Roy Mustang was having a nightmare. He had never said anything about having them, but she had watched him enough nights to know that he did. Perhaps he even knew that she knew. But it was something that he couldn't tell her. Not yet, anyway.
She bit her lip as he relived some terror of his past there on the hospital bed. Sweat stood out on his brow, and his expression was one of pain. Hawkeye had to grip the armrests of the uncomfortable chair to keep herself from running to his side. She had vowed never to wake him from a nightmare. It would be an admission of weakness for him, and she wasn't going to force him into showing her his human side. It was up to him to reveal it when he was ready.
She wondered if he knew she watched him. She'd never said anything about staying through the night, and had made sure that the nurses said nothing as well. She was a smiling face there for him in the morning, and a comforting hand on his until he fell into a troubled sleep. Neither spoke very much during the day, but occasionally he would open up and let her more into his life.
He rarely made excuses for his emotions anymore, not like he had when standing before his best friend's grave. She was willing to put up with any reason he gave, as she had done in the beaming sunlight as he announced the rain. But it was better now that he was beginning to trust her more. She was able to take some of the weight from his shoulders. She was helping him to stand up straight again.
In fact, when she had helped him out of bed for the first time since his fight with Bradley, and seated him in a chair by the window, he had talked of the man called Maes Hughes. He had talked for a long time that day, longer than any single time since. And as he spoke of his lost friend, Hawkeye began to understand what no other person knew.
The excessively intense Hughes had been Mustang's driving force. But he'd been more than that. A friend, a listener, a conspirator, a sympathizer and a defender. A support, a refuge, and perhaps at one time long ago a loving embrace. Roy had needed a Maes just to keep going. He hadn't just lost a companion with Hughes, he'd lost a part of his soul.
Riza understood, because she had felt the same in those wild moments when she'd thought she'd lost Roy.
She'd become a second Hughes for him. She knew she was a poor imitation in comparison, but she would give him everything she had. She would be his friend as well as his aide. She would stand by his side as Hughes had done, providing him with the human connection he needed. Someday she would see that dark, hollow eye shine with life again. It worried her to see him rub around the edges of the eye patch.
But for now, she'd watch him sleep, waiting until he felt ready to tell her that he had nightmares. And then, maybe sometime later, he'd tell her what they were about.