[This story is the result of a discussion between me and LiveJournal User mfelizandy, when we somehow got onto the subject of model train sets. Being the Roy Mustang fans we are, the conversation quickly moved around to the circumstances under which Roy himself might own such a set. After the ideas flew for a while, we realized we were both on the verge of fic ideas, so we agreed to write short pieces on the subject over the following weekend. This story is my own result. To view hers, please go to LiveJournal and search on her User name. You'll see some similarities and some differences, but Roy's somewhat obsessive nature is one of the commonalities. I enjoyed this exercise, and I'm sure we'll be doing this again, so keep watch!]
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Roy bent over the miniature locomotive, brows drawn down in deep concentration as he tightened the tiny screw on the bottom of the frame. He rarely had to wear his glasses – few people knew he even owned them – but this close work was impossible without them. It didn't help that the ceiling fixture in this small basement room wasn't the brightest light around, but he wasn't going back upstairs just to bring another lamp down. He adjusted the spectacles on the bridge of his nose, taking care to point the tiny screwdriver away from them.
He'd bought this small model train set a couple of days ago on the way home from work, and had noticed the wobbly wheel immediately, but he'd had to wait for the weekend before he could do anything about it. Now he sat back in his chair, pushing one of his rolled-up sleeves past his elbow, the dark rectangle of the open door on the other side of the table serving as a backdrop as he held the two-inch locomotive between thumb and finger, flicking the wheel with a finger on the opposite hand.
There. That seemed to have done it. He could just imagine Edward Elric looking at his handiwork in bewilderment, saying, "Why didn't you just transmute it?" But this precise work was somehow more satisfying.
It was a nice little model of the kind of train that ran between large towns out in the country, between Dublith and Rush Valley, for example. He already had a couple of military sets, with their long, sleek black locomotives, and he'd had a cargo train for years, but he'd been wanting to add this passenger train to his collection for a long time. Now he placed the repaired steam engine on the track in front of him and carefully hooked it up to the rest of the train, with its windowed cars and exquisitely detailed wooden benches and compartments inside.
The large table was covered with replicas of hills, towns, lakes, and trees, and he narrowed his eyes, peering over the glasses, trying to decide where he'd put this particular train. There was a military train parked in the rail yard behind the buildings of one of the small towns, and another on its way down the long, swift stretch of track on the other side of the looming hill to his left. Meanwhile, the cargo train stood half inside, half outside the tunnel in the cliff on the right. Finally Roy settled on a curving stretch of track that approached the edge of the closest town, carefully starting to place the five passenger cars, coal car, and locomotive in a spot just entering the little station with its painted red walls and green shingled roof.
For probably the hundredth time, he thought of Maes Hughes and how he would have loved this large round table and the miniature world that sat on it. Maes might have raised an eyebrow at all the other models on the narrow shelves that lined the walls of this room, but he'd have run the trains on this table with a maniacal grin and sparks of glee in his green eyes.
One side of Roy's mouth flicked up in a rueful half smile. Despite the cord plugged into the electrical outlet in the wall behind him, he himself had never once turned the set on, or run the trains on the tracks.
He rearranged the cars in the chosen spot, then stood, bending over, to place the locomotive.
"Roy?"
He gasped and leaped upright, the backs of his knees banging into the chair and his hand jerking in a spasm of reaction. The locomotive went flying, and he heard it land on the floor at his feet with a heavy clink, just as he recognized the figure of Riza Hawkeye in the doorway, her long golden hair flowing over one shoulder.
He stifled an involuntary impulse to try to cover the miniature landscape on the table and keep her from seeing it. It was a stupid thought. Instead, he bent to retrieve the locomotive. One of the front windows had been cracked. He stared mutely at it.
"Sorry I startled you," Riza said. "You didn't answer my knock, and I saw the basement door open, so I wanted to make sure everything was okay." She stepped farther in and he pulled his glasses off, slipping them into his shirt pocket. He watched in silence as she swept her eyes around the room, taking in the rows and rows of little models. "I had no idea you made things like this," she said.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"I told you, I – " She stopped as her eyes moved to his face. "Sir. What's wrong?"
He laid the locomotive on the table, staring down at the cracked windshield. "Nothing. I don't like being interrupted, that's all."
Broken. After he'd been so careful…the first of his models that he'd ever broken.
Riza followed his gaze. Stepping forward, she looked across the table at the little locomotive. He closed his hand over it, but she'd already seen.
"I'm so sorry, sir. It's all my fault. Please let me replace it."
"There's no need, lieutenant," he snapped. "It's not important."
Again the woman's eyes moved around the room, across the shelves and shelves of models. In growing resignation he watched her register everything: the little metal cars, meticulously painted and detailed, the military limos even sporting tiny Amestrian flags on each fender. The green military transport trucks with the canvas covers on the back. Small models of houses and barns. A perfect figure of a little well, its circular wall made of real river-polished pebbles, with a two-inch high wooden frame standing over the opening, supporting a precisely crafted inch-high metal bucket that hung by a fine chain.
Every model dusted and polished, each one sitting precisely in its place on a narrow, equally polished wooden shelf. Row upon row of them, on every wall in the room.
Her eyes returned to the large outspread landscape on the table between them. And Roy watched her eyes widen as she recognized what had been set into the very center of it. He didn't even need to look down to know what she was looking at. In an open stretch of real sand, between a small lake and the edges of one of the towns, sat a rock the size of his fist, one side of it slumping, half melted, while the other side still bore the black scorch marks testifying to the way it had been melted.
Riza didn't even need to ask where the rock and the sand had come from. She met his eyes. "I think," she said, "that's it's actually very important."
He ran a finger along the side of the locomotive, then stroked it across the windshield as though he could heal it just by touching it. "It doesn't matter," he murmured. "It's done now. There's nothing you can do."
"Things can be repaired again," she admonished softly.
"Can they?" Roy sat down again. They should probably go upstairs. Or he should bring her a chair. Instead he set the locomotive on the track where it was supposed to be, just coming into the station. It would be a train that would run precisely on time, of course. All of them would be. If they ran at all.
The silence stretched out until it was almost unbearable. Finally Riza spoke again, keeping her voice light. "So this is how you spend your spare time?" she wondered. "This landscape is so detailed – the water in that little lake in the hills almost looks real. You've got quite the artistic streak, sir, I had no idea. You must enjoy watching all the trains running along the tracks through the hills and woods."
"I don't – " He bit the words off, too late. He saw the understanding dawn in her eyes, and looked away, frowning. Dammit, if she hadn't startled him like that, he wouldn't be a constant step behind her like this. "Lieutenant, perhaps we should go up – "
"Sir, don't do this," Riza interrupted.
"Do what? I have no idea what you're talking about."
She leaned over to touch the cargo train just coming out of the tunnel, and he couldn't prevent his fists from clenching on the table in front of him. Riza pulled her hand back. "So that's what you're trying to do," she murmured.
"Riza. Stop." He couldn't lift his head, couldn't meet her eyes.
"You've done a good job here," she said, surveying the shelves. She crossed her arms over her pristine white blouse. "It's all perfect." He felt her eyes resting on him again and felt as though his own gaze were being dragged upward against his will. "Roy," Riza said softly, "it's all perfect. But it's all lifeless."
He fought to breathe past the constriction in his throat. "What…what does it matter, Hawkeye?" he said. "It's just a train set. I don't appreciate being interrogated because you wandered in and intruded on something you were never meant to -- "
Damn. Why didn't he shut up when he was ahead? Except he was already behind, wasn't he?
"How long have you had these things?" Riza wondered. "How long have you been collecting the models?"
Roy shrugged. "I don't know. Since Maes and I were in the academy. I started building this…" He ran his fingers along the edge of the table, wondering if he should complete the thought. "…after Ishbal," he finished at last.
That silenced her again for a moment. "And you've never turned it on? Not even once?"
He shrugged again. "I've been busy with other matters, you might remember," he retorted. "Like trying to stay in control of things and work my way up to Fuhrer and fix the country."
Slowly she walked around toward his side of the table, a soft rustling sound accompanying her movements. She stopped at the corner beside the power switch and the speed controls. She reached for the switch –
"No…," Roy breathed. He lowered his gaze, hands clenched into fists in front of him. "Riza…," the words seemed to croak out of him of their own accord, "…they'll crash."
She set her hand on the switch. "The only way we can have perfect control," she murmured, "is if everything is dead." And she flipped the switch, and turned the speed control very slowly.
He kept his fists clenched to keep his hands from shaking. Slowly the little trains began to move, the cargo train pulling out of the tunnel on the cliff, the sleek military train coming around the hill, and the new train pulling through the station in the town before starting its journey to the next one. Riza kept the speed low in the beginning, but even so, Roy could feel a thin film of sweat developing on his upper lip.
The military train approached a large curve as it came out from behind the hill, and he held his breath. But there was no disaster, and the curve was easily negotiated. Riza leaned over and removed a little tree that had fallen onto one rail, and the new train passed along that stretch of track without mishap. The soft whishing sound of all three trains rushing along their tracks was accompanied by an underlying, almost imperceptible buzz of electricity.
Roy glanced up at Riza. She was too intent on watching the movements of the trains to notice him staring. She leaned forward, her lips parted, half upturned in a smile. He saw her notice the red button beside the speed control dial, and hesitate with her finger over it. Her eyes flicked for an instant across the landscape before her, then she pressed the button quickly, and all three running trains blew their horns, long, hollow, piping toots that might have come from a recorder or a badly made flute that was tuned a little flat.
Riza gave a soft laugh, and pressed the button again, listening to the horns as she increased the trains' speed very slightly with the other hand. She watched the three of them negotiating the elaborate, curving lengths of track, in and out of the hills and towns, past the lakes, sweeping through cuts in the forests. There was the slightest crinkling at the corners of her widened eyes as they moved back and forth with the whizzing of the trains.
This, thought Roy, was how he had always imagined Maes would look if he'd ever been down here. So thoroughly alive, and full of enjoyment.
"There's a mine below those cliffs, isn't there?" she said suddenly.
"What? Yes I suppose there could be."
"So the cargo train would carry coal or gold or something, coming out of the cliff, and bring it down to….," her eyes searched and then she pointed, "that town. Because it looks more industrial than this one close by. So what you need to add there is a factory building or something."
"That makes sense," he nodded. He stood up and leaned over to see the farther town a little better. He barely noticed as he brushed against her shoulder. "Maybe they'd use the ore to build, I don't know, military trucks."
"No." Riza shook her head. "They'll build tractors. There's more than enough military equipment infesting this country already. This," she swept her hand above the table, "is the Amestris of the future, not Amestris as it is now."
Roy watched her hand moving over his creation, and then moved his eyes over it as well, trying to see it as she saw it. "I suppose…you could be right."
"Of course I'm right," she nodded. She cast him a mischievous smile and turned the speed up another notch.
Roy's breath caught. He swallowed hard as he watched the trains moving, around and around, climbing the hills and circling down again, dashing through the towns, taking the curves. He made himself let out his breath, very slowly. "Riza," he murmured, "you know what an idiot I am."
"No," she smiled gently. "You just feel things very hard. But you can't create a living future," again her hand moved above the landscape, "if you are afraid to make a move."
He managed a crooked smile. "The only way to control things completely is if they're dead?" he half-quoted.
"Yes. And if they crash," she added, brows coming together as she noticed a wobble in the locomotive Roy had been repairing, "that's one of the risks. And we do what we can to try to prevent it, or fix it if it happens, or find a new way if we can't fix it." She adjusted the speed just enough that the train continued steadily on again.
He had almost forgotten the trains, watching her watching them, her eyes alert, her hands steady on the controls. She flicked a long curl of hair quickly back over her shoulder, but almost immediately it fell forward again as she leaned over the closest track to watch the performance of the passenger train. Roy took the fine length of hair between his fingers and swept it away from her face, drawing it back again, resting his hand on her shoulder to keep it there. For some reason his knees had gone a little wobbly.
"I'm so glad," he murmured, returning to survey the tracks, "that I made you the engineer of my train."
"Yes sir," she nodded, smiling, without looking up.