Disclaimer: No, I don't own FMA.

Summary: Slow and steady wins the race, but only if you're incredibly lucky. When Ed discovers the secret to Human Transmutation, Roy and his team's mission of reaching the top is thrown off track. But when the higher ups, and even the Fuhrer get involved, the situation is quickly thrown into disorder and turned into a struggle for power.

Author's Note: Yes, it was mean of me to leave the last chapter just hanging like that, and if I wasn't the one writing this story I'd probably hate me, too. (:

CHECKMATE
chapter five: which pawns to move

--

He slammed the door in Havoc's face.

Striding quietly to her room, he bustled around the messy place, picking objects up randomly and putting them in their respective shelves. It was half an hour later that he found there was nothing left to clean. Standing forlornly in her kitchen, his breathing whispered in and out of his lungs. Hands shaking, he picked up a glass and filled it with water before bringing it to his lips.

Sipping the clear liquid, his mouth was instantly filled with the scent of blood. Spitting it out, he sputtered, refusing to think of the tears running down his face or the reason they were.

"Dammit!"

Launching the cup with all his strength against the wall, he watched as the glass cup split into little pieces, scattering all over the floor. The glass glimmering in the dim light of the kitchen, he bent down to his knees, attempting to retrieve the shards with shaking hands. Failing, he curled his hands into fists, unknowing of the sharp edges cutting into his palm.

Wheeling around to his feet and running to her bedroom, he threw open her walk-in closet, collapsing into the piles of her clothes. He never did get to see her wear any of those dresses, only that blasted blue military uniform.

"Hawkeye. Hawkeye.." he muttered, "Riza, Riza.. Riza." The last thing he saw before his vision diminished into black was one of her dresses, the colour he thought could never be replicated. Her red eyes, the only shade of red that did not remind him of blood.

--

When he awoke the world was a blurry mess of colours and sparks. For a moment all he could do was rest his head on her clothes and breathe in her scence before he fell back to sleep.

He wasn't sure how many days he spent like that, weaving in an out of sleep and reality, maybe he spent all those days in between the two states, not awake but not asleep. Once he was sure he'd seen her, young and sparkling and radiant in her innocence. He'd tried to reach her but she'd run away from him, which he found to be absolutely insane. Riza never ran away from him. Not her. Not his Riza.

She would never run from him, so why was she running from him now?

--

"Havoc, is the Colonel still in there?" Ed muttered, gesturing morbidly towards Lieutenant Hawkeye's room. He'd walked into the room, fully intent on pulling Mustang out and slapping some sense into the man, but if he'd thought Havoc, prominent cheekbones and taut skin, Roy was the mirror imiage of Death.

Fuming and storming into the room, he'd seen the Alchemist, so usually composed with his unwavering little Lieutenant standing like his shadow beside him, he'd walked in on Roy, unmoving, darkly pale and bearing the eyes of the Dead.

"Yeah, still brooding and sulking. When I walked in, he looked right at me, asked me why Riza keeps slipping like water out of his grasp." Havoc replied, casually popping another cigar into his mouth, though his anxiousness was easy to see.

Ed had walked walked back out of the room seeing Roy like that, not knowing what to think of it.

"Roy doesn't brood when it comes to Hawkeye."

--

When he picked himself up, he stared non-commitically at his torn palms before stumbling out of the room. He turned to face Havoc and Edward, who until now he had not been aware had been in the house. Pushing the words roughly past his hoarse mouth, he coughed before saying scratchily.

"I'm going to bring her back."

Author's Note: (: There's that chapter, I don't particularly think this chapter really was reassuring either, but. :D.