DFR, Good Lord, Erinn-chan!! I hate you! I was almost finished my Christmas ficcy then you had to go and give me a plot bunny and make me start over!! Don't know what I'm talking about? Your comment on my Christmas royai piccy!! Ringing any bells?! "Great work! Might be a good basis/plot for a fanfic, don't ya think?" The moment you said that the wheels in my head started turning and here we are!! ((Sighs and grumbles about how much she hates 'the season of forgiveness')) But anyway, this Christmas ficcy is dedicated to you as a show of my good will, ahaha P That's right, you can come out of hiding, I'm not going to kill you just yet! Merry Christmas everyone! –Lots of love!!
Rissy-chan
My Timeless DevotionDecember 24th, 1905, 1930 hours
– Eastern Area, abandoned market town
It was getting dark and the 19-year-old Flame Alchemist had long since bought the last of the groceries he had professed to be in search of in leaving the home of his late sensei. Crestfallen and without the smallest sense of hope, Roy Mustang wandered into the last of a long line of gift shops down a rather creepy one-way street that he had never come across before.
The shop's clerk looked up instantly at the lone sound of the bells attached to the door breaking the dismal silence. She was an old greying woman who seemed more than just a little surprised when she saw that she had a customer. A few moments passed in silence between them, then a great grin spread across the face of the old woman and she flashed her slightly yellowed teeth at him, eyes crinkling in delight.
"Morning, son!" she called happily, walking out from behind her little counter.
Roy frowned, but did not point out to her that it was almost night- he didn't want to waste time. Any minute now dinner would be on the table for him back home… Well, back at the Hawkeye residence, anyway- he couldn't really call it home anymore. Not when he was leaving tomorrow.
"What can I help you with?"
Roy glanced around the shop, which showcased an impressive hoard of jewellery and trinkets of surprisingly good quality. "I'm trying to find a special present for a very dear friend."
"A Christmas present?" asked the woman. "For a very dear female friend, I presume?"
"No," said Roy blushing a little. "Well yes, but… no. She is… Well, she is female. But she isn't… what you're implying…"
"A sister?"
"No… just a girl friend. Yes, a girl friend."
The old woman let out a delightfully cheerful little tinkling laugh. "Right, so a Christmas present for a very dear girl friend," she said, with a noticeable hint of amusement in her tone. "Leaving it a bit late, aren't we? It's Christmas Eve."
"I know that," said Roy, still slightly flushed. "I've been looking for ages, but I haven't been able to find anything truly perfect. It has to be special. You see, I'm leaving for the war in Ishbal tomorrow and if I don't come back…"
"Promise her that you will," the old woman replied immediately. "That's the best gift you could possibly give her."
"But, Ma'am, I can't really promise her that," Roy protested.
"Promise her that whatever happens, you'll try," she persisted, turning around to bustle amongst her wares. "…And give her this."
Roy stared down at the ring in her hands with wide eyes but was soon saved from having to reply.
"Nana, you're too old to be proposing to someone like Mustang," came a cheerful voice that belonged to neither of the two. "He only likes pretty young blondes…like his alchemy sensei's precious daughter!"
"Shuddup, Maes! What're you even doing here?" Roy huffed.
"I live here, bro," said Maes, grinning. "And I was TRYING to get an early night seeing as we're leaving tomorrow, but then I hear Nana down here with her first customer in weeks and of course it just has to be you, buying your little blonde honey a ring!"
"How'd you even know that it was for Miss Riza?" Roy muttered irritably.
"It's obvious isn't it? Tell him it's obvious, Nana."
The old woman smiled again and Roy grimaced as he finally recognised her as the woman who he had seen embracing his friend after graduation. Hell, he even got a hug from her, so why hadn't he remembered?
"Haha, you look so sour, Roy!" Maes laughed brightly.
"Oh shut up!" He turned his attention back to the old woman. "I'm not looking for an engagement ring, Ma'am, I'm just looking for a Christmas present."
"It doesn't have to be an engagement ring, Mr Mustang, though I daresay, from what my dear grandson has told me, that you'd like it to be," the old woman replied, smiling secretively.
"I'm only 19," Roy groused determinedly.
"I know, I know- plenty of time for that later," Maes' Nana agreed, wilfully misinterpreting this statement. "But think about it, son. Wouldn't it be romantic? Present her with the ring, as a denotation of eternity and the impermeable testimony of your promise to her..."
"Which is…? Dare I ask?"
The old woman just smiled wider. "To return, son. And to marry her some day, when you're both good and ready."
Roy could find no reply for her, but it was obvious to both of the others cramped in the small room that he was seriously tempted by the offer.
"…The symbolism of the ring is quite divine, is it not? A shape which hath no beginning and no end- representing eternity, renewal, wholeness and perfection- the planets, the sun, the moon… Bringing together all life just as that ring shall bring you and your beloved together." The old woman's eyes were glittering brightly as she said this. "What is it you alchemists say, son? Ah yes… 'One is all. All is one.'"
For the first time, Roy took a closer look at the ring, and seeing this, both of the Hugheses jumped for joy and the older of the two eagerly handed over the ring.
"It's beautiful isn't it?" she said happily. "That band is solid silver and the three stones are real sapphire, emerald and diamond. Son, do you know the symbolism of a three-stoned engagement ring?"
Roy replied that he did not, staring down at it, rather entranced.
"A three-stoned engagement ring is representative of three things for a couple: their past, their present, and their united future. Isn't it a beautiful sentiment?"
"…Yeah."
Nana Hughes beamed. "Shall I wrap it up for you then?"
Roy nodded simply and Maes actually let out a loud hoot of joy. "Geez! Talk about incentive to come back after the war! You are one lucky guy, Mustang!!"
"Yeah…" the young alchemist agreed slowly, a small smile making its way up to his eyes. "Yeah, I am, aren't I?"
Ten minutes later, he had left the building and Maes turned to his grandmother. "Nana, how did you know all that stuff about the ring?"
The old woman smiled softly. "Didn't you recognise it, son? That was the ring that your grandfather gave me when he proposed…"
-
December 25th, 1920, 0900 hours
– Grand Central Headquarters, The Fuhrer's Office (Riza being the sole occupant and Roy being at home, sleeping)
"Lieutenant Fuhrer Hawkeye," came the happy alto tone of Sergeant Major Kain Fuery as he bounced into the office the young woman shared with Fuhrer Mustang one Christmas morning. "I walked Black Hayate like you told me to!"
"Thank you very much, Sergeant Major," Riza replied with a small smile. "Did you make sure his feet were clean before taking him into the building?"
"Yeah, I remembered," Kain assured her, holding a squirming Hayate up so that she could see.
Riza held out her arms for the puppy (who really wasn't much of a puppy anymore) so that she could inspect his paws herself before setting him down on the floor. During the exchange, Kain happened to look down at the hands receiving the dog and caught sight of something rather astounding.
"Lieutenant Hawkeye, when were you going to tell us that you were engaged?!" he exclaimed and Riza looked down in surprise.
Immediately, she started blushing and, after a much less thorough than usual inspection, she put Hayate down and let him take up his traditional residence under her desk. "It's a ring," she said, rather indignantly, as she shoved her left hand into her pocket. "I can wear it on any finger I want."
"Oh… You're right, of course," said Kain, also blushing. "But it's really pretty- do you mind if I see it?"
Riza hesitated slightly before drawing her hand back out of her pocket and slipping off the treasured ring. "Please be careful with it, I've had it ever since… well, ever since Fuhrer Mustang was just another one of my father's alchemy students."
"I will, I promise," said Kain, gazing at it in awe as he turned it a little and the gems caught in the light. "It really is beautiful- but, hey, what's this?"
Riza followed his eyes to the words engraved on the inner edge of the silver band.
'For my dear Marianne. Love for always, Morgan Rod Hughes.'
"Wasn't Morgan Hughes the Lieutenant Colonel's grandfather?" asked Kain, frowning slightly.
"Yes, I believe so," Riza replied.
"But… you'd think Hughes'd give something like that to his own wife, you know?"
"Oh, Hughes didn't give it to me," Riza was quick to tell him. She didn't need Gracia finding out and thinking that Maes had proposed to her first- it would only complicate their relationship.
"Then how did it come into your possession?" asked Kain, handing it back, still with that small frown on his boyish face.
"Roy gave it to me," Riza replied without thinking of the obvious consequences. She immediately froze when she saw the look on the young Sergeant Major's face. "Oh, Fuery! I meant, uhm-!" She struggled to find some non-romantic way to explain away her superior giving her an engagement ring, but failed, and by the time she so much as opened her mouth again, he had already gone from the room at a fast run.
-
December 25th, 1920, 0916 hours
– Grand Central Headquarters, the coffee-break room ((An// Trying to think of a more eloquent way to phrase that…Nup, not happening))
"From Mustang? You're sure?!" asked Warrant Officer Vato Falman, while shooting a rather annoyed look at his friend and comrade, Jean Havoc, who, sitting nearby, had just sprayed his last gulp of coffee over everyone within a two metre radius of him, including Kain Fuery, who was looking smaller than usual and rather as though he wished that he hadn't tattled on Riza.
"T-that's what she said," Kain stuttered, glancing at the door worriedly, almost as though afraid that said Lieutenant Fuhrer was after his blood or something along those lines.
"I can't believe it!" Breda exclaimed. "The infamous womaniser and girl-stealer finally gave a girl a ring!"
"And Hawkeye, too!!" Havoc agreed. "I guess the rest of us finally get to have a crack at the ladies 'round here!"
"Hey, you're right!" Breda whooped and the two slapped high-fives.
"What I wanna know is why the hell neither of them saw fit to tell us!!" Fuery fretted. "You'd think we had a right to know!!"
An irritated sigh sounded to the right of the small group and the men turned to face an annoyed looking Second Lieutenant Maria Ross. "Have you guys honestly just noticed the ring on Hawkeye's finger?"
"You knew?"
Maria rolled her eyes. "Guys are idiots…" she sighed. "She's had that thing ever since I've known her, but has yet to produce any evidence of a significant other. A few years ago I guessed that it had been given to her by Fuhrer Mustang and she admitted it."
"Years ago?" Havoc whined. "Damn… How come we never noticed before?"
"Because you're all impossibly absorbed in your own stupid lives," said Maria confidently. "Now, do I have to tell Hawkeye that you were talking about her or are you going to be quiet?"
"We'll be quiet," the men muttered gloomily, and just in time because Riza chose that exact moment to walk into the room.
"Sergeant Major, may I have a word?" she asked in such a tone that it could never in a million years be mistaken for a simple request.
"Uhh… sure…" Kain obliged doubtfully. "Do you, uhm, wanna go somewhere private?"
"Oh, don't worry," said Riza, still using that same frightening tone. "I'm sure that the others were just leaving anyway." At this, the room's few occupants hastily emptied themselves into the hallway and the door slammed behind them with a loud BANG! "You see?" said Riza, and she sat down on one of the military blue couches, indicating for Kain to sit across from her.
"…Yeah, I see," Kain mumbled feebly.
"Good. Now, about what I accidentally let slip just now-"
"I promise I'll never ever speak of it again, Lieutenant Fuhrer!!" Kain promised hurriedly and Riza nodded, a look of total calm on her face.
"I'm glad to hear that," she said, rather monotonously.
"Yeah… Uhm, L-Lieutenant Fuhrer, are you mad at me?"
Riza looked surprised at that, and she shook her head. "Not at all, Sergeant Major. It's only natural that you were curious…" she trailed off, suddenly looking rather sad.
"Lieutenant Fuhrer? Are you okay?"
"…Fuery, before the war at Ishbal, I was engaged to Roy Mustang."
"Wha-? What happened?!" asked Kain, eyes suddenly very, very wide.
Riza shrugged and looked down, suddenly a lot less sure of herself than she had been just a few moments before. "He proposed to me on the morning that he left- Christmas morning, in fact. He told me that he loved me and that if he returned he would… would make me his forever. At the time, I suppose that I was in love with him too. I accepted his proposal."
"But then why-? You're not married… are you?" Kain began to splutter in disbelief, firstly at what Riza was telling him, and secondly at the fact that she was telling him at all- she, who usually kept her feelings and her private life so absolutely separate from anyone in any way involved with her military career- even her very best friends.
Riza shook her head and looked down. "He wrote to me when he went to Ishbal and the tales he told of the war and his comrades… they frightened me. I was just a girl and I hated the idea of him having to endure such suffering alone. Vainly, perhaps, or maybe out of a selfish desire to see him again, I decided that I was the only one who could help him and enlisted myself in the military academy with the money that my father left me after he died."
"Lieutenant Fuhrer, you don't have to tell me this-" Kain told her quickly, watching in horror as tears began to fall down her cheeks for the very first time in his memory. "I don't mind not knowing, really!"
Riza shook her head determinedly. "I wouldn't be so cruel as to leave you with only half of such a story. I must see it through to the end now."
"You don't have to-"
"Please, Fuery," Riza interjected. "Who knows, maybe it will even be good for me? I've never spoken about this to anyone before."
"Never?"
"Never," Riza repeated. "So please, let me go on."
Kain only nodded silently, though his arms were shaking as he leaned forward and rested them on his knees, watching her from across the table.
"As time passed in the military academy it became harder and harder to make up the stories from back home that I knew he would be wanting to hear, and, not having yet brought myself to tell him where I was, I stopped writing altogether- afraid, maybe slightly paranoid, that something I said would tip him off about my whereabouts. The mail, redirected to the academy by an old friend back home, kept coming for a while, even though I did not reply, but then, one day… it stopped." More tears were falling now but Riza refused to wipe them away and her voice remained as steady as it had ever been. "It was only to be expected, of course, since I myself had stopped writing to him… But I suppose that he mistakenly took the cease of my letters to him as a sign that I wanted out- out of the engagement, I mean. I even let him think that, still afraid to write him back and unsure that he would even answer if I did… I was miserable, I hated what I was doing to him, and, unwittingly, I suppose I was doing the exact same thing to myself.
"The war in Ishbal wasn't going well at all at that point- not for either side. They needed more men, and desperately. Even though I was only a student in the academy at the time, my superiors decided that my skills in firearms and sniping would be of use on the field, and I, too, was sent out on the train to Ishbal.
"When we met at the military base it was not the same as it had been. He was still civil towards me, even friendly, but things had changed between us. And he… he had lost the boyish gleam from his eyes- the innocence. I feared that the boy that I had fallen in love with was gone forever.
"We never spoke of the engagement again and I couldn't bring myself to complicate things by telling him that I was still in love with him…"
"And now?" asked Kain softly when she didn't go on. "Do you still…?"
"We never spoke of it again," Riza repeated, standing. "To this day I don't know whether or not he was still in love with me back then. I doubt that he is now, at least. And, even then, I… I don't believe I know my own feelings for him either. Only that I doubt I would still be at his side today if I didn't still feel something towards him…"
"Lieutenant Fuhrer…"
"I'm confused, Sergeant Major, and I don't want to talk about it anymore. Can you understand that?"
"Yes, of course," Kain replied immediately, also standing. "I'd better get back to work, anyway, right?"
Riza smiled a little. "Right," she agreed.
"Are you coming?"
Riza considered this for a minute and then shook her head. "Not yet. I'll follow on later."
"I understand," said Kain. "The Fuhrer's probably in now- I'll tell him to expect you later, if that's alright."
"That's fine, Sergeant Major. I think I'll just sit here for a while and… regroup."
Kain nodded shyly. "Well, I hope you do feel better for telling me, and I'm glad that you did."
"Thank you, and yes, I think I do," Riza agreed and he left, leaving the Lieutenant Fuhrer to wipe away her tears in silence and dignity.
"Roy…" she whispered to the empty room. "I think I could move on if you would only tell me that you have no feelings for me anything… The not knowing is eating me from the inside out and I hate it."
Without her realising it, the minutes slowly ticked by as she stood there, staring into space like a complete lunatic- mind swirling with thoughts and heart aching with the stirring of long forgotten feelings and emotions as they bubbled to the surface. The flow of tears had stopped by this point but her throat was raw and dry, making it exceedingly painful for her to do so much as swallow or take in one of her deep shuddering breaths. And worst of all, no matter how much time passed these odd feelings didn't seem to be subsiding in the least-
"Lieutenant Fuhrer?"
Riza whirled around in surprise, almost going so far as to reach for her gun before realising that it was Fuhrer Roy Mustang himself who stood in the open doorway. "Sir!" she replied, arms falling limply to her sides. "I- I'm really sorry, sir. I didn't mean to be so long- Oh, Sir! What happened to your cheek?!"
Roy chuckled grimly and raised a hand to the offending flesh, which was rather shamefully red. "I don't know, it all happened so fast," he replied, rather jokingly. "One moment I was sitting at my desk- actually working, for once, mind you, Lieutenant Fuhrer!- and then the next, shy little timid and innocent Kain Fuery was striding up to my desk, punching me in the side of the head and accusing me of being a –what was it?- oh yes, a 'heartless arrogant bastard'."
Riza cringed and reached a hand up to cup his cheek and stroke it gently with the pad of her thumb, shaking her head apologetically before withdrawing her hand. "I'm sorry, sir. It's my fault. He saw my ring and I was put in a position where I was forced to explain to him about our relationship before Ishbal… I think he grew angry at you for… for hurting me." She blushed slightly upon this admission.
A pained expression crossed over Roy's face and he nodded, taking her left hand in his and bringing it up to his lips gently. "Lieutenant, you must believe me when I say that I never meant to cause you any pain."
"I know, sir," Riza agreed, forcing herself to look him in the eye, even though she'd certainly rather avoid the sadness in his dark-eyed gaze.
"You were always such a beautiful young girl- you fascinated and entranced me," Roy told her, sounding rather wistful and still with that horribly sad note of longing in his voice. "I fell in love with you the moment I saw you and my love only strengthened and grew deeper as I became more acquainted with you. I never could have dreamed that I would someday bring you such pain as I did. If I had known…"
"I know very well that had you known in advance all that would pass between us you never would have proposed to me," said Riza, a hint of her usual briskness creeping back into her voice. "I know that you would have steered well away and hardly allowed yourself to speak to me at all, but… but I also know how much I needed a friend back then, sir. And I know that I never would have become who I am now had it not been for you back then."
"You wouldn't have joined the military or put yourself in so much danger at Ishbal and, indeed, every day of your life as a soldier."
"Roy Mustang, you know I would not forsake this life for anything in the world," Riza replied sternly. "In the same way, neither could I forsake such an important part of our history together as this ring."
"…I'm surprised that you've kept it so long after what happened," said Roy, eyes flickering down to the ring, still in absolutely perfect condition like all of her possessions, on the second finger to the right on her left hand.
"Well of course I have, sir," Riza replied without thinking, and then she blushed again.
"Of course?" Roy repeated and she nodded hastily.
"It- it suits me to have men believe that I'm taken, sir," she amended.
"Oh, I see…" said Roy, seeming more than just a little disappointed by her answer.
"…That, and… well, we never officially broke off our engagement, did we? And I just couldn't bear to finalise it by getting rid of your ring." Riza blushed even deeper and looked down. "'Our past, our present, and our future', remember? I didn't want to give that up."
"But Riza… it was you who ended it- you stopped replying to my letters," said Roy, a cloud of confusion passing over his delicate Xingese features as he watched her carefully through his one good eye.
"Sir, that wasn't… I never stopped loving you," said Riza, heart beating fast as she admitted what she had so tried so hard to keep hidden inside for the past15 years. "…I was just afraid that I'd somehow let on that I'd joined the military academy. I was afraid you'd find a way to send me back home, and I so wanted to be there to protect you…" Tears were sparkling in her eyes again by this point and Roy's eyes grew wide as those tears starting flowing freely down her already wet cheeks. "Riza… is that true?"
"Sir, I'm sorry about this… I can't believe I'm crying again- after so many years," Riza apologised, in a somewhat weak attempt to restore the superior-subordinate bond between them and find some familiar ground. This sudden emotional shift had her practically doing back flips attempting to figure out and the fact that this man, of all people, were here in front of her really wasn't helping at all.
"Do you… Do you still love me, Riza?" he asked quietly and Riza forced herself to meet his dark grey eyes with her own tear-filled amber ones.
"I think that I might, sir… I think that that may be why I've stayed with you for so long, and why I can't bear to forsake your ring," Riza admitted, looking up bravely. "But I do understand if you don't feel that way about me anymore- it's been 15 years, so of course I do…"
Roy stared at her unblinkingly for what seemed like an eternity as she attempted to wipe away her tears discretely, while maintaining her somehow ubiquitous dignity. When she was finished and looking at him again, he took her hand and removed the ring from her finger, holding it up to his eye and smiling a little. "Elizabeth… Marianne… Hawkeye… Will you marry me?" he asked softly yet firmly, and a look of total shock and awe appeared on the face of his direct subordinate. He leaned down to press a tender kiss to the white stretch of neck beneath her ear before withdrawing to look her in the eye. During that short process, Riza's look of mixed horror and amazement had been replaced with a look of impossible and overwhelming joy.
"I've wanted nothing more than to be yours since I was 18-years-old," his love whispered in reply as her eyes sparkled once again with tears, for an entirely different reason.
"Then I'm desperately sorry that I didn't do this sooner," said Roy, smiling –not smirking, for once, but actually smiling- softly at her as he replaced the familiar ring on her slender white finger.
"I can't believe we wasted 15 years over a simple misunderstanding," Riza murmured, staring down at it in awe for a few moments before finally dragging her eyes back to meet his.
"Nor can I," Roy agreed as he captured her waiting lips with his own. "But I'm glad we're finally here… I love you, Riza. More now than I ever have."
Riza smiled and moved to bury her wet face in the crook of his neck and tenderly kissing the soft, pale flesh she found there. "Yes…" she murmured against his ivory white neck. "Merry Christmas, Roy."
"Merry Christmas, My Love."
Fin!