She was so weak that he decided he would carry her to the small room in the tavern. Just a cursory glance proved that she was not well and that she certainly would not be able to support her own weight all the way to back to the tavern. The entire way back, she cried, clinging to him desperately, her grip so tight it felt as though she were trying to crush him.

He had snuck in the back door and headed straight to the room. Locking the door, Mustang disentangled himself from her arms and set her on the bed, his gaze soft and concerned as he stepped away from the bed for just a moment.

There was a muffled gasp, and he turned to see that Hawkeye was inching closer to the edge of the bed, closer to where he was currently standing. "It's okay," he heard himself say, trying to remain as calm as he could. Part of him still hesitated to even look at her, to register the injuries she had sustained, to see the still present look of fear on her features. "You're okay, Riza."

He returned to the bedside with a quantity of antiseptic and bandages, and started to reach for the shirt that was hanging loosely over her form. She jumped when she felt his fingers nearing the edge of the shirt, and he froze, offering her his palms as a sign of good intent. "I need to clean the cuts," he said gently. "You're okay."

Throughout the process of removing the shirt, cleaning the wounds and bandaging them, he remembered saying 'you're okay' to his First Lieutenant quite a few times. There were places where his touch was not permitted; the lower his hands traveled, the more tense she grew, and when he neared the lowest part of the alchemical array she mustered the strength to shove his hands away. There were cuts there as well, and he knew they needed to be cleaned, and so he did everything in his power to convince her of his innocence before she finally let him continue.

The process of cleaning and bandaging continued for quite a period of time, nearly an hour. He worked as quickly as he could through her hesitance, in hopes of causing her the least pain. When he finally did address the more severe injuries on her body—the four broken fingers on her left hand, the largest gash on her back from the knife, and the still-bleeding wound on her head—he realized that at some point she would need to see a doctor. Though his instinct was to take her to see someone as soon as he could, he was hesitant to do so, acutely aware of how anxious she was around him, someone she had known for years. He wasn't ready to subject her to an unfamiliar face at the moment, and he was fairly certain she wouldn't be able to handle an unfamiliar face. He decided that they would leave for Central as soon as she was well enough to walk, and would visit a doctor there.

Until the moment when he dug out a clean nightgown he had gathered, she hadn't spoken a word to him. But as he helped ease her battered body into the article of clothing, she finally spoke. "I…I'm sorry…" Her voice was hoarse and scratchy, distant and so disgustingly defeated that he wanted to scold her for sounding so unlike herself.

"You didn't do anything wrong," he said, gently squeezing her shoulder protectively. "I should have walked you home."

She was shrinking beneath the blankets, her gaze blank. "I convinced you not to," she murmured, words slurring slightly. "And I put you in danger."

"They were going to kill you!" he snapped, immediately regretting his harsh words; he could see her eyes darken when he said that. "Time and time again you show up and keep me out of danger. For once, I got to return the favor."

Her brows were furrowed, her face still a sickeningly pallid color, and she was weakly drawing the blankets tighter around her. Mustang considered the look on her face, and then gently inched her downwards, helping her settle herself on her side. "You need to get some sleep," he said slowly, watching her as she lay stiff as a board in the bed, eyes wide, staring at the wall, and looking wholly uninterested in resting.

For a few moments, she lay quietly, just staring absently at the object nearest her in her range of vision. Mustang watched her lying still, waiting for her to at least show signs of falling to sleep. She did not. "Please rest," he said softly, inching his chair closer to the bed and resting his fingers gingerly on top of her head, fingering the strands of hair soothingly. "You're okay now, Riza. It's over."

It was two days later before she was strong enough to stand out of bed, and another three days before she could walk around. Many nights she stayed awake, reading whatever he gave her. Though he ventured out of the small room in the tavern quite a few times, she was, at least for the most part, bedridden for the majority of their stay.

Mustang had noticed that she didn't sleep at night, not only because she made a concerted effort to stay awake, but also that when she did nod off, she would wake shortly thereafter. The night he had finally found her, she had fallen asleep, only to wake up with a startled scream less than an hour later. It had taken quite a bit of time for her to settle down again, and when she did, she sat awake for the rest of the night.

Hawkeye still looked ill when they made their way to the train station. He had managed to scrounge up civilian clothes while they were in town that would cover the majority of the bandages she had on, but they looked strange on her. Maybe it was that he couldn't see her hands, as the sleeves of the sweater were intentionally quite long so as to hide the mass of bandages on her left hand. Maybe it was that the oversized top covered her from three centimeters above her neck to below her waist. Whatever it was, she looked wrong.

He considered telling her that she had an appointment with a doctor when they returned to Central. Thankfully, Mustang had tracked down an empty compartment for them, which she seemed to appreciate though she said nothing about it. He had had a feeling that there was no way that she was ready to face a handful of strangers, particularly since the train ride back to Central was nearly three days long.

Sitting across from her for an hour was unbearable as she tried for what seemed like the thousandth time to drift off into sleep. Her eyes would flutter slightly as she nodded off, and then snap open after a few moments of rest. The fear on her face made it clear that the memories didn't leave her mind. When she still was falling asleep and waking up after two hours on the train, he moved to sit next to her, taking the coat and laying it over her lap.

"You looked cold," he said gently. It was an excuse, because everything was an excuse. She hadn't looked cold, she looked like she needed an excuse to be near someone she trusted, and looking cold happened to be the most easily accessible excuse.

"Thank you," she mumbled, inching just slightly closer to him. He ran his fingers through her yellow hair, soothing and gentle and patient. Anything to ease her anxieties. Slowly she came to be resting her head against his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her. Protective, comforting, everything that they both needed.

Three hours into the train ride, Riza was curled up slightly against him, asleep on his shoulder, and Roy had also fallen asleep with his head atop hers. Stirring slightly, he yawned, inky eyes looking into the mass of yellow hair that he was resting on. Letting out a sigh of contentment, he resituated himself so that he didn't disturb her. After looking for her for weeks, he had found her. And though she was significantly worse for wear, at least he could rest assured that she was still alive.

Author's Notes: This brings the essential 'continuation' of The Hunt to a conclusion--everything from this point on is completely new. I know it's a short chapter, but from where I broke the story into chapters this was the most logical cutoff point.