Chapter 21: Distractions

A thin layer of dust clung to the pages on the book Hawkeye slid across the table and Roy stifled a sneeze. He examined the faded, peeling cover for a moment before opening it, careful not to tear the brittle pages. "You need to focus," said Hawkeye. "Your work is getting sloppy."

"Sir?" Roy looked up in surprise. It was a fair judgment, he supposed, although he had hoped his Master wouldn't notice. He had spent the past two weeks studying with Riza as usual, but it had been much harder to keep his attention on his notes and Hawkeye's old journals now that he had reason to believe she returned his feelings. When he wasn't watching her, he was thinking about her in ways he had never dared to before. Wondering how she would react if he kissed her, whether her lips would be as soft against his as they looked when she tapped her pen against them.

"Are you listening to me, Mustang?" Hawkeye scolded as he placed a hand across the open pages of the book.

Roy looked up sheepishly, hoping his thoughts weren't written across his face. "Sorry, I guess I lost my focus again."

The man across the table clicked his tongue in disapproval. "Has the weather gotten to you?"

"Yes, sir," Roy lied. It was better than admitting that Riza had.

"Then you had best ignore whatever spring fever is rattling around in your head if you intend to carry on with your studies."

"Yes, Master." The hints about Hawkeye's secret research had become more frequent since the beginning of the year, as if in an attempt to hold it over Roy's head. Roy found it infuriating: he had managed to stick around this long—much longer, Riza had informed him, than any apprentice her father had taken in the past—and yet the man refused to allow more than the occasional concession that his work was anything more than adequate.

Hawkeye withdrew his hand and Roy's face grew hot as he scanned the title page of the familiar book: it was an older version of one he had read in school. An Introduction to Organic Chemistry. Hawkeye hadn't been satisfied with his latest transmutations at all, but Roy could hardly blame him. After all, the twisted pieces of bark looked more like something pulled from a bird's nest than the result of a successful transmutation. He hadn't even bothered showing them to Riza, because he knew she never would have guessed that one was supposed to be a rook to replace the one he had broken three days before when he had knocked it off the table by accident. He had weighed the options carefully, but in the end, his desire to impress her was stronger than his need to show her that he had at least tried to make amends.

Hawkeye flicked the bark across the table one piece at a time. "I expect this to be better next week. Understood?"

"Understood," Roy said. He scooped up the bark and pocketed it before tucking the book under his arm.

"And tell Riza not to bring lunch if she intends to make more of that dreadful stew."

"Yes, sir." He stood and went to the door, eager to get away. In truth, he was as sick of stew as his master, but at least it was better than nothing. And with Riza cooking, the food was bearable, even if it was monotonous and made from parts of deer that he himself would not have labelled as edible.

As he trudged downstairs to the smell of simmering mincemeat, he decided to accompany Riza to school in the morning so he could stop at the post office. The letter he had sent Christmas asking to send money from his bank account must have reached Central, but he hadn't gotten a response yet. He imagined the delight on her face at seeing the fresh food he planned to buy once he could afford it. Still grinning at the thought, he stepped into the kitchen.

"How was it?" Riza asked without looking up from the stove.

He pulled up a chair, wincing as the legs scraped loudly across the floor. "Terrible."

At that, Riza turned around, concern spreading across her face. "He didn't ask you to leave, did he?"

"Not yet. Terrible's still a step up from irredeemable." He set the book on the table before flipping it open.

"I'm glad. I don't want you to go." She gave him a sad smile before turning away to remove bowls from the cupboard. With a surge of guilt, he wondered if she was hinting at his inevitable departure. With spring in the air for the first time, the end of summer seemed unbearably close. At least he found a little comfort in the knowledge that she wanted to stay as much as he did.

"You only need two bowls. Your father said he doesn't want stew."

She returned one of the bowls and shrugged. "More for us, I suppose." She ladled stew into the remaining bowls then dropped a spoon in each. Her skirt swished around her legs as she strode to the table and Roy forced himself to look back at the book. "Careful," said Riza, setting one bowl in front of him.

He looked up at her, trying to mask his embarrassment with an expression of confusion until he realized she meant to warn him not to spill on the book. He closed it and set it on the floor beneath his chair, feeling sheepish and a little guilty even though she hadn't noticed the way he looked at her. "Thanks for lunch."

"You should probably wait until you've tasted it before thanking me," she said, grimacing at her own first spoonful.

Roy laughed. "Let me rephrase that: thanks for cooking so I didn't have to handle this stuff when it was raw."

"If that's what you're thanking me for, gratitude might not be enough." She wrinkled her nose. "If you think it's foul now…"

"Then I can only imagine what it was like before you started your miracle work," he finished.

"You're certainly in a good mood today," she observed, letting her spoon clatter against the bowl as she reached for a glass of water.

Roy noticed his own glass for the first time and he drained it eagerly, trying to wash away the texture of whatever Riza had ground up for meat. "Why shouldn't I be?" he said, coughing slightly as he swallowed wrong. "The sun is shining, we might have fresh food tomorrow, and I get to spend the rest of the day with you."

"If you're looking forward to it that much, then we ought to do something special," she suggested.

"Like what?" he asked, looking up from his stew.

"There's something I want to show you," she said and she refused to reveal any more about it. When Roy pressed her as they washed the dishes, she scowled and pointed a soapy ladle at him. "I told you it's a surprise."

"Okay, okay. Sheesh." He dried the dishes without another word, hoping he hadn't annoyed her too much. Christmas always used to scold him when he nagged her about birthday presents, but Riza's silence was a far worse punishment. He stole glances at her occasionally, but she kept her face expressionless, intent on scrubbing away the last bits of stew from their bowls. If she could hide her thoughts from him with such apparent ease, then surely she could hide them from her father, and once again the idea of asking her how she really felt about him forced its way to the front of his mind. But if he wanted her to open up to him, he needed to swallow his pride.

"I'm sorry," he said as he accompanied her out into the yard. He had thought up half a dozen apologies while she rinsed and dried her hands, but in the end, the simplest had seemed the best.

She gave him a warm smile and placed a hand on his arm. "It's fine," she said. "You're still my best friend, no matter how obnoxious you are."

"So you think I'm obnoxious, do you?" He pulled his arm away and wrapped it around her shoulders, grinning as she stumbled into him.

Slipping an arm around his waist, she looked up at him. "Well, it's true. Especially when you smirk like that."

"Like what?" he said innocently, pulling her closer. It would be so easy to lean down and peck the top of her head, so easy to tell her how pretty she was or how much she meant to him. She's your Master's daughter. Keep your hands off her. But they were already holding each other, and the contact came naturally, just as it had for months. He wasn't even the slightest bit nervous, the way he had been when he had first assumed she was flirting. If being obnoxious wasn't enough to change her mind, surely a little nudge toward romance wouldn't damage their relationship and Hawkeye never had to find out. "Hey, Riza, can I—?"

"We're here," she announced as though she hadn't heard him. With her free hand, she pointed up and he saw a treehouse nestled in the branches above them.

"Impressive," he said. After all the hours he had spent helping Riza chop wood for a bridge from the log they had once tried to haul across the river, he had nothing but respect for whoever had built this. It had been months since they finished hammering that bridge together and he still felt phantom splinters in his fingers.

"My father made this," she explained. "With alchemy."

Roy felt somewhat disgruntled at the revelation. Was she trying to rub it in that he was terrible at transmuting wood? Or had his current endeavor simply reminded her of a happy memory? "And I can't even make a rook," he muttered.

"A rook?" she asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

"I broke one of yours and I wanted to apologize," he said. She already knew he was a failure; he might as well own up to it. He pulled the knotted piece from his pocket and pressed it into her hand.

Riza curled her fingers around it protectively. "Thank you, Roy," she said. "Even if it isn't perfect, it was a sweet thought."

"If I had been thinking, I would have just transmuted the original back together," he said, but he was pleased all the same.

"You still can. The pieces are in my room."

"Later," he said. "I'm still curious about this." He gestured up at the treehouse. Aside from admiring his master's handiwork, he was also eager to have a private place to visit with Riza. This close to the yard, not even a stray soldier would come near enough to overhear their conversations.

She held out her hand, opening her fingers. "Would you mind putting this in your pocket for now? I don't have any."

"Sure." He took it carefully from her palm and tucked it away.

"Thanks." She hauled herself onto the ladder and looked down at him over her shoulder once her feet were higher than his head. "You coming?"

He nodded. "Yeah." Taking care to avert his eyes, he climbed up after her. With his gaze locked onto the trunk in front of him, he didn't notice he had reached the top until his head poked up through the trapdoor. Two large cushions took up most of the space and Riza had settled onto one of them, legs tucked up beside her and shoes half-off. Roy dragged himself the rest of the way up and sat on the empty cushion as she closed the door behind him.

"What do you think?" she asked.

He leaned back against the wall and settled deeper into the cushion, hands resting in his lap as he stretched out his legs. "I like it. It's cozy."

"I should have brought you here sooner. It's just—" She stopped short and scooted closer to him. He moved as well, giving her enough space to sit comfortably instead of awkwardly spanning the gap between the two cushions.

"Just what?" he asked as she leaned her head against his shoulder. A bird sang from a nearby branch as they nestled together and Roy looked down at Riza's fingers, watching as they tapped restlessly against her thigh. She clearly had something on her mind as well and her reluctance to finish her last sentence worried him. If she was closing herself off, there was no way she would voice her feelings for him, not to mention the fact that she was upset by whatever it was she couldn't say.

"It's not important," she said softly.

"If it matters to you, then it is," he insisted. "But if you don't want to tell me, that's fine."

She shifted uncomfortably and looked up at him with uncertain eyes. "The two of us alone up here—if my father found out…But I guess it's no worse than spending the night in your room."

An awkward silence fell between them and Roy squeezed his arms against his sides. Maybe this wasn't the best time to bring it up, but he had to know before he lost his nerve completely. "About that—can I ask you something, Riza?"

Her fingers grew still as she nodded. "Of course."

The words felt stuck inside him and he struggled to pry them out as he found his tongue. "Do you like me?" he asked, each syllable threatening to choke him. "And not just as a friend."

She pulled away to get a better view of him, brown eyes narrowing as they scrutinized his face. "Why do you want to know?"

"If you answer, I'll tell you," he said, feeling guilty about being so evasive. But he had asked first, and damned if he was going to admit that he liked her before he knew that she felt the same.

"What are we, children?" she muttered, and Roy had to bite his tongue to keep from pointing out that they were sitting in a treehouse. "If I tell you, do you promise things won't change between us? Will we still be best friends and have fun together like in the past?"

"Of course," he said, his heart sinking. Of course she only saw him as a friend; he had been stupid to think otherwise. And here he was, ruining everything by bringing up an uncomfortable subject and displaying his feelings for her so transparently without making it equally obvious that he treasured their friendship more than anything.

She looked down at her knees and curled her fingers around the hem of her skirt. "I do," she whispered.

"I figured as mu—wait, what was that?"

"I like you a lot," she admitted, finally meeting his eyes again.

Wordlessly, he turned and pulled her into his arms. "I like you too," he said and clutched her tighter to his chest until he could feel her heart racing as fast as his own. "And I was afraid that's why you were nervous about bringing me here."

"It didn't even cross my mind," she admitted, returning the embrace. "I hadn't dared hope you did. But now that I know the truth, I don't intend to let him find out."

"Neither do I. Can you imagine what he'd do to me if he knew the real reason I've been so distracted?" He felt her shudder in his arms, apparently doing just that. At least, if it came down to a punishment, he trusted that Hawkeye wouldn't do anything to Riza. He didn't care what the man did to him as long as she didn't have to pay for his lack of diligence. It wasn't as if she had asked for him to live with her, and Hawkeye himself had advocated for their friendship.

"How long have you liked me?" she asked in an attempt to steer the conversation in a lighter direction. Her warm breath on his neck made something stir within him and he fisted his hands in the fabric of her dress to steady himself. Entertaining the thoughts that came with the sensation would only make things worse.

"Since New Year's," he said when he had enough control over himself to speak again. "And I tried not to let myself think about it until last week, but I could have sworn you were flirting with me and—"

"It took you long enough to figure it out," she teased, moving one hand tentatively to brush his cheek with her thumb. "Although I suppose I'm the slow one here."

He placed one hand over hers, pressing it to his face. "How long have you liked me?"

"It may have been longer, but I realized that I did the day we went to Mother's grave," she admitted, lowering her gaze in embarrassment. "You talked to her instead of thinking I was stupid for doing the same. And I realized that you understand me better than anyone else ever will." Sitting up on her knees, she wrapped her arms around him so tightly he could hardly breathe.

"So what now?" he asked when she let him go.

"What do you mean?"

He looked at her and his heart caught in his throat when he saw the concern in her eyes. "Where can this go?" he said sadly, one hand playing with her hair. "Your father will be angry enough when he finds out I've applied to the academy. And he'll be furious if he finds out I want more than friendship from his daughter, regardless of which he learns about first. So where does that leave us?"

"The same place as before, I suppose," she said, scrunching her nose.

He shook his head. "Will it really be the same?" he asked. "Now that we both know how we feel, are we just going to go back to acting like we don't?"

"Of course not. But we'll still be friends like you promised."

"Riza, that's not—I mean—what I was trying to say was I had hoped you wanted to be my girlfriend," he said with a sinking heart. How could he blame her if she didn't? After all, he'd be gone in a few short months, and no matter how often he wrote, it wouldn't be the same. Even as friends, they had maintained almost constant contact. How much harder would it be to miss her kisses as well as her hugs?

"I never said I didn't," she said. "What I don't want is for you to get into trouble because of me."

"You're worth all the trouble in the world."

Her eyes widened in surprise. She smiled slightly, tilting her head until her hair caught the sunlight. "So are you," she said. "That's why I don't want to risk losing you. If Father sent you away early, I'd never be able to forgive myself. Please, Roy, can we just be friends for now?"

"Of course we can," he said. "I get it." He didn't want to lose her either. As she pulled away from the embrace and slipped off his lap, her smile faded, and her eyes seemed far away. The melancholy in her face made his heart ache. There had to be something he could do to cheer her up, but nothing came to mind; he could only watch helplessly as she moved back to the other cushion, wrapping her arms around herself. The air in the treehouse was unbearably stuffy in the silence that spread between them. Flinging the trapdoor open, he watched for her reaction, but she didn't even seem to notice, sealed off as she was in her own thoughts as she was. With fresh air cooling his face, he started to feel a little better. After all, she liked him back. And that was a start.