53. Sigh

A/N: Song: "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman

Set during Roy's apprenticeship.

At Riza's sigh, Roy looked up. She was closing the book she'd been reading for the past half-hour.

"Didn't end well?" he asked.

Riza shook her head. "No, it didn't, and I knew it wouldn't…" she let out another sigh. "It was a story about a woman who couldn't see a deadbeat's faults. She didn't want to, and for the rest of her life, even though she tried and tried to make things work, he refused to change, and she was miserable."

Roy's eyebrows rose. "Don't people read books to escape?"

"It is a form of escape," insisted Riza. When Roy's questioning look failed to leave his face, she explained, "I know real life doesn't always end happily ever after, but rarely do they also end horribly with nothing at all ever working out. It puts things in perspective. As sorry as you feel for the characters…" She took a deep breath. "As horrible as this sounds, there's a part of you that can't help but think… At least it's not me."

Roy had to put all his effort into holding his mouth shut. Riza, though stoic as ever, was as close to crying as Roy had ever seen her. Nearly dumping his own book from his lap, he was across the room in two steps, pulling Riza to her feet and against his chest.

"It's okay," he murmured, and neither of them knew whether he was talking about feeling fortunate, or about how things would turn out, but for the moment, it didn't matter. All that mattered was that, for the moment, even if life wasn't perfect, it was okay, and that was good enough.

A/N: When I wrote this, I'd had a pretty crappy week. It's been a long time since then, but I know I've felt like this before, and for me, what Riza says is really true.