But I still wake up, I still see your ghost,

oh, Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for, oh.

He mixes the salves himself. While he has never been much of a botanist, he doesn't trust anyone else to do it, and besides, he isn't even sure the shopkeeper in town bought his story about a drunken night and a bonfire.

Nobody has been burned yet, but the lie is favorable, even on his own tongue. The premeditated nature of it is making him sick, his stomach churning as he walks back to her father's house. It's the place where all of this started, and not for the first time, he thinks that maybe if the man had a bit of decency, maybe if Berthold Hawkeye hadn't branded his own daughter's back, had encrypted his alchemy into paper like a normal alchemist, maybe they wouldn't have this problem. But he knows he's projecting. Berthold Hawkeye is not the one who burned hundreds - for all of his faults, his hands aren't stained with blood.

The first time she'd shown it to him, her father's legacy and her personal burden, he'd been swept away with the weight of it. He had traced the lines in her skin, soft enough to soothe her trembling, committing it to his memory. Riza had remained still, bent as though in prayer, while he had remarked and noted in his book.

Standing over it again, he's terrified to touch it. He's got his gloves on, and it seems fitting - touching her, flesh on flesh, is something he's lost the right to do. This time, she isn't pressing a shirt to her chest. At first he wonders if she's just become more comfortable, but a second later he realizes it's probably so it doesn't catch fire. When he touches her back this time, there is no trembling, but he sees the way her fine muscles bunch, stiffening in preparation. He doesn't want to do this. There were enough burning bodies in Ishval for the two of them, so many that he'll never get the smell out of his nose.

Whether or not he wants to do it, it's a fitting way to begin repentance.

"Are you sure?" Roy asks in a hushed voice, unable to keep the tremble out of it. He isn't touching her anymore, too scared to let her feel the way his hands are shaking. Her head jerks, an affirmative nod, and they've spoken about this too much already to keep delaying. First he stills his hands, then he steadies his resolve.

Already he has worked out the mechanics of the thing, knows how deep he has to burn and where. He can still smell the honey from the salve he prepared and can still smell it seconds later as his fingers snap, a soft snick echoing through the room. The honey mingles with the charring flesh, punctuated by the shrill noise of pain coming from the lieutenant. She doesn't scream, to her credit, but the noise coming from her is maybe worse, a high pitched keening noise that betrays her stoic exterior.

Behind her, Roy has to watch the skin bubble, turn white and black and red. It's over quickly, as he'd planned, but his eyes are swimming and his nose is full with burn and honey. He wants to retch, to collapse under the weight of the thing, but he knows he can't. His mind switches into action, the blur in his eyes disappearing as wet tracks down his cheeks, and he crouches in front of her, examining her face with eyes and resolve of steel.

"Can you breathe?"

Just a nod again this time, but like before, it's enough. Roy moves around to her back again, dips the rag into the water, grateful they had prepared. "This might sting," he warns, then presses. Riza lets out a low hiss, but doesn't move as he works his way gingerly across her back and assesses the damage. There doesn't seem to be any loose skin, just blistered and white, edged with the black and red. These are the only places that are sore, when he touches the black and red skin – she doesn't react when he dabs at the white. Because the nerves are damaged, he thinks, and prays to any gods listening that it won't inhibit her movement. She'll never forgive him if it does. She might not forgive him anyway.

Next it's the salve, honey and lavender and aloe. Roy applies it conservatively, not wanting to soak the burn too deeply, but he can feel her sag beneath him as he coats it. The relief is palpable, and her head presses into the bed to support her. The honey is overpowering the smell of burnt flesh now, tinged with the floral and the sharp smell of the aloe. Then its bandages, carefully wrapped around the chest, and not to tonight as to restrict her breathing. He knows the wound needs to largely stay dry, but the salve is necessary to help soothe. Maybe once a day, he thinks.

A thought crosses his mind that years ago, when they were children here running around the estate, having Riza Hawkeye under his hands (and shirtless, none-the-less) would've thrilled him. It pulls a laugh from his chest, just a bark of disdain, but she reacts to it, tightening again.

"Is it that bad, sir?" She asks, still. He hates the way she calls him 'sir', even like this. It reminds him of the 'Mister Mustang' days, early in his apprenticeship, how he spent his days hoping to get closer to her, the time it took to succeed. Roy hasn't earned it. He never earned it, and if anything, he's lost the right. She's only calling him 'sir' because of their ranks, one he wouldn't have without her and one she wouldn't have sought without him. It's all his responsibility, and it keeps him sober.

"Bad enough," He replies. "It should scar." It seems perverse that she sighs with relief.

A week passes, and then another. Their time is spent carefully, talking about things that don't really matter, as if they're afraid that the weight of a conversation has the potential to open literal wounds. Roy gets the newspaper daily and reads it aloud. She has to lay on her stomach to help keep pressure off her back most of the time, except when he helps her to sit while she eats and drinks. Most days, Roy's the one cooking, except for the rare meals he picks up while he's in town. For the most part, she makes no comment, but a few days into the recovery she teases him about it, and he lets out a little of the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

It goes on like this, changing bandages multiple times a day, and the wounds begin to heal. It's a slow process with each restless night of sleep revealing more skin. By week two it's starting to scar. On day 15, he unwraps the skin and stops in the middle of the process. Riza must be able to feel the halt, because she twists her head to try and look at him. "What's wrong?"

He waits a heartbeat, reluctant to tell her and struck by the irony all at once. "I've been too thorough," Roy sucks in a breath, the next part harder. "Not in the burning. In the healing. The scars are covering most of the important parts, but not all of it." When he gets the sentence out, he starts laughing, bitter and unforgiving laughs.

Riza's clear voice cuts through them. "Then burn it again."

Roy freezes. "No." His answer is hard and fast and resolute. "I can't. I won't."

"You promised."

"And I won't." He snarled back. There's fear racing through his body, fierce and hot, and he's turned away from her, because he won't look her in the eyes. "I promised to make it unreadable. I've done my job. No one but me could read it at this point."

And because he still doesn't dare to look at her, he doesn't see the way her mouth sets in a hard line and her fists clench in her lap. "Then that's enough."

Roy has never been one to try and make himself smaller, but he does now, shoulders falling and head dipping. Acts of submission are for her and her alone; no one else would've even recognized him so defeated. "I'm sorry I can't do more. I'm sorry I couldn't take it all."

"I shouldn't have asked you to" is her only response.

"I'm sorry, Riza," He breathes, not knowing yet that her name passing his lips is numbered, that he won't say it anymore after this week and the next time will be in a hospital bed after the worst night of their lives.

Like fools, they both think the worst is over.