"Would you have done it?"
Riza shifted in her bed, the sterile hospital sheets rough against her skin. She winced as pain shot through the wound on her neck. Roy, propped up on several pillows, stared straight ahead with grayish eyes, still encased in a world of darkness.
"Do what?" she asked.
Roy smirked at nothing in particular, "Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about."
Riza sighed fixed her eyes on the bleak gray sky outside their window.
"Shoot you?"
Roy nodded.
"I made you a promise a long time ago," she replied.
"You didn't answer the question."
"I shouldn't have to, sir," Riza replied harshly.
Although Roy couldn't see her expression, he felt the Hawk Eye's familiar fiery stare searing into him. His brow furrowed.
"Colonel?"
Roy said nothing as he remembered their nightmare.
"Don't go where I cannot follow."
Roy froze, yet every cell in his body was burning. He was a soul gone supernova, and Envy was a rogue planet sitting directly in his path of destruction. This was the thing that took the life of an innocent man, a father… a friend. The darkness clenched around his heart and the fire boiled in his veins.
He remembered her gasp when she found him asleep in the military library, a book on the theory of human transmutation resting on his chest, and how she always managed to linger (just behind him and to the left, of course) when he visited Maes.
'She promised to follow me into hell,' he thought.
Roy heard the familiar click of her silvery handgun behind him. The metal components rattling in what were usually steady hands.
'But this…'
Her ragged breathing filled the empty corridor.
'This isn't hell…'
"Colonel."
'This is an ending.'
"Colonel?"
Roy tried his best to look in the direction of her voice.
"Thank you for keeping your promise," he said.
Riza swallowed thickly and sunk into her pillow.
"Well, if I am to believe anything you've said," she replied, "Even if I did, we would find each other again someday."
A small laugh escaped Roy's lips, "Are you serious? Do you really believe that?"
Riza shook her head. Roy could picture that smile, caught somewhere between a smirk and a grin.
"I've seen a lot of things I'm not sure I believe in today," she said simply, "You more so than I."
Roy said nothing, flashes of the world beyond the gate filled his sightless vision. Suddenly, he felt Riza's warmth next to his.
"Riza?"
"Yes, Roy?" Riza whispered.
Yet, no questions filled that sterile air. Instead, he let her fill his universe. She was the determined girl buried beneath a sea of blue sheets, and, in a crimson coat on a snowy night. She was the young woman with galaxies in her eyes and life in her smile. She was once caught in a paper prison. She was the star during his darkest night.
She whispered his name…
"If you had to start over…"
"Hm?" Riza murmured, nearly asleep against his shoulder.
"… would you do it all again?"
Riza closed her eyes and let a groggy smile slink across her lips.
"If it would all lead to this moment, here and now… Yes," she replied.
"Me too," said Roy, swearing on every shade of Riza Hawkeye, "Me too."