I heard your voice through a photograph
I thought it up it brought up the past

Pour my life into a paper cup
The ashtrays full and I'm spillin' my guts

Scarlet starlet and she's in my bed
A candidate for my soul mate bled
Push the trigger and pull the thread
I've got to take it on the other side

-Taken from Otherside, by The Red-hot Chili Peppers

Apparition

And there she was, standing in his office, a living piece of half-buried past. He sent his fingers skidding across the desk in an attempt to find a nonexistent piece of paperwork, something to fiddle with. They made an odd squeaking noise, and her eyes zipped towards the sound.

"Ahem," he managed, shoving the jittery hand into his pocket. The clock ticked twice. Glancing at her stoic face, he clenched his other hand against his chair. "Hello." Birds chirped outside his open window, and he used them as a diversion. "Heh, it's a nice day. We'll have a good time…walking…along the sidewalk." Discussing such pleasant things.

She breathed, in and out. Her chest rose and fell. She opened her mouth. She spoke, and her voice was soft, but alive. "You want to go outside?" Alive. She wasn't the same girl in the picture frame, because he couldn't connect her and the picture in his mind. She was a strange girl standing in his office, and he had half-convinced himself she had gotten the wrong room.

"Oh, yes." He stuck his hands behind his back and continued to examine the streets below him. "I thought we could go get something. I'll buy you some…coffee. Do you like coffee?" Chuckling to erase some of his nervousness, he managed to shoot her a shabby grin. "I like coffee. It keeps me living, you know?"

"Coffee is fine."

He managed to look her in the face, and her eyes were despondent. It was such a lame idea, coffee. What young girl pours coffee down her throat at one in the afternoon? But his head had been muddled with half-baked plans for their meeting,plans three weeks in the making. Three weeks of time to prepare and all he could do was storm around the office and lie awake at night, teeth gritted and fingers tearing into his bedsheets. His fan had turned lazily above him, half-hearted in its attempt to cool him down. He hadn't thought about it much, except that it kept turning, going on and on, no matter what.

"So then, coffee is good!" The fake cheer in his voice made his mouth twist. "I have money. Whatever kind of coffee you want." I'll give you something to drink then everything will be okay, huh, little girl? Who was he trying to fool: her, or himself? He took a second look at her as he took an awkward walk around his desk. Well, not so…little girl.

She followed him with her eyes as he shrugged off his blue military overcoat, watched him as he jerked his arm about three times in an attempt to rid himself of a caught button.

"Uhh, hot outside." Running a hand through his sticky hair, he made another terrible attempt to smile. "You ready?"

"Okay." She was obviously not impressed thus far.

His smile faltered. "Right then." He swung his hand forward towards the open door in a desperate attempt at chivalry.

She walked out, hand brushing against the doorframe. He didn't know where to look when he followed.

It was a Monday afternoon and the streets were rather quiet. She pulled her arms around her chest and hunched her shoulders over, encasing herself in a protective cocoon. Military boots clunking against the pavement, Roy clutched his clammy hands behind his back and twisted them together. His nails dug into his skin as he wound them tighter.

"Do you like the summer?" Smiling a frigid smile, he glanced up at the sky. It was a clear day, and the sun shone brightly on the awkward pair. "I really like summer, except it gets kinda hot in that military uniform sometimes. Heh." His hollow laugh sent shivers up his spine.

"I like fall better. The leaves are beautiful colors. When I was little I would like to make large piles and leap into them. My mother always told me I'd get hurt, but I never did. She was silly, I guess." Winry shrugged; her mouth a lopsided frown.

Was. They drifted in silence for a bit longer, Roy attempting to calm his breathing. The bright sky was mocking him, smirking at him from the lofty heavens. It knew he had sinned, and it was punishing him for it. He was dying to spill his guts, stumbling over words in haste, trying desperately to explain that—he tried. Not tried then, when it mattered, not tried when he should have walked out of that tent, down the dusty road, throwing his gun down in defiant protest. He had repeated that imaginary scene so many times in his mind that, when he felt like he was losing control, he tried to implant it into his memories, an artificial comfort for a desperate man.

No, tried as in afterwards, scrawling alchemy circles across his apartment floor, collecting a bucket of this and a tin of that. Trying to revive them, and in reviving them, send his tainted soul to the grave. When dark bags caught themselves under his weary eyes, crumbled right where he was, and fall into his haunted dreams.

He wanted to explain how this somehow mattered. He wanted to explain how long he had desired to die. He wanted to explain the sharp bite of cold metal against his chin, the sweaty feeling of a finger shaking at the trigger. He wanted to apologize, and beg at her feet for forgiveness.

But he didn't know if any of this would make either of them feel better, and he didn't know how to begin. They both kept walking, wrapped up in their own thoughts, and their own shelters of silence.

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She drank her coffee quietly, cupping her hands around the warm mug, despite the summer heat. Roy watched her from behind the rim of his own cup, finally murmuring, "The coffee…do you like it?"

"Yes," Winry said blandly, gaze fixed upon the daily specials. "It's very good, thank you."

"Oh, I'm glad." Roy tugged a chair loose from its foothold underneath the table's outstretched legs. "Yes, I like this place. I come here often…when I'm tired, and need to wake up to work."

She examined him with unreadable eyes as he gripped the chair desperately. Tap, tap, tap. His fingers danced along the wood.

"Would you like to sit down?"

Wordlessly she took a seat, placing her cup down with a soft click against glass. Roy was rigged as he joined her, and he barely touched his own beverage.

"You know, I joined the military…" He shifted his chair. "I joined the military because I thought I was doing the right thing." Every moment in his life before his deportment to Ishbal had been a moment deceived. His eyes had been shielded by idealism, clouded by faith in the human race, and covered by innocence.

Then blood had run in rivulets through muddy water, streaming down from a mountain of dead, and curling past his boots. The piled-up corpses had burst into flame, and he had watched them crumble and sizzle into ashes. He had not looked away, because that would have been impossible. As he had watched, he had learned about the world, its cruelties, and true human nature. But he could not explain these revelations to this girl, this little girl who somehow represented to him all the lives he had ruined. He looked across the table at her, and saw death staring back at him. Yet still he kept on looking.

She didn't answer for a moment, rubbing her thumb repeatedly against her cup's handle. "Why did you think it was the right thing?"

Wind rattled the door. A customer pushed it open, and a jingle wished him goodbye.

He had wanted to save people. The first time he had dawned his smart military uniform he had stood gazing at himself in the mirror, unable to believe the pride bubbling in his chest. He should have caught that pride and held it pumping in his hands, gazing in wonder before it slipped through his fingers. "Because they make it seem like you can change the world." He had never felt that wonderful feeling again. Closing his eyes, he let out a ragged sigh. She wasn't supposed to be here, staring at him, all his past mistakes smirking at him through the visage of a serious young girl.

"But you don't save anything," he continued, voice seeped full of regret, "and when you get there, all you see is blood, and guts, and death."

Winry's fingers tightened their hold. "You should have just left."

A painful smile. "I should have left, I know. As an alchemist, I could have renounced my position. But I was and am a coward. I stayed, and snapped my fingers, over, and over, and over, and…again. I always—" He winced. Everything had stood in the balance, tipping back and forth on a monstrous scale. He had felt them swinging inside of him, his pride versus his career, his conscience versus his future. He had taken the easy choice, but he hadn't known it would be a whole lot harder later once he realized what he had done. "I always make the wrong choices, and I live to regret them. And I don't know why I'm still alive."

She swallowed, and Roy watched as her fingers began to shake. "And because you were a coward, my parents had to die?" Controlled anger spilling over controlled pain.

Shutting his eyes, Roy hunched his shoulders and glanced to the side, watching the other customers as if vaguely interested in their movements. A small child leaped and caught a glimpse over the counter, but only a glimpse. Roy's voice was soft as he answered. "Yes, that's right. Because I was a coward, and because I still am a coward." He couldn't look at her. "I still wish I would have walked away."

"Why are you still a coward?" Why didn't you try to change?

He could tell she was looking at him, and he frowned at the child. "I can't…" He shivered and managed only a grimace. Hughes had been everything to him, the man who had believed his rabid murmurings about change, and the man who had stood by him and trusted him. A cheerful face in the prison of the military. And all Roy had done for him was go to his funeral and cry. Even though he knew what cowardice brought, he still refused to escape its snare. He was pitiful. "I can't…never mind."

"You can't do what?" Winry's voice was almost harsh.

"I can't explain this to you." She would never be able to understand the complexity of his feelings for Hughes, and he couldn't have explained it to her even if he had tried. He wished she could somehow feel how he felt, full-force, bursting in her chest. Not to be cruel, but to explain what his limited speech could not.

"Why not?" Pushing her drink to the side, she leaned closer to him and rested her chin on the back of her hands.

Her close proximity sent shivers up his spine. He felt like he was cornered in enemy territory, with no way out, and no weapon to guard him. "You won't understand."

The wrong answer. Her eyes flared, like she had been insulted. "Try me."

Why was she insulted? His smooth people skills were collapsing beneath his feet. Breathing heavy, Roy shook his head, trying to explain everything with his eyes. "…I can't."

"This concerns me." Her voice was firm.

Nervous eyes flitting towards the wall, he leaned back in his chair and let his arms fall to his sides. "No, it doesn't." Another terrible miscalculation.

"You killed my parents and now you can't even try to explain yourself to me?"

"This is different." Roy had to keep Hughes safe inside his rotting heart, because he was the only piece of it that hadn't crumbled away. Hughes had nothing to do with what she wanted to know, but now they were already miles off the main road, and lost.

"Why is it different? I'm trying to understand you and you're not even trying!" Indignantly she pulled her elbows off he table and pushed her half-finished drink back towards him.

Roy tried to get back on track; he tried to explain. "I didn't want to kill them, but they ordered me to do it! Why don't you understand?" It came out horribly wrong, and not the way he had meant it to be. He had not meant to say he had blindly followed orders; he had not meant to say he didn't care.

She rose from the table, chair jarring behind her against the floor. A tear caught on her eyelashes before crawling down her face, and she menaced over him, hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Go to Hell, Colonial Roy Mustang!" Stuffing her hands into her pockets, she slammed some coins onto the table and shoved open the door.

Jingle, the door said as he watched her flee. "I—wait!" Without a thought he was chasing after her disappearing figure, attempting to walk as fast and yet as dignified as he possibly could. "Please—just—"

"Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!"

He grabbed her wrist, and she spun on him. Several tears clung to her chin.

"Let me go!" Jerking her arm in an attempt to escape, she gasped her demand like a cornered animal. "I said let me go!"

Roy caught her fearful gaze and held them, glass wobbling precariously on a single finger. "Please give me a chance."

"Why should I?" Defiant eyes stared back at him, but he could tell it was a real question, seeking a real answer.

"Because even though I don't deserve it, I need you to forgive me." He loosened his grip, waiting for her to walk away. He would deserve it if she walked away. He wasn't used to this begging, but he was used to this feeling. This feeling of being unforgivable.

"What if I don't need to forgive you?"

Terror zipped up his spine. "Then you can go."

"Okay," she said, and stayed.

-----------

"I hope you don't think this is weird," he muttered, searching through his keys. "I just didn't think you would want to go back to the coffee shop." For some reason the key he wanted kept alluding him, and his fingers began to shake. Damn keys!

"This is weird."

"I'm sorry. I'll…try to make you feel at home." Roy shook the keys with frustration, biting his lip as they jangled unpleasantly against each other. "Where—Oh!"

The door opened with a gentle click. Dust clung to tables and books lay scattered across the floor. That morning's breakfast sat abandoned and half-finished on a small coffee table. An appalled look on her face, Winry stepped over a pile of dirty clothes.

"I—It usually isn't this messy." Oh God. "I've just had a hard last three weeks. You know." Shoving some loose papers onto the floor, he motioned her to his overstuffed couch. "Would you like some water?"

Seating herself gingerly on the open cushion, Winry flinched with distaste.

"I swear it's not contaminated." He should have never thought to bring her here, because now she would know he couldn't even keep his own house clean of clutter. A gutted feeling clutched his chest. After Hughes's death, pain had forced him into immobility. For awhile he had simply been numb, fulfilling basic routine like a zombie, attempting to continue life after it already seemed dead. Unfinished work piled up as he stumbled around, beer bottles strewn from one end of the house to the other.

Just when he had started getting his life back together, this apparition sitting on his furniture had turned his long recovery back into dust. The past was not supposed to reappear.

Water overflowed the cup, and Roy slammed his hand down on the faucet. He washed his past mistakes away, clearing the outside glass of water. If only all mistakes had such an easy way out, if only wrongs could be made right with a simple baptism. Apprehensive, he returned to the living room. Well, the living room most would not consider habitable.

Winry was hunched over, staring at something clutched tightly in her fingers. "Where did you…get this? This is…me, when I was…a little girl."

"I—" No. Just—no. Handing her the water, he took it from her, gazing wistfully at the photograph. "When they…" He struggled to speak; he didn't want her to have to imagine what he had seen. He didn't want to have to see the images he had seen. "Burned…your parents bodies and their belongings, I took this picture away. I knew they must have cared about that little girl in the picture, because they had it with them when they died. I didn't…want her to burn up too. I didn't want to ruin her life like I had ruined so many others. I…" A reluctant sigh. "…had been a little lost…mentally, at the time. I saw saving the picture as some kind of symbolism. Not letting her and her pretty red dress burn up with all the other bodies. It was stupid. I don't know why I still have it." He tossed it on the table. It clunked then settled, sending the room into a prolonged silence.

"I don't think it was stupid," Winry whispered, "I think it was beautiful."

He couldn't quite grasp this response, and he wasn't even quite sure if she had really said it at all. "…I forgot to take your hat." This sudden exclamation was almost a reflex action; the hat had become something very important that he had somehow missed. "Here, I'll put it up by the door."

"Um…" Slipping off her hat, she held it out to him, brief hesitation a representation of her confusion. "…okay?"

"…I just thought it would be courteous." Shrugging uncomfortably, he fiddled with the hat before slipping it over several ancient coats. Her quiet assertion had unnerved him. He had never known why he kept that picture, a constant reminder of all the terrible things he had done. The girl had never aged, still small, waiting for her parents at home. Waiting and waiting, hopeful, caught behind glass walls. Caught with Roy, inside the cage of the past.

"…Thank you." She looked towards his smudged window, smiling at a cardinal through the bars.

"You're welcome." Shoving a few books off the sofa with a crash, he took a seat beside her. Their closeness terrified him, sending him into near panic. He could almost see her parent's eyes, staring back at him, waiting for him to get the courage to shoot. He could just imagine them breaking through his defenses, yelling at him, "Stay away from our little girl!" and "Don't ruin her life too!"

"After I…" He forced himself to look into her eyes. "I went back, a few days later. I drank a bottle of wine, shoved a gun under my chin, and almost let it go off. I thought I would never be able to live with myself." He leaned his head on his hands, drawing his fingers through his greasy hair. He hated it when his hair got greasy, because it reminded him of days without bathing, standing knee-deep in mud, and trying to keep his men alive. Taking showers about four times a day seemed to work, but right now, that wasn't an option. He felt hot and bothered, and his head sunk lower, his fingers tugging at his locks.

"But you're living…now." Not an accusation, but a statement of fact. Leaning closer to him, she tried to see his face behind his sheltering arm. Trying to see inside of him.

"It is not a happy existence."

"No, I didn't think it would be."

Roy pointed to the soft scar of alchemy symbols drawn all over the floor. "When I came back…I…I almost tried to revive them. Hughes stopped me. At the coffee shop… I was talking about Hughes. I should have been there for him. I should have done more for him." He glanced around the room and shifted his legs. "I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"Oh. I don't know."

And then she kissed him on the cheek.

A brief moment of shocked silence—

"Why did you do that?" he asked stupidly, eyes shifting from her face to her chest and back again. Her breasts curved seductively, and he felt a moment of revulsion. She was a little girl; he had to keep telling himself she was the girl in the picture, and she was damned near seven years old. Only…she wasn't seven, and he knew it.

"I don't know that either." She folded her delicate hands in her lap. "I'm sorry."

"That's…okay," he managed, trying to ignore the small burst of flame that had started between his legs. They lasted for about a minute of pained silence.

She clutched his shirt and he ran his hands through her hair. Her hands wound nervously around his neck, and as they gazed at each other he sensed the terror in her eyes. He wondered if she could see his terror, as well.

Then he was on top of her, ethereal, caught beyond normal existence. Nothing about her seemed real; she was a ghost, a shadow born of the picture he had stolen. Haunting him into his grave. But this was not a girl, this a young woman beneath him, a beautiful savior, whispering words that tempted him with forgiveness, with forgetting his pain. Her offering of herself was a strange acceptance, something he didn't fully understand, but something his body was more than willing to take.

His familiarity with a woman's body meant nothing, for he felt his breathe catch in his chest as he leaned in to kiss her. It was a flaky kiss; his lips were parched—he had forgotten to get himself water. Hands digging into his clothing, she pressed her head into his chest. She shuddered madly as he slipped her skirt from her hips, exposing her to the cool air of his apartment. She opened her legs for him, revealing herself to the excited throbbing below his stomach. Hastily undoing his belt, he could feel his erection struggling against the confines of his pants. After his pants fell around his knees, he swallowed nervously and watched her stiffen.

There was something terribly wrong about this. Her picture lay discarded on his table, and he shut it out, forcing the image away from his conscious mind. Down into the darkness, into that special little place he kept his unbearable memories. He refused to think, filling his clouded mind with lust, something that made sense. At least he could understand why his body was excited.

"Stop!" she gasped, pressing her hands against his chest. "Don't go any further!"

"What!"

"No, no, never mind!" She quivered, biting her lip and pressing her feet into the crumb-infested upholstery. "It's just…I've never done this before."

"Oh." He didn't know why he had assumed she had. Guilt slithered through his chest, even while he muttered something about everything being fine. Somehow he felt that he was raping her all over again; after taking her parents, he was taking her innocence away as well. He eased a finger into her and felt her nails dig into his flesh. "It's okay…I have." He wasn't sure how that made it okay.

His entrance made her stiffen, and he tried to go slow. Hips bucking beneath him, she gave a small gasp of pain in-between labored breathes. Reaching for the abandoned picture, Roy threw it face down on the floor and shut his eyes. He couldn't take that little girl's smile. He had never been able to deal with it very well, but now she seemed to be glaring at him through her simple glee. Admonishing him for even thinking of what he was doing now. Was this forgiveness, or was this a road that led him deeper and deeper into sin?

His hands slipped down her thighs and clutched her waist. A moan escaped his lips as hot excitement danced up his chest, pure pleasure erasing rational thought from his brain. Bucking faster, she gritted her teeth before crying out in ecstasy. Unable to wait longer, he climaxed, heavy breathing wafting over her.

"I'm sorry," he told her, staring down at her heated face. Sorry for everything. Sorry for ruining your childhood, sorry for taking away your family, sorry for making you suffer, and sorry for taking you. Caught in that single terrible moment, he waited for her to answer.

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I really hope you liked this, because it took me a really long time. A thanks to momoirousagi on livejournal for correcting this! This was written for lj's fmafuhq challenge.