He's in so much shock that she has time to explain, fairly seriously, how she broke into his apartment. She knows where he keeps his spare key in his office desk, and she'd stayed late that evening at the office.
"Gracia called." fills in the rest of the information gaps, leaving Roy to piece it all together. "She said it was important I be here, sir."
Roy doesn't know how to begin to explain, can't comprehend the fact that his Lieutenant is in his apartment doorway, standing there with a face that almost doesn't betray her worry. She has one brow furrowed, and that's enough to show that she's more than a little concerned.
He waves her into his dining room. He doesn't know if she's already explored the new flat that he lives in, and he's only been to her apartment once, when they needed to stop and change out into uniform dress before a mission in Central Command. Their homes in Eastern are also new enough that they would be unfamiliar ground. She gives no indication that she is familiar with or surprised by his small dining room table, and the two chairs that are pushed up against it. He is a man who likes to be of fine appearances, but when it comes right down to it, the luxuries he's used to have always been a little worn around the edges, and filling his home with finery always seemed out of place.
He asks her to wait there, knowing she won't take a seat until he's explained himself, or come back, or ordered her to sit. At the moment, he doesn't much care. Roy maneuvers into his study, which is stuffed from the floor to the ceiling with notes, books, and maps. He has small, unreadable handwriting that doesn't reflect his bold and calculating personality. In alchemy, as in politics, he is secretive, and maybe even paranoid. Roy begins pulling books off the shelves - books written in other languages, published in Xing, or Drachma, books that he decidedly shouldn't have owned before the promised day, and did. There are also files, wound tightly closed with string after he discovered Sheska knew the entire Central library by heart. There were laws, pages and pages of them that he read in his spare time, and journals that reflected the information he'd learned in diary format, appearing to detail the women he'd slept with, dated, or bought dinner for. Then there are the maps - ones he'd paid small fortunes to procure throughout the years.
He grabs them all, knowing he's leaving behind things he'll want to reference, but unable to carry it all at once.
He dumps it on the table, rolling out the map of Amestris on the very top of the pile.
"I'm being discharged. By the end of the week." He swallowed, his gaze falling on Central on the map. It was the first thing he could say. It's the only thing he can manage to say, because it means everything they have carefully constructed together has utterly and completely fallen apart. "After friday evening, you will no longer be under my command."
And maybe for the first time in a long time, Roy is able to witness Riza Hawkeye. The last time he saw her, a woman desperate to be herself, was when she turned and demanded her burn her. Now, she is more than just a Lieutenant, he realizes. She is his adjutant, and she's had her own goals for far too long to let them be kicked out from under her. Something like fire flashes in her eyes.
"Sir, with all due respect, I don't understand." She stands in a ready position, with the posture of a soldier. But Roy knows this is the way she looks when she's digging in her heels on him.
"Fuhrer Grumman is issuing me an honorable discharge, and will appropriate my team accordingly."
"No, Sir. I'm not in the military to not be under your command." She replies evenly, giving him a hard and stubborn look. Her brown eyes are set, and her lips drawn. "I have your back, General." Riza adds, and Roy knows that she doesn't only mean it as a sign of reassurance. The agreement was that if he fell off the path, she would shoot him. He is a week away from falling.
"Roy." He blurts out. "You should get used to calling me Roy." It's an awkward sentence - being called Colonel or General has always been more intimate than saying Roy, but he knows that the titles will fall away soon. She looks discomfited. Anyone would feel uncomfortable knowing they might have to shoot a friend in the back. A superior officer is one thing, but using first names means finality, and is too close for comfort. She is ignoring him because she's desperately figuring out how to avoid doing this. He doesn't recall ever having used first names between the two of them aside from the one time he addressed her as Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye as he read from her file. For the first time, he realizes he's just as unpracticed in informalities as she is, and their names stick like foreign objects in their mouths. He can't relax the tension anymore than he can relax her stance.
The room is silent, and they have no idea what to do with each other.
Roy breaks the silence again. "Grumman is retiring." With this, he has her back again, brown eyes calculating, inspecting every map, notebook, and book he's laid out on the table.
"I'm running for office." He can see her shoulders tensing under the black fabric of her shirt as she leans forwards, inspecting the map. "If you follow me, you'll have to leave the military as well." Roy cautions, noting that just because there isn't a strap of guns across her back doesn't mean his sniper and personal aide isn't armed.
She's already pulling out his journals, reading the women's names and fitting together the codes. Perhaps it was because they'd used it together so many times, and perhaps it was because she knew him too well, but he didn't bother to explain that Amestris was Amelia and that the rest of the names listed weren't real dates. He didn't care to talk about the actual other women with her. They'd never really had a conversation about their personal lives beyond the polite Monday morning small talk over paperwork.
She realizes he's waiting for a response, and then almost dignifies him with a stony glare. "I said I would follow you through hell, Sir, a campaign isn't much different." She leans again, and he catches the top of her tattoos, in a spot that used to be covered by long golden hair. Her tone of voice is so firm that he feels foolish for waiting for her to respond - she is confident that they will be doing this. There is no question they will campaign, especially because she knows as well as he does that he can't do it without her.
"I'm going to need benefactors, a campaign trail, a retinue of body guards, and you're going to have to turn in your state issued guns."
Riza flinched visibly, and he almost wanted to laugh. While the Lieutenant would never admit to being fond of her guns, she was certainly used to each one of them. They were well maintained at all times, and an important part in her every day dress. A Hawkeye without her weapons on hand was not a woman he suspected who would be very comfortable.
"You'll have new ones." He promised. "Falman, Havoc, Fuery, and Breda can do as they please, but I need you on my trail…" He says, but it's a lie of course. He's damn attached to them all and he refuses to give them up if he can help it. When they find out, he'll tell them his plan, the one that is only now working itself into a reality after Gracia told him what he had to do. It tickles his imagination to think of himself as a democratically elected president with his men in tow.
He looks at Riza, and leans, invading her personal space in order to show her something in his notes. To point out his favors that can be called in, and the people he knows who could fund something like this. She doesn't move, and instead seems to listen and watch and formulate plans in her head.
"I'm going to request a discharge. I know Havoc will follow, he doesn't much care for the desk work with his cane. Breda's a good soldier, but will prefer to stay with you. Fuery is likely, and Falman has the best chance of staying in, but if he decides to leave, then the team will be intact." She spies something out of the corner of her eyes, and he whole face takes in the recognition. Before he can figure out what she's seen, she is moving from the table, and into the rest of his kitchen, stopping in front of his fridge. Riza pulls down a small checkered case, decorated with green and tan squares. It is his chess set, and she's popped it open before she arrives back at his table.
She shoves aside the black pieces in the inside of the box, and plucks out the whites, placing the king on the map of Amestris. She adds the knight with such conviction that he wonders why she is so sure of Havoc's following along. Maybe it's because he has the easiest chance of leaving. She nudges the rook in the side, and then places the bishop and the pawn off to the side of the map. For the moment, they are unknowns.
Riza places the Queen behind the King.
Then she begins to move the pieces. "Second Lieutenant Havoc is from our base in Eastern, as well as myself. However, I have better connections in the Northeast, and North. The General Olivier had no objections to Warrant Officer Falman at Briggs, and is the head of the Armstrong family." The Knight is placed in Eastern, and she pushes herself to the North.
"Breda is most versed in the South, and Falman and Fuery would be best suited to the North-East." She hovers their pieces by the side of the map. "You grew up in Central."
Roy isn't quite sure what she's doing so he looks up at her, and she reads the questioning in his eyes. "A sniper knows her battlegrounds before she chooses a place from which to shoot." Riza explains, letting the tactics of battle stratagem as opposed to politicking run through her head. "If you were to be elected, you'd need men on the ground who knew each area. The Fuhrer goes on tour, and it stands to reason you, and any other candidate would do so as well."
He smiles.
From there out, they are pouring over books, and letters, and notes. Riza takes dutiful notes of who owes them favors, how far, and by how much. They haul out numbers, bank accounts, and coffee to keep them going. Roy brings up old friends, new friends, and old money. There is something to be said for the Madame's network and the amount of money she truly has stockpiled away, but they both know it won't compare to any patronage from a real old Amestrian family. They talk about the pros and cons of approaching different Generals, about his discharge salary, about expenses. They bring up the Elrics, politics with Xing and Drachma and what is left of Ishval. They have a second cup of coffee, this time with sugar and it is less bitter but they are too busy to notice or care when it comes to their third cup. Roy cannot help but think this is the most normal thing that has happened to him all day.
This used to be a regular ritual - working late sleepless nights in apartments or safehouses. Back then their days were full of actual work, and his evenings were full of pretending to be a playboy, leaving the dead of night as the only time they had to plan a coup d'etat. When she realizes they are bringing back this tradition of sorts she gives him a knowing look.
It must be close to 1:30 in the morning before he brings up what Gracia had said to him hours before. After mulling it over, he can't say he disagrees. As a Presidential candidate, he's going to need a wife.
"Someone who can handle the campaign," He reasons out for her.
"-For political reasons?" Riza asks, drawing a neat line under the list of campaign advising spots that he'll need to fill. She writes out in neat, squared out handwriting: First Lady.
"Gracia said that I need to settle down to appeal to the family voters. I don't think she's wrong."
Hawkeye nods, the exhaustion wearing at her eyes for a moment before she fights back a yawn. "She'll need to be someone you can trust." She writes out the word trustworthy in the blank space of her paper. "I think loyalty would be an excellent trait."
Roy nods. "Intelligent."
She writes it down. "Perhaps hardworking. You don't finish things until you're pushed." She says with a small self-satisfied grin at the jibe.
Roy lets it go. "-Honest. Educated…"
"-Mature, stable,"
"-Beautiful-"
"-well mannered, strong,"
"-No, sexy -"
"- conservative, organized, a role model,"
"-confident-"
"-Someone who has agreeable politics,"
"-Someone that Elicia likes-"
"-A record of public service…"
"-And blonde." Roy adds emphatically before the Lieutenant's hand stops dancing from the recording of her notes. She pauses to look over the list, and falls silent. There had been times in her life before when she had things to say, and had thought better of it, but this is the first time she has truly been at a loss for words to speak.
He looks at her and then back at the paper. He only knows two women who could meet the requirements on this ruthlessly practical list drawn up by the Lieutenant, and one of them is his best friend's widow. That leaves them with one other option.
Riza stands too quickly and sways on the spot from exhaustion before she grips the end of the dining room table.
"I think it's best we turn in." She announces, avoiding eye contact.
He nods too soon, and takes a step back. "Yes, of course." He puts his coffee mug in the sink, and moves out of her way so that she can push past him and leave the dining room. All of a sudden the room that is too big for one person is too cramped for two. Her shoulders brush against him and he offers up a simple - "Goodnight, Lieutenant."
She pauses in the doorway of his kitchen, and then turns, hesitating for a single moment, as if she is weighing her next move inside her head. "-Riza." She offers, no longer looking tired, but instead calm. "Goodnight, Roy." Riza adds, before she steps out of the room, and begins to set herself up in his living room, where she will sleep alone for the night.