Riza Hawkeye sighed, exhausted and hot as she and her comrades marched and rode on their horses in the seemingly endless wasteland of the Ishvallan desert. They had to go to one more camp before they could go home. One more fight, but hundreds of bodies. Millions more drops of more often than not innocent blood shed onto the golden grains of sand.
As they arrived in their new encampments, the sniper lowered the hood of her creamy cloak before removing it completely, wiping the sweat from her brow. She laid downed in her tent and decided to get some shut eye, surrendering to sleep for a while before she had to go back to the horrors of war.
Roy Mustang walked around the barren village where the army had settled for the last part of their tour in Ishval. He looked around at the tiny huts the native people called home. At the sight of him men would sneer, elders would look away, women would tremble. The children would point and stare, and their mothers would hold them close or drag them inside. Roy didn't like it. He didn't want the innocent to fear him, but fighting seemed the only way he could turn his country righteous and peaceful. Fighting would rid Amestris of corruption, or so he hoped.
Roy suddenly heard what sounded like a person crying, specifically a baby. He followed the noise and it led him to a heart-sinking sight. An emaciated, sickly, beaten woman. It was clear she was just steps away from Death's welcoming arms. In her stick like arms was a baby who looked almost as close to death as it's mother. The woman didn't have the willpower to tremble or flinch at the sight of the soldier. Instead, she did the thing Roy least expected. Using the very last of her strength, the woman held out her child to him and spoke her last words. "Take him."
Nodding, Roy took the now quiet baby and gave the woman a kiss to the forehead, sliding her eyes closed once he had confirmed that she had passed on. He didn't know what was making him do this. Just shock he guessed.
The baby squirmed and whimpered, reminding Roy of its presence. The State Alchemist quickly shushed it and put it inside the breast of his greatcoat, making sure his little bundle was supported by his arms and could still breathe. Realization hit him. He was a soldier in a war, in the middle of the desert, next to a dead woman, with a sickly baby.
A thought came to him. He snapped into action and ran as fast as he could back to camp, going straight to Riza's tent. "Lieutenant! I need to see you inside!" He whispered hurriedly. "It's urgent! Vital!"
A voice pulled Riza out of her light doze. Hearing Roy's voice she immediately perked to attention, going from lying on her side to kneeling. "Come in." Roy crawled into the tent. Riza looked confused as she examined him with her eyes. "What's so urgent and vital? You look fine."
Roy shook his head. "It's not me." As carefully as a child holding a butterfly or a snowflake in their palms, the soldier gently lifted the baby swaddled in blankets out of his coat.
In silence, Riza took the baby. She unwrapped the blankets and gently looked him over. "Major, where in the world did you get a baby?" Roy explained quickly.
The baby boy slowly began to squirm and whimper in Riza's hands, coughing. Their voices and all of the movement had woken him, as he had fallen asleep in the comforting warmth of Roy's coat. Riza and Roy startled at the sound of the infant's coughs, and looked down. Riza sighed, stroking the boy's downy white hair. "Hello, little one." The usually hard edged sniper held the baby to her chest, rubbing his back and whispering. "I know, I know sweetie. You're hot and sick and hungry and your Mama isn't here." Riza looked to Roy with saddened eyes. "I don't think we can do anything for him, Major, if that's what you want. I doubt he'll survive the night and even if he does, we can't take him with us. He'll be found." She bit her lip. "The best we can do is keep him comfortable until he..." She trailed off, kissing the baby's head.
Roy nodded. "What can I do to help?"
Riza thought for a second. "Get me some medicines, goat's milk, and an eye dropper." Roy nodded and rushed out of the tent, grabbing a canteen of goat's milk and going through one of the bags of medical supplies. He started to reflect on what he had just seen. He had no idea that his hotheaded and often snarky and standoffish friend could be so gentle, tender, and motherly. For some reason, the manner of acting seemed to fit her just as much, if not more than what most saw her as. It honestly melted the alchemist's war torn heart and made him love his childhood friend even more.
Roy soon returned to Riza's tent with what she had asked for. The sweetest sight greeted his tired eyes. Riza giggling as the infant used what little strength he had to chew on her dog tags and play with her short hair. "No, cutie! I know you're really hungry, but these aren't food!" She laughed, gently pulling the dog tags from the baby boy's toothless mouth. He pouted and began to whimper. The sniper smiled and kissed her charge's cheek. "Shush, honey. You're okay. It's not the end of the world. You're alive, baby."
Roy sighed and knelt beside the temporary mother, handing her the supplies she asked for. Riza nodded her thanks and gently began to give the baby goat's milk from the eye dropper, stroking his tiny throat as he was so weak that he needed help swallowing. After getting a bit of food in his stomach, Riza mixed the different medicines she thought might help with goat's milk so they formed a sort of paste, and let her patient suck it off of her fingers.
After a minute or two, the baby's suckling on her fingers got weaker and weaker. Riza looked into Roy's eyes. "Is he fading from us?"
Roy could not, or more likely would not respond directly. "Make him feel comfortable, safe, and loved." It was the only way he thought that he could reply that Riza was most likely right without breaking both of their hearts, but it didn't work. He still felt his heart shatter into shards, and from Riza's eyes he could tell that her's was fragmented and quickly turning to mere dust inside of her normally stoic exterior.
Silently and softly, the sniper slowly picked up the weakening child and slowly began to rock him. She stroked the thin hair, white and pure as an angel's wings, and lovingly kissed the slowly closing Ishvallan eyes, all prestigious gone from her and her comrade with the Eastern winds. She was practically whispering the words of an ancient folk song. A song that spoke of a beautiful land, and healing.
"How gentle was the breeze Will we treasure all the secrets Will the flowers grow again How soulful those words Will we treasure all the secrets Will the flowers grow again
That surrounded the way
How loud the sea's roar
On the four winds everyday
Sharing love,
Wounded gifts from ancient long ago
Together they closed in the circles we know
With lives changing scenes
Where our hearts were warm with love
So much love
As I open out my hand
Precious time
Time for healing
The beauty of this land
The beauty of this land
That confuses the way
How wild the mountains stare
As they guard our everyday
Take for granted noble hearts
In the Golden Age that's flown
Between us recall on
A strong road we've known
With lives changing scenes
Where our hearts were warm with love
So much love
As I open out my hand
Precious time
Time for healing
The beauty of this land.
Riza sighed as she felt the baby's sweet, sacred breath that was his life force grow farther from them. She turned to Roy. "He needs a name. I may not be religious in any sense of the word, but something biblical, angelic seems appropriate for him, don't you think?"
Roy nodded. After a while of thinking, he spoke, watching the infant's chest rise and fall. "What about...Noah? Noah was strong, and a survivor like him."
Riza smiled slightly and nodded. "Noah, because he will survive. He has to..."