Disclaimer : I don't own Full Metal Alchemist

AN : This is the second Fic that I translated in english. As for "Training", please be indulgent with my poor english ! I haven't practiced english for 10 years !

I want to thanks Moonstardutchess for her great help.

Now the story

Blue Mood

Northern border. A conflict had again been declared with the close country. The engagements had lasted for several weeks and turned in guerrilla.

Colonel Roy Mustang was alone seated on a chair, the glance lost through the window, a whisky glass posed on the table close to him.

This evening, all the combat of the last days mingled with his memories of a more remote war had gotten the better of his moral.

He has a feeling that he won't be able to get out of the molasses that his thoughts formed.

Temptation was again strong in him to put an end to all his sufferings. As in these days not so old where he had held a gun on his throat.

The gesture seemed so easy, one push with the finger is all that was needed and it would be done with him. How simple and yet so difficult.

It was difficult to leave this world, the life. He still has deep down him a hunt of will which forced him to keep putting a foot in front of the other day after day, to fight for the utopian hope to see things changing.

But this evening, his will was given a rough ride. Today he had to use his alchemy against a hardly 16 years old boy, even not a man, to save his skin.

In a flash, he saw himself again back in Ishbal, in this house with the dilapidated walls, in front of this boy who held a rifle. Both sides, the fear had had the top. He was alive. Not the boy.

All was repeated, untiringly. It was endlessly.

He was there of his reflexions when he perceived a presence close to him. He turned his gloomy glance towards the intruder. He wanted to be alone this evening, this is why he has taken refuge in this abandoned house where remained only some dusty pieces of furniture forgotten by the former owners. As if those had had to leave the places in urgency, taking just some personal effects, useless objects to which one attaches importance stupidly. All that doesn't make any sense, anyway no more for Roy Mustang.

His first lieutenant, Riza Hawkeye, stood in the doorway. He only picked out her silhouette in the back-light but he knew that it could only be her.

She was the only one to always know where to find him, even when like this evening, he sought loneliness. Undoubtedly the famous 6th female sens. Or in the case of his first lieutenant, her 7th or 8th sens!

She moved near him with measured steps.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye, to what do I owe the honour of your visit ? Don't say to me that you wish to finish this bottle with me, I will not believe you.

"You perfectly know colonel that I never drink. Shaking hands are not compatible with the use of firearms.

"As always you are right. But you see, there's nothing to prevent me from drinking. To snap fingers, no need to be sober.

"That's a fact Colonel. Can I know where you found this bottle?

"Here, while rummaging in the cupboards. It was undoubtedly forgotten as the rest, for my great delight I must say.

"Indeed, and can I know what you are drinking to ?

"Do you really want Lieutenant?

"If not I would not ask, Colonel."

Her voice was posed, calm and soft. She has taken a chair and sat down on the other side of the table. She waited patiently until he speaks.

He took a new sip, looked at her then looked back in the amber liquid. He thought curiously himself that it has the same colour as Riza's eyes.

"I drink to the vanity of this world, to the fate which drives us to always make the same errors."

Riza remained quiet. The only sounds which reached Roy were those produced by her regular breathing. He continued :

"you see Lieutenant, I have sometimes this unpleasant feeling to be in a labyrinth wich all rooms are the same. Each open door always gives on the same room, each staircase led to the same stage. I bang myself against the walls, but there's nothing to do. Nothing changes. And even if I explode these walls, unrelentingly an identical wall is drawn up behind. I am powerless. Nothing changed, men, women - a pause – children are still killed. My hands are stained of blood. Blood of innocent children. How can I still live while carrying this weight ?"

Riza's voice was then heard in the darkness, low, almost a murmur :

"the first time that I fired somebody, I killed right off the bat. I vomited all the contents of my stomach. It was no more cardboard targets but human beings, made of flesh and blood. I had done nothing but obey the orders that I had received, but that was not enough to justify the fact that I took the life of a man who had a family, friends, who was undoubtedly awaited somewhere by somebody. What made me hold out, was to say to me that while having done it, I had saved the life of another person."

At this time of her story, Riza kept silent. She stared at him right in the eyes and began again :

"I will continue to fire as long as it will be necessary for me to maintain this person in life. Without hesitating only one second, I will press on the trigger."

Silence planed now between them. Roy broke it :

"I killed a boy today. He was not yet a man, he was hardly 16 years old. He should have had all the life in front of him, but I took it."

Riza knew it pertinently. She had learned what happened in the course of the day. She was so annoyed with herself, she should have been there. This is why she was there at this precise moment, with her superior. She had guessed in which state of mind he was. She was working under his orders for so long to know how he uses to react.

"You did not have the choice, Colonel. It was him or you. And it is not you who put this rifle between his hands. It was his own choice. He knew the risks. When a weapon is held up, one must expect to kill or to be killed.

"But he was afraid so much. He was terrorized. He was yet only a child.

"A child with a fatal weapon in the hands. You should not be annoyed with you to have chosen to live Colonel."

Riza got up from her chair, she was just about to leave him.

"Lieutenant, for whom did you fire this first time ?"

He knew the answer but he needed to ear it from her own mouth.

She looked back :

"For you Colonel. And this afternoon, if I had been by your sides, I would have pull the trigger without hesitating."

Roy watched her make her way towards the door. He called out her before she left :

"Lieutenant !... Riza... I wonder... This evening... Would you like to remain with me this night ?"

Riza stared at him one moment with an impenetrable look then turned away and left.

He was again alone with his sorrow. But unlike the beginning of evening, his ideas were less black. Again, he saw a gleam at the end of the tunnel. A point towards which to tighten all his efforts.

No matter what, he would make change things, to put a term at all these fightings, and so that Riza do not have to fire for him any more. He doesn't want any more her hands to be stained of blood for him.

However he felt that this decision really did not belong to him. The young woman had made him understand that it was her decision with it, her own will to act thus, to protect him.

It's this diffuse feeling which pushed him to propose to her to spend this night together. Even if she refused, he doesn't regret it. He acted on an impulse. He wanted to find comfort by her, feel her heat, he would have liked to bring her oblivion in the exhaustion of lovemaking. To share one moment of serenity and tenderness. To forget all these deaths while losing themselves in the other.

He finished his glass and reached one of the bedrooms on the floor.

It seemed to him to be dozing for a few minutes when crackings of the floor brought him out of his torpor.

Riza was standing near the bed. One by one, she tookin silence her clothingoff. She slipped under the sheets at the side of Roy which took her in his arms.

In a murmur, she whispered in his ear :

"Please love me Roy and this night let us forgive this war."

END