Disclaimer: I don't own FMA
Notes: Spoilers for Chapters 50ish and so on.
"Beneath the Surface" by Dailenna
Relaxing was a problem that Riza Hawkeye had had issues with for years now. While she had her odd day or two where she chose not to do as much work as usual, an instinct left in the back of her mind when she left the fields of Ishbal just wouldn't allow her to dunk her head under the water and sink for a moment. Instead she ever-vigilantly remained at the surface, observing the world around her.
It was an odd metaphor, she decided, as it could be taken both literally and figuratively, and it still described her with complete accuracy.
She wasn't able to stop paying attention to the world around her, in case there was some thinly veiled threat she had missed. She couldn't allow a person she cared for to get hurt, and for that reason she worked diligently and didn't miss a day of work.
Also, there she was lying in that bathtub, her head above the water because she couldn't gather the will to go underneath. There was too much of a possibility that while she was floating beneath the water's surface something could happen, and she was afraid that since her senses were dulled underwater, she wouldn't be able to react quickly enough. Maybe she'd get trapped underneath, and never be able to emerge again.
So there she lay, trying to convince herself just to let her ears sink past the surface. She was alone in her own apartment – it was not like anything was going to happen that would require her to–
Tap-tap-tap.
She paused. Well, it was a good thing that she hadn't gone under, then, or she would have missed whoever was knocking on the door. She climbed out of the bath and dried herself off, wrapping a towel around her body before walking out into the hall.
"Who is it?" she called through the door.
"Breda."
"Give me five minutes," she called back, padding back towards her bedroom before he had even replied in the affirmative. When she'd pulled on some clothing, she went back and opened the door to let in her team-mate.
The man looked jittery – eyes searching, and cheeks as green as though he'd just swallowed a handful of bugs – and yet he had somehow managed to wait so calmly. She didn't have to wait long for his reason for showing up unannounced at her apartment. He began talking at her the moment he stepped into the entrance.
"Colonel Mustang needs to speak to all of us. He's getting everyone to meet him at his house – Feury left to get Falman and Fullmetal two days ago, and they arrived just an hour past. It's time."
She looked at him, stunned, for a moment. As simple as that, it seemed, everything had all come to a peak. No more sitting behind a new desk, feeling utterly useless because she couldn't talk to her former superior officer without a handful of other ears pricking up. Every word she spoke to him was monitored, and infrequent. A passing comment in the halls as she ventured to lunch by the side of one of her new "co-workers" (guards, really). And now it was all going to happen. The re-grouping and great attack. Was this happening because the Colonel had finally discovered how to overthrow the Fuhrer, or had he merely become impatient with waiting?
Following Breda out into the hallway of the apartment block, Hawkeye locked her door before walking outside. So the time had come – no more waiting for something terrible to happen to the Colonel, or one of the others; no more knowing that the reason he didn't strike was for her safety; no more hollow voice in the back of her mind saying that they'd never make it.
Now she had to take that plunge beneath the surface of the water, and ignore the world around her to accomplish this goal. The time had come, and they would fight bravely to win, or die still trying. Continuing life in this slavery was not an option.