Title: Mistakes

Author: S J Smith

Rating: Gen

Summary: Riza's not going to be late.

Disclaimer: These are Hiromu Arakawa's characters, not mine. Drat it.

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Riza strode quickly through the train station, a military duffle thrown over her shoulder, despite her civilian clothing. She passed the bag off to a porter, showing him her ticket, and gave him a tip to make sure the bag got on the train.

Her leave approval had come in late last night, a phone call from Breda alerting her that the signed document was on her desk. "Seems strange, you going without us," he'd said, and Riza couldn't help but agree. She trusted Roy, up to a point. He had, after all, hared off to Briggs, taking a demotion when the country needed strong men and women to lead it. He hadn't even had the decency to tell her to her face what he was doing, just left her with a note, and eventually, a terse letter outlining where he was, and hoping she'd forgive him. It was her own foolish pride that let him go, instead of hunting him down and dragging him off the mountain, pride and pain, and anger at him throwing away everything they'd worked so hard to build since Ishbal. She knew she'd played her own part in it. Even helping him recover didn't quite make up for the shrapnel that took his eye, shrapnel she hadn't calculated for when she'd shot Archer. So they'd both been fools. Rather than doing what they'd always done, draw strength from one another, they'd drifted apart, and wound up in this situation, not speaking, alone, when they could have been forging ahead together.

She'd made up her mind, not telling Roy, just requesting her leave. There had been too many foolish mistakes made over the past decade, and Riza wasn't going to let the appearance of these Elric brothers be the catalyst for another one.

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