Havoc thought that a bathtub was useless. He thought it was idiotic for 'full grown people' to use as a way to bathe themselves.

He also believed that Riza was a privileged child. He never quite understood why she'd choose the bath over the shower time after time, but then again he also never quite understood why she mumbled in her sleep, or she declined a scholarship to a school of art, or why she loved it when he kissed the skin under her jaw, and he never understood why she even loved him to begin with.

There were many concepts that the not-so-bright man could never figure out about her, and he would never get the chance to.

Riza's heels skidded against the porcelain, toes wiggling in the air and knees bent slightly to emerge from the foamy water by only the rough tops.

The crevice between her skull and the back of her neck rested comfortably on the opposite side, messy dark blonde hair swirled into a loose bun. The strands dripped with water onto the old tiled floor but the sound soothed her ears and calmed her already closed eyes.

She sat in the luke warm water letting it cleanse her.

They'd always said they'd bathe their children in that tub. Jean joked about it every couple of weekends as he shaved his face, and Riza would silently slip between his arms and brush her teeth.

Back then she was sure that she'd be spending her days beside him. Her mind was too foggy to think about all that now.

Her prune skin squelched against the tub and her eyes opened to watch her feet dance in and out of the water. She smirked, burying herself even deeper into the frothy mix.

She would be killing again today. She hadn't fired in so long. Just thinking about the motions caused her fingers to grow numb, especially in the soggy confines of the pool. Her arms and biceps were restless to hold a gun against them. Her eyes blinked open when she realized she would rather a barrel than a body against her.

Her gaze averted, although she looked only towards herself before. She was overwhelmed in guilt and anger and the weight on her body seemed to drown her even with the infinite amount of air she could breathe.

Riza could have fallen asleep in her spot, forgotten all about Roy Mustang and his adorable smile. She could forget Jean's quirks and her shouts for him to quit smoking. She could forget what she felt if only she fell asleep.

There was a knock at the door and her daydream of rest came to an end.

When she rose from the tub, she pulled on the plug to drain the water, and found a towel to cover herself. She found the dirtied mirror and sat on the sink, glancing over her shoulder with limited vision so that she could bare witness to her own tattoo. Sometimes she could curse her father for placing it on her back, only causing her more trouble with her intimate curiosity. Sometimes she cursed him because it was there in the first place.

In the early days she'd ask Havoc to paint her back, and he did. It tickled and she laughed but it never provided her with the closure she desired. Her mark would never leave and neither would the alchemy it empowered. She never thought of Roy back then, even when thinking about the war, about the flames.

She only saw a blank face of a soldier and heard the snapping and the shrill cries for mercy. Riza only saw the bad even in the eyes of her blonde lover and she never trusted him enough to tell him about her oddly frightening and horrific dreams. She never trusted him enough for anything, it seems, except to have her back on missions which he was rarely assigned to anyways.

The boss had a favorite and it was obviously not Jean Havoc.

Riza clothed quickly, then took her time to comb through her hair. Another knock at the door told her she was taking too long but she ignored it.

She'd never even met the boss and he controlled her. He controlled her victims and her supply of money which came scarce but in great amounts. He was controlling her this very moment as she prepared herself to kill.

To her knowledge Jean and the boss knew each other before the war, and Greed seemed to know him too. It hadn't bothered her much up until Mustang's name came up on the list, but she'd never met the man who ruined her.

When she'd finished brushing out her tangles she once again wrapped her hair tight up on her head. She held it together with pins and bands, a sleek style that she loved when it came to carrying out orders. She stood straight up and thrust her shoulders back. Her skin was still moist with water and perhaps a drop or two of newly arrived sweat, and her fingers and toes still pruned like the faces angery men.

She'd have to dry out before she went outside.

Another knock.

She checked the tub to make sure it was empty, checked herself in the mirror once more, and stepped out of the bathroom and into the main room where her partner sat, smoking another cigarette. The clock on the other wall read 1800 hours and Riza's mind was already instructing her on how to assemble her instrument of death.


A/N: A short one- not much to say about it. REVIEWS ARE LOVELY! 3