Riza had just gotten home and was beginning to cook dinner when she heard the explosion. The sound shook her apartment, hard enough she would have thought it was an earthquake if she hadn't heard the blast. She looked out the window and saw smoke winding toward the sky, coming from the center of town. She frowned. Was it coming from…Central Command?

Thirty minutes later, Riza was standing in the rubble of Colonel Mustang's office, listening to a rescue worker tell her that no one could have survived the blast.

"Maybe he wasn't in the office," Riza said as calmly as she could. The man shrugged and went back to work. Riza just stood there in the debris, trying to force herself to think clearly. The last time I saw the Colonel, he was headed home. It's likely that he wasn't here at all.

She frowned. Come to think of it, why had the rescue crew assumed that the Colonel had been in the office? It was fairly late- he easily could have been elsewhere at the time of the blast.

"Excuse me," she said, tapping one of the men on the shoulder. "Why are you so sure that the office was occupied?"

"We heard there was a confirmed fatality. Someone from the military was in here. Who else would it have been?"

Riza shook her head. Something didn't feel right. She would know if the Colonel was dead. He had to be alive.

"I'll believe it when I see the body," she said firmly. The men looked at her like she was crazy, just unable to accept the truth, but she didn't pay them any mind. The Colonel had been through way too much to be killed by a simple bomb. She leaned against a shattered desk and resolved to wait.

The men still hadn't found anything when, about an hour and a half later, another blast shook the city. It was somewhere nearby, and it was big. Riza looked up sharply and saw a great gout of flame spiral upwards into the sky and then flicker out.

"He's alive," she said quietly. "That's him."

The men turned around with wide open mouths, asking her what she'd said, but she was already running towards the car.

Riza drove in a state of numbness. She wasn't someone who liked to overthink things, especially when she knew she needed to focus. She didn't allow herself to wonder exactly what chain of events had led him to blow up part of Central, she didn't bother to consider how he could have survived the second explosion. None of that mattered. All that mattered was that the Colonel had been alive, and he had been alive the entire time. Of course he was. If Riza knew one thing, it was that if the Colonel were to die she would have felt it.

It was a little bit difficult to tell where exactly the second explosion had taken place. An equal amount of people seemed to be moving towards and away from it, and the throngs crowding the street made it hard for Riza to drive. But after a few minutes, she realized she could follow the sound of sirens, and they led her straight to the abandoned factory that had been blown up. It had already been secured by the military. She pulled her car against the curb and ran up to the nearest officer.

"Let me into that building," she said, with no preamble.

"This site is off limits, ma'am," the officer said. He looked a little harried, and Riza could tell that he wanted to stop talking to her and continue trying to stabilize the area as soon as possible.

Riza realized that she was in civilian clothes, and he would have no way of knowing she was part of the Amestrian military. And he certainly wouldn't have any idea that her superior officer was probably still trapped in there, and that it would be her job to go rescue him. Riza knew that she needed to remain calm, but she could hear her voice rising despite herself.

"Sir, I'm a Lieutenant in the Amestrian military, and I have to get into that building."

He eyed her carefully, and she wasn't sure if he believed her or not. "The building is off limits."

"But Colonel Mustang is in there, I know he is!" Riza almost yelled, voice high-pitched with desperation. "That was...the explosion was caused by him, I'm sure of it. No one else can do alchemy like that!"
"Ma'am, we're still investigating the cause of the explosion…."

Slowly, Riza took a deep breath and brought herself back under control. "Alright," she said, keeping her voice measured. "It's unsafe, I completely understand. I'm sorry for bothering you. I'm sure I'll hear if anything is confirmed either way."

Before he could say anything, Riza turned on her heel and started walking the opposite direction. Once she thought she was far enough out of sight, she turned down a side street and looped back around, so she was approaching the building from a new angle that hadn't been secured by the military yet. It took her less than a minute to break in through a window.

Once she was inside the factory, she simply followed the scorch marks to their source. As she got closer to the blast radius, she became more and more worried. There was a lot of damage…how had Mustang caused all this? And how would he have survived it? She turned a corner and stopped dead.

The entire east wall of the building was gone. Well, not gone exactly, just…relocated. It had somehow crumbled, taking part of the ceiling and a good deal of the floor with it. It was even worse than the explosion in Mustang's office.

And yet, Riza still couldn't believe that the Colonel was dead. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but this felt so…anticlimactic. He couldn't be gone. She'd always intended to die by his side….

She shook her head in an effort to get rid of the unwanted thoughts. Snap out of it. I don't know anything for sure. I have to find him. Desperately, she started combing the rubble for any sign of life.

*Two and a half hours earlier*

Mustang glanced at the pile of paperwork beside him and groaned. Still a good two hours worth of work, and it was already almost five. And there was a whole other stack of paperwork he still had to file….

"Lieutenant?"

Riza appeared in the doorway of the library. "Sir?"

"Are you busy, Lieutenant?"

Riza shook her head. "No, sir. What do you need?"

Mustang wasn't sure if she was telling the truth, but he was exhausted, and he still had a lot to do. He made up his mind and picked up the paperwork.

"Could you do me a favor and file this for me on your way out?"

Riza took the stack. "Of course, sir."

She turned and left the library. With a feeling of relief, Mustang turned back to his work. He had gotten through only a small fraction of the stack when he heard a deep rumble that seemed to shake the very foundations of the building. His head shot up. He looked around for anyone in earshot, someone who he could ask about the source of the noise, but he didn't see anyone. He stood up from the desk, heart pounding frantically even though he didn't know for sure that anything was wrong. He crossed the library, and pulled open the door that led to the hallway.

Outside, everything was chaos. He could hear people yelling, and it seemed like half the military was thundering through the hallways. "What's going on?" he called to a random passerby.

"There's been an explosion in Colonel Mustang's office!" the soldier yelled back, not even bothering to turn around and identify who it was that he was talking to.

This news was so completely unexpected that it took Mustang a few moments to understand what was going on. Colonel Mustang's office...but that was…that was his office. There had been an explosion in his office.

The Lieutenant.

"Any casualties?" he heard another soldier ask from farther down the hallway.

"We're still searching for a body but it looks like...yes. There was someone in the office when it exploded. We found...scraps of clothing."
Mustang heard a buzzing in his ears. The world abruptly seemed to swing around him, and he had to steady himself on the wall. There was someone in the office when it exploded. Everyone would think it was Mustang who was dead, probably, if any identifying marks had been burned away. But Mustang hadn't been in the office. He should have been, anyone who had known his schedule would have known that this was the time he normally filed away his papers.

But it hadn't been him, not today. It had been Riza.

His Lieutenant was dead, and he felt like the world was falling apart beneath him.

*Now*

Riza found him by stepping on his hand. She'd been walking from wall to wall, and she had turned to skirt around a particularly large heap of rubble when she felt something beneath her foot give. She hopped backward and gasped as she recognized Mustang's distinctive transmutation circle. Dropping to her knees beside the rubble, she shouted his name. Not waiting for an answer, she began to shift stones off the pile.

After just a few minutes of digging, Riza thought she could see the Colonel's hair. She stretched her arm down as far as she could and touched his head.

"Colonel! Can you hear me?"

He didn't answer, but she thought she heard him groan slightly. She continued shifting rubble as fast as possible.

Soon, the Colonel's upper body was mostly free. She examined him carefully. The left side of his face was covered in blood from a cut above his eyebrow, but aside from that, she didn't see any major injuries- some nasty cuts on his chest, but nothing that couldn't be stitched up easily. His right arm was bleeding sluggishly, but that wound didn't seem to be too serious either. Although his lower torso was still concealed in the rubble, there was a concrete beam that had shielded him from most of the larger chunks of stone. Riza breathed a sigh of relief. This wasn't nearly as bad as she had feared. The Colonel was a lucky man.

"Colonel!" She shook his shoulder, once, then tugged him lightly, trying to drag him out from under the rubble. He cried out, and she stopped pulling immediately.

"What is it?"

"...my...side…" he said, weakly. Confused, she peered under the beam that was protecting him and closed her eyes in despair. At intervals along the beam, long sections of rebar jutted out. One of those sections was currently embedded in Mustang's abdomen, pinning him to the floor. Blood was oozing slowly out from around the wound.

There was no way Riza could move the beam on her own. It was at least ten feet long, and way too heavy for her to lift. She maybe had the strength to push it, but that would cause irreparable damage to the Colonel and she knew that wasn't an option. She would have to…somehow…snap off the rebar from the beam. It was weakened at its connection point, but she shuddered to think how much it would hurt the Colonel as she tried to sever it.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and kicked at the bar with all her strength.

*Two hours earlier*

Mustang stared at Riza's jacket, scorched in the explosion she'd died in. This was all he'd managed to find of her. For the second time in his life, he considered committing the ultimate taboo. But part of him knew that wouldn't bring her back. Nothing would bring her back. The best he could hope for was to avenge her death.

"I'll find them, Lieutenant," he promised. "I'll make them pay."

Mustang slipped back out of his office before anyone could identify him in the confusion. He didn't want to be stopped, not now. He had a job to do. And everyone else would only get in his way.

He walked purposefully back down the hallway, away from the office, keeping his head down and hoping that his face would be lost in the confusion. He picked up a few snatches of conversation as he walked.

"...I heard whoever did it was working with renegade spies…"

"...But why were they trying to kill the Colonel?"

"I heard they escaped to that abandoned factory out on the edge of town."
There. That would be a start. He could make it there, and he could track down the soldiers who were responsible for Riza's death, and he could kill them. After that he...he didn't know exactly what he would do without her. But at least he had a place to start.

It wasn't until he had left the Central Command Center and was walking down the street that it actually hit Mustang what had happened. He had been passing a payphone, and it had occurred to him that he needed to call her. He was going into a dangerous situation and he needed her for backup. He needed to let her know where he was going. He'd been seconds away from stepping into the phone booth when he'd remembered, and the world had tilted dizzyingly around him.

Riza was like his shadow, and being with her was second nature to him at this point. It was so natural for him to call her when he needed help that he hadn't even thought twice about it.

But now she was gone, and he would never do that again. Mustang felt like he couldn't breathe.

In his entire life, he'd only trusted two people. And now both of them were dead.

"Hughes," he said, keeping his voice low so none of the other pedestrians on the street would be able to hear him. He couldn't bring himself to address Riza directly yet, but talking to Hughes as if he was there was instinct to him at this point. "You'll...you'll take care of her up there, right? For me? Make sure she…."

Mustang's voice cracked. If he were any less of a stubborn man, he would have started crying right there and then. As it was, he just kept walking.

*Now*

Riza took a deep breath and kicked the bar again. The Colonel stifled a scream as it shifted in his side, and Riza's stomach twisted.

"I'm sorry," she said helplessly, and raised her foot one more time. The bar was almost disconnected, one more kick would probably do it. She brought her boot down and the iron snapped. Mustang's scream was almost lost in the squeal of strained metal, but Riza heard it. She reached down and grabbed his hand.

"It's almost over," she told him.

He blinked at her glassily. "Lieutenant?"

"What is it, sir?"

"It's just…funny…" He closed his eyes, and his voice became slightly dreamy. "I thought death meant there wouldn't be any more pain. But…everything hurts so much…." His voice trailed off.

Riza blinked at him, unsure if she'd heard him correctly. He must have hit his head harder than she'd thought. "You're not dead, Colonel."

"...but you're here…"

She opened her mouth to speak and found she didn't have anything to say. Had the Colonel thought that she was dead? Killed in the same explosion that had supposedly claimed his life? And would that explain what he was doing here?

"Colonel, what did you do?" she whispered, not really wanting to hear the answer.

*An hour and a half earlier*

Mustang paused outside the abandoned factory where the bombers had fled, concealed in a stand of trees. There wasn't really a good way to approach it unnoticed, but that was fine with him. He'd blast his way in, and his fire would be the last thing the killers would see. The fire that Riza had given him.

Before he walked out into the open, he looked up at the sky, then ducked his head. "Well, Lieutenant, I can't bring you back. But they'll burn for this. They'll burn even if I burn with them."

With that, he walked out of the trees, across the yellow lawn to the old factory. He still felt rather wrung out, like a part of himself that made him who he was was missing. But it was not in a way that made him feel powerless, or broken, or even really sad. No, now that the battle was approaching Mustang felt angry. His hands were jammed in his pockets, but he could feel them tingling faintly with the desire to start throwing fire. He swallowed hard. He hoped it wouldn't take him long to locate the soldiers who had set the explosion, because he was ready to start killing.

The front door was locked. If Mustang were trying to be quiet, this would pose something of a problem. But at this point, he really didn't care who heard him. The more people the better, really. He wanted the soldiers to come find him. He wanted them to hear, so he wouldn't have to waste time tracking them down.

Mustang pulled his right hand out of his pocket, and with a casual snap of his fingers he incinerated the door. It burned hot and bright for a few seconds, then chunks of wood and metal began to rain down in the newly created opening. Normally, Mustang would have waited until the door had cooled slightly to try to push his way through. It wasn't like he was immune from being hurt by his own fire. But as it was, he couldn't bring himself to care. He stepped through the door as soon as the flames had died down enough for him to see. A twisted shard of hot metal licked his shoulder, but he felt the pressure more than the pain. He was immune to pain now. Nothing could stop him.

Mustang was expecting, hoping even, that as soon as he stepped through the door into the factory all the soldiers who had hurt his Lieutenant would come running at him and he could just pick them off one by one. But that didn't happen. The inside of the factory was quiet and deserted. There were no lights on. Mustang had a sudden, terrible feeling that he was in the wrong place.

He started to walk through the silent hallways, hoping he would find some clue that would allow him to locate the soldiers. As he walked, he planned out what exactly he was going to do to them. Riza had died burning, and so would they. She had died fast though, he hoped, and they would die very, very slowly. For every second that she had been hurting, they would receive an hour. For every pained sound that she had made, they would make a thousand. Any fear she'd felt they would feel, magnified tenfold. He rounded a corner and paused: he could hear voices ahead. A grim smile twisted his lips and he walked forward. I'll show these men what's waiting for them in Hell.

*Now*

Riza locked her hands under the Colonel's arms and began to tug him out from under the beam. It was slow going, and he cried out every time she accidentally scraped him against the concrete. By the time he was free, both of them were panting.

Now, the Colonel was slumped at Riza's feet, bleeding from dozens of injuries. She looked down at him, then looked back across the long distance to the street. Maybe she should wait here for an ambulance.

No. Someone's already tried to kill him once. They might still be alive. It's too risky out here in the open, and I can't take him to the hospital. She would have to get the Colonel to safety herself, somehow.

But Mustang was far too heavy for her to carry, and he wasn't in any shape to try to walk. His eyes were half-lidded, his breathing shallow with pain, and she didn't even think he would be able to make the distance with her supporting him. She would have to drag him. She couldn't bear the thought of causing him that much pain, but she didn't have any other options.

"Colonel…this is going to hurt. Just try…try to stay with me, alright?"

She wasn't sure if Mustang heard her. His eyes opened a little, but they didn't seem to be able to focus properly. Maybe he won't feel as much pain if he's this out of it, Riza thought hopefully. She grabbed the Colonel under his arms and pulled for all she was worth.