The first time Riza heard a scream, she got up on her bed in an instant.
It was only a brief sound, so faint she would not have heard it if she had been asleep. But it had come from the room on her left, where her superior officer was sleeping; so even though it was the middle of the night, she quickly threw her blankets aside and reached for her pistol. It was pitch black in there and Riza wasn't familiar with the hotel room, but she didn't have to grope around for long: she had left it on her bedside table, ready to be seized in case of emergency.
It wasn't paranoia, Riza repeated to herself as she quietly set her feet on the floor, but caution. They were on the Colonel's first mission outside East City, and he had been sent to apprehend a fugitive in a town near Ishval. "His name is well known there," had explained General Halcrow. "He won't have any problem asserting his authority."
Riza had not like that at all. His name was well known, that was true, but it was far from being loved. In her four months as the Colonel's adjutant, she had never had to intervene as a bodyguard, and would have preferred to keep it that way.
But God knows the universe rarely did as she preferred.
So Riza slowly stood up, careful not to make the mattress creak. She took a few steps in the obscurity until her outstretched arm touched the door connecting her room to the Colonel's and put her hand on the handle. Every muscle in her body was tense. She exhaled, then opened the door with a sharp blow, holding her pistol before her.
The door crashed against the wall in a loud bang. Riza stepped in the room, throwing quick glances around her. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness: she saw the shape of the bed, the curtains in front of a window, a desk. But she felt no movement, saw no silhouette; all she heard was a gasp of surprise and a thump coming from the bed. She turned her head toward the noises.
"Colonel, are you all right?"
A rustle of blanket answered her, followed by the squeaking of a mattress.
"Jesus, Hawkeye... yes, I'm all right. "
Riza saw the shape of the Colonel detach from the bed when he sat down. She couldn't see his face, but it sounded like she had scared him.
There was a snapping sound, and a spark pierced through the night, seemingly floating in the air. It quickly turned into a small flame that revealed the Colonel's fingers and arm. Riza quickly looked away and squinted. In the semi-darkness, a fire was blinding and did little more than creating darker shadows; wasn't the Colonel aware of this?
"It's all right, Lieutenant," he repeated. He tried to take a reassuring tone, but his breath was chopped up as if he had just run. "As you can see, there is no one here."
Riza scanned the room, using the flickering glow of the flame. Both of her hands were still on her gun.
"I heard a noise from my room, sir. »
Riza was expecting an explanation, but the Colonel stayed silent. With a frown, she glanced at him over her shoulder. The light of the flame cast broad shadows over his nose and cheeks, giving him a grim look.
"It...it was just a bad dream," he finally said in a low voice. "Sorry."
A bad dream. Riza's mouth parted as the realization hit her.
Oh.
She slowly lowered her gun. Again, Riza cursed the flame that the Colonel had created. Her cheeks were starting to burn, and the last thing she wanted is for him to see her expression.
All of a sudden, she felt utterly foolish for barging into his room in the middle of the night.
But…was it a hint of embarrassment that she had heard in the Colonel's last sentence?
In any case, she had no desire to wait around to find out. She formally apologized, wished him good night, and returned to her room, closing the door behind her. A few moments later, the ray of light under the door went out, and silence fell again.
The second time Riza heard a scream, the following night, she hesitated for a moment.
The moment lasted only a few seconds before her common sense took over. It was a real scream this time, loud enough to make her shiver. Of course, she suspected what could have caused it; but the threat facing the Colonel was the same as yesterday (or greater; after a day wandering around the city, the word must have spread that the Flame Alchemist was here), and she could not take the risk of letting her superior be attacked while she was in the next room.
And if she made a fool of herself again, well, it was part of the job.
So Riza found herself once again slamming open the door to the Colonel's room, her gun held out in front of her, all senses on alert.
This time, the curtains were open, letting in a moonbeam that projected a square of light on the floor. With this faint bluish light, she could make out the rest of the room: the wooden desk right of the door separating their rooms, the double bed framed by bedside tables facing the main door, the dresser.
The room which, again, was empty except for the Colonel.
The moonlight allowed her to see him better too. This time, he was already sitting on the bed; his back bent forward, he was leaning on his stretched arms, both hands flat on the mattress. When Riza came in, he looked at her without moving his head, hanging between his arms.
It was just like yesterday.
Riza let out a breath; a mixture of relief and embarrassment washed over her. She lowered her pistol without a word, carefully avoiding the Colonel's glance.
The Colonel slowly straightened up and turned his head towards her.
"Hey, Lieutenant."
His mouth curved into a grin, like he was just greeting her in a morning at the office.
But the Colonel had never shown up for work in the state he was in. Sweat was making his hair stick against his forehead, he was out of breath, and his eyes...Riza had often seen that haunted look on Roy Mustang, but never on the Lieutenant-Colonel.
She answered him with a sharp nod.
The Colonel's grin quickly faded. "I'm sorry I woke you up...again." His eyes fell back on the blankets in front of him. He ran a hand through his hair, sounding hesitant. "I get these a lot. In the future, you might want to get a room farther away from mine."
This time, there was no mistaking it: the Colonel was embarrassed. Riza got so surprised that she briefly forgot her own discomfort. Her superior officer was one of the most confident people she knew: he could be arrogant, lazy and cynical, but he wasn't the type to be easily rattled.
"I would be a poor bodyguard if I did that, sir," Riza replied without a thought. She didn't like seeing the Colonel like this: he should be complaining to her about the hotel's mattress or teasing her for entering a man's room at night, not avoiding her eyes and stumbling over his words as he was.
"In any case, you don't need to worry," she tried to reassure him. "You didn't wake me up."
The Colonel froze and threw her an uncertain look.
"Having trouble sleeping?"
The question wasn't as casual as it seemed. Riza stared at the floor between them.
"For the same reason as you do, I suppose."
Their eyes met for a moment, then Riza looked away to the window. She knew she should go back to her room now. But the night was going to be long and dull, and she couldn't help but wish that this moment - this small oasis of distraction - would last longer.
A glint of silver on the floor caught her eyes. The ray of moonlight had slightly shifted to the left and was now reflecting on Roy's pocket watch, which he had unceremoniously threw next to his bed with the rest of his uniform. The only exception, Riza noticed, was his gloves, which were on his bedstand. Looks like she wasn't the only one being cautious.
"You didn't put a chair against the front door as I advised you to, sir," Riza spoke. It felt like something she should say.
The Colonel nodded absently. He turned his head toward her.
"Do you get them in East City too?"
Riza didn't answer right away, biting the inside of her cheek. They were about to cross a dangerous line.
Since they were working together, she and the Colonel had maintained a tacit agreement to avoid discussing matters too personal. They had a rather strange relationship: they had seen each other at the lowest points of their lives and had shared their worst moments before really getting to know each other. At the end of the Civil War, they knew each other's deepest secrets, but nothing about their favorite food, hobbies, or music.
When arriving in East City, they had re-established a distance between them so that they could get acquainted like normal colleges. Riza had quickly become comfortable around him, and so had he, despite everything; she did not doubt that they would eventually be able to talk about their past. But it was still too early.
And yet...in that silent room, suspended in a moonbeam, the situation seemed different. Riza felt as if they were in the middle of a dream - the good kind of dream, the one that fades out of consciousness seconds after waking - and that nothing they could say would have consequences in the real world.
She hoped the Colonel wouldn't get the idea of lighting a flame like the night before.
"Yes, I get them too," she finally replied in a soft voice. "But not as strongly. And not every night."
"Oh, yeah?"
Riza took a few steps and went to lean against the wooden desk. After a moment's hesitation, she put her gun down on it.
"Do you have them every night?"
The colonel slumped back on his bed, his shoulders resting against the headboard. "Almost. If I don't do anything."
"And what do you do to prevent them?"
The Colonel chuckled. Riza could hardly see his expression, but she could bet he had his usual smirk on his face.
"I'm not sure you would approve of my methods, Lieutenant. It usually involves a certain amount of alcohol."
"Sir..."
"Don't worry, I don't do this often," he quickly added in a jaded tone. "Most of the time, I just put up with it."
Riza folded her arms. She tried not to sound too disapproving.
"There are better ways to deal with this, Colonel. Have you tried taking sleeping pills?"
"No. Have you?" There was concern in his voice; she could almost hear him frown. "You know where that can get you."
Of course, she knew. They had all heard of these Ishval veterans who had become addicted to their drugs or those substances from Xin; she had seen some of them in the East City hospital, stuck in a lethargic state, unable to take care of themselves.
"If you stay with the legal ones, and monitor your use rigorously, there is nothing to be afraid of. And those pills do make a difference."
"I don't doubt it, Lieutenant. But restrain isn't really my forte."
Riza thought back to the nonchalant way he had mentioned alcohol. She went for another way.
"When I run out of pills, I try other methods. A cup of tea, for example, or a good book. Children's stories or romances, things like that," she added. "Just to think of something else before going back to sleep."
She expected him to make a sarcastic comment. After all, the idea of Lieutenant Hawkeye reading mushy novels would have surprised more than a few.
"And it works?" he replied instead, skeptical.
"Rarely. But time flies by faster when you're reading than when you stare at the ceiling."
The Colonel chuckled once more, a little louder this time. A smirk stayed on his lips when the laugh died out.
It felt good, Riza suddenly realized, to be talking about this so openly.
She had never done it with anyone - who could understand? - and this was precisely the worst thing with these nightmares: the loneliness. That deep sense of isolation that gets you when you lay awake, alone in your room, in the middle of the silent night. In those moments, the world seemed completely still; the rest of humanity could have vanished without it changing a thing.
Eventually, there was always something that proved the world was still turning - the headlights of a car, a noise from another apartment - and that reminded you that all of the others had not disappeared, but were merely sleeping as you should be. And that made the despair even deeper, just as the worst loneliness is the one you feel in a room full of people.
She and the Colonel still had long nights ahead that they would have to face alone, like two survivors stuck on their desert island. Riza was sure of this. But even though she didn't wish this situation on anyone, she couldn't deny that it was an immense relief, a weight that was being lifted from her chest, to know that someone else was living it too.
There were certain benefits, after all, in knowing someone who had shared the worst moments of your life.
"Lieutenant?"
Riza pulled herself away from her thoughts and turned towards the Colonel. He was looking out of the window; his profile caught the light of the moon, cutting out from the dark wall behind him. A profile that was quite elegant, she had to admit - especially when he had that pensive expression on his face.
"Yes, sir?"
"Do you only dream of Ishval?"
Riza instantly felt all her muscles tense up.
The name "Ishval" had been hanging in the air since the beginning of their conversation, the obvious but unspoken matter on both of their minds. Saying it out loud sounded excessive, almost vulgar; Riza felt like the Colonel had broken the frail moment they had as surely as if he had turned on the light or created a fireball in the middle of the room. Why would he ask such a question now? What else could she have been dreaming about that would make her wake up in a panic in the middle of the night?
Then Riza realized that the last painful moment she had shared with the Colonel had, in fact, not been on Ishval's battlefield.
Suddenly she understood what he really wanted to ask.
"Yes, sir. I only dream of Isvhal."
The Colonel didn't answer, but Riza could feel his surprise – or his skepticism? – in the silence that followed. She paused to carefully think about her words.
Having her back burnt had not been a pleasant experience, that was for sure. But it was not the kind of moment that appeared in her nightmares, in the same way that she had never dreamed of her father. How could she make him understand this?
"I…usually only dream about what I've done to other people."
The Colonel's eyes went straight to hers. Despite the darkness, Riza couldn't misread his expression: his eyes were full of sorrow, a sadness so deep she felt like she could drown in it.
"So do I," he replied softly.
He quickly looked away.
Riza's breath caught in her chest. Stunned, she opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Was the Colonel having nightmares...about burning her back?
She knew he had been reluctant to the idea - she had never seen him as pale as when he was putting on his gloves, that night - but to think that…
A long silence fell upon the room.
"I'm sorry."
She heard the mattress creak again.
"What for?" He sounded genuinely surprised.
"For asking you to burn my back. I don't regret it, and I would ask you again if I had to, but I'm sorry you had to do that."
The Colonel made a sound like he was about to interrupt but Riza continued, softly yet firmly.
"I guess…a part of me thought that after everything you did on the battlefield, using fire alchemy one more time wouldn't matter much to you. I realize now how stupid it was to think that. So, I'm sorry."
The Colonel looked at her in silence for a long moment. He had a strange expression on his face; he seemed almost sick, or disgusted.
"Listen to yourself, Lieutenant. You're apologizing to me when I'm the one who injured you." He slightly shook his head, his mouth turning into a frown of contempt. "This is all so wrong."
Riza didn't bother to answer. They both knew it was.
Somewhere on a lower floor, a distant sound of a door slamming was heard.
After a while, Riza got up from the desk and took back her gun.
"Alright," she said with a quick sigh. "We should try to get some sleep. Tomorrow, you'll need to be at your best, sir."
The Colonel snorted; he knew as well as she did how empty those words were. But when he replied, it was with the confident and charming voice he used during the day.
"You're right, Lieutenant," he said. "I've held you up long enough as it is."
Before closing the door behind her, Riza looked at him over her shoulder.
"If you need anything, sir... don't hesitate to knock. You won't be bothering."
He gave her a smile, a genuine one this time. If she didn't know better, she would have thought there was fondness in it.
"I will."
Riza knew he would not. She herself wouldn't do such a thing, unless she absolutely needed something.
But it felt right to offer it anyway.
The next night, when she found herself staring at the ceiling again, Riza thought of the Colonel who was probably awake in the next room as well. They were still stuck on their respective desert islands; but in that hotel room, they had waved across the uncrossable sea. And suddenly, the hours of the night felt a little less lonely.
She just hoped that the Colonel could feel it too.