When second Lieutenant Jean Havoc regained what he had lost thanks to the mysterious power of a philosopher's stone, the first thing he decided to do was pay a visit to Roy Mustang, who was staying at the same hospital.
"Now are you sure you want to go? Your legs might not be as strong as you'd expect. I'll get you a wheelchair if you need it." Dr Marcoh said. His lined face suggested that the process of healing Havoc might have sapped a lot of his own energy as well. Dr Marcoh sat down in an uncomfortable cushioned chair next to Havoc's beside, his expression serious. Havoc, on the other hand, seemed to be excited and filled with boundless energy. He unhooked himself from his IV and, ignoring Marcoh's protests, stood. Grasping at a nearby railing, Havoc shuffled down the hallway to the elevators that would take him to the less critically-injured ward where a blind Mustang was waiting.
"I'm not an old man. I'll be fine!" he called back down the hallway as it turned and he disappeared from Marcoh's view. The doctor chuckled to himself, certain now that Havoc should have still been under observation for a couple more hours. It had been a risky procedure, even with the added support of alchemy and the strength of the stone itself. But, he supposed, everyone in the military always seemed so strong-willed, unable to let anything stand in the way of achieving their goals.
In the elevator as it clanged between floors, Havoc ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. Despite getting his legs back, there was some other news—bad news—that darkened this otherwise happy reunion. And Havoc knew that he had to be the one to tell Mustang.
The guards outside the door of Mustang's room stiffened as he approached, but once they recognized the Lieutenant, they greeted him warmly. The taller one, a junior officer, even pulled the Lieutenant into a one-armed hug. After the danger that Amestris narrowly avoided, it made sense that the military would be a little more excited and less reserved than usual. Havoc stepped back and smiled, ruffling his hair.
"I didn't recognize you with your legs!" the shorter guard said warmly, clapping Havoc on the back.
"Yeah, well, we have Dr Marcoh to thank for that."
"So are you going to return to regular duties?"
Havoc considered a moment, even though he had an idea already that he would be asked this question. He smiled again.
"Well, even when I was bedridden, I wanted to work. So you gentlemen will definitely be seeing me around!"
"We look forward to it," the guards grinned.
"Havoc is that you?" the strong voice the leaked through the door could only belong to someone as self-assured as the man who might one day become fuhrer: Roy Mustang.
"Yeah," Havoc said. The guards stepped aside and Havoc took a breath before grasping the handle and opening the door.
After stepping into the room, Havoc turned to make sure that the door was closed. Then he faced the occupants. The Colonel was sitting up in the bed on the left, his steel-gray eyes concealed underneath closed lids. Though the Colonel couldn't see, Havoc sensed Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, in the bed on the right, watching his every move. Riza looked pale but strong. Her bandages looked freshly changed. Havoc was glad that she was there to watch out for the Colonel and he realized that his news might just affect her as much as it would Mustang.
"Lieutenant Havoc, it's nice to see you walking around," Riza said.
In spite of himself, Havoc grinned and stretched his legs. He struck a pose. "It feels great," he admitted. Then he walked over to Hawkeye's bed and sat down on the edge of it with a thump.
"What's wrong?" Mustang asked. Even with Hawkeye as his only pair of eyes, he was perceptive.
Havoc swallowed. "I have some news. I guess I should just come right out and say it then. When Dr Marcoh gave me back my legs, there was a... complication. May Chang was on-site to help with her Alkahestry, but it didn't really make a difference—"
The Colonel gasped. "Don't tell me that your legs aren't as good as they were before."
"No, it's not that." Havoc looked into the concern within Lieutenant Hawkeye's eyes as he swallowed and said "we had to use up an entire stone. There isn't anything left that can be used to heal your eyes."
The room was silent for a few moments after his announcement, then:
"What did you say?" Lieutenant Hawkeye's voice was deathly even; her tone menacing. Her brown eyes met Havoc's and held him trapped in her gaze.
Havoc tried to speak but the Colonel cut him off.
"We heard you." His voice was quiet, resigned. This, more than anything, was what caught Havoc off-guard. The Colonel wasn't one to give into despair. And though he had bravely vowed to repair Amestris and its ties with Ishval, whether his eyes worked or not, Havoc knew that this news must just be crushing him. That was why he wanted to be the one to deliver the news. After Mustang's insistence that he be healed first, it didn't seem fair that there wasn't enough power within the stone to go around. The room was filled with silence.
"Colonel, sir," Hawkeye spoke up a moment later. Mustang raised his head at her voice and turned to face her approximate direction.
"I'm going for a walk."
"But your throat," the Colonel began, clearly alarmed.
"I'll be fine," Hawkeye insisted. She climbed out of her bed, still dressed in the muddy and torn clothing from the fight the day before, and headed for the door.
"Lieutenant," the Colonel barked, but Riza ignored him and grabbed Mustang's military jacket from where it hung on a hook near the door. She shut the door behind her and Havoc could hear her heavy footsteps as she walked down the hall, ignoring the guards' insistences that she stay in bed, concerned for the same reason as the Colonel.
Mustang sank back into the pillows on his bed. "The Lieutenant isn't mad at you. She's not even mad at me. She's just frustrated by all that's happened."
"Doesn't it bother you?" Havoc asked, staring down at his hands. He felt incredibly guilty and suddenly wished that he was back in his general store in his wheelchair. Surely his commanding officers' eyes were more important than his legs.
"What, that I might not get my eyes back? Of course it does. I might never get to see her face again." Mustang trailed off, and Havoc suspected that he was talking more about himself than anything else. Then the Colonel recovered and the softer tone of his voice—the one he used when he spoke of Hawkeye—disappeared.
"It's just as Ling said, isn't it? What's the use of being in a position of authority if you can't save the people you're supposed to protect?"
"I think it was actually Greed who said that," Havoc mused. But the Colonel was right, as usual. Selfless bastard. If this man was going to become fuhrer—sightless or not—Havoc knew that he would stand beside him. It was the least he could do.
"Now, Lieutenant. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like a cigarette. And Lieutenant Hawkeye hates it when I smoke."
Havoc laughed and reached into his pocket for his smokes. He pulled out two and handed one to the Colonel. Mustang snapped at the end of it to light it and after a too-large flame flickered, the cigarette was lit. Mustang inhaled, a faint smile appearing on his lips.
"I think I might have singed my eyebrows," he joked.
Havoc used the lighter for his own cigarette. The small room grew cloudy with smoke. Havoc walked up to open the window and as he did so, he got a view of downtown Central city, starting to repair itself after the Elric brothers' and their fight against Our Father. As he looked at the still-smoking streets, he wondered where Lieutenant Hawkeye might have gone.
The train ride from central out into the countryside was a long one, but the woman on the train didn't mind. The scenery, her turbulent thoughts, and the time all passed by in a blur. Before leaving, she had taken a couple of minutes to pack a small military-issue duffle bag with a change of clothes, some water bottles, and a couple of green apples. Not that she was hungry. Her blonde hair was freed of its usual clip and it hung limply around her face, mostly concealing the bandages that covered the wound inflicted by the gold-toothed doctor's Bradley rejects. She had been getting some strange looks on the train, probably due to the haunted expression in her eyes. Those eyes had seen so much. The pain of Ishval. The fatalities from the most recent skirmishes. Those who had not survived the final battle. She sighed, relieved that the Homunculi had all been vanquished, even though the cost had been too great.
What was it that those alchemist brothers were always going on and on about, 'the law of equivalent exchange'? Well, the Colonel's sight and all those dead—Captain Buccaneer, old man Fu, Briggs soldiers, and all others—hardly made the victory sweet. Riza thought of Hughes. Remembering how she had stood at his gravesite with the Colonel, she felt tears prickling her eyes. She draped the Colonel's jacket over her shoulders and burrowed into it. Now she wished that the train would just hurry. She didn't want to have to be alone with her thoughts for much longer.
Riza woke up when she heard the whistle of the train and felt the sensation of it slowing down. Feeling as though no time had passed at all, she sat up with a start, the Colonel's military jacket sliding off of her. She looked around the cabin, her military instincts kicking in and alert to any potential threats. Everyone else in this car seemed to be on vacation or attending to their own business—completely nonthreatening. Hawkeye took a deep breath to steady herself. She picked up the Colonel's jacket and slung it over her shoulder. Then, with her head bowed, she followed the mass of people who were also exiting the train.
No one was waiting for her at the station. She had thought about calling ahead to arrange something but then figured that it wasn't worth the effort. Up until recently, she hadn't even been sure that she would come all this way. Shouldering her duffle bag, she left the train terminal altogether and started off down the path towards the Rockbell residence.
Winry was tinkering with some automail in her shop when Hawkeye reached the front door—the noises coming from a back room made that obvious. Riza could smell the metal materials and even the anticipation in the air of a job nearing completion. She sat down on the hard wooden step on the porch and waited until the sounds of small talk and clanging subsided. When they did, Riza stood to meet Winry leading a client out her front door and down the steps to the front walkway.
"Make sure you take good care of those fingers now! Don't be slamming them into any more stagecoach doors, all right?"
The middle-aged man she had been working on smiled and waved as he departed. Metal on the fingers of his last two hands glinted in the sunlight.
"I'll be more careful next time, I promise." And then he walked off down the road until it curved and he was hidden from view. Winry wiped her hands on her overalls and turned to Riza.
"Hi. Lieutenant Hawkeye, right? Long time no see."
"Yes."
"You're still Mustang's second in command?"
Again, though this time with a lowered head and in a much softer tone. "Yes."
Winry tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and turned to walk back into the main part of the house.
"Why don't you come in and see what I can do for you."
Riza picked up her duffle and followed Winry inside. Winry pulled out a chair for herself and sat down, but Hawkeye stood straight. She gripped the chair back in front of her, the knuckles turning white. When she spoke, though, her voice was steady and betrayed none of her emotions.
"I'm afraid I have some bad news. Is Edward here? And Alphonse, too. They should both hear what I have to say."
Winry shook her head. "No, Ed's gone on a short journey of his own and Al is on the other side of the country trying to learn about Alkahestry from May Chang and Scar. They left just a couple of days ago but I'm not sure when they'll be back." A note of worry entered Winry's voice. "You should sit down and tell me what's wrong. Maybe I can help."
This time Hawkeye did sit down, though her posture remained rigid. With her chair untucked and her hands clasped together in her lap, she delivered the news about Lieutenant Havoc's legs and what it meant for the Colonel's sight. After she finished, there was silence in the room. Then Granny Pinkano walked in and started brewing a pot of tea. Hawkeye had an idea that the old woman had heard what she said but wasn't bothered by the thought. She appreciated the gesture when Pinako placed a teacup full of warm liquid in front of her and then left the room, silent as a ghost. Sipping it with a wan smile on her face, Riza could feel the energy ebbing from her body and the restorative powers of the tea helping her feel more balanced. She sat down at the table across from Winry.
"But, didn't Al tell me that Mustang said he'd be fine without his eyes? And that he doesn't think that being blind will affect him too much?" Winry asked.
"I have no doubt that he will still make a great fuhrer someday," Riza mused into her tea. "But I know that he's devastated."
Winry nodded in sympathy. The Lieutenant knew that Winry was in a similar position when it came to Edward Elric and his leg. But whereas she could perform maintenance on his automail parts whenever it was needed, Hawkeye did not know how she would be able to care for the Colonel. Obviously, she would have to become his eyes, but if anything were to happen to her... no, she must not think about that. Hawkeye shook her head, trying to force the worry from her mind. She took a sip of the tea and felt better. Winry extended a hand over the table and placed it on top of hers.
"Hey, Lieutenant. It's going to be fine. And you already have some idea of what being an army wife is all about."
Hawkeye snapped her hand away, almost knocking her tea over. "W-w-wife?" she stammered.
Winry placed a hand on her chin, deep in thought. "Well, I mean, I guess that Ed's not technically in the army. He's just a dog of the military—" Completely misinterpreting Hawkeye's shocked expression, Winry tried to make the situation less awkward, "that's not my term, though."
Hawkeye leaned back into her seat. This was all too much for her to deal with right now. She had hoped that the Elric brothers—or at least one of them—would be here, to tell her what she could do. She had ignored the Colonel's order that she remain in the hospital, but what if that wasn't the only demand that she disobeyed?
What if, because there was no one to keep her in line, she slipped up and ended up doing something really terrible? And worse, what if the Colonel was too ambitious in his condition and did something which ended up hurting himself? No, the Lieutenant could not let that happen. She had to find a way to fix this for the Colonel. And if Edward or Alphonse weren't here the help, it was no problem. She could do it herself.
"So it's getting kind of late. Why don't you sleep in the guest room upstairs and we'll see how you feel in the morning?" Winry suggested. She must have seen something shift in the Lieutenant's expression.
Hawkeye nodded and followed Winry up the stairs to a guest bedroom. After Winry wished her a good night and shut the door, Hawkeye remained sprawled on top of the bedspread, looking up at the rafters in the ceiling and lost in thought.
The next morning, when Winry went to check up on her guest, she found the bed empty and she sheets tucked into crisp corners, as though nobody had slept there the night before. The only indication of Riza's visit was a short letter that the Lieutenant had left on the bedside table:
Winry—
I'm sorry for barging into your home like I did last night. And I'm also sorry for leaving so quickly this morning. I just don't want to run out of time, especially with the way I left things with the Colonel. Please understand that I'm grateful for your help and I've gone to try to find Ed to see about getting another stone. I hope I can make it up to you soon,
Riza.
Winry smiled and folded the paper, tucking it into a pocket. It comforted her to know that, on his travels, Ed would soon have some company. Once Hawkeye put her mind to something, there was no way she wouldn't accomplish her goals, so it was only a matter of time before the two of them met up.