It had been over a week since Scar had regained consciousness in the Armstrong manor, and the whole time a question had nagged at him, unanswered. He was going to get it answered tonight.
He made his way through the cavernous halls of the Armstrong ceilings were tall and the ornate plaster moldings disappeared into the gloom of night. At various points throughout the house sat dim lamps to guide the servants who had late night duties to attend to. Scar passed through the halls without meeting another soul, however.
At the landing on the third floor a bar of light lanced the darkness. Scar approached the room in the middle of the hall from which the light issued and paused at the door, which stood slightly ajar. From inside he heard the faint signs that it was occupied. He pushed the door open and entered.
General Armstrong sat at a hulking desk against the wall, her pale blue eyes already pointed his direction. Stacks of paper sat arrayed on the blotter. A rich rug was laid on the floor and dark shelves, heavy with books, lined the walls. As Scar entered he saw her left hand move to lower her sword. She picked her pen back up but didn't return to work. She regarded him levelly from under lowered brows.
"What do you want?" she demanded briskly but without rancor.
"Tell me something," Scar said, crossing the room to stand in front of the desk between the two chairs that sat before it. "You said before that you saved my life because you wanted something from me."
"Alkahestry," the General replied immediately, her cold eyes sharpening with interest. "I want the alchemy that nobody else in this country can use."
Scar had a feeling that wouldn't be true for much longer, but kept that to himself.
"You never got what you wanted."
"I'm guessing you're not here to spell it out for me," she said. Scar said nothing but his dark expression spoke for him. She muttered an oath under her breath and returned her attention to her work. "So what are you here for? Quit bothering me."
"Is my life dependent on revealing the secrets of alkahestry?"
She jerked her head up at the question. Scar was struck at how different she looked when she was surprised. Her whole expression softened, her eyes went wide and her full mouth relaxed. Then, to his own surprise, she burst into laughter.
"Is this some kind of 'equivalent exchange' thing? You bought your life with information, and if you don't pay you thought I would kill you?" Her husky voice danced with genuine amusement.
"I thought you'd try," Scar admitted. She let out another bark of laughter and flashed a challenging grin at him.
"Confident, aren't you."
Scar met her gaze. It didn't sound like she planned to kill him, and if he was being honest with himself he was glad. He didn't know what he would have done.
He couldn't let alkahestry fall into the hands of the Amestrian military, especially since this woman had told him explicitly that she planned to weaponize it to use against enemies of the state. Had she tried to kill him, he would have fought back, if only so that he could return to Ishval. He could beat her, he knew that. From what Miles had told him, though, he knew that beating her wouldn't be the end of it. This woman wouldn't quit until she was dead.
But Scar found that the thought of killing left a bad taste in his mouth now. He didn't doubt that he would do it, if he needed to, but when he had considered the possible necessity of killing again he realized he would rather not do it. That was a change.
"So you're giving up on alkahestry?" Scar asked.
The General's pale eyebrows snapped down and he amused expression was erased as abruptly as it had appeared. She sneered at him.
"Do I really look like the sort of person who would give up that easily?"
"No." Scar spoke the negation so quickly he almost interrupted the end of her sentence. Her scowl lightened fractionally at his immediate response.
"Hmph." She sat back in her chair, folding her arms over her generous bust. "I'm not giving up at all. I'm only postponing the conversation."
"That's what I came about tonight." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "You're running out of time. Miles is leaving for Ishval soon, and I'll be going with him."
"So?"
Scar frowned. If she wasn't giving up on getting the secrets of alkahestry from him, and she wasn't trying to get them from him now, what was she planning?
She uncrossed her arms and leaned back over the papers strewn across the desk. Her long bangs fell across her face like a veil.
"There's no rush. I have the rest of our lives to convince you to cough up the information I need."
Scar was swamped with the sensation of falling. He felt lightheaded for a moment and lifted a hand to steady himself against the back of the chair. Dimly he heard the scratch of the General's pen pause and start again.
"The rest of our lives," she had said. The magnitude of what she had done when she had saved his life finally crashed down on him. He had a "rest of his life." He would live tomorrow, and the day after, and many, many days after that. There were years ahead of him, years to fill with purpose. He had spent so long, so damn long, living only long enough to find a place to die that he had forgotten what it meant to live.
Scar shook his head to clear it and straightened, releasing his grip on the chair.
"I don't intend to hand Amestris another weapon to use against whoever they've arbitrarily decided needs to die," Scar said. "Alchemy has already been tainted enough by you people. I won't allow you to corrupt alkahestry, too."
Once again the pen paused and she lifted her face from her work to shoot a frigid glare at Scar. He saw the tension in her jaw shift as she formed a rebuttal.
"However," he said, forestalling whatever comment she had been about to make. "I'll look forward to you trying to convince me."
He turned to head for the door but some instinct made him pause to glance back at the General. Her expression, only partially revealed by the cascade of her hair, was smiling. It wasn't a smirk or a grin, two expressions Scar could tell were familiar ones for her. She was just smiling, her lush lips curved upwards at the corners and her eyes sharp with appreciation at his challenge.
"Is that so," she murmured, her smile widening fractionally. Scar felt the corner of his own mouth turn up in response. Hastily he turned back to the door and started across the room.
"Until then."
"Armstrong," she said in reply. Scar halted, his hand already on the handle. He didn't turn back to face her, but he lowered his chin in curt acknowledgement of her name.
He exited but couldn't seem to keep himself from casting one last glimpse through the door as he pulled it shut.
Scar retraced his path through the mansion, thinking ahead. He a lot to look forward to; returning to Ishval, rebuilding the religion he thought he had left behind, seeing the Ishvalan comrades he had met in the past few months… But he found that already he was anticipating the next time he saw General Armstrong.
AUTHOR NOTES: My first fic for these two! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. Please look forward to many, many more fics about them.
This was written for FMA Rarepair Week 2016. Prompt was "Beginning," which was surprisingly tricky. I have many elaborate and intersecting headcanons about them, and there was no way to writing a beginning for them that wasn't connected to everything else. Scar and Olivier just kinda keep beginning and never really stop, so please picture this as one of many beginnings they have.