((Hi, guys! Again, thank you for the wonderful reviews! I'm sorry it took so long. I aggravated a shoulder injury I had at the beginning of the year. It's hard to type with a sling. T-T))
Riza had thought she had passed the largest obstacles of her journey. She had successfully avoided her former colleagues and her former commanding officer. The former lieutenant had fled to Aquroya, a city populous enough for her to slip in unnoticed. Tourists were coming there all the time, and it was quite common that, though the city was slowly sinking, people would fall in love with the place and move there, enjoying the city as much as they could. It was also close enough to Central to get a steady flow of information on the ever popular Flame Alchemist and how he was continuing to rise through the ranks. In addition to these reasons, she was reasonably certain she knew no one stationed there.
Maes was gone. Roy simply didn't have the strong connections he used to in the Investigations Department. It would be particularly challenging to dig up any of the remaining information on her, especially because she had resigned and any inquiry as to her civilian affairs was now illegal without a warrant.
She hadn't expected to see any of them, though. A few weeks after she rented out an apartment under her new name, Hawkeye had seen Havoc and Breda in a diner. The waitress had seated her in a booth in the corner that day. It had been in what could be called the early lunch hours, and to prepare for the traffic that was sure to come, the waitress had been seating customers in the booths as they came, not in accordance to party number. Riza didn't recognize them at first. Roy must have given them orders to cover their faces. Did he suspect her? Or was it just another necessary precaution to tread lightly in front of the higher-ups?
The retired sniper remembered their conversation well. A tall, well built man sat down first, griping about the lack of a smoking section. An amiable voice she recognized as that of the portly second lieutenant answered him, laughing, that he was only irked that the waitress hadn't flirted with him. Havoc grumbled that a certain "egotistical pyromaniac" (having not thrown in the towel yet, he was taking advice from Falman-for the first and last time- and incorporating lots of big words to make him seem intellectual to the waitress) had stolen so many dates from him that the smoker's skills must've atrophied. Breda had conversed more cheerfully, and Hawkeye gleaned from his words that they were all on leave, hunting her down. Roy and Armstrong had gone East, Fuery and Falman had gone North, and even the Elrics, already in the South exploring Ishbalan medicine in relation to alchemy, were helping out. She had also learned, interestingly enough, that Havoc could no longer blame his romantic incompetence on the Colonel, for Roy seemed to have given up all romantic pursuits, and had dropped his flirtatious façade. At this final tidbit, Hawkeye could feel her stomach doing flips, and it wasn't because of the baby.
Riza had lifted her menu up from her table and covered her face when she recognized them, praying to whatever God there was that they didn't recognize her. The waitress, after seating them, approached the woman to ask for her order. Hawkeye raised her voice's pitch a little bit, trying to disguise as much as possible. The waitress raised a brow questioningly. Hawkeye was aware that Havoc had been staring intently at the waitress. She could feel his eyes on the plastic cover of her menu.
"It's just the baby. It's a bit jumpy today," Riza told the waitress, using her appearance to draw up an escape plan. She looked different than she had when she left Central. Her hair was cut short, as it had been when she had first enlisted, and she wore a blue sundress that, though it didn't hide her present condition, didn't make her look as if she were a whale walking the streets.
"I think I'll come back later, in the afternoon," she said, the waitress nodding and smiling in response. Hawkeye could have sighed in relief. Havoc and Breda, in the next booth, would have undoubtedly heard her talk of the baby. Havoc had dropped his eyes, and Breda seemed intensely absorbed in the study of his menu. She knew they weren't stupid. If they had been hunting her down, any woman in Aquroya would be suspicious. They would never expect any pregnant woman to be their stern and strong Hawkeye.
She had figured that their leave was brief, and that Mustang should have to drop his inquiries soon to keep making progress with his goal. Her conjecture proved correct. That was the last time in months she ever saw any of them. She wondered occasionally whether or not they had dropped the search altogether, but she doubted they had. It was Roy she was thinking about. Roy Mustang was the most ambitious man she had ever met, and he had loved her. That's what made it so pleasant to stare into those posters that lined the colorful streets. Those posters often had frivolous, flamboyant print advertising military life beneath the portraits of famous heroes of Ishbal. The Colonel, of course, was the most popular. It was funny, really. The posters had been few at first because they would mysteriously disappear from public places, undoubtedly hawked by some giddy school girls or ditzy women, flattering themselves in their childlike infatuations.
That's what made it so painful. Looking into those twin orbs of dark ink, she realized how she had stolen him away as well. But her piece of him didn't bleed ink. No, it bled tears.
((Don't worry, folks. The next chapter, I assure you, won't have such a crappy ending. It will have actual action in it, too. ))