Title: Understanding
Summary: There are questions they both know the answer to, but which sometimes must still be asked.
Notes: Set shortly after episode 30 of the 2009 anime.
Understanding
As always, when he finally stops moving, the colonel starts drinking.
Riza follows him from the Hotel Burgundy bar—where he starts out with sharp steps and a bright smile that scatters giggling girls across the packed sidewalk—down three streets and half a dozen more bars, all the way to Madame Christmas's, where he slouches into a booth with his back turned to the floor, vest loose and eyes bleary. Some of the girls wander over, but he waves each one back, head on the tabletop, limbs spread in temporary defeat.
"Look at that mess," Madame says, pouring an ungenerous amount of gin into her own glass. "And here's you, always on clean-up duty. He ever give you a night off?"
"I never ask," Riza replies, as the colonel lifts a hand in signal for another. She walks across the bar and watches it empty in her wake—it's late, and most people still have someone to go home to. Her thoughts flicker over the Elric brothers wandering alone, somewhere in the city, but then she slides into the opposite seat and sets her drink and his down.
"I wanted whiskey," he mutters, seeing the glass first and then her. On reflex, he tries to snap upright, but he only makes it halfway, propping his head with one hand, half-glaring.
She nudges his glass a bit and sips from her own. His scowl deepens, but he drinks the water.
"Your disguise is terrible," he mutters.
"So is yours, sir," Riza replies, smirking.
She half-carries him back to his car, one arm beneath his shoulders. From a distance, they probably look like an exhausted, if intimate, couple ending the work-week at the pub and heading home for well-earned rest. She dumps the colonel gently enough into the passenger seat and slides behind the wheel.
His apartment is almost regimental in order and cleanliness. Nothing out of place: books in alphabetical order, chess set paused mid-game and pieces in the exact center of each square, shoes lined up along the wall equidistant from each other, tea towel folded cleanly over the oven handle. Even the apples sitting in their basket have achieved some level of symmetry.
The alcohol's catching up with him at last, as he slumps against her, barely awake. She gets him through the door and to the couch, where she loosens his tie and the first few buttons of his neatly-pressed shirt. He half-watches her, wary.
"You think it's weakness?" he slurs, as she kneels to work the stiff leather of his boots.
"I think you just need sleep, sir."
"Riza," he sighs. "We're alone. You don't have to—"
"I know, Roy," she says, and his name warms her mouth.
He tries to stand under his own power and fails, wincing and limping as always on his left. She keeps her arm higher than the worst of the injury, one hand flat over his heart to brace their slow, lumbering movement to his bedroom.
The blanket and sheets are already turned down, and she half-expects to see a tin-wrapped chocolate glinting on top of the pillow. The apartment's still new, but he's always lived like a hotel guest—never home, never happy in his place. With a groan, he drops onto the mattress, and she keeps the lights off as she moves through the room, cracking the window for air, draping his jacket so it won't crease, pulling the blanket up to his elbows.
His eyes are shut—face smooth and empty for once—but his hand reaches out and closes around her wrist. She sits on the very edge of his bed, looking down.
"Tell me you don't ever think about it."
"About what?"
He takes an unsteady breath, eyes still closed.
"That night. Last night in Ishval."
Riza swings her hair over her shoulder and lets her bangs obscure her gaze a moment. The pressure on her wrist is light, and his skin is dry and warm. In this low light, she can see just faintly the scar—the transmutation circle he etched into his own hand.
"After everything I did, everything you saw. You asked me, and I—"
His voice is rough with memory.
"Tell me you don't think about it," he whispers, as though begging to be confirmed alone and lost. He lets go of her wrist, and Riza gently runs her fingers down his cheek.
"Get some sleep," she says.
o.o.o.o.o
Roy wakes uncomfortably warm and twisted up in his clothes. As always, it takes a moment to orient himself, to recognize the walls and ceiling of his own bedroom, the stiff springs of his own bed and the sharp, starchy smell of his own pillow.
His throat is dry, tongue glued to the roof of his mouth, and his eyes don't want to open—with good reason, as the first spike of dim morning light feels like a knife to the scalp. Blindly, he reaches towards the bedside and finds a cool glass of water waiting, and he half-sits, drinking it slowly. After another few minutes of stillness, he opens his eyes again and convinces himself that it hurts a little less.
Except for the now-empty water glass and some clothes neatly stacked on his dresser, the room appears mostly undisturbed: window shuttered, curtains tied back, drawers closed. With a groan, Roy levers himself upright, feet on the floor, leaning his weight on the bed's steel footboard.
His every movement is sluggish and labored—it takes far longer that he'd like to reach the dresser and the clothes set out on top. Two complete outfits: a set of barely-used pajamas with slippers and house-robe, and one of his favorite ash-grey suits, with a dark blue tie and socks and cufflinks quietly glinting. With a smile, he takes the suit and heads into the bathroom.
It's difficult to find the temperature he wants—too hot and his head pounds, too cold and the old wounds ache—but Roy is quick to scrub the night's grime from his body and step out again, still tired but alert now. He takes his time shaving—still irrationally afraid of an unsteady hand—and spends an extra moment examining his face.
Lines of fatigue spider out from the corners of both eyes, and the frown seems permanently fixed. His hair could use a trim, too.
Movement beyond the door snaps him back to attention, and he finally emerges, tie over his arm, shirt half-buttoned and bracers hanging down.
Riza is sitting at his kitchen table, immaculately dressed in her own civilian clothes and feeding Hayate scraps of bacon.
"Good morning, sir," she says. "Glad you're finally awake."
"Did you spend the night here?"
"Yes."
"You...you didn't have to," he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. Riza fixes him with that hawkish gaze and smiles.
"Never leave a drunk man alone."
He feels like a teenager, flushed with embarrassment. He doesn't remember everything—just enough.
"Listen, Lieutenant, what I asked—"
"The answer is yes," she says evenly. "I do think about it."
He makes a small noise—of protest, or surprise, but Riza doesn't stop.
"More than I should. I think about that night, and about you, and about the war and Hughes, and how the whole world seemed to compress into that tent. I think about what could have happened. If we'd managed to create something better out of that awful mess, instead of adding more pain."
Her smile dims, and she looks down.
"But then, I think about my father, too. I think about when I was eleven and saw you for the first time, coming over for a lesson, and how I thought you were the prettiest boy I'd ever seen. I think about the nights you spent studying my father's research, about your fingers tracing each line, about having to remember to lie still on that bed when everything inside me wanted just to roll over and kiss you. I think about the field hospital, and after, days spent alone, staring out my empty window in East City."
"Riza, I—"
But there's no excuse he can think of. She looks into his eyes again, and it's like a punch to the gut. He clenches a fist, angry with himself.
"I didn't think you wanted to see me," he says quietly. "After what happened, I thought you...I thought you wouldn't want to see me again."
"I went looking for you," she replies. "I didn't even think about it. Part of me wanted to, but I just couldn't leave you behind. You got under my skin, Roy. I knew if there was a place, I'd want to be at your side."
"And now you're not."
Guilt washes through him. All these months of running, hunting, fighting far beyond their strength—Bradley couldn't have picked a better or worse hostage.
Riza kicks out the opposite chair and nods him towards it.
"I don't deserve your loyalty," Roy says.
"I think I'll be the judge of that."
He sits, and Hayate sets his chin on Roy's knee with a soft whine. Riza slides coffee and a covered plate across the table.
"I don't know what I'm doing anymore," Roy sighs quietly, resting both elbows on the table's edge, fingers laced together beneath his chin. "I thought I had an idea of the world, but I don't. I don't know what's going to happen in the next week—let alone the next year—to any of us. I don't like not having that control."
He pats Hayate's head gently.
"I don't like that something I did has put you in such danger."
"You never acted alone," Riza says. "I look forward to the day you finally figure that out."
She smiles again, and he can't help laughing a little in response.
"I don't know what's going to happen, either. But I'm not giving up. Not on you. Not again," she says, and her sincerity warms him.
o.o.o.o.o
She stays long enough to see that he eats and to extract a promise that he won't go off drinking again or wander to Central Command for work.
"You know I'm no good with days off," he sighs, walking her to the door and leaning on the frame.
"Well, here's your chance to learn how," Riza says. "But, if you're really desperate, the Elric brothers are still around somewhere."
He winces.
"Maybe I'll just see how the day goes."
He looks up at her and smiles, face framed by that unkempt mop of hair. It's getting long in the back, and usually she'd say something or just schedule a cut herself, but that's not her job anymore. Riza reaches up and sets her hand on his shoulder, enjoying the momentary stiffness of surprise as her hand slides higher, over the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair.
She should be afraid of this—afraid of the fraternization regs, of what Bradley knows, of what none of them can yet see coming. She can see Roy's fear, plain in his eyes, and can feel it beneath her fingers as she pulls him in and softly presses her lips against his.
For all his shock, he seems unwilling to let it end, pushing in when she pulls back, leaning his forehead on hers with a trembling little sigh.
"I'll see you around," she says, and knows he'll take it as a promise.