"Ow!"

The nurse had the audacity to roll her eyes at him. "With all due respect, Colonel Mustang, you're acting like an infant."

Roy glared, the same glare that would make Falman break out in a flop sweat and Havoc start chewing his cigarette. The glare that even gave Fullmetal pause for thought.

The glare that would one day command a nation.

The nurse didn't so much as blink.

"I told you multiple times at multiple decibel levels that my arm hurts, yet you continue to bend it in every conceivable direction like a silly straw—ow ow OW!"

"Hush! I'm just putting it back in your sling. I've heard less fuss from patients with kidney stones!"

Roy grumbled, "When Havoc said I was getting a pretty nurse this isn't exactly what I had in mind—"

The young woman squeezed his shoulder tighter than perhaps was necessary, eliciting a very undignified yelp from the Colonel. The nurse smiled sweetly as Mustang's face went chalk white and tears welled in his eyes. Satisfied, she rested his arm back on the bedspread.

"Is there anything else I can do to make you more comfortable?"

He almost recoiled from her. "I'm perfectly… fine."

"Very well. In that case, Colonel, you have a visitor."

"Thank god for that..."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said send them in."

"That's what I thought."

Mustang grimaced. He wondered who he'd managed to thoroughly piss off to get saddled with this harpy…

Well, quite a few people, now that he thought about it. More than a few. He figured it was fortunate some of his less sympathetic peers in the military hierarchy hadn't seen fit to ship him off to a veterinary hospital to get his arm set and the shrapnel removed.

The sound of the door drew his attention. When he distinguished his visitor behind the frosted glass, talking quietly with the nurse, he sobered quickly. He tried to ignore the dull ache in his shoulder.

When she came in, she was mindful of closing the door behind her. From the bed, her rigid posture made her look quite tall.

"Lieutenant."

Hawkeye stayed near the wall. "How are you, sir?"

"None the worse for wear." Roy launched into the formalities: "Status report."

"Major Rosin is dead." Hawkeye cleared her throat. "It's unclear how she died, sir, but at this stage, Dr. Parcy suspects an accelerated Hayflick effect, the telomeres in her cells' DNA getting exponentially shorter until they reached a critical length, and cell division simply ceased."

"So... you're saying she died of old age."

She nodded. "Old age, sir. At forty five years old."

Mustang grunted. "It's too good a death for the likes of her."

"Sir," Hawkeye's striking amber eyes looked haunted. "William Osterhagen is dead, too."

He sighed. "The Elrics couldn't save him?"

"No, sir. It seems there was little left to save."

"Damn her." Mustang fought the urge to bunch his sheets in his fists. "Evil bitch."

Hawkeye merely inclined her head. He knew she was too professional to proffer a likeminded comment, though he knew it was there, somewhere. Still, even by Hawkeye's standards, she had been acting very quiet. She still hadn't approached his bed.

It's not as though a busted shoulder is contagious, Riza, he thought to himself, almost amused.

"How embarrassing," said Roy, trying to lighten the mood. "Look at me, going and getting myself knocked unconscious while the Elrics get all the glory for saving the day… again."

It was not the right thing to say. Hawkeye actually flinched. It was little more than a small spasm in her shoulders. Anyone who didn't know her exceptionally well would have missed it.

Roy Mustang did not miss it.

"I didn't know you cared, Lieutenant." He grinned cheekily, stubbornly willing her to smile one of those tiny, exasperated smiles that meant he was taking the piss with her and she was about to dump a pile of paperwork the size of Breda's lunchpail on his desk. The smile he had committed to memory. The smile he treasured, even when it spelled trouble. "I should be back on my feet before long, but the doc says the bullet shattered in the glenohumeral joint capsule, so I won't be writing for a while—"

"Sir..."

"—so good luck getting me to do all that blasted paperwork!"

"Sir!"

Mustang's smirk vanished. Hawkeye rarely raised her voice; she never had to. Not with him.

The Colonel took a good look at his adjutant. She looked… tired, thin, worn at the edges, as though she'd been stretched in too many directions at once. She looked as though she hadn't had a bite to eat in days. Dark bags hung under her eyes. A few strands of hair had escaped the usually immaculate knot on the back of her head. Even her military blues looked wrinkled, like she had taken to sleeping in them.

Or, Roy thought gloomily, not sleeping at all.

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

Hawkeye walked towards his hospital cot, but kept a carefully calculated distance between them. That was not unusual in of itself –– even Roy had grown used to framing his world in terms of spaces and separations, particularly those erected between himself and his adjutant –– but then she handed him a plain envelope.

Mustang took it, but he didn't open it. "What's this?"

She stood rigidly to attention when she said, her voice unwavering, "My formal letter of resignation, sir, effective immediately with your signature."

Something not unlike heartburn made his chest sore. He fought the urge to fling the envelope across the room. Instead, he tried to read Hawkeye, to gauge the reasoning behind such a stupid and reckless request, but her amber eyes remained stubbornly impassive. She was rather good at that. People so often saw only what she wanted them to see.

But Roy liked to think he was the exception.

"May I ask why, Lieutenant?"

She inclined her head. "Respectfully, sir, I think you know why."

"This?" Roy jostled his splinted arm for emphasis. It hurt like a bastard, but he'd be damned if he was going to let Hawkeye know that. "This is nothing. I've had worse scrapes shaving."

"I shot you, sir."

"No, you didn't." This time, when he spoke, there was no flippancy in his words. He imagined his voice like bladed steel, keen and precise: "Gray Rosin shot me."

"I pulled the trigger."

"You weren't in control of your actions."

"Is a drunk driver in control of his actions when he runs over a child?" countered Hawkeye, uncharacteristically belligerent. Roy's mouth snapped shut. "Sir, that defense would never hold water in the court martial's office or on any board of inquiry. I shot my superior officer. The only course of action for me to take is to relinquish my commission and await trial by a military tribunal." She nodded towards the envelope. "The details are listed in the letter, sir. I'm sure you will find them to your satisfaction."

Roy swallowed down a few choice rejoinders. He looked at the envelope again — which was beginning to crease under his clenching hands — and tossed it onto the bedside table. Hawkeye's eyes widened.

"Request denied."

"Sir—!"

"Request denied, First Lieutenant," snapped Roy, in a tone he hoped would brook no further discussion. Evidently, he was mistaken.

"I cannot accept that, Colonel. Hiding and abetting a felon is tantamount to conspiracy to commit." Her meticulous poise was beginning to fall apart. She looked as though she was trying hard not to pick up the envelope and thrust it into his face.

Try it, Lieutenant, Roy thought grimly, my gloves are still in my pocket…

"I will not allow you to become a guilty party in this."

"Neither one of us is guilty of anything."

"Please, sir," she said, her words growing strained, "I don't want to drag you or the Elric brothers through an official inquiry. Allow me the dignity of resigning."

"Denied."

"Sir…"

"Denied. I will repeat myself as many times as necessary for you to understand the situation."

Her composure cracked. "What I understand about the situation, sir, is that you are hospitalized because your adjutant shot you with every intention of killing you."

"I don't remember Gray Rosin ever serving as my adjutant," said Roy with mock innocence. It was only Hawkeye's indomitable discipline that kept her from socking him in the jaw. Which was probably for the best; Riza Hawkeye had a mean right hook.

"Now, my adjutant is a model soldier, a fine officer, and an exceptionally brave woman who was compelled through alchemic means to kill her superior, and who, despite the unimaginable psychological strain, fought the conditioning to an extent where her target escaped with only a busted shoulder and a bruised ego. That is my adjutant, Lieutenant."

"For once in your life, sir, will you listen…" said Hawkeye, her voice dangerously quiet and calm; Roy had only ever heard that tone once before, and it was an occasion he would much rather forget. It resurrected memories of cold silver sulfadiazine on his hands and the smell of cooked meat on his clothes… "A bodyguard so easily turned against her commanding officer cannot be counted on to protect him!"

"You do not miss, Lieutenant!" said Roy firmly. "You are the Hawk's Eye. If you wanted to kill me, I'd be dead. The reason I'm not isn't because of slipshod aim or a gun misfire. Not with your own weapons. You missed because you fought Gray, one of the most formidable alchemists in Amestris, and you won. The only thing you deserve from an inquiry board is a medal for extreme valor. So… request denied."

"Sir..."

"I thought I lost you, Hawkeye." He didn't realize he had been gripping the bed sheets until he felt his fingers beginning to cramp. "I thought... when Alphonse told me you'd stayed behind..."

"A long time ago, Major Rosin saved my life. I have always ever been far more use to her alive than dead."

He bit out four bitter words: "I can't lose you."

"But I can no longer trust myself with your life, sir," she added quietly. She sounded too tired to argue. Roy wondered when was the last time she'd slept…

"But I trust you with it. Always. And at the end of the day," he chuckled, "it's my life, to entrust to whomever I chose."

"That is highly irresponsible. Sir," she added his honorific as an afterthought.

"That's why I need you to be the responsible one, Lieutenant."

"Colonel…"

"Hawkeye," he said, a glint in his black eyes, "unless you're here to upbraid me about forgetting to fill out my report, or unless you're here with an offer of dinner, we have nothing more to discuss."

"What you are doing is indescribably selfish."

"I'm a selfish man," Roy affirmed simply. "When I find good officers, I like to keep them."

She pursed her lips into a tight, bloodless line. He waited patiently for her to think of something to say that wouldn't make Alphonse Elric go pink around his proverbial ears.

"They will court martial you if they discover you have covered for me… sir."

"I'm not covering for anyone," said Mustang. "According to the report I've drafted in my near illegible left-hand, I was shot by the Kaolin Alchemist. My adjutant demonstrated extreme bravery in the line of duty by protecting her superior officer at considerable risk to her own life. And that same superior officer is counting on her to watch his back." He looked at her… one of those looks that conveyed so much in so few words. A look that would only ever be for her. "You gave me your word. Even into hell, Lieutenant Hawkeye. Remember?"

"Sir." She reached a hand toward the envelope. She sounded brittle — but Hawkeye is strong, thought Roy, stronger than anyone — when she said, "But I cannot forgive myself for this."

When she went to pick up the letter of resignation, Roy forgot about all those carefully calculated distances and clasped her hand in his. Even her knuckles were calloused, weathered by the wind and the elements, by war, by time. He fought a sudden urge to run his fingers over the bones and the sinew, to trace the geography of her hands.

She stiffened. Roy didn't dare look up. If he lifted his head even slightly, the space would be small enough to trivialize the lines they had drawn and redrawn over the long, bitter years, and it would be so desperately simple to meet her copper colored eyes, to go somewhere they ought not go. As much as he wanted it, so much so it made his chest ache, it wasn't fair. Not to him, and especially not to Riza.

They both had bigger promises to keep.

"Then I'll make it an order, Lieutenant. Focus. Keep faith. I can't afford for you to be distracted. Is that understood?"

When she answered, her words were tinged with some of the old gunsmoke. And her hand lingered, just for a moment, before tucking the envelope close to her chest. She clicked her heels together in a salute.

"Understood, sir."

Roy grinned.

And, finally, Riza Hawkeye allowed herself a small, tight smile.


Later

"I always liked it up here."

"Why's that, Brother?"

"I dunno, Al. Guess because I can see the whole city from here."

Alphonse knew better than to ask if it had something to do with his height. Knowing Brother, it probably did.

A small river diverged around the hill. The current gurgled over the rocks, carrying twigs and leaves from the sallows upstream, running their feathery fingers in the water. Brother said the river was cold when he stuck his boot in it. Alphonse took him at his word.

A single tree sat on the top of the hill, its long shadows sloping down towards the fields of thick yellow grass, shimmering like goldthread in the afternoon sun. The branches rippled in auburns and crimsons, the soft susurrus carried on the chill autumn air. The leaves blanketed the hill; Ed and Al's footsteps crunched as they climbed. A stone sat at the top of the hill, sheltered under the lowermost branches. It was made of clean, white marble. Brother had transmuted it himself from the foundations of the old house. To save material, Ed had explained. Alphonse couldn't help but wonder if there was some other reason.

The Osterhagen estate was gone now. General Grumman had seen to it himself; a team of state alchemists and the army corps of engineers had dismantled it brick by brick. News of Grace Lambert Rosin's treachery had reached as far as Central. Führer Bradley had been working diligently to implement new safety controls throughout Amestris, ensuring the soundness and dependability of military-grade propellant. Bradley had assured the people that it was to keep soldier and civilian casualties to a minimum and to safeguard against any other disasters like the Osterhagen incident.

Brother had sneered at the gesture. Führer Bradley just wanted to brush the entire affair under the rug while ensuring the military's munitions remained as deadly as possible, Edward claimed. As well as the new safety regulations, the Führer had implemented a national register for former state alchemists. Even retired military dogs couldn't escape the government's scrutiny. Brother hadn't been too happy about that.

The military was tightening his leash.

Alphonse sighed. He suspected things were going to change for them. Bradley wouldn't allow another national disgrace under his administration, and he'd kept his single eye firmly fixed on the East ever since news reached him of Gray's attempted insurrection. The Elrics would have to move carefully if they wanted to get their original bodies back without inviting awkward questions.

Easier said than done, thought Alphonse gloomily.

The winds had shifted. The Al suspected a storm was coming.

As the branches swayed, and dappled shadows danced across the grass, Edward and Alphonse stood next to each other, holding vigil over the small white stone. Neither brother said a word. The leaves of the old sycamore tree seemed to speak for them, whispering secrets the world had forgotten.

"Do you think it'll rain today, Al?" asked Ed quietly, after a long breadth of silence.

Alphonse looked up towards the blue autumn sky. "I don't think so."

"Sometimes, I wish it'd rain on days like this."

Al looked down at his older brother, the unspoken question hanging between them.

"It shouldn't be so beautiful when it's so sad," said Edward.

Al knit his hands together. He murmured, "Maybe it's beautiful because it's sad."

"Yeah. Maybe."

Another pause. The dancing boughs and rustling leaves alternated between motion and stillness, sound and silence, like caesural breaks in a poem. It was as though the hillside was breathing.

"Brother?"

"Yeah, Al?"

"I like the view from up here, too."

Ed smiled at that, a small, sad smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, eyes that had known unspoken horrors and unimaginable pain. "But you're already so big and tall, Al. You don't need a hill to stand on."

"It's not that," said Alphonse. He looked towards East City in the distance, glittering white against the horizon. The ribbon of East River sparkled blue and white, pellucid like liquid glass. If he squinted, he could see the pearly limestone country of Ishval, and beyond that, the yellow swathes of the Great Desert. It was their entire world, condensed into a counterpane of color, spread out like a quilt from the bottom of the hill.

When Al raised his hand, he blotted out the entire countryside, and eclipsed the blue, blue sky with his palm. But he didn't feel big.

He felt incredibly small.

"Things are going to get bad for us, Brother," said Al softly. "I think it is going to rain soon. But at least, today, we have this." Alphonse brushed a mantel of fallen leaves from his shoulders, watched them pirouette in slow, lazy spirals. "And when I get my body back, I'm going to come back here, and sit under this tree. And just be here."

Ed's face crinkled in a grin. "That sounds pretty good, Al."

"Are you still sad, Brother?"

Edward touched Alphonse's arm lightly. He looked down at the marble stone. "I've been sad ever since Mom died." Then, he pointed with his automail hand. "But the sky is still blue, isn't it?"

"Yeah. The bluest blue there is."

"You ready to head back?"

"Just one second…"

Alphonse opened his chestplate. He took out a bouquet of white flowers. He didn't remember what they smelled like, and he didn't know what they were called, but they were the same sort of flowers they'd given Mom. Crisp, clean white petals on a weathered gravestone. They reminded Alphonse of home, of promises he still had to keep.

Of seasons and gods and heroes dying and resurrecting. Of people in stories living forever.

Of deconstructions and reconstructions. Of returning.

Alphonse looked westward, where the sun had started its slow descent towards the horizon. Perhaps the twilight sun was a way of reminding humanity about the balance between good and evil, night and day. The sun sets. Light fades, dies. Darkness falls. Nothing is eternal, and like a man made of clay, everything ends.

But, sometimes, not forever. Not always.

Not today.

Alphonse Elric placed the bouquet on Will Osterhagen's gravestone. Then he followed his older brother down the hill.

They had a train to catch. Reole was waiting for them.

The End