A/N: Okay, sorry everyone, this update was a long time in coming! I HAVE AN EXCUSE!:

My 'a' key was broken- you cannot type ANYTHING without an 'a' key, hmph.

Summary: Roy's brigade is given an assignment in Riza & Roy's hometown, to protect Riza's (slightly annoying) aunt who's been receiving death threats. Lots of faces and places from their past. ROYAI! Lots of OCs and all that good stuff!

Disclaimer:

Me: C'mere, boy! C'mon! Fetch! Yeah! Fetch!
Disclaimer (complete with long silver hair and dog demon ears, suspiciously like InuYasha): Hey! Don't treat me like a dog!
Me: Just do your job...
Disclaimer: Why should I? Hmph... I am a demon!
Me: You're only a half-demon. Hah. And anyway... don't make me... say it!
Disclaimer: (cowers in fear) The extraordinarily annoying, lazy authoress-
Me: SIT, boy! SIT SIT SIT SIT SIT SIT!
Disclaimer: (crashes into the floor face first) I mean, the authoress does not own FullMetal Alchemist or InuYasha, from which I have been summoned with a philosopher's stone/Shikon Jewel shard just for disclaimer duty...
Me: Unfortunately, I am incredibly lazy and do not like typing stuff I already have written out. But I also must write out a story before I can type it. So, ummm... paradoxical much?

PLEASE review. Reviews are soooo helpful to newbies like me! Reviews determine the fate of this story! To be continued or not to be continued…

I created my own OCs, of which there will be many. The Becka, however, is NOT Rebecca from the manga- the name fit the character, and I got this idea a looong time ago, before I knew about Rebecca.

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Faces, Places, and Memories Chapter Two

A young Riza is sitting in the branches of an old oak tree on her Aunt Daria's estate, daydreaming. About Evil Plans. Her PoV.

Swinging her feet, Riza wondered impatiently when they would get there. She had their bucket of ice water and soap all ready, but there was no place to set it down up here. She was sitting on the only flat part, and the thing was heavy. She idly considered dumping it on Trivva and Becka's heads, just for making her wait such a long time, then quickly discarded the idea. The three nine-year-olds had worked on this revenge plan all morning, and had to put it in motion before Aunt Daria called her in for lunch. She guiltily glanced up the sloping lawn towards the mansion- she was in sight of the party room windows, so that rule wasn't broken. Yet. But-

"Come on, Roy, we have to show you now!" Trivva's bossy tones carried on the breeze.

"What is it, anyway? Alchemy?" The young Roy's eager voice came from the hedge bordering the garden. Three bobbing heads were coming down the path, Trivva's red curls leading with Becka's brown waves bringing up the end. In the middle was their target- the top of Roy's head was just visible from her vantage point.

Becka's soft, kind voice said, "You'll see. We promise it's something really good."

"Where's Miss Riza? I'm not sure I trust you two." Roy was suspicious.

"Oh, she went in for lunch." Becka blithely lied.

"Oh." (A/N: Yes, Roy is extremely gullible, but... artistic license, people!)

"Right over here..." Trivva took special care to sound innocent.

"Where? There's nothing special here." The group was right underneath Riza's tree. Roy was looking around, obviously confused.

"Riiiiiiiiiiight... here!" Trivva giggled as she shouted the signal phrase. A cascade of ice-cold, soapy, lemon-juicy water poured on poor Roy's head. The sopping wet alchemy apprentice was angry. "Hey! What was th-that for?" Roy shivered in the summer breeze.

"Pushing Becka into the ocean last Saturday." young Riza said matter-of-factly. (is young capitalized? Grammar help here, please?)

Just like it had been all those years ago... But then the dream started to change, to morph from a vision of the past into a nightmare scene as time froze around them.

"Loyal to a fault, little Riza, aren't you? Two steps behind, always two steps behind someone. Isn't that right? But why him, Riza dear, why him?" The young Roy changed, shimmering into a monster straight out of her fairytale book when she was four. A slimy, black-skinned, twisted horror-movie-character with glowing red eyes.

"What...Who...Where's Roy?!" Hawkeye used her commanding officer's first name, subconsciously ignoring the rules of 'Mr. Mustang', 'Colonel', and 'Sir' established unbreakably all those years ago. The rules established in her mind, but in her heart...

"Why would you care?" The monster narrowed his eyes and clapped his clawed hands, like a joyful child on Christmas morning. "But of course, little Riza dear, I forgot. You love him. Don't you?" The monster grinned when Hawkeye didn't answer right away.

"No. I don not love him. That is not allowed. I simply... respect him. Loving him is against the rules." Those rules, unbreakable. Always there. A wall, both protecting and limiting. For if you cannot leave your safe refuge, nothing can ever happen. Rules as strict as the laws of gravity. the laws which kept her from jumping the fifteen feet to the ground right now and strangling the answer out of the monster.

"Oho! 'Loving him is against the rules'. Then you don't deny you really love him." The fiend grinned at her, hideous teeth bared.

"Stop avoiding the question!" she shouted crossly. She was really, really angry at this... thing. "What... have... you... done... with... ROY?!"

"Hmmm. Well, hate to hafta be the one to break it to ya, but..." the creature giggle, smirking. (Wow. Evil creature giggling? My mind come sup with such odd things...)

"But WHAT?!"Riza Hawkeye was officially at her breaking point. If only her nine-year-old self had guns...

"He's dead. You know, dead. Gone. Poof. Passed away. Passed on. In heaven. In hell. that sort of thing." the thing grinned at her, pulling an adult Roy's dead body from behind the tree. The corpse had no plce in this world, a world of innocence and childhood. Her friend's faces had gone gray and smudged, the sunlight frozen before it reached the earth. Time itself was gone... 'This wasn't how it went...' some concious part of her whispered. The rest of her was frozen in shock. Only water... like the rain... that was all. That was all they'd dumped on him. A joke... Water from the sky, like the rain... 'he's useless in the rain...' a part of her reminded her. Did she kill him? She protected him... She was supposed to protect him... this wasn't right...

"Haven't you figured it out yet? You're at a crossroads, little Riza. You've been dillydallying there too long. Choose a future. Either one where you admit you love him, or one where you continue to deny it. I am at the end of one of them. You won't know which until you get there, so... you'll just have to take a risk."

With the nightmare creature's manic laughter echoing in her ears, she sat bolt upright in her bed. She was at home. In her bed. In the middle of the night. Her home now, not then. Just a dream. Just a dream. She laid back on her pillow, calmed her breathing, and went back to sleep.

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Roy's PoV:

"Okay men, here we are. The two o'clock train to Wishing Springs. The only one for another week- lucky timing huh?" Roy swept his arm towards the steam engine, where a conductor's boarding shout could be faintly heard. The group was in civilian dress, as they would be the entire mission. Hmm, Ri- Lieutenant Hawkeye is late. How rare. The same barriers were in his heart, too. Protecting, limiting walls of titles and formality...

"Um, sir? Did First Lieutenant Hawkeye... get the wrong time?" A nervous Feury seemed positive that there was no way Riza Hawkeye could be late.

Roy smirked."Oh, i gave her the right time. I'm sure of it. Perhaps the Lieutenant is simply...late." The famous Mustang smirk widened. (A/N: gasps of horror!)

"Oh..."Feury was at a loss for words, anime sweatdropping.

"The one and only Lieutenant Hawkeye... twenty minutes late?" Havoc seemed to enjoy the thought.

"It appears so." Roy was starting to worry- there was no sign of his rogue Lieutenant on the rainy train platform. Wait...since when have I started thinking of her in the possessive? He tried to shake off the anxious feeling like a dog shakes off water. He scanned the gray, drizzly streets around the station. The weak afternoon sunlight seemed to be having a hard time making its way through the thick gray clouds. Nothing coming down the streets to the north, the east, train tracks to the south, the west, the east again..Roy turned in a circle. They were about to board, and she was really late. Where was she?!

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Okay. Short, yeah, but I just wanted to get it uploaded today. Got a little drama and angst out of my system... Not where I thought I'd end it, but like i said, I wanted to upload it. Kind of a cliffie

Ummm... PLEASE REVIEW! Especially you, Julia!(You know who you are! Your fanfic name is too long to type out.) Reviews are cookies for my soul! TLL ME WHAT YOU THINK! more coming soon now that my 'a' key is fixed! Who knew banging it really hard would actually fix it...

PLEASE TELL ME, IN A REVIEW, if I should bring Ed, Al, and Winry in in the next chapter. I think I may, I think I might...

No, Julia, it's not going where you said it should go. That would take too much away from the main plot, sorry. But it was a good suggestion!