Author: Manda
Category: Drama
Pairing: Roy/Liza & Al/Winry (both slight)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: You should know who all the anime sins are.
Notes: Set several years after the ending of the anime. As always, feedback, critique, "This is OOC!" comments, friendship offers, Jones' soda, original fiction publishing offers, and several new fans for my dorm room are welcome
When she thinks back on it, she isn't sure when it happened.
All of them are in one red-brick two-story house in Central; her, Roy, Ed, and Winry. Somehow, the five of them haven't managed to kill each other yet, though there are times when she enters the house and there is a singe mark on the wall, or Roy's desk has been transmuted into a statue of Ed.
Al and Winry laugh whenever such things occur. The two find solace in each other: Al, clumsy with his new-old body, and Winry, hurt after a rejection by Ed. There was an awkward time for a while, where the two would accidentally touch in the kitchen and they would jump back, one or both blushing.
One day Roy walked very quickly out of the library and grumbled "They're using my chair for purposes other than it was meant for." Liza laughed and told him he could use her study for work.
He is always working now. He is President-king, and attempting to turn a dictatorship into a democracy while turning back enemies at the country's borders. He is well-known, respected, and works himself to death. Liza sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night and finds him hunched over paperwork, a pot of coffee his only companion. She's always momentarily surprised. She forgets that he is not Colonel Mustang but President Mustang now and does much of his own paperwork. Only once in a while does she have to drag him in from the summer weather and threaten to chain him to his desk.
She is his secretary. They refrain from calling her that after the whole mess with Douglas. "Chief aide" is officially her title, though she holds the rank of General.
So she is surprised, one night, when she finds him with a pot of coffee and no paperwork.
"First lieutenant," he says with a nod and she falters, from the wrong title and the formality.
He realizes his mistake and yawns.
"It's been a long night, Liza. Sorry."
"No paperwork tonight? Then you should be in bed."
"I've been thinking."
"About the past, perhaps?" That's all he ever thinks about, even now. His guilt about every person he's ever killed in a useless war and every person who ever died unjustly during Bradley's reign almost has a tangible form.
"Perceptive as always. But I can tell it's not the past anymore simply because you were never this talkative back then." He smiles, such a rare occurrence, even now. "You've become a regular old gossip compared to what you used to be. You and Winry's weekly excursions to the coffee shop have grown longer and longer."
She falls silent. The smile morphs into one of the famous smirks that she hasn't seen in months. The sight of it makes her want to cry. It's been too long.
"Please go to sleep, Roy."
He blows a stray black lock of hair away from his face.
"I've become used to a sedentary lifestyle with no sleep whatsoever. These kind of habits aren't easy to break." He spars with Ed and Al every day that he can on their green-grass front lawn, but it is nowhere close to his old training regime. In those days, she would drag him out of Central's practice areas and back into his office to sign papers. Sweat always coated his arms, his face, everywhere, and he smelled of what she could only describe as fire.
He looks down at his hands. "I'm even out of practice with my alchemy. The flames are always weak. I don't think I could kill anyone with fire anymore without a lot of re-learning."
There is another silence and Liza wonders where his gloves are. When was the last time she saw him with them? She can't remember.
"In one week, Fullmetal and I are going on a journey. Possibly to regain things we have lost."
Her mind is sometimes more literal than she likes to admit, so it takes her a moment to catch on.
"You have gained much." The title of President. The respect of everyone in this country. The hearts of all the women (and some of the men). What else could you want?
He rests his head on the table and smiles at her again.
"Much in the way of paperwork. I know this sounds stupid, but I miss having those gloves touch my skin, as much pain as they've caused me. I miss fighting with Edward all the time. I miss having such a big goal as becoming President."
"You have accomplished much."
"I know. The free elections will happen in a year and the treaties will be signed as soon as the stupid other countries' stupid parliaments ratify them. It's the perfect time to go on vacation. I'll return several months before the elections."
Why can't I go with you? she wants to ask, but cannot. Instead, "You are President and your own person; it is your own decision."
She rests her head in her hand and looks away.
He frowns immediately.
"Liza. What's wrong?"
She lies. "Who but you can take care of this country properly?"
"You can. You've always been much more steady than me, you know. Never tempted to sloth, gluttony, lust, greed, or any of the other sins I've fallen to over the years."
It's what makes you interesting, though - she wants to say. It's what makes you - lovable.
"Your knuckles have gone white." When did you become more perceptive? she almost hisses out loud.
"I am continually tempted by envy."
"You have no reason to envy anyone, President Hawkeye."
She doesn't react.
"You're the only person for it, you know, except maybe Armstrong." His head is still on the table.
She softens enough to half-smile. Sparkles running the country?
"And so it will be. Please go to bed."
He nods, walks up the decorated wooden staircase to his bedroom. She can't get back to sleep.
A week later, he and Edward leave. That morning he sings in the shower, happily picks a grey hair out in the middle of the hallway and takes a run outside with Black Hayate. She notices the white sticking out of the pockets of his exercise clothes; otherwise, she wouldn't let him go anywhere alone. He is respected, but surely not universally loved. Black Hayate is well trained and the President capable of defending himself. Still, she cannot help but worry.
He returns after a half hour, sweat gleaming off every bit of skin, radiant. Liza reads the morning paper as he rifles through the kitchen's wooden cupboards, throwing cans of food and loaves of bread into a bag.
Liza decides after he leaves she will go to the shooting range and stay there for a long time.
The five sit down to one of Alphonse's usual excellent breakfasts of bacon and eggs. Liza is the odd one out; Ed and Roy discuss their travel plans while Al and Winry discuss the state of their vegetable garden.
The next half-hour is a blur. He and Edward hug the other three and walk out the door, dressed in plainclothes. He doesn't tell her where he's going, only says that he'll call at least once every week. They're off to find trouble, she knows; seek out injustice like the Fullmetal Alchemist did when Roy was Colonel. Boys' night out. Except for months.
He's already sent in the official declaration. She's temporary President, and she has work to do. Except now she's crying into his bed, any and all plans to go to the shooting range abandoned. Why is this upsetting? she repeats to herself. Why is this upsetting? It shouldn't be upsetting.
She cried like this after Hughes died. Certainly not at the funeral and certainly not around Roy. After his first tear, the rest fell like rain, and he talked straight through them as if nothing happened. This made her urge to curl up somewhere and just have the world go away even more fierce; she somehow made sure he made it to his house by thinking of puppies and the sound of Roy's voice instead of the funeral they had just attended.
He invited her in. He said he had some old wine he could break open, in honor of everything Hughes was "and still is". She said no in a haze, you need to sleep, not get drunk, and I need...to do something. She wandered back to her house and collapsed on her bed, buried her head in the pillow and did not take off the heavy dress uniform. Although she rightfully should have been with him that night, it would be even worse to let him see her cry.
She calms down when she thinks of this and realizes she is in his room instead of hers. Oops, she thinks dryly, and rolls over to face the right side of the room.
There's not much there. President Mustang is - was - in Central's main office many days, listening to blasé reports and meeting with semi-insane representatives from Creta and "whatever that other weird country's name was again". When he is home, he often sits in his old office chair in the library.
"I'm most comfortable when surrounded by books," he told her once. It makes sense to her, given alchemy's roots in research and writing. She loves the written word herself, but cannot stand reading more than the basic theory of alchemy. And perhaps it's better that she doesn't. She has never had to face a lump of charred flesh; shots are much cleaner.
The door creaks open. "Miss Liza?"
Liza jumps off the bed as Alphonse enters. The boy fumbles with his hands and looks down as he speaks.
"Miss Liza, I wouldn't bother you like this except there's a priority call from Headquarters for you." He still insists upon calling her Miss, even after all these years.
She steadies herself and hopes she doesn't have red eyes. "Of course. Thank you, Al."
She focuses intently on every step down the stairs. A fairly painless conversation with Armstrong on the phone follows; there are a few papers for her to sign but they can wait until tomorrow. Perhaps he hears the tremor in her voice, because the briefing is the shortest she's ever had. She hangs up, and Al is behind her, fooling with the knobs on their new silver stove. Making the little purple fires spike upward and then curl downward to the right setting.
"Miss Liza, will you be joining us for dinner tonight or do you have work to do?" he asks, half-turned around.
When did he get his flesh body back? There are cats around her feet, meowing. She bends down absentmindedly to pet them and thinks, when did these cats get here?
Al waits for her response.
"I'm sorry," she says, and smiles. "I'm a little out-of-it tonight, and not that hungry. So I'm just going to go to bed for the night. Thank you for the offer, though," she says, and climbs the first few steps of the staircase.
"You don't have to wait for him," Alphonse says. She stops, but doesn't turn around.
"You don't have to wait," Alphonse repeats. "Mom waited, but you're not Mom."
"Thank you," she says, and continues upstairs. She buries her face in his pillow again, but this time calmly and lets his smell linger in her nostrils.
He has accomplished his goals now, she thinks as she falls asleep in his bed, in his room. Who is that blonde-haired girl who tails him everywhere he goes, like a little dog? But doesn't follow him when he doesn't want her to?
She dreams of the Elric brothers' mother, watches her grow gaunt and hollow in a few seconds like she did over a period of months. She dies crying Hohenheim's name. A grinning Sloth crawls out of Trisha's stiff body.
"Men use women until their goals are accomplished," she says, and wraps her liquid arms around Liza, who wears a first lieutenant's stripes. "Then they're discarded, and have nothing left."
Sloth's liquid slides up her nose and down her throat, and Liza has to fight to breathe. You had your sons! Liza wants to scream. We-I have a free Amestris, where good men like Hughes do not die for nothing anymore!
Heat flows in waves over her body as Sloth melts in flames. The moment before the flames break through what is Sloth and hits what is First Lieutenant Liza Hawkeye, she sees his black eyes.
She wakes up with her face still in Roy's pillow. That accounts for the trouble breathing in the dream, she thinks in a calm that she has not felt for days. A lit match pointed at the clock reveals it is 5 AM.
It is time to do something for myself. I give him one week.
And there is one week's worth of paperwork. One week's worth of meetings, one week's worth of home-made dinners with Al and Winry. Running (something she used to do, and got out of the habit of) every morning with Black Hayate. She feels safe, with the well-trained dog and with the knowledge that Amestris is not the country it used to be. There is not the danger that used to be.
She sleeps soundly every night. And on the eighth morning, she gathers clothes and food with a stealth she has not practiced in years, and writes a note to Al and Winry. She doesn't want Black Hayate to follow her, but the dog does anyway.
The next stop is Central headquarters, where she smiles as she thinks that sparkles will indeed be running the country.
She also smiles when she thinks of when she will finally meet up with a foul-mouthed youngster. And his companion, a sweaty, grime-covered, flame-throwing alchemist who could be vaguely reminiscent of the country's leader. If he put some clean clothes on.
Liza Hawkeye moves forward, steps one foot in front of the other, and thinks of this.