This chapter is dedicated to miss Eleanor (AKA Dobby-Joey-Potter-Neko-Chan and egranger), whose awesome encouragement and helpful ideas and advice have helped me through many a tough chapter. I love you, girl, and I'm always glad we started talking!

I do not own FMA. Enjoy!

Having nightmares was something that, by the time he was fifteen years old, Roy Mustang had become accustomed to. They never ceased to scare him nearly half to death and he would almost always lose sleep over them but they had long since stopped being a surprise. He'd been having them since he was seven, the first one occurring shortly after his parents had been brutally killed right before his eyes. That nightmare would be one that he had a lot, a gruesome tale that never failed to frighten him beyond belief. The nightmares, Roy would realize as he got older, were shape-shifters. They could take anybody he had or did care about and put them through systematic torture. They would injure them, make them bleed like his parents had bled. If the nightmares were feeling especially cruel, they would kill them. The terrors seemed to follow one rule and one rule only: the only people who die in Roy's dreams are the ones he cares about the most.

If he were to follow that logic, then, it shouldn't have surprised Roy when, two years into his apprenticeship with Berthold Hawkeye, one of his nightmares featured his teacher's daughter, Riza. He had, after all, begun to care about her (although how deeply he did wasn't something he realized until the night he had the nightmare). The rules of his nightmares stated that she was to die inside his mind, whether Roy was ready to dream about it or not.

He'd never be ready for it, though. Nothing could have prepared him for what the nightmares wanted to do with Riza.

OOO

Riza's missing.

That's all Roy knows as he runs through the small forest that's situated near the Hawkeye household. He's been looking for her, calling her name and then falling silent as he waits for a reply, panic rising further in his chest when he receives no answer, not one sound to let him know Riza's whereabouts. He continues to tear through the forest, desperate to find her, desperate to see her alive. Finally, he sees something in the distance, a vague shape with white and gold almost radiating off of it in the dim light the stars and moon provide. He gets closer and his stomach drops when he sees that it's her, lying in a pool of her own blood. Thick stab wounds pierce her skin and dress, a white garment that Roy had often seen Riza wear. Her hair, golden blonde and shoulder length, is practically soaked with blood. Her eyes are shut, topping off just how hopeless her situation looks.

He gathers her into his arms, fear making his blood pump fast and painfully hard through his body.

"Riza...Riza, please, open your eyes!" Roy implores in a shaking voice. "You're gonna be OK, you're gonna be just fine if you just open your eyes! Please, Riza, I can't lose you! I can't! Don't you leave me, don't you dare leave me, Riza! Please, open your eyes!" His pleas break off with a sob as he finally registers that Riza isn't coming back, that she's dead and there's nothing that he can do about it. It's not enough that she's dead. No, Roy has to feel so utterly useless about it because, damn it, maybe he could've done something, maybe he could've saved her, maybe-

The nightmare suddenly dissolves when Roy is shaken awake. His eyes dart to his side and he sees her, a hand on his shoulder and a concerned look on her face. For a while, Roy just stares at her, taking in her hair, still golden blonde but graciously lacking blood, the nightgown that looks too much like the dress from the nightmare for comfort and her eyes, especially her eyes, two gleaming brown orbs that just wouldn't open a short time ago. Finally, Roy blinks and his gaze on her is broken, a slight embarrassment at his staring going through him. A moment later, he takes her hand, still resting on his shoulder, and brings her next to him, her head resting perfectly in the hollow of his neck. They are both silent for a few moments, Roy too busy taking in the comfort that Riza's soft breathing against his skin provided and Riza still trying to process the last few moments. It's Roy who finally breaks the silence, vocalizing words that he'd just spoken inside the fears of his own mind.

"I can't lose you, Riza. I can't afford to lose you."

Riza is surprised by his words but doesn't hesitate to reply.

"You're not gonna lose me. I'm OK...and I'm not going anywhere. I promise."

The two stay like this for the rest of the night, Riza's hand still in Roy's while his other arm is draped loosely around her waist, the small amount of contact enough to reassure Roy that she's still there, that she's still safe and alive.

Roy doesn't know that, in fourteen years, he'll be saying those words again. He'll say those words again in a reality that very well should've been nightmare, not too long after he almost loses himself to a powerful creature called "rage" but shortly before the nightmare of that night very nearly came completely true. He doesn't know and neither does she, so the words remain only two things for now: As utterances of love's first unknown, unsure steps and as the simple realization that Roy Mustang cares for Riza Hawkeye a bit more than he should.

AN: I HAVE BEEN SITTING ON THIS CHAPTER FOR TWO DAYS AND IT IS FINALLY TYPED UP. HOORAY! Hooray for young Royai, as well! Like I've said before, reviews are very much liked and appreciated!