Disclaimer: Not mine. Nope. Notta. Nient. No infringement intended.
-Lost in the Dark-
Set up: immediately after the events of the promised day. Roy and Riza are recovering in the hospital.
Riza woke from a restless sleep in the wee hours of the morning. Disoriented by her surroundings and groggy from her meds she isn't sure at first what has caused her to wake. Then she hears it, a cacophony of voices from the direction of the Col.'s room. For the thousandth time that day she curses the hospital policy that states that patients of the opposite sex can not share a room (she has been turned out of his room twice already). She understands that rules exist for a reason and has many times lectured the Col. on this very principle. Yet, some rules have exceptions and... she hates not knowing if he is okay... if he needs her...
She is on her feet at once, tying a robe over her hospital gown and (like the other ambulatory patients in the ward) peering out of her doorway. As she takes a step out into the corridor, a nurse comes hurtling toward her. "Ms. Hawkeye?" Riza acknowledges her, more interested in the nurse's news than correcting her omission of her rank. "It's the Col., he must have had a nightmare or flashback of some kind. He keeps calling for an Elizabeth but no one knows who she is..."
This is all Riza needs to hear before she is racing down the corridor to the, far too familiar, door ahead. The nurse scurries after her almost too breathless to finish her report. "No one can calm him" she gasps practically hysterical "and his blood pressure is spiking dangerously. If it doesn't stop we'll have to sedate him." Riza is through the door and assessing the situation before the nurse has a chance to squeak her final words.
Skidding to a stop behind her in the doorway, the nurse does however catch the dangerous glint in the 'hawk's eyes' when she glares the medical staff into submission. "Do. not. touch. him." the words are clipped and tight. "If you are not needed here" she continues in a tone that suggests that none of them are in fact needed "Get. Out."
The staff dissipates like smoke, clearing the room as the tearful nurse stammers "b-but his blood pressure-"
"Needn't have gotten so high if I'd have been called sooner or... been allowed to stay where I am needed"
Riza approaches the bed where Roy crouches in a defensive position. A position she'd shown him back in Ishval, when all had feared that death would come for them in their sleep. With nothing to attack, he rakes his sightless eyes across the now silent room. He gasps desperately for air as if there will never be enough of it. The sheets of his bed have fallen into disarray; tossed aside in his fight with the hospital staff and the less tangible demons of his dreams.
"c-can you calm him?" The nurse pleads.
Riza nods not trusting her voice just then. His obvious fear and pain gut her and she silently swears, policy or no, that she won't leave this room till he does.
As she has done for him (and he for her) the countless times he'd awoken lost in the darkness of their mutual past, she reaches out for his right foot. Taking a hold of it as he flinches away at the touch, she murmurs sweet and comforting nonsense.
"Roy, come back to me" she beckons, and the tension begins to ease from his shoulders. A few moments more and he has come back to himself. At last, with the uttered word "Elizabeth," his breath steadies and he lets his head fall back into the pillows.
"Where are we and why is it so dark?"
The question, if possible, hurts Riza less than his fearful tone.
She swallows and asks around the lump in her throat, "Where do you think we are?"
He shakes his head and begins to say that he doesn't know.
"Use your other senses, sir" she prompts as, acquiescing to the weakness of her legs, she takes a seat at the foot of the bed. Feeling the mattress sink with her weight, Roy perceptibly relaxes focusing on the task. He allows the familiarity of the exercise and the sound of her even breaths to further soothe his nerves. This too is part of their established script for dealing with such... , what had Riza called them? 'Shades.'
He closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Savoring the feel of the air in his lungs now that it is not so scarce. With each breath new smells come to him. Antiseptic, floor wax, blood -old and faint but there, sweat and the smell of other bodily functions. A rubber soled shoe squeaks on a tile floor and echoes in an adjacent corridor, the wheel of a cart rattles, and a man snores in a room down the hall. A women, not Riza, clears her throat from a position not far away- a door?. His hands finger the bed linens, cheap as expected, and confirm the presence of a paper bracelet about his wrist.
From its continued presence on his ankle, Roy extrapolates the position of Riza's hand. Taking it between his own he gently pulls until she draws closer to him. His fingers pause at the paper bracelet around her own wrist. With her quiet permission he traces a path up her arm and to the bandage he instinctively knows will be at her throat; just as he also instinctively knows he will never see it with his own eyes.
"We are in a hospital," he states calmly but, with a slight tremor in his voice, "in a private room or else my roommate is no longer present (which isn't likely as it is night). Yet, we're not alone." He hears the nurse cough and shift her weight uncomfortably.
"Let me guess," He continues gaining strength, "I have annoyed the good nurse, who is standing in the doorway, by waking her patients and giving everyone a scare." He feels Riza nod, his fingers still resting lightly on her cheek. "Can you tell her I have my wits now, Lt., so she can get back to the patients who need her more than I do."
Riza quietly dismisses the nurse who stands in awe of the change in her patient. Better the woman leave now before she connects the dots and realizes exactly who 'Elizabeth' is or that Riza had first addressed the Col. as Roy. The hospital staff already has enough to talk about and there is little Riza despises more than gossip.
Once the nurse leaves, Riza rises from her seat to collect a towel and basin of water from a nearby table. Roy relaxes back into to the bed with a sigh and shifts to one side to give Riza more space beside him when she returns. She notes his unspoken invitation but refuses to give in to the temptation to simply curl into him and forget everything except the beating of his heart
She instead sets the basin on the side table and slowly takes in his ruffled appearance. She dampens the towel in the basin and wrings it out. She gives him time to object but, when he does not, runs the cool cloth over his brow and across his cheeks wiping away his sweat and tears. She rakes his hair back into order with the fingers of her other hand. If he could have purred he might have done so and completely embarrassed them both. For them the gesture is intimate and familiar. A transgression allowed because contact is so desperately needed.
In a few long moments Riza has completed her task, content to see Roy looking more himself albeit a little flushed. Her cheeks also burn but, as always, no mention will be made of this. She places a hand on his shoulder preparing to step away from the bed; and so break the contact that each of them craves like a drug. However, predicting her movement, Roy stops her. Taking ahold of her wrist he beseeches her to "stay," in a manner he knows she can't refuse.
So she stays, allowing him to pull her down to lay beside him. Without a care for the inevitable gossip, she melts into him. They sleep, her head resting on his shoulder and their legs intwined in the narrow bed. As long as they are together they can never be lost in the dark.