It was dark outside.
He was still staring out the window, and for once, she said nothing. The piles of paperwork lay in haphazard order, and instead of admonishing him, she merely straightened them, one after another, alphabetizing and restacking mindlessly.
"Sir?"
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Sir, you should go home."
He said nothing.
"Colonel—"
"Colonel." He laughed sarcastically. "I kill two innocents who were trying to do good, and they promote me."
Riza sighed and instead of comforting him, she returned to the papers.
"How do you sleep?" he asked her suddenly, watching her.
"What do you mean, sir?" she asked, giving up on the paperwork.
"Your gun never wavers, does it?"
"No."
"How do you do it?"
She was silent for a long moment before she finally spoke. "You swore on that battlefield you'd become Fuhrer." She stopped.
I grew up with a military family, she thought. Depend on no man, only your gun. My brothers pounded that lesson into me. I grew up with the smell of gunpowder, they gave me a little bib gun when I was two. I was learning to fight even when other girls were learning to smile. It was my life.
He heard the click of her gun as she dismantled it easily, her fingers so sure, she wasn't even watching.
I watched my brothers march off to war, one by one, read the little notices of their deaths as the piled up on the kitchen table. My father never even opened one. Never even looked. He'd let me read them, and I'd just look at him and he wouldn't ask. We never…we never were what you would consider a good family. We never had what you see—a kind but stern father, a gentle and loving mother. My mother was dead, my father cold and efficient in his care.
He watched her clever fingers lovingly clean the impeccable gun. As if she were wiping a child's cheek instead of the cold metal of a firearm.
I never saw my father hesitate when it came to war. I thought all soldiers were like that. It was a cold-hearted, violent profession. And that's how I grew up, knowing where I would go, knowing I had to prepare myself.
She held the gun up and considered it slowly.
But that first time you killed, you hesitated. And I knew then that you weren't the man that my father became. But who knows? Maybe my father hesitated, too, the first time. But you still do. Every single time, you still stop for just a fraction of a second before you flick your fingers.
She finally looked at him.
You don't have the heart for this job, Roy, though I would never tell you that. But your intentions are good, better than the current Fuhrer I think. And I swear to you, no matter where you choose to go, I will be there to protect you. I will help you find your own feet.
She smiled quietly. "My gun will be steady, sir, for as long as you falter."