He was in Master Hawkeye's old research laboratory, on the upper floor of the house. It remained just as Riza Hawkeye had left it years ago as an officer cadet. She was here too, sitting backwards on a chair, arms hugging the back of it to her chest. Her shoulder blades shivered with the cold and the anticipation. She seemed far away from him. He didn't want to do what she asked. He wanted to lay down and hold her and be held by her. But he couldn't. His affection was chained in the past. Passion had been replaced by grief. They were no longer children, and he was a man of his word.
Mustang pulled on a glove.
"Lieutenant?"
"I'm ready, sir."
His eyes were already wet when the spark hit her skin like a bomb at the end of a fuse. She screamed.
Ice, water, medicine—it was all laid out on the worktable. Mustang clutched at the sides of it, using all his restraint. He would have to let her burn first. Just a few minutes, he told himself. His legs gave out underneath him and he crashed to his knees, pounding the ceramic floor with his fists, matching her screams with his own. "Haven't I caused enough suffering?!" The arrogance he'd had to say he'd protect the ones he loved. He couldn't even keep her safe.
This damned place. He should never have come here at all.
Hawkeye's screams gave way to sobs, and then to gasps. He heard her stand, unbelievably, from her chair. She walked over to the worktable, dragging her feet, changing her mind at the last minute and turned, vomiting into the waste bin. Mustang finally looked up. She was kneeling, shaking. He got himself to his feet. He reached out to her.
"Major Mustang, sir." Her voice was so cool, as if she might give him an order.
He stopped. "Yes, Lieutenant."
"I," her voice faltered as she convulsed again, dry heaving, coughing. "Can you get me some water? Please."
"Of course-" A glass. Pitcher. It was cold. He held it out to her.
A piece of linen, dipped in cool water, draped over her back.
She couldn't hold up the weight of the glass. He pressed it to her lips. He let his other hand weave around her lower back, and she immediately released her weight into his arm.
"Thank you," she said, releasing her tenuous grip on the glass of water. She pitched backwards, losing the ability to keep herself upright.
Mustang set the glass on the floor. He took the coat hanging off his shoulders and laid it across her chest. She shivered.
"It's not you," she said, her breath hitching and uneven.
"What?"
"It's-" she coughed again. "Not your fault. This. It's not your fault."
Mustang turned his face away in shame. The smell of burning flesh lodged in his throat. He could hear them—all of them. Crying. Her screams echoed in his head. He saw her eyes. Exhausted. Ishval had turned them all into killers. He had taken flame alchemy from her and used it like a dog. And she had followed him into this military hellhole.
There can be no more flame alchemists.
She reached up and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. "Mustang. Roy." She tugged, forcing him to look back at her. "It's not you. I trust you."
Yes, trust. That was the thread that bound them together, even in the desert, even before. Even now. She trusted him. And he trusted her, with his life, with all his guilt. Even in the darkness of the wake of Ishval, there was that. There would always be that.
Mustang wept. "What do I do, Hawkeye?"
"Keep going," she said without hesitation. "You can still protect the people you love. You can change this country. You have to."
He gripped her wrist, holding it against his chest. "Alright, Lieutenant."
"There you go." She smiled weakly. "It's going to get better."
Maybe she was right.
