Redemption
Summary: But the thing that unsettled him the most was the eyes. The fire that burned within. He had never seen eyes that burned so brightly, that were so determined. That was, until he met Edward Elric.
Author's note: Just had an interesting idea, so I decided to develop it. Hope it turned out okay! There is one OC, but they're not extremely important.
Disclaimer: Do you really think I wrote FMA? I don't think I did, so I don't think you should either.
A solitary man, in a white coat smeared with dust, slowly staggered back to the campsite. His breath came in great gasps, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. The pristine-clean white gloves on his hands were a great contrast to the grittiness of the rest of his uniform.
Before arriving back at the campsite, he escaped into a smouldering building that was now wreckage. Wreckage that was his doing.
He sat down hard on a rock that jutted out from the ground. His head lay between his hands. Tears streaked down his face, only to be absorbed by the ever-thirsty desert. A desert thirsty for water; for tears; for blood. And he was only fit to provide the meanest of them.
Suddenly, he heard a noise. Drying his tears on his rough uniform, he saw the figure of a little girl, not less than nine and no more than eleven crawling, no, dragging, herself along. Her left leg was a gruesome stump, having been blown off by a bomb, and her right arm was in the same state.
Upon seeing the sitting man, instead of fleeing as he would have expected, she stood up, leaning on the broken wall. Her eyes burned with a fire and hatred that was startling.
"Go on, kill me. Ishvala will strike you down!" she said with unrestrained anger.
Seeing his hesitation, she continued, "That's what you're here to do, right? Just kill me already. I can do nothing in the state I am. But I swear, one day, you will answer to your crimes!"
The gun in his hand felt foreign. He aimed it carefully at the girl's head.
"Any last words?" Roy asked, glad his voice did not shake.
"Is this really what you want to do with your life?" she replied quietly.
The gunshot sounded, muted to his ears. He could see the girl falling back in slow motion, and her eyes slowly glazed over, and the look of determination was replaced with an expression of nothingness. A pool of crimson slowly gathered around her head, but she was already dead. His hand shook and he dropped the gun and cried as he never had before.
Because this wasn't what he wanted to do with his life.
From that day forward, every night he saw her die and heard her words. But the thing that unsettled him the most was those eyes. The fire that burned within them. He had never seen eyes that burned so brightly, that were so determined.
That was, until he met Edward Elric.
The wide, golden eyes burnt like the sun. And they reminded of him of the girl he had shot, of the girl he had killed. The irony that they both were missing the same body parts occurred to him as well.
From then forth, he vowed that this time, he would do all in his power to protect him, even if it meant that Edward joined the military.
Fighting was inevitable; after all, Edward was the very embodiment of his worst nightmare. He was lucky that Edward was away so much, so he didn't have to see the golden fire that so unsettled him. He was also extremely lucky that every time he did visit; he would invariably storm out soon afterwards, muttering darkly about Colonel Bastard, for with experimentation, Roy realised that the fastest way to get Edward out of his sight was to tease him about his height—which, admittedly, got his office demolished several times over.
As he helped Edward in his quest to get his brother's body back, he realised all he wanted to see was Ed smile as he was never able to see the young Ishbalan girl smile; see Ed's eyes never lose his fire as he had seen the young Ishbalan's girl do so; see the fire burn with laughter and not hatred as the young Ishbalan's girl did.
He realised that Edward was his redemption from the life he had lived.
Because killing was not what he wanted to do with his life.