a bit.
`You mean to ask... Do I think I made the right call telling that boy to join the military?´
`No. I guess that's not really what I'm asking.´
`Because I've wondered that myself ever since we left their house.´
`I believe it was the right call in these circumstances and I'm sure you know that, too, sir.´
Roy is a bit surprised; it's not like Hawkeye to express her opinion in so many words. Oh she will give him a piece of her mind, yes, always. Just not in such a straightforward manner.
`Are you?´ He asks.
`Yes.´ And then, in a voice that's notably different from how she's been talking this evening. `After all I know what a high opinion you have of yourself, lieutenant colonel.´
Roy chuckles. It's an alien sound, in this darkness, attached to no visible expression. The place is quiet, quiet as only the countryside could be and he can hear every noise Hawkeye makes under the sheets, and she every noise he makes. She can hear him running his hand through his hair and she cal hear his lips stretching into a smile, everything magnified tonight.
`Well, well,´ he says cheerfully. `I guess this where we say good night then.´
He can hear her lips part as she is about to say something but then her breathing stops for a moment, a sudden tension in the air, as if she thought better of it. A split of second of odd silence, full of possibility. Roy was only half-teasing, of course.
`Good night, sir,´ finally she says.
Roy is only half-disappointed that things didn't turn out like in those office gossip. But he is content enough for now. He even ponders using her first name, to make a point, to single out the situation, but in the end he doesn't need to, decides what they are now, Mustang and Hawkeye, superior and subordinate, has more weight, has become something remarkable on its own.
`Good night, Hawkeye.´