II "Signed, Mr. Horse"

"I remember standing over you like this once before, Roy Mustang, and asking if you needed to talk."

He'd been thinking about that too, waiting for her at the counter with a half-downed drink in his hand. The Riza standing next to him at the company bar at the base near Ishbal had been of low rank and far back from the front lines, still unaware of what had gone down that day seven years ago, still a stranger to him. Her voice was exactly the same, though; stern and slightly patronizing and filled with thinly veiled concern. He couldn't help but smile in seeing how little she'd really changed. She had been his anchor all these years.

She had her hands planted on her hips, but her solid brown eyes were soft with emotion. "How much have you had to drink, that you couldn't wait until I'd found someone who could interpret your directions?"

"I didn't send it in another language!" His voice felt heavy, but it couldn't have been the alcohol.

"'Meet me at my dive, signed Mr. Horse,' isn't exactly what I would categorize as an easy-to-understand message." But she hadn't asked how he'd found her address. "Marked 'urgent,' no less—as if you needed to make me panic even more! How many drinks does it take you to find the nerve to send that kind of note?"

"You really have a bone to pick with me this time, don't you? More'n usual, anyway." Roy wanted to laugh, even knowing it would have been a bad choice. Instead, he unceremoniously downed the rest of his first whiskey. He never would have had the courage to send for her if he'd been drunk already, but he'd figured he'd best get it over with. Time to go back to those old habits.

"I've been worried. I know Gracia's said so to you." Her admitting it was something new though.

He smirked just a little and pulled himself just a tad unsteadily onto his feet. "I've been worried about me, too. Let's stop attracting attention and get a booth, huh?"

It was all so familiar still. The first time they'd met, they'd both had a lot more to drink. Maybe Riza's young, under-the-influence mind had opened her to his musings, but Roy's testimony had been sobering enough to warrant it. He'd never quite understood why she'd sympathized so much with him as opposed to any other man drowning himself in a bottle that night…but he'd never quite been sure about why he'd let himself go in front of her, either. He'd been baffled by her undying devotion, her acceptance of his blasphemous plans, but her support had been welcome and her company a certain unadulterated comfort.

Even now, it seemed she'd never stopped believing in him. She listened without a word as he vented, as he acknowledged what a jerk he'd been, how by trying to be the Sober Citizen just wasn't working. She'd always been a pro listener, accepting things not important or painful or merely irrelevant without a second thought. She never pried unless her intuition told her to, and her intuition had a knack for being quite sympathetic. He trusted her judgment so completely because of incidents like these.

Two rounds later Roy ran out of things to complain about, and both of them stared in silence at the cracked wooden table. The Plunge bar was a dumpy place, even worse than the holes his company had frequented, but that was why he liked it. It could be guaranteed that there would be someone who looked as though their problems were worse.

"Now that you're willing to admit all this to me, it's obvious you've already resolved your conflicts," she said, but not unkindly. "This stress you say has to do with my absence…well, here I am, and now that you've confessed everything you feel better. Right?"

"See, that's why I asked you here. You know me better than I do." She laughed just a little, and he encouraged her. "I've missed that face of yours, especially those rare smiles."

"Have you? I was beginning to think I'd completely lost the chance of trying to reconcile—"

"Water under the bridge," he insisted. "Were you really thinking of giving up just because we were both trying not to fall apart in front of each other?"

"You seem to have it all back together now," she said dryly.

"Do you?"

"Trying like hell, sir," she admitted with another slightly embarrassed smile. "It's hard when you feel you can't talk to the only person that's still around for you."

"I'm not 'sir' anymore, you know." He knew she did. The reference to his rank had been a bit too forced, though she hesitated to call him by his name as well. "And what about that pup? He doesn't care about your change in occupation, does he?"

This time, a laugh. "No, I don't think so. He knows my hours are different though, and he's been crawling up onto my bed and waking me up long before my alarm."

"Whatever happened to your military discipline tactic?"

"Dogs are a bit too smart to follow it. I found that out pretty quickly."

Roy realized after few more topics that he was already learning new things about her. The Lieutenant had been one of those people who could sneak in very close to you without actually sharing much. Though he'd never known until tonight that's she'd been a military adoptee, it was just that he'd guessed it through the way she behaved …just like he had known she felt she'd lost everything after the takeover, and he had been too wrapped up in his pitiful self to try to fight her thick exterior walls.

He hadn't seen so many drinks in her since Ishbal. She usually didn't join the boys after work at the bar, and nobody had given it much of a second thought. Roy wasn't sure now how much of Riza's talkativeness was scotch and soda versus her happiness to be seeing him again, but it was a welcome distraction. If he could see over the wall it was because it had finally fallen down.

"Would the two of you like another round?" the server asked, and Riza waved her hand. "I don't think I'd make it home tonight."

"Some coffee, then?"

"Make it tea."

"Sorry ma'am, we don't have tea. Don't get many requests for it."

"Coffee's fine, then."

"Creamer or sugar?"

"No." Of course—no fluff for Riza Hawkeye. She'd never liked fluff, thought it unnecessary. And yet she still managed to surprise him, how somewhere through the cracks of that self-discipline could be seen a soft underlayer, something so sensitive that she found it necessary to conceal. How much of that softness had been his doing?

Feeling pressured, Roy had accepted a cup too instead of another whiskey—it was just as black and terrible as he'd expected. Already Riza was taking care of him again, yanking the bottle away when she felt he'd had enough…just as she used to lock his office door when it had grown too late and brought him meals and run thousands of little errands. Although those chores weren't specified in her job description, Roy knew they had soon become part of the routine for her—it was probably why she'd requested assignment as his assistant all those years ago. She did it silently, too, never questioning or accusing or confronting him. She was too smart to think he would do things differently just because it was her advice.

"It looks warm out," Riza said, hefting on her heavy coat as they were getting ready to head out. It was better than a uniform, though—he could still tell there was a female under it. "The fog hasn't even descended yet and it has to be past one in the morning."

"One twenty-two," said the barman helpfully. "You hear that, you lot? We're closing soon!"

Roy held the door open as they left, though it seemed more as though the door was holding him up. Damn, he thought, I must be getting old to lose out to my favorite malt before the sun has even risen. "I'll walk you back," he insisted. "This's no place to be at this time of night."

"I'd appreciate that." Yet another surprise. She asked for help very rarely, and usually didn't appreciate it at all. She always had to be the tough girl in the boys' club, independent and distant. Had the logic node of his brain been functioning properly, Roy might have realized that tough or not, without her guns Riza was easily a victim. He'd forgotten after so many years around strong women that they weren't any more vulnerable than the other kind.

They'd wound perhaps a mile through Eastern's dusty streets before the first tendrils of fog reached down for them. Riza unconsciously drew closer to him, complaining vaguely about the low visibility, her sharp eyes darting from streetlamp to alley to doorway. Even with so many drinks under her belt she was cautious.

She lived in a villas-style apartment on 42nd, not too far from the accounting firm where Gracia had said she worked. She stopped at the bottom of the staircase, seeming as though she wanted to say something. When she remained silent, Roy tried. "So this is it, huh?"

She nodded and gave up whatever was on the tip of her tongue. Instead she threw her arms around his neck. Surprised and destabilized, he hugged her back.

"This is not an appropriate show of respect, Lieutenant."

She laughed again, held him for another wonderful moment before she let him go. The faint, familiar smell of her perfume lingered in the air between them. "I'm not a Lieutenant anymore."

There was the faint noise of the wind against the buildings as they both tried to search for something un-awkward to say.

"Are we going to do this again?" Riza asked, looking toward her door as if reading a cue on it.

Roy produced and pen and grabbed her hand. "Now don't lose this," he said, "Sensitive information. I'm entrusting it to you."

She curled her fingers around the fresh ink marks and disappeared up into the fog.