It tears beneath the surface like lace, something almost made fragile in the years since. Her muscles are strained as if holding that pistol has scarred her muscles and forced them to become stuck in a position that protected her, protected him, and left bodies abandoned in the wake of gunfire.
She straightens, feeling the residual pain of her history. Sometimes it feels like her father scarring her with an alchemic tattoo of his own construction, feeling more like a tool or a secret than a woman, made to both be quietly ashamed and to feel no shame.
There are flashes of the Ishvalan War, of her sniper held so steadily in her hands as if the distance could shut hearts out and make her forget that they are human now and not tiny targets just a little further away. She can see Roy looking at his hands, seeing what flame alchemy can do in the hands of a war. She could see the human appear as if he were a monster, like a masquerade, just like she'd appeared.
Riza remembers the quiet of the moment that she had dropped down by his side and rested her hand against his back, the way the sand seemed to burn her knees, and scatter its cruel droplets against her skin with each blow and fleck of the wind. She knew without words the way he was stuck on one thought, the perpetual broken record, like she was when she let go of tight, rigid control on who she was becoming.
He didn't say a word, and neither did she. They knew that this tragedy was partly their fault, their fault for allowing themselves to become pawns in this deadly game, to be used as 'perfect' tools for the military until they are left broken and feeling misused. There are no words for this.
She sees the hurt in him, rather than picking him apart and blaming him as she knows some of the soldiers do. Instead, Riza chooses to see herself in Roy Mustang, to see one that has been training himself to forget what his hands can do, training himself to forget the fact that they are human, and just scared enough of what all of that might mean that he pulls a tight leash on himself. Don't show fear, horror, depression, guilt. Hide it. Don't let them know. Try to forget.
You can't forget this. But you can cover it up, just as if you did. Riza doesn't complain of the grittiness of the sand against her face, her hair, her clothes; she doesn't complain of the monsters that she sometimes feels they are. Hawkeye tries to stay strong, for him, for her, because losing that strength meant losing yourself to this devastation.
She feels too broken to complain as she stays by his side, because Hughes isn't nearby to comfort him, because it's just her and him. Riza tries to be strong enough for the both of them, and if she succeeds, they may just get through this, not unscathed, but not dead, at least.