Requiem
Manga Spoilers, but very loose manga spoilers.
Set at Hawkeye-sensei's grave, shortly after his death in chapter 58, Footsteps of Ruin. It is my speculation of the grieving process, things that might have been exchanged between Roy and Riza. In the manga, if you do not know, Riza's father (Hawkeye-sensei) was Roy's alchemy teacher, and Hawkeye-sensei dies shortly after telling Roy that Riza has his research.
I'm writing this after the death of an uncle, whose funeral I could not attend. My inspiration for this is Durufle's Requiem, an astounding piece of music. The beauty is…beyond words, and even writing of superb caliber couldn't do it justice, so many emotions are present in this piece that...you need to hear it to understand, I think. Though I didn't write enough to go with each movement of the requiem, I feel that this piece goes best with the second movement or the Kyrie, becuase this movement is the one that brings me to tears. I would suggest, if you have any interest in classical or religious music, that you listen to this Requiem.
Feet were planted strong into the ground, knees locked and tight, hands folded carefully in front of her. Amber eyes were focused directly on the tombstone, head bowed, strands of yellow hair obscuring the small, round face of a child in mourning. He stood by her side, though his inky gaze was on his palms, the look of disgust evident on his tired features. Blood, no matter the amount of scrubbing he did as he heard her speaking with her father's doctor, nothing would remove the stains from his hands.
When she arrived in the doorway, eyes wide with terror, he couldn't imagine how he had missed her form sitting in the chair down the hall, reading, upon his arrival. She had even looked up and greeted him politely, and then told him that her father was in his study. He had called for help, for someone to telephone a doctor, when she came into the room, panicked. Days had passed since that image seared itself into his mind, a child staring at her remaining parent dying in the arms of another.
He wouldn't leave her.
At first, she had been in shock, but moments afterward she regained herself, and telephoned the doctor. After getting the man on the phone, she handed the receiver to him and fell to her knees at her father's side, sobbing into his sleeve as Roy quietly told the doctor that a rush was not necessary. Hawkeye-sensei was, by all definitions of the term, dead.
Upon his arrival shortly thereafter, the doctor had to pry her from the still form on the ground. Roy sat with her as she waited for the doctor to perform whatever examination he deemed necessary, and then stood just outside the door when the cause of death was explained to her. Some inexplicable illness, caused by not wanting to live any longer.
She had emerged from the meeting with the doctor whiter than a sheet, and all she had murmured was that she was not reason enough for her father to live. The guilt settled in his stomach, and for the first time since Hawkeye-sensei had scolded them for such familiarity, whispered her name in her ear. Riza eventually slid into his guiding arms, the tears having receded into something sharper, something far more dangerous and threatening and unnerving.
Riza stood at his grave, and seethed, positively seethed frustration and misery and sorrow and such anguish that Roy could barely stand it. Her hands, which had been so perfectly and neatly folded throughout the service and the burial, were now hanging at her sides, clenched tightly into small fists as she stared and stared and stared as if waiting for the grave to disassemble itself and for her father to reemerge, alive and well.
And so she had stood, for what felt like ages, minutes ticking by like hours, until finally, she looked upwards at the sky, shaking her head in dismay and anger.
"It's raining," she murmured against gritted teeth, fists rubbing against her eyes, feeling the slight patter of raindrops trickling down her face in place of the tears that had run out days ago. Each droplet stained the ground a deeper brown color, until the freshly turned earth was mud and they both sank slightly into the wetness.
He froze, and then glanced downwards, nodding slightly. "So it is," he replied quietly, stepping closer to her form and pressing a hand against her shoulder. She almost pushed away from him, before easing a step back into his gentle touch. Her fists were still pressed against her eyes, and she sighed. "He won't come back, Mister Mustang," she whispered, a declarative statement that only the mourning could state so simply.
Again, he nodded, the hand against her shoulder tightening just slightly, enough to prove his acknowledgement of her statement. "That's right."
They stood like that, in silence and rain, for such a long time. The words that passed between them soundlessly sank deep within their minds, and the rain soaked them through so they both shivered with cold. Her fingers were still clenched tightly, jaw trembling with the effort of trying to hold back tears.
"Please don't become him," she whispered, turning, amber meeting onyx, the desperation evident. "Don't be a man whose mind and heart and passion dies long before his body. Don't become that, Roy." Her voice tightened around the words as she spun away from his touch, face-to-face with his drenched form. "I couldn't watch that again."