It began to rain.
He only noticed when the wind shifted, raindrops pattering against the glass at his back like a spray of pebbles on a car windshield. The drops fell fat and fast and somewhere, he knew, Lieutenant Breda was walking back with Ross in tow, getting absolutely soaked.
Better him than me, thought Roy. He felt a twinge guilt for his callousness, but Breda was a big boy, and military-issue firearms were still known to fire properly in inclement weather. Unlike a certain alchemist and the pair of white gloves he kept about his person.
Roy grimaced. That was not to say he was not a big boy himself... or to imply that he was as... incontinent in the rain as his beloved subordinates seemed to delight in reminding him.
He simply appreciated the value of a dry office and a sunny day. Regardless, he decided he'd buy Breda a coffee upon the Lieutenant's return.
Swivelling in his chair, Roy looked out over Central. Every time he took stock of his surroundings, a part of him always anticipated seeing something new, some novel abrasion or corrosion on the otherwise unremarkable cityscape. And he was always disappointed. The view remained unchanged, if not slightly damper: the courtyard right below the office, the funicular tunnel, the moat, the streets arcing to some finite point in the distance like the rays of a pentagram. Roy thought the lawns and facades needed the sun, or at least a little light, to be beautiful. The mist blurred them, turning them runny grey, like watercolours bleeding across the edge of a canvas. It was very untidy, in a way.
Odd, thought Roy, that on such rainy days, the elements of his life –– his view over the city, a testament to his status and station –– were reduced to so many sad, quiet, colours, so much stillness, so many silences. The blearing yellow and black of the streetlights lined in neat rows below the high walls of Headquarters, aligned from corner to corner, very much like the soldiers guarding the entrance. The sharpness of car exhaust and woodsmoke cutting across the city's gritty stink. Eels of smoke slithering from townhouse chimneys, until the grey of the fires burning in their grates and the grey of the mist were indistinguishable from one another.
He realised, with a strange, mutant melancholy, that a part of him would miss the rain. Where they were going, there was only the dust and the dismantled sun.
Even now, he thought, with his desk reupholstered in shipment manifests and his team scattered on various Dairut errands, something in his world didn't seem real. Fractured, he thought, only the breaks were not clean, and the edges refused his attempts at realignment.
He was returning to Ishval.
For a time, after his eyesight had been restored, he had been deliberately slow in pushing for Reconstruction. Despite the fervour that had gripped him in hospital, for all the assurances of cooperation from Führer Grumman, Roy had felt a terrible guilt at the prospect of making any motion in a situation which ought to have demanded complete immobility on the part of the military. It felt... wrong, almost hypocritical, as though Amestris had fooled itself –– as though he had fooled himself –– into thinking and behaving in a way that suggested they had higher standards, more noble beliefs, than was the case. Roy had shared his misgivings with Hawkeye –– with Riza –– as soon as his sight had been returned by the grace of Dr. Marcoh, when he was once again able to gauge her reaction, her thoughts betrayed by her extraordinary eyes. He confessed no small part of him wanted to leave Ishval to the Ishvalans... allow them the dignity to grieve in peace, to rebuild their devastated state without the Amestrian military machine breathing down their necks. Without entertaining the insult of permitting the Flame Alchemist to rebuild, when all he had ever done to those poor people was destroy.
Riza had recognised his hesitance for what it really was. She knew his fear. She shared it. And she had told him, in a moment of unwonted confession Roy knew no one save him would ever hear, that Ishval, to her, was a singularity burned into the backs of her eyes, its substance and structure at once familiar and alien. It had turned on her mind's horizon, exerting its own peculiar gravity, a tidal force urging her re-entry just as quickly as it pushed her into an exit trajectory. But, like any bodies caught in a decaying orbit, their collision was inevitable.
Roy had sighed at that. Collision, he had told Riza, his voice wry but his eyes anxious, sounded violent. Like something crashing to earth.
Her answer had been simple, a small, quiet yes. Because she knew that their return would break their hearts. That it would be painful.
But Riza was brave. She was strong, stronger than Roy could ever hope to be, because even when Roy tried to deflect the truth, she took it in hand, held it until her palms began to bleed.
"It's not about us," she had told him. And that was all he needed.
For five years, their battleground had been the debate chambers of Central City. Major Miles –– a fine soldier even if he acted as Olivier Armstrong's eyes and ears, Roy thought grudgingly –– deployed to coordinate relief efforts in the East, while Roy knew he would be most effective in currying favour amongst the powerful political spheres, especially with the greener statesmen and carpetbaggers, those who still retained a flicker of good conscience. Führer Grumman's inauguration enabled the reinstatement of a legislative Congress to retake control of policy. Among their first acts had been the removal of Bradley loyalists from power and, under not inconsiderable pressure from Grumman himself, the enfranchisement of the Ishvalan people. Under Roy's direction, Eastern military and engineering coalitions set out to transform Ishval by setting up new free labor economies, with military police working with local religious authorities to protect the legal rights of Ishvalans, negotiate labor contracts, and set up schools and temples. Along with the refugees, thousands of Amestrians had traveled East as missionaries, teachers, businessmen, tradesmen, architects, researchers... including the team in Dairut working under the direction of one Professor Winifred Stokes. The public's support of Reconstruction had been overwhelming, far beyond anything Roy could have anticipated.
He knew the old prejudices still lingered. There were still occasional brazen acts of vandalism and destruction. But, as younger, fresher minds entered politics, and the tension from Bradley's innumerable wars began to ease, and the scum and stagnation of the old administration disintegrated, Roy had dared to believe –– had had the temerity, the nerve, to hope that things were beginning to change.
Now it's time to return, thought the Flame Alchemist as he watched over Central City. He caught his reflection in the glass, started at how gravely imperious he looked.
Back to the land I destroyed.
"Hello Mr. Dramatic."
Roy turned from the window, scowling. Lieutenant Havoc flashed him a lopsided grin.
"Don't you have absence reports to file?"
"You know, sir, I did, but the paperwork took Falman all of five minutes before he went to catch up with Sheska. By the time they started reciting Cretan cookbooks I figured I could murder a cigarette. They didn't even notice me go."
"So you've been arsing about for the past hour, have you?"
"Arsing about and nabbing sandwiches from the commissary."
"That's almost productive, coming from you, First Lieutenant," Roy deadpanned.
Havoc waggled his brows, fishing a cigarette from his breast pocket.
"I hope you don't intend to smoke that in here."
Something wicked flashed in his blue eyes. "Why, you 'fraid of Riza finding out?"
Roy glared at him. "I'm afraid of my office smelling like your shitty cigarettes, Havoc."
"Ah, come on, boss, it's no different from setting your rubbish on fire." Havoc swaggered over to Roy's desk, long and lanky in Amestrian blue, carrying himself with the energy of a green recruit. The General had to despise it otherwise he'd be jealous of it. Havoc smirked. "And I'll bet my Ma's fanciest china that most of the crap in the wastebasket is what's left of General Hakuro's notices... and a good deal of your paperwork, besides."
"I can't for the life of me," muttered Roy, "possibly imagine what you're talking about."
"Does Ri know?"
He made a sound intended to launch something clever and biting; it came out sounding like a grunt. Roy was a little leery of Havoc's air of familiarity with Hawkeye. They may have been gun chums, but she was still his superior officer. Jean ought to at least attempt to act his age, and his station, for once.
"Do you intend to tell her?" asked Roy cagily.
"Dunno. You got a light?"
Another scowl. Then, reaching into his desk drawer for a lighter –– Havoc's had been confiscated, and Roy would not use his ignition gloves –– he gestured the First Lieutenant over.
"Blackmailing a superior officer." He lit the cigarette hanging from Havoc's lip, who took a grateful drag. "I ought to have you in front of a board of review."
"Nah, boss, I'd charm all the ladies down in the court martial office. No one would get prosecuted ever again."
Roy snorted, not bothering to dignify it with a response.
Havoc pulled a chair over to the General's desk, straddling it. "Says the man standing in front of his window looking like someone from the cover of a shit romance novel."
"Havoc, you must really lack a sense of irony if you of all people are berating me about shit and romance."
The First Lieutenant seemed not to hear him. "I mean, do you ever get any thinking done standing there, or do you do it because you think it makes you look intimidating?"
"I am intimidating, thank you, Havoc."
"Uh huh. Speaking of intimidating... gotta ask you something. About Hawkeye."
Roy coughed. The motion clamped his teeth, so his nod was stiffer than he'd intended.
"Is she..."
He suddenly realised really didn't want to hear whatever Havoc had to say. "Jean––"
"Her friend, Rebecca... you know if she's single?"
The General's fists gradually unclenched, dropping to his sides like clock weights. Normally, he would have snapped at the sniper, or given him some biting critique of his –– frankly, abysmal –– track record in such matters, but Roy felt so strangely relieved by Havoc's familiar earmark of inaneness, the Flame Alchemist decided to humour him.
"How in the seven hells should I know?" Roy frowned. "Didn't you ask her for a drink a couple months ago?"
"That I did."
He thought back. "She gave you a black eye."
"That she did."
"And you still want to chance it?"
"Yup."
If it were any other woman, Roy still would have found it ridiculous. But Rebecca Catalina –– Riza's friend for reasons that would forever remain a mystery to him, the two could not have been more different if they were born separate species –– was a special sort of spiteful. She despised him, Riza had admitted, though not as reluctantly as Roy would have hoped. Had evidently called him, in no uncertain terms, a "womanising arse-kisser with eyes only for state supremacy and screwing."
Charming woman.
"It'll be different this time," said Havoc, as though completely ignorant to the fact his eye had looked like a plum for a week. Breda had nicknamed him shoe shiner.
"She'll break your kneecaps."
"That's not a no, sir."
Roy just stared at him. "One of these bright day," he said eventually, his eyes narrowing on his sandy-haired subordinate, "you're going to get written up on harassment charges. And let me assure you, it won't be me pulling your ass out of the ensuing dumpster fire."
Havoc smiled. "She won't say no."
"How––"
"She's in love with me."
"What?"
"Yup. Head over heels."
"You're delusional, Lieutenant."
"Nah... I'm a little slow on the uptake." He blew out a smoke ring. His words were oddly pensive, floating like the ash from the end of his cigarette. "But I'm not blind."
Roy had a number of rebuttals ready. Fortunately for them both, the phone began to ring.
"If it's Major Miles," muttered Mustang, his hand going to the receiver, "I'm going to ask him to tell his superior to grow a pair, quit using him as an intermediary, and call me herself."
"Your funeral, boss. She'll cut off your stones and use 'em as paperweights."
Shaking his head, Roy put the phone to his ear. "Mustang speaking."
"I trust you had no issue finding those missing train tickets, Brigadier-General?"
For a moment, Roy's tongue stopped working. He frowned fiercely, black eyes glaring daggers at the phone. Across from him, Havoc stiffened, close enough to recognise the voice on the line and experienced enough to know it spelled trouble. Roy wasn't exactly sure what Hakuro was on about, but he'd be damned if he was going to let the Major-General know that. When he spoke, he fought to maintain a modicum of his deference: "Yes, sir. No issues."
"I only ask because a certain rotund First Lieutenant barged into my office this morning, interrupted an important meeting, and told me to… what was it?" Hakuro pretended to think very hard about it; Roy's teeth clenched so hard they ached. "'Take it up with his superior.'"
Roy sucked in a breath, trying to muster his patience. He found Hakuro had a habit of testing it to its very limit. The well was dangerously close to dying up.
When Falman had entered the General's office that morning, Roy and the others had been overjoyed, eager to see one of their dearest comrades and friends after so many years. Breda had clapped the grey-haired man on the back; Havoc had hooped and hollered, making a general ruckus and no doubt disturbing everyone in their wing of Headquarters. Fuery had beamed, the smile looking too big for the Sergeant-Major's round face. It was only at the sight of Falman's fidgeting –– not very unusual in of itself, the man seemed to have a perpetual nervous jitter –– coupled with Hawkeye's notable absence that Roy began to nurse a twinge of unease.
Where's the Captain, Roy had asked.
Falman had stood to attention. General Hakuro needed to speak with her, sir, came the dutiful reply.
Thinking back on it, Roy had been more annoyed than concerned. It was all very well and good for Hakuro to be an all-round nuisance to him, but with last minute Dairut preparations underway and Captain Hawkeye serving in some capacity as the unofficial task manager, Mustang couldn't afford to play parlour games with Central's resident hardarse. He'd sent Breda to fetch her and thought nothing more of it.
Until the First Lieutenant had returned, his Captain in tow, several minutes later. Riza had schooled her expression with her usual diligence and efficacy, but Heymans –– no less disciplined but far less concerned with putting on airs for Roy's sake –– had turned to look at Mustang as they entered.
His face had been like thunder.
For the second time in as many days, Roy's fingers itched to set the receiver on fire. "I apologise for my subordinate's brusque manner, sir," he managed; to his credit, his professionalism never faltered. "But we are in the middle of finalising certain last minute arrangements––"
"Cut the bullshit, Mustang!" snapped Hakuro. Roy's patience was dwindling but the Major-General's was gone. There was a small pause where Roy thought he heard his counterpart take a deep breath, as though marshalling his strength and preparing to bellow into the phone. But Hakuro let the air out slowly, with deliberate care. When he spoke again, his voice was like ice: glassy, smooth. Thin.
It made Roy's hackles stand on end.
"General," he said softly, "you made the rank of major early, I remember. Young. You may have to dust off some cobwebs, but I'm sure that alchemist's mind of yours is up to the task. Tell me, do you remember anything of the Punitive Articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice… specifically Article 134?"
The air seemed to arch beneath his sternum: Roy held his breath, palate tight. He felt sweat on the small of his back. Still, he found himself intensely, dangerously calm, trying to determine if the swelling in his chest hid uncomplicated anger or something far more vicious. "Yes, sir." He kept the honorific address but he made no effort to mask his utter hatred of his superior.
"Can you recite it to me, please?"
"This is not detention at the Academy!"
"Now, please, Brigadier-General."
Roy closed his eyes and grit out: "Article 134… prohibits personal relationships between officers and enlisted personnel that are unduly familiar and do not respect the differences in rank."
Havoc's eyes widened, and Roy's gut twisted in shame. Mustang wondered if Hakuro could feel the fury inside him, pulsing under his hands, right through the phone. Like fire along a line of gunpowder.
"Go on, General."
Damn him… vindictive son of a bitch. "Such relationships… are prejudicial to discipline and violative of service tradition, calling into question the officer's objectivity, resulting in actual or an appearance of preferential treatment, which compromises the chain of command." Roy's knuckles were bone white. "Not that I don't value the importance of reviewing the punitive articles, sir, but does any of this have a point?"
"You tell me, Mustang."
Roy spared a glance at Havoc, but Jean had taken to staring into the middle distance, chewing absently on his cigarette. The First Lieutenant's expression was unreadable, guarded. He had traded his characteristic smirk for a cool, solemn seriousness, as though he was wary of involving himself in a spat between superiors… or wary of broaching the delicate topic at the heart of the conversation.
"Fond of blondes, are you, General? There are plenty of pretty faces around Central, Roy… why pursue the only one forbidden to you?"
It was only years of military discipline –– and an hoary Grumman in his ear reminding him that embittered enemies were blathery enemies –– that kept Roy Mustang from tossing the phone across the room… or storming down to Hakuro's office and torching the place, Hakuro and all.
"Major-General," seethed Roy, his breath hissing between his teeth, "unless this line of interrogation has any immediate relevance to my work in Dairut, or unless you have an airtight case ready to present to the court martial office, then I must insist we shelve this chat for another time."
Roy could hear Hakuro's smug delight, knowing he'd succeeded in making Grumman's golden boy squirm. "This could end you, Flame Alchemist. You ought to be more careful with your little trysts. You are the one roach I can't seem to exterminate, but all I need, it seems, is time to find the proper poison."
His voice was a near whisper: "You'll be looking for a long time."
"I'll find it."
"There is nothing to find… sir," he added, entirely as an afterthought.
"No? Then promote her. Turn her loose. Prove me wrong."
He did slam the phone down, then. The violent crack of receiver against cradle sent a jolt up his arm. He felt his pulse behind his eyes, radiating outward from an aching his head. His mouth felt like gelatine, congealing to a solid mass around his tongue and teeth. He looked for Havoc and found the First Lieutenant drifting back towards his workstation, hands in his trouser pockets. He opened a drawer, parsed through the paperwork for the ashtray he'd squirrelled out from under Hawkeye's nose.
"I'm sorry you had to hear that, Jean," muttered Mustang. He dropped his head into his hands, fingers tangling in thick strands of black hair.
"S'nothing," muttered Havoc. The two men didn't say anything for a while, Roy cradling his aching head and Jean staring at his piles of paperwork but not really seeing them.
"Major-General Hakuro is concerned with the lack of staffing at several of our major installations," said Roy wearily; he didn't know why he felt the need to explain himself –– it wasn't as though Havoc hadn't been floundering in the aftermath of the Promised Day right along with the rest of them. "Many of the generals implicated in the coup d'etat five years were the commanding officers of our western and southern garrisons. Despite the ceasefire with Aerugo, tensions are still running pretty high, and many of the brass have been badgering for the speedy promotion of a few exceptional officers… Captain Hawkeye included. Hakuro's just a little more… persistent, than most." Roy regarded the phone like one would a poisonous snake. He knew he was talking too much but he was damned by his own inertia: he couldn't seem to stop, and Havoc had gone preternaturally quiet, as though willing him to continue: "The Major-General takes to military procedure with an almost martial efficiency. Hawkeye's still on the career path, but she's been very vocal regarding her intentions to remain in Central. Her goals don't align to Hakuro's own, and he doesn't like that."
Havoc seemed to have taken a profound interest in the far wall. "Off the record, sir?" he asked quietly.
"Never stopped you before, Lieutenant."
Jean's gaze swung over to Roy. "Hakuro's right. You're so full of bullshit your eyes are turning brown."
Mustang breathed through a frown. Despite his frustration, both with his superiors and himself, he was still sharp enough to know Havoc was trying to cheat him out of something, some nugget of understanding the First Lieutenant, despite his candidness, thought best to play close to the chest. Roy suspected he knew what it was, regardless, and he found the grim potential of it knotting in his throat.
"Jean––"
"I'm not stupid," he snapped, stabbing out his cigarette. He looked as he did when the two of them had first confronted Lust, née Solaris, the Homunculus masquerading as hapless Havoc's girlfriend. His pinched sullenness was almost affronted, hurt and insult etched into the lines of his face. "That bastard just had you recite three lines of the frat policy, and it's not because he's trying to needle you into giving Riza a promotion."
"Captain Hawkeye," corrected Mustang, irritably.
Jean snorted. "Fuck off, Roy."
"I said off the record, Lieutenant, not off your head." The General snapped, "Mind your language."
Havoc's eyes fixated on Roy, the blue flat and angry. "Tell me something: don't you care about us enough to tell us the goddamn truth for once?"
"I know full well what you're suggesting, Havoc," he growled, "and not only is it hugely injurious, it's illegal. I'll tell you what I told Hakuro: there's nothing to find."
"You don't think so, huh?"
"I know so."
"And people call me the moron."
"Havoc––"
"You're not made of stone, Roy. Riza's not made of stone."
In the brief stillness, Roy's annoyance died. What surged in its place was rage. But he could find no words to bellow. He fisted his hands and let out a haggard breath: "Don't you dare bring her into this."
But Jean would not be deterred. "You're both so human it's tragic sometimes. Tragic because, despite everything, you'll both go on being miserable and alone for the rest of your lives. I get it, boss: that's part and parcel of gunning for the top. But that shouldn't change anything."
"Drop it. Now."
"She deserves more from you, Roy."
"Jean!" snarled Roy, pressing his knuckles into the desktop until the bones popped.
"More than this nothing you've forced yourselves into! None of us want to lose her, sir. She's made herself necessary to us, to you. And I hate to break it to ya, but everyone knows it. Bradley saw it. That asshole with the gold filling saw it. Hakuro sees it. He's gonna try to tear you down, and you know damn well if you fall she's gonna be falling right along with you, two steps back but all the way down."
"Are you done?"
They fell silent, something bloated and ugly hanging in the air, a humid pressure, the press of a thunderstorm. Roy, who had risen from his chair, sat back down again. He watched Havoc sag at his desk, defeated and numbed by the jarring anger that radiated from the Flame Alchemist like the corona of a newborn star. Inside, Roy's stomach clenched painfully. He turned and sorted Havoc's words, the misshapen circumstances that had orchestrated to make those words as certain to Roy as his own existence. And he tried to reconcile his failure –– to guard his subordinates, to guard his heart, to guard Riza –– with the uncanny certainty of watching all his many self-deceptions slip away under Jean's singularly unique brand of wisdom.
"Yeah," muttered Havoc, snatching at a form on his pile so violently, his fingers tore the paper. "I'm done."
"Done with what?"
Havoc turned towards the door. He went grey.
Captain Hawkeye strode into the office, Falman and Fuery trailing behind her. Kain bubbled excitedly about his fullerphones and portable telegraph equipment, Vato lending an ever-patient ear to his young counterpart even as he settled at his old workstation and began to fold the mission accoutrements. Hawkeye herself carried a narrow wooden crate, stalks of straw poking between the cracks –– weapons, no doubt. She seemed far brighter, far more settled, than she had that morning, doting over the armaments with the patience and care of a painter over expensive acrylics.
Mustang locked his jaw, glaring at First Lieutenant Havoc. If Riza had overheard anything, Roy was going to personally ensure Jean lived just long enough to regret it.
"Done... uh…" Havoc rummaged around for something to say, then sighed, glumly, "done asking the General if I could smoke in the office, ma'am."
"So that's where you went," muttered Falman. "I thought you got lost in the stacks doing research."
"Research, huh? Your sense of humour hasn't changed a tick, Bishop."
Hawkeye's mouth twisted in a frown. She made a soft sound that seemed to hover over her tongue. "If I see so much as an errant ashtray, Lieutenant Havoc, I'll have you disassembling and reassembling the Remington rifles until you're seeing rods and rust protectors in your sleep."
Roy couldn't help it; despite the blackness of his mood, he smiled, a laugh made without opening his lips.
Havoc cast his eyes downward. Instead of brushing off her warning with sarcasm, he pretended to be deeply absorbed in his work. A cloud, not unlike his cigarette smoke, seemed to hang over his head, and Riza, ever diligent, was quick to notice. "Yes, ma'am," he muttered sullenly.
Roy's smile vanished as Hawkeye looked between them both, eyes narrowed shrewdly, her hair, shorn short, glinting like cornsilk as she turned her head.
The General knew she could sense the tension in the room, saturating the air like oxygen from a gas leak, as though one tiny spark was liable to set the whole place on fire. Roy also knew he could try to hide behind one of his porcelain faces, smug and sure, some vain attempt at steering his adjutant in the wrong direction. He knew he could commend himself to what he wanted her to see, to an illusion of normality.
But she was Riza... and she could recognise his deceptions as easily as he could craft them. So he gave her a small, sad smile, his apologies left unspoken, as they so often were, a gaze that begged her forbearance in allowing him his secrets. Her unbearably astute amber eyes stayed fixed on him, and Roy knew she wrestled with her own hesitance, but her hands did not falter on the weapons, and her jaw did not clench in frustration.
She merely sighed through the nose, something akin to regret in the sound, before she ignored Roy and Havoc both to finalise the armament manifest.
"What are those, Lieutenant Falman?" asked Fuery, setting aside a potentiometer as Vato held up a bulky item of tawny camouflage, about the size and shape of Vato himself. The texture reminded Roy of a sack of potatoes, and he doubted the cut of it would be any more flattering.
"Sand suit," said Riza simply. "On loan from the University."
Havoc, interest piqued, peered over at Falman. For all the man's faults, Jean was very good at setting aside his personal concerns for the sake of the team. "Why the heck do they look like straw scarecrows sans straw?"
The Second Lieutenant explained: "They function as pieces of personal protective equipment, an impermeable whole-body garment like a hazardous materials suit. The Ishvalan prefecture is in the midst of its annual drought. Coupled with high winds and the passage of a dry cold front –– a convective instability resulting from cooler air riding over heated ground –– we run a very high chance of encountering sandstorms."
"So these suits are intended as protection," finished Fuery. He hesitated for a moment, then said, his gaze distant: "We had a dust-storm over the trenches, once. It felt like my face was being scoured off. Scratched my glasses, too."
"The storms of Ishval can be even more vicious," said Riza quietly, casting her mind back. "Most of my company used to anticipate them: for all their ferocity, sandstorms meant ceasefire."
Fuery nodded. "It was the same on the southern front. A little breather, even if you couldn't actually breathe because, you know... sand."
"Appropriately, the word for such a phenomenon in the local tongue is alghadab," supplied Falman. Roy's eyebrows arched; he had forgotten Vato was fluent in Ishvalan. "The fury burn."
Havoc held up one of the costumes. "Whole-body garment, huh?" He grunted; his expression turned wistful. "I think I knew a girl who was into this sorta thing…"
"Too much information, Lieutenant," murmured Hawkeye.
Roy was fairly certain he had known that particular girl, too, but was in no immediate hurry of antagonising his subordinate even further.
Fuery looked out the window, his face pinched in worry. After a brief flash of magnesium-white, the thunder cracked, the sound rattling the windows. "Hey, I sure hope Breda and Ross aren't getting caught in that."
"If I were them, I'd enjoy it," said Falman drily. "There will be very little rain where we're going."
"The wrong species of storm, sir," agreed Fuery.
Roy looked over at Riza. She did not sense his attention consumed with her work and, he suspected, making a concerted effort to ignore him. Her expression was subtle, but the tiny lines in the corners of her mouth seemed anxious, the smooth plane of her brow furrowed, her eyes distant, a little lost. The face of one unsettled.
Yes, Roy affirmed to himself, the rain drumming in his ears and his argument with Jean, his confrontation with Hakuro, hammering incessantly inside his head.
There are some storms, he thought, turning to look back at the city beneath the grey, mangled sky, that are far harder to escape.