ENIGMA

Their relationship was not a romantic one. That, she had already managed to deduce. Still, she questioned what exactly they were to each other. Riza Hawkeye was not a person that could be baffled easily, but this question was one that had left her clueless for quite a while.

Her own feelings, she'd finally managed to pick apart, analysing each and every section of her heart. She knew what she'd like their relationship to be, though that question she'd pondered over for many a years already. This new puzzle threatened to take away many more years of her life.

There were the soft, sad smiles he gave her, and the way he couldn't meet her gaze when she caught him staring to take into consideration. There was the time she'd been woken by his hands brushing her bangs out of her eyes one early morning at the office when the rest of his subordinates were still at home, and he'd come in what seemed an ungodly hour to someone like him.

Why she hadn't opened her eyes then and there while his hand rested lightly on her forehead, she did not know, but when she felt his ghost of a kiss feather onto the scar usually hidden under her chin on the right side of her neck that he himself had given her while setting fire to the tattoo on her back. It was such an intimate spot (for some reason she would not know) that even if he'd ordered her to do so, she would not have opened her eyes then, as his lips hovered just above the scar, his cheek and neck brushing the underside of her chin and skimming the top of her collarbone.

When he'd left to change into his uniform, she'd bolted upright, face flushed and hand pressed to where his lips had lingered, heart pounding and head spinning.

Then, there was that time. The night she'd finally revealed her father's work to him. How his eyes had glittered and gleamed with anticipation as she'd told him she would show him the secret. Then how that expression had morphed into surprise and confusion as she'd stripped off the overlarge t-shirt she was wearing, and then utter shock as the tatto, and its intrisic secrets, showed itself to the raven haired boy that he was back then.

His eyes only held horror and fear as the truth of what her father must have done to place that array on her back dawned on him.

They were silent as he ever so gently (almost as if he were afraid she'd break beneath his touch) fingered the flowing, thin lines on her back. She was young, then, younger. So when his arms suddenly wrapped themselves around her almost bare waist, she had yelped in panic.

Though she trusted him with her life, she had been afraid, not knowing where his intentions lay now that her father was no longer there to govern them. However, this changed back to trust when he'd handed her the shirt, indicating for her to put it back on.

"D-don't you want to use it-?" she had asked, for a moment fearful that he had no use for it - for her, and throw her away, but she knew him better than that to question him.

His eyes were soft and pitying as answered, "No. Not yet.. I - I was probably right there, wasn't I? Right there in that house while he did this to you, in another room. Sleeping, or practising my Alchemy.." he shook his head regretfully, "Why didn't you call out to me? We - he was bigger than us - but with the two of us we could have stopped him. I didn't know."

She had smiled, speaking surely, "You know how he is, so full of his dreams of Alchemy and Science. And he is - was - my father, I couldn't crush his hopes. Couldn't betray him."

"It must have hurt." he's said, without sugarcoated words, quite simply, in fact. But it was the sadness in his voice for which she'd cried, translucent, useless tears that she refused to admit to. But then she'd whimpered, muffled by his shoulder as he'd drawn her closer.

And she couldn't be sure, but as he'd sat on the Hawkeye's kitchen floor, her curled up on his lap, his arms tight around her, rubbing up and down the back of his long black jacket that he'd put on her, as if it could take away the pain that her father had written onto her back. And she couldn't be absolutely sure, but she could've sworm she'd hear a soft 'I love you', as she'd drifted off to sleep, but that could've been a dream.