Author's Note: Written for bravenewcentury in the fma-ladyfest exchange on livejournal.
—
"So this is it then."
Rebecca Catalina surveys the contents of the back of the truck with no small amount of satisfaction. Boxes, wooden crates and barrels are packed in securely, with plenty of room between everything to facilitate access to any supplies that might be needed. Curious, she lifts the heavy lid of one of the crates to peer in. What's inside is new and shiny in the desert sun and makes the munitions expert inside of her very, very happy.
"A rocket launcher," Rebecca coos, grinning wickedly. "You shouldn't have!"
"The vast majority of the projectiles are nonexplosive," Mr. Han explains, not entirely hiding his amusement. He gestures helpfully to the boxes to her left. "Mr. Havoc requested a variety of gas canisters and flash bombs in addition to the ammunition and other supplies."
Yep, that sounded about right, given she'd helped put together the shopping list in the first place. That said, the more she got to know the men on Riza's old team, the more Rebecca suspected that they were all secretly a bunch of softies. Fortunately, the goal was to kick some brass, not destroy the whole of Central's forces and infrastructure, so grenades weren't really in high demand. (There was a box of them though, just in case.)
Rebecca lowers the lid back down, wiggling it into place until it was secure. The wood is rough and solid beneath her hands. "Was there anything you couldn't procure?"
"No," the only other person present says, speaking up for the first time since introductions were made. Maria Ross leans against the side of the truck, smiling, her arms crossed. A bead of sweat shines at her temple. "I helped check and load everything in. It's all there."
"Great," Rebecca says, grinning back. "So, you ready to get this show on the road?"
—
"Excited to be back?"
Maria tears herself away from staring out the window to look at Rebecca, who glances away from the road long enough to shoot her a smile and a raised eyebrow. A friendly expression. It takes her a moment to realize that the reason the question sounds strange is because it's spoken in Amestrian, clear and direct, empty of an accent.
"It doesn't seem real," she says finally, feeling a bit silly. "I've gotten so used to hearing Xingese that even speaking my own language seems unusual."
"Oh? Are you fluent then?" Rebecca asks, almost eagerly. Maria gets the impression she is happy to leave traveling in silence behind them. She doesn't mind.
"I got proficient in speaking it, but their way of writing is… difficult," she says, diplomatic. In truth, difficult is a bit of an understatement. "It's all symbols and characters, not phonetic. As for speaking, the royalty and some of the retainers knew Amestrian, but there were plenty more in the clan I stayed with who didn't. I decided it would probably be a good idea to learn to communicate and get around on my own, since I was going to be there for a while."
What she doesn't mention is the fact that 'a while' was supposed to be years, in her mind. Maria had been prepared to spend a decade or more in Xing if she had to; it was painful, yes, but a lot better an option than facing false accusations and execution for a crime she hadn't committed. And yet… here she was less than a year later, headed back to Central City. It's difficult to believe sometimes.
"Royalty, huh? So what'd you do over there—spend your whole time visiting with a bunch of princes and princesses, eating fancy foreign food?" Rebecca steers the truck to the right to avoid a rock that protrudes upward from the dusty dirt road, then back towards the center.
"Well, sometimes," Ross says. (The royal family of Xing is a little more complicated than that, but details.) She angles a sly glance at her companion and, carefully offhanded, adds: "There was that one time when I saved the emperor from an assassination attempt though."
"What?" Rebecca turns almost bodily in the driver's seat to look at her, causing her to miss an upcoming pothole. The truck jolts violently over it, sending them bouncing in their seats. Rebecca recovers quickly, swearing and setting her focus back on guiding the vehicle along the smoothest possible path. Stifling her laughter, Maria checks the back, relieved to see that none of the supplies were shifted or spilled by the bump. When she faces forward again, Rebecca has a single, imperious finger pointed at her.
"Okay, either you're pulling my leg, or this is a story I absolutely have to hear. Spill."
—
They make their first stop several hours later in a town about 40 kilometers northeast of Youswell to refill on gas. It's not a bustling place by any means, and even less so since the last time Rebecca was here, on assignment to quell the religious riots in Liore. Now that everything there has been settled up there—again—and military personnel aren't constantly passing through, it's quiet here too.
Once the attendant is finished up and they pay, Rebecca pulls the truck off into a parking spot away from any other cars, backed against a wall so they can see ahead of time in the event anyone approaches. Rebecca grabs a large envelope from her bag and fishes out a map. She unfolds it, smoothing it out across the steering wheel.
"We are here," she begins, dropping her finger on a little dot labeled Hartselle. "The plan is to cut south a ways before heading directly west towards Central, avoiding New Optain—they like to randomly inspect vehicles there and that is something that needs to nothappen, because even though we're still in the East Sector and I have papers saying we're on assignment from General Grumman, that's a back up we really don't want to use. Plus, if that happens I might have to talk to him on the phone, and that's not something I want to do because he's kind of a creep."
It's then that Rebecca realizes that Maria is watching her with something akin to amused bafflement and she figures it might be time to move on.
"Trust me, give him a wide berth," she adds, just for emphasis. "Anyway, we'll steer clear of New Optain. We'll have to use some more country roads to pull that off, but since it's more populated in that part of the region, we'll be on a lot more paved surfaces than we have been so far. After that, it'll be a pretty straight shot to Central."
"Are we sure that there won't be other places with security checks?" Maria asks, tugging the map a little closer so she could examine the planned route that had been penciled in. Rebecca lets her have it. "There could be road blocks."
"There were no orders along those lines last I heard, and friends in high places know which roads we're taking. It could be a problem once we get to Central City, but hopefully by then the troops will be more concerned with other things besides an innocent little ice cream truck coming into town." Seriously, what could be more delightfully unassuming than a fuzzy toy bear hold an ice cream cone? Rebecca was pretty sure the only possible answer to that was: nothing.
Ross peers up from the map, eyebrows drawn. "We're getting there after the fighting's already started?"
"That's the plan. If we get there too early and just loiter around on Main Street, that'll cause it's own problems. So long as Riza's—uh, Mustang's team and the Briggs lot pull through, everything should be fine and we'll just have to find them. If not, well, there's a reason we bought the armored truck."
"I feel very reassured," Maria deadpans, and then begins to carefully refold the map so that they can see the route without fuss.
"Trust me, we've been planning this for a while. Also, I hope you didn't completely how to forget how to drive while you were busy thwarting assassins in foreign lands, because we are definitely switching in a few hours," Rebecca says as she tugs her seatbelt back across her body, snapping it into the latch.
Maria follows suit, tossing the map up onto the dashboard between them. "Oh, I don't know about that. I think I've really gotten used to being the chauffeured, instead of the chauffeur. Besides, you do realize I've been legally dead in this country for nearly a year, right? I am pretty sure my license has been invalid for a pretty long time."
"Hold that thought!" Reaching back into the bag she'd stuffed behind the seat. Triumphant, she pulls out a card from one of the pouches, which she tosses smugly into Ross's lap. Maria picks it up.
"A fake driver's license?"
"Yep! A Havoc General Supply speciality, apparently. And a welcome home present!"
She watches as Maria reads the card, then pulls a face that can only be described as utterly antagonized. She is absolutely going to have to find some way to thank Havoc for this later.
"What is with this name?" Maria groans.
"I had a great-aunt named Agnes," Rebecca comments cheerfully, cranking the key and holding it until the engine rumbled into life. "She raised ferrets, you know."
Somehow, Maria doesn't seem exactly comforted by this knowledge.
Still smirking, Rebecca pulls out onto the main road. The gasoline gauge hovers comfortingly over 'full,' the diesel engine rumbling steadily beneath the hood. Shifting gears, she doesn't hesitate to accelerate a little more than what's absolutely necessary. There are people waiting for them, after all.
—
Dawn creeps over the horizon right around the time Maria starts contemplating the benefits of waking up her co-driver to take over, or at least talk to her so she doesn't doze off and drive them into a ditch. She's pretty sure that that would not be conducive to getting to Central in time for the Promised Day, but then again, it might also just be a sleep-deprived hunch. Still, better safe than sorry.
Rebecca, fortunately, doesn't turn out to be an incredibly deep sleeper. She is not, however, a morning person.
"Please tell me we are somewhere remotely near a proper toilet," Rebecca groans, squinting blearily out of the cab. They are surrounded by scads and scads of hills and trees and exactly zero manmade structures, narrow highway excluded.
Maria aims for a sympathetic expression, but it's ruined by a yawn. "I could lie," she suggests eventually. Rebecca groans again, louder this time.
"Fine, pull over. I'll find a bush."
Maria obliges as soon as she finds place wide enough to pull off the road and Rebecca climbs out, thoroughly disgruntled, and disappears behind a stand of trees. Ross takes the opportunity to lean back and catch some shuteye for a few minutes until the door reopens, signaling her return.
"One day I am going to find a man to marry," Rebecca says with the grim determination of someone who has been willing something into existence for a while, "and then I will retire from the military and never have to pee behind a bush ever, ever again."
"Okay," Maria yawns. "Tell me all about it and I might be able to stay awake enough to keep driving for a while longer."
"Why don't you just turn on the radio?" she suggests, leaning back her seat and kicking her shoes back off. "I can sleep with it on."
Maria pauses thoughtfully, hand hovering midair over the parking brake. "Oh. I didn't think of that. I almost never listen to the radio while I'm driving."
This, of all things, seems to rouse Rebecca into full wakefulness. "You don't listen to the radio," she says, not so much a question as a statement of complete disbelief.
"While I'm driving," Maria repeats, to which Rebecca only shakes her head, lifts her seat back to an upright position, and starts fiddling with the radio dial. Much to her surprise, when she finally cranks the volume up, the sounds of brass and drums fill the cab—the sort of instruments she hasn't heard in ages. It causes something in her chest to tighten and she quickly turns the car back onto the road to try and distract herself. It must show on her face because Rebecca notices and turns the volume back down so she can be heard.
"Ross," she says, "if you don't like music, I don't actually know if we will both make it to Central City alive."
Maria blinks, then shakes her head, unable to stop herself from smiling. "No, it's not that. I just figured you were going to put on the military station."
"I thought the goal was to stay awake, not to pass out from boredom."
"We're only headed for a coup d'état," Maria points out.
"Point," Rebecca agrees, a little reluctantly. "We'll come back to that idea later. But for now, we are going to listen to music, because this is, despite everything, a road trip, and that is something you do on road trips. Besides, I just had to squat behind a tree, which I really hate doing, so you probably shouldn't argue with me right now about the radio if you know what's good for you."
"Alright, Catalina, you win," Maria says, not really all that disappointed. "Just turn up the volume already."
Rebecca does so happily, singing along loudly as the lyrics become audible again. It's not one she's heard before, but Maria thinks it sounds like home.
—
After several more hours of driving and another pitstop to refuel, wash their hair in a sink, and nap (which lasts several hours longer than planned—maybe driving through the night wasn't such a fantastic idea after all), it's Rebecca's turn to drive again while Maria dozes a while longer. They are passing through more and more populated areas as they draw beyond New Optain and into the Central Region. The military station drones on in the background, loud enough that they can hear if something interesting comes up, but quiet enough that it's easy to tune out. Background noise. Right now the announcers are discussing the possibility of crop shortages in the fall after a particularly bad battle in the south; troops from Aerguo managed to breach the trenches in some areas, opening the doorway to battles that destroyed acres and acres of farmland before they were finally pushed back.
It's boring, nothing like the news will be tomorrow, but it's exactly the sort of news Rebecca really wants to dwell on right now: problems for the future. There's not much to do but think on long drives like this, and she would rather worry about the rising cost of beets than whether they bought too little ammunition for the upcoming fight. It's ridiculous, but it's a coping habit she's used for as long as she can remember. If you can worry about what comes after the battle, then you have a reason to get to the other side of it safely. She's pretty sure she got that from her dad.
"Are you alright?"
Rebecca looks over at Maria, surprised—she hadn't realized she was awake again.
"What do you mean?" she finally asks, at a loss.
"You looked a little stressed," Maria clarifies, leaning down to search for something beneath her seat. A moment later she resurfaces, water bottle in hand. She pops the lid off, takes a sip, then asks, "What were you thinking about?"
"Beets," Rebecca says at length. "I was worrying about beets."
Ross stares at her for a long moment before throwing her head back and bursting into laughter. Rebecca can't help it, she's laughing too, and it is several ridiculous minutes later before either one of them catches their breath.
"I have to be honest," Maria finally says, wheezing a little. "I actually hate beets."
Rebecca's grin grows wider. "Really? Me too."
That, apparently, is all it takes to set off round two.
—
Once they make it into the suburbs surrounding Central City, Maria dons her hood. It's almost dark out at this point and they are nowhere near where she used to live or work, but it's still Central, still home, and she knows she has to wait a little bit longer yet before she can return to the land of the living, so to speak. She waits in the truck while Rebecca goes off to find them something to eat (they'd exhausted their stores earlier that day), drumming her fingers against the window and trying not to check her watch too frequently.
She breathes a sigh of relief when Rebecca reappears at last, a carryout bag securely in hand. She pops open the locks and Rebecca climbs in, the smell of hot food filling the truck.
"You are going to love me for this, I promise," Rebecca informs her matter-of-factly, digging out a styrofoam container and passing it over. Maria rolls her eyes good-naturedly but takes it, popping open the lid. And Rebecca's right, she does love her for it, because what's inside is roasted lamb and potatoes and green salad and a hot, fresh bread roll, and it's just so Amestrian that Maria almost wants to cry a little. It occurs to her, all at once, that she may never have to eat another grain of rice in her entire life, and somehow, that is an entirely glorious idea.
It isn't until she's picked up her fork and knife, relishing the feel of familiar utensils, when another thought comes to her and Maria pauses, her hands hanging awkwardly over her food. Rebecca, busy trying to figure out how best to start eating with the steering wheel protruding over her lap, doesn't notice for nearly a minute.
"Ross, I hate to break it to you, but the food is not going to fly from the box into your mouth. You have to do the work and put it there."
Maria snaps out of it, flushing and lowering her hands, setting down her eating utensils. "I just had a really strange thought."
"Oh?" Rebecca spears a forkful of salad. "What's that?"
"Just that… this could be our last meal ever, maybe."
Rebecca makes a strangled noise in her throat, as if she's not sure whether to laugh or to choke. A moment later she coughs, spraying bits of half-chewed salad all over the windshield before she manages to catch her breath.
"Ugh, gross, look what you made me do," Rebecca grouses, digging around in the bag for some spare napkins. "You do realize I bought us food for breakfast too, right?"
"Sorry," Maria says, more than a little sheepish. "I told you it was strange."
"Not strange," Rebecca huffs. "Try asinine. Honestly! Did you really come all this way back just to kick it tomorrow?"
"What? Of course not!" she replies, indignant.
"Then why?" Rebecca demands, crossing her arms. Her elbow hovers ominously over her mashed potatoes, but the look on her face is fierce enough that Maria doesn't dare say anything but an answer to the question she's been asked.
She lifts her chin, glaring right back. "I want to help Colonel Mustang because of how he helped me, and…"
"And?" Rebecca prompts.
Maria swallows hard. "And… I want to see my family again. I want a job again. I want my life back. I don't want to live on the run anymore."
Suddenly, Catalina is smiling again, which is really obnoxious because Maria is literally on the brink of tears and having a hard time keeping herself under control. "Good," Rebecca says. "See? You have too much to live for to start thinking stupid things like that."
The way she says it is like it's as obvious as can be, but the truth of it sinks in and breaks what little restraint Maria had left. She bursts into tears and laughter at the same time, burying her face in her hands.
"Catalina, I am pretty sure I hate you right now," she gasps, not sure if it's between laughs or sobs.
"Oh shut up." She leans over, tossing her arm over Maria's shoulder and ruffling her hair that might feel condescending if it were anyone else, but from her mostly it just feels reassuring. "You only say that because you haven't eaten your food yet, and look, it's going to get cold if you don't hurry it up."
Maria snorts at that, and, taking a deep breath, she wipes her face enough to look over at the woman beside her.
"Well do okay tomorrow, won't we?"
Rebecca shrugs, a smirk lingering at the corner of her mouth. "You know, Ross? I kind of think we will."