Day One: Stolen
They subsist on stolen moments. And if Riza sometimes thinks that it's not fair, well, it wouldn't be the first time.
It's not that she doesn't know that this world is not fair—she does, more so than most. But she can't help but wish, in the darkest hours of the darkest nights, that her life had turned out differently. That Amestris wasn't the way it was, that they needn't forfeit so much of themselves for so many (who will not even know their names and sacrifices, when it is done). Granted, it is a rare moment of weakness when she wishes this, but she does it all the same. Perhaps that is what all soldiers do, when they lie awake in the night, plagued with the memories of what they have done.
In the waking hours, when she sees the work they have yet to do, she rolls up her sleeves and immerses herself in the bureaucracy of military life without complaint. If this is what must be done to make the world over in a better image, then so be it. Giving herself and her life so that others may live in a world without war, without bloodshed and corruption and everything they're fighting against, she feels her sacrifice to be worth it. There are worse fates to be had, than to give yourself for others.
And if her commanding officer just so happens to send her a piercing stare when no one else is looking, or brushes the tips of his fingers against hers when she passes him a file, and if those furtive actions are what strengthen the steel she's molded across her bones, then so be it. The secret touches, the private moments they steal in between the long stretches of the day—they are her sanctuary. They remind her of the as-yet-untarnished future that might lay before them, across the rivers of blood and mountains of corpses that stand in her way. There are years of work to accomplish, and the looks he gives to her push her on, especially on the days where it doesn't feel worth it.
Especially on the days that she is reminded of the bloodier (and entirely too possible) alternative their future might hold.
Riza is not an optimistic person by nature. She is a realist, one who assesses what life has seen fit to give them and plans accordingly. Her life may turn out one of two (hundred, thousand) ways, and she is pragmatic about which one may come to pass. After all their hard work, after all the blood, sweat, and tears they put into trying to make this country new, their only thanks might be at the end of a muzzle. She'd known that going in, and so had he.
But that does not mean she doesn't hope for the future in which he succeeds, the future where he can look over his work and smile—and smile at her openly when she's at his side. She doesn't let herself linger on the image for too long, but she keeps it deep within her, where she is the only one who might look upon it. It is her secret hope, that one day they might shake off their self-imposed chains and admire their work without threat of retribution. And in those hot, slow afternoons in the military office when Roy flashes her an electrifying look, she finds herself clutching onto that hope just a little tighter.
To anyone else, she brushes off his near-invisible flirtations with nary a blink of an eye. But Riza is a soldier (and a quiet, introverted person by nature), schooled in the art of concealing her innermost thoughts. Even her coworkers remain oblivious to her reactions, but Roy isn't. He is the only one who knows.
But even if she lingers a little too long with a file, or meets his gaze a little more frequently than the others, well…
They only have these stolen moments (for now)—and so she makes the most of them.