For my birthday, I did my best to update both Memories and Moments in Time. Reviews would make me happy. Thanks~

Hundred Themes RoyAi - 030

Conversation

A conversation was one to be held by at least two people. While it was possible to talk to oneself, Roy was not inclined to make a habit of it. Nevertheless, a conversation was to be held by at least two people, and Roy... well...

That was not at all what Roy felt he was having as he called her rank, something he realized he's done for so long it was already a reflex. Somewhere subconsciously he remembered a time when he called her by the name her mother gave her. It felt almost foreign, but he knew it was not so long ago.

"LIEUTENANT!" he bellowed. "LIEUTENANT HANG IN THERE!"

"CAN YOU HEAR MY VOICE!? ANSWER ME! LIEUTENANT!" The carefully maintained facade of indifference and cool detachment was nothing in the air—it was blown away as it had been far too often lately.

Now he was desperate, horrified, and terrified—not for his own safety because he knew that

Answer, answer, answer, answeransweransweransweransweranswer... The word echoed in his skull, pounded into his brain, growing louder and louder, speeding up so that he could hardly make out the individual word as it repeated over and over.

He wasn't quite sure what he said afterwards, desperation and the red haze of rage were all he could remember, but if he said something he was certain it involved quite a bit of cursing.

"…Who do we transmute?" the doctor asked calmly, conducting a conversation all by himself. Roy was certain he was mad. "Family? A friend? A lover?"

Damn it, if he could just break free one moment. One moment with a free hand, the one with the intact glove.

"If this lady were to die, would you transmute her? That'd be fine, too."

"…I won't die," a calm, sure voice rasped, somehow reaching through the haze fogging his brain. "I've… been ordered not to die, you see."

Roy always knew Riza was an angel, her softly spoken words somehow clearing the red haze the so-called doctor's words created in him. "…What will it be, Mustang?" he asked, "Your precious woman is dying."

Such an interesting choice of words. Precious, so precious, indeed, that she had very literally become a part of his life, at least until Wrath had used it.

And even then, she was always, always in his mind.

… And to Hell with the man who threatened her for the rest of Amestris. "If you leave her be, she'll just bleed to death. But…" and of course he goes on a spiel saying that he could save her if only he would perform human transmutation.

It was terribly cliché but it was a tried and true formula to get a reaction. Somehow, though, he still felt tempted to just do as he said. For the Lieutenant. For Riza.

"Oh? She's become quiet. I wonder if she's dead?" and Roy wanted to strangle the person who could cheerfully say that Riza Hawkeye, with her corn silk hair and garnet eyes, with her stubborn chin and marksman hands, was dead. Strangle, torture, kill. All so simple if he could just break free. Only a moment, a chance, and he would be by her side once more. If only.

"…Colonel…" Her voice was weak, but it was irrevocable proof that she was alive. "There's no need to do human transmutation."

"You'll do it, right? Mustang."

-

Left to right.

No. Don't. Don't you dare, Colonel.

You're cruel, Lieutenant. Would you have done the same in my position?

And it all he could do to not scream in anguish for his ever loyal… what was she? Family? A friend? A lover?

Did she even fall in one of those categories? Could she?

Because Riza Hawkeye was so much more than simply a friend, she wasn't exactly a lover. She was so much closer than family. She was simply more than all of it.

So he turned away. "…I get it." Turned away because he could not understand why she would be so willing to do this. Or rather, he simply didn't want to understand her sacrifice. But he would—should—follow her will to the end. Whatever it took. Because it was, ultimately, for the dream they shared.

"Ooh, so you'll do it!" the man who did not understand their goal and who he dearly wanted to kill said brightly.

"I get it, Lieutenant," Roy said, infinite strength and pain making their way into his words, making them seem so heavy and final. "I won't do human transmutation."

There was something oddly satisfying, pleasurable, in watching the deranged 'doctor' drop his mouth.

"You're abandoning her?" he had the gall to ask. "How cruel of you," he continued, and Roy could say much the same of him, but with a thousand times, no, a million times more truth.

Stupid, stupid man.

'You're abandoning your humanity? Leaving tens of thousands of innocents to their grave? How cruel of you,' Roy wanted to say in return. But he kept it in and swallowed it in favor of other, better words. Better for the moment, focusing on what was in front of him. "Abandoning?" he said derisively. "I don't want to hear that from the bastard who just threw away all these presidential candidates like mere pawns."

Pain. Infinite, fiery, raw pain as blood dripped onto the cold, unforgiving ground. Pain ablaze at her neck, making it so, so difficult to pretend nothing is wrong. It was that same pain, her pain, that almost led her Colonel to perform human transmutation.

She knew he shouldn't, so she made it clear he'd better not. He'd be a fool a thousand times over if he did. She knew he'd sacrifice for her, but it wasn't his personal sacrifice to make.

… and then he was by her side once more, cradling her as if she were a newborn. She felt like one, too. Weak. Defenseless.

"LIEUTENANT! GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF, LIEUTENANT!" And as she made little gasping noises that were a struggle for air, he wanted to scream away all the frustration that his alchemy couldn't help when it was important.

A 'This goes first!' and a 'Leave this to me' later, and she's better. Not well, exactly, but now she could work on it now, instead of impending death.

And she was now capable of conversation.

A conversation was one to be held by at least two people. Now that they were doing exactly that, after she was almost gone, he felt a startling, stunning relief he couldn't put into words if he tried.

"I'm sorry…" he said, his arms tight around her, and in the same breath, "Thank you."

"Colonel," she rasped, "I'm so…"

"Don't talk!" he scolded, loosening his grip to see her face. "Just rest!"

"My eye signal…you recognized it well." She fixed a garnet eye at him.

He mustered a smile, confident despite their situation. "We've been together a long time, after all."

A long time. Six years since Ishbal. How many years before even that? It didn't really matter, that period of time anymore.

"Besides, 'If you do human transmutation, I'll beat you to death.' That's what your stare was telling me, right?"

And she laughed, weakly, because that was all she was capable of right now. But she laughed because of everything and nothing, and somehow things would work out.

Exactly. Because that's what had to be done.