A/N: I am sorry to say that this will be the last chapter in this particular story. I really enjoyed working on this and thank all of the people who helped me with some of the terminology, positive reinforcement and all of you who reviewed for me. In particular, I would like to thank the people who have been faithful and given me words of encouragement since the beginning. And now, the conclusion of Desert's Caress…

9-Rain

When I awoke, it was just sunrise. The ball of fire suspended in the sky painted the sands a bloody red colour and the tanned canvas a magnificent orange. I sighed and sat up slowly, painfully aware of the stiffness of my muscles. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and took in my surroundings again. Havoc was sitting up in his cot, rubbing his sore leg and taking a swig of water from his canteen.

"Oh, so you're awake now," he stated, his voice croaking from lack of use, "A fine job that Haywood did on my leg. I'm sorry for passing out on you like that. You should have just left me. Nobody likes a pawn that can't move."

I sighed. My head was still foggy and I was stiff in places I had never been stiff before, so, needless to say, I was a bit annoyed.

"If you're going to question my motives, Havoc, do it when I'm self-aware. I just woke up, for god's sake," I snapped, closing my eyes again and letting out a deep breath before I got up. Havoc snorted and took another swig out of his canteen.

"Mustang was on that radio this morning. He contacted Colonel Gran and requested a medic and a new truck. Fancy that. Looks like he's going to be waist-deep in paperwork when he gets home, though," he laughed. Awake enough to have gotten over my irritability, I looked at him quizzically.

"He's leaving the front?" I asked. Havoc grinned from ear to ear.

"Hawkeye… the war's over! We can go home!" he cried elatedly in that croaky voice of his. My eyes widened in shock. The war that had eaten away almost three years of my life had ended? I let out a deep breath and sat back. One thought prevailed over my mind: I'm going home. A rare smile crept onto my face and I felt my eyes tear up uncharacteristically.

"I-I'm going home," I said weakly as I laughed wetly, grinning at Havoc. He stared at me as if he had never seen me before, with a slightly shocked look on his face at my open display of emotion. Mustang had obviously heard us talking and flipped the tent flap aside to walk in. Seeing me up, he smiled and stood there, looking rather cocky.

"So, we're up are we?" he asked, looking much better than he had when I last saw him awake. He wasn't as pale and the dark circles under his eyes had lessened dramatically. I was still smiling when I looked up at him.

"Sir, is it true? The war's over? I can go home?" I asked hopefully. He smiled softly and nodded.

"Sure is. As soon as the truck arrives, we can go home. The truck is also bearing some mail that had to be held for us. It's about a year's worth."

I had to fight hard to keep from bursting into tears of happiness right on the spot. I couldn't stop the waver in my voice, though. "Thank you, sir. Thank you so much."

The truck, its escort and the medic all arrived within a day of Mustang's request. We immediately left, leaving the ruined tents for the desert to devour. Perhaps in years to come, someone will come upon its remains, extricated from the sand dunes that would fall around it. I didn't dwell on it, though. I was too busy tearing into the mail from home as I sat in the back of the transport truck. Mustang and Havoc were doing the same. All three of us were dead to the world.

There were words of comfort, of hope, of hate, of sadness. There was even a letter dated from a year past that brought tidings of my father's death and how the last thing he had said was, "I'm so proud of my Riza." Roy groaned over several letters from the Captain Hughes that I had met which he let me read. He seemed to enjoy fawning over his girlfriend, Gracia. Havoc seemed to have a lot of trouble keeping his girlfriends as there were several rejection letters amongst his batch.

The train station seemed like a foreign object, a place out of myth and legend of which only hazy memories remained. I ran my hand up and down a column which I had stood by on my first day. I felt every crack, every chink out of the cement. Walking around the crowded platform, I committed every detail of this happy day to memory; the smells of the coal and the sweat from the workers and fellow soldiers; the sound of the whistle and friends calling to one another. I smiled softly as I boarded the train itself. I shared a seat with Havoc with Roy across from us.

However much I felt happy that I was going home, part of it felt wrong. During those three years in Ishbal, all the lives that we had taken had shattered our souls and tied some of the pieces to that desert. I felt like I was leaving something behind. I'm sure the others did, too, for they both stared out the window like I did at the passing desert. When we passed the rolling hills of the country, I saw the boys again. They were sitting on the hill, watching the train, their heads resting on drawn-up knees. There was a blond girl with them, too. Roy saw them too and launched into a coughing fit that that I was sure was only a cover up for something deeper.

As the desert had melted into the countryside, as did the countryside melt into a rainy cityscape. I pushed down the window and reached out a hand in wonder of the water which fell from the sky. I had started to wonder whether it existed at all. A happy smile plastered itself on my face as I felt the unfamiliar wetness on my skin. It was slowly washing away years of blood, sweat and sand from my tainted skin. Slowly, Havoc also reached out of the window, feeling the rain on his own hand. The cigarette in his mouth twitched slightly as the corners of his mouth tilted upwards. Roy refused to move, his excuse being that he hated the rain, but I had a feeling that part of him was still in the desert, unwilling to believe that something so wondrous as rain could really exist.

When we disembarked from the train, everyone parted ways with sad goodbyes and happy smiles. I stood out on the platform, staring at the wonder before me. If I had felt strange as a country girl in the city, I felt stranger still as a tainted soldier gazing upon the purity of children running to and fro under umbrellas with their mothers. I closed my eyes and raised my head up to the heavens, letting water pelt down on my face.

"Charlie! Charlie! Charles?" a woman yelled. I opened my eyes and turned to look at the source of the noise. A concerned-looking brunette ran alongside the stationary train, calling out a name and looking in through the windows. A young girl held onto her mother's hand and looked innocently up at the yelling woman. As the woman turned away from the train for a moment, I recognized her face with a pang. The brunette with the baby from Haywood's picture. I dug my hand into my pocket and felt the metal dog tags, warm next to my leg. It felt strange, as I had assumed that they would be cold like their owner's body. To feel them warm with my heat felt almost sinful.

I winced and took a deep breath before jogging over to the woman and calling out to her, raising my hand for her to wait. As she saw me approach, a look of dread settled in her eyes and one arm was pressed to her chest as if to keep it from stopping on the spot.

"Ma'am, might you be Mrs. Charles Haywood?" I asked, unable to keep the waver from my voice. She heard the waver and tears formed in her eyes.

"Yes. Yes I am," she said. The little girl on her arm saw her mother's eyes tear up and tugged on her sleeve.

"Mommy, why are you sad? Daddy's coming home," she said. Her mother hushed the girl and looked back up at me. I held out my fisted hand and she put her outstretched palm underneath as I dropped the dog tags –still flecked with blood- into her hand.

"He was a good officer, ma'am. Before he died, he-" I surprised myself by choking on my words, I tried to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat, "-he said that he was proud of both of you. Good day, ma'am"

With that, I walked away, biting my lip to keep the tears from flowing out of my reddened eyes. I heard sniffles turn into sobs of anguish behind me, coupled with a little girl's concerned cries of, "Mommy? Why are you sad? Daddy's coming home. Mommy? Stop crying, Daddy won't like it. Mommy!"

I had to run away from the child's cries. I covered my ears with my hands as tears flowed down my cheeks. I screamed "SHUT UP!" as I had similarly near three years past. I collapsed to my knees in a park, sobbing full out, the child's cries of "Mommy!" still ringing in my ears. I slammed my fist into the mud, frustrated with myself for losing control. Tears were still running down my cheeks, disguised by the rain as I punished myself for being so weak.

A warm hand on my shoulder made me look behind me with a sniff. Roy was crouching there with a concerned look on his face that I was unaccustomed to seeing. He looked something akin to a wet dog, his black hair matted against his forehead and water dripping down his face. I felt a fresh wave of sobs coming to me and I lunged into him, wrapping my arms around him and sobbing into his chest. He was stunned for a second before returning the gesture, rubbing my back in a comforting way and burying his nose in the top of my head.

We sat there for a while out in the rain. We must have looked more like two lovers revelling in each other's company than two soldiers haunted by the phantom cries of children they would never see again. Two soldiers sitting in the foreign, yet familiar rain, praying to any god that would listen that there would be no more Ishbals; wishing that the rain would drown away the sand and sweat from their bodies; hoping that no more people would leave as pure as a child and return tainted by the desert's caress.

Praying.

Wishing.

Hoping.

Finding the rain.

OWARI

A/N: It feels so bitter-sweet to end it. I may continue it, though!As promised, here is the preview for my next fic, "Pentacle". Tell me what you think!

A grey-haired older man ran as fast as he could through the maze of water stained hallways that made up this building. Mould crept up the walls, adding to the musty smell of stale air and stagnant water. His foot splashed into a puddle, drenching his blue military uniform navy; black in the dim light provided by the one or two incandescent light bulbs that passed over his head as he raced through the halls. An eerie, singsong voice echoed through the air around him when he came to a crossroad of sorts.

"Stop running; you'll only die tired," it said. The man squinted in the dim light, wheeling this way and that, trying to find out where the voice was coming from. It was impossible to tell in these hallways where anything was. The older man felt like a rat running around a giant maze for his captor's pleasure. For him, though, there was no piece of cheese at the end of the tunnel. There was only death. Thinking he heard a footstep, the paranoid man raced down the hallway in front of him, barrelling down it like a mad dog.

The whites of his eyes showed all the way around his irises, standing out in the darkness like two points of light. Foam had collected at the corners of his mouth, further increasing his resemblance to a rabid animal. Unfortunately, he ran straight into the man he was trying to avoid. He laid eyes on the effeminate face and the sadistic smirk and he fell back onto his behind in shock, desperately trying to scramble away. The effeminate man shook his head and clicked his tongue.

"Now, you've been a bad boy, haven't you? I think you need some punishment," he said in that singsong voice of his. The man on the ground screamed a sound that would pierce the soul of an angel as the man above him flicked his wrist. Five kunai blades embedded themselves in the fallen man's chest and he slumped the rest of the way to the ground.

"Goodnight, General."