A/N – Dragging the pace just a little more. I wanted to make sure both grandfathers got their due in this chapter. Minor manga spoilers ahead.
Chapter Four – The Lot of the Living
Of all the forgotten memories that she didn't want, there was one that persisted, and this one was an elusive animal that lurked behind every thought, bulletproof and inescapable. It rose like soap bubbles in disjointed fragments, and she fought with every breath to keep herself senseless. But now, even the pills would not drown out the pulse of reminiscence.
If she closed her eyes, she was nine again, and the air of Isis was hot and waxy.
She had been playing with her cousins in the Magnolia tree by the front of the house. She knew this much was true. Everything else might have been distorted by time and the fickle perceptions of childhood, but the Magnolia was solid. She clung to the vision of the tree like a woman adrift, clinging to a life preserver. When she thought about her father's house, she could still smell the bark and blossoms on her fingertips, sweet on the tip of her tongue and bitter in the back of her throat.
She had many cousins. Her mother always considered it a grievous misfortune that they were all male, and she had never forgiven this slight against her precious baby girl. According to her, Riza's joining the military later in life was largely due to her lack of female companionship as a child. It wasn't, but it pleased her to think this, and her daughter didn't disabuse her of the notion. At nine, nothing her mother could say dimmed Riza's admiration for her cousins or her desire to emulate their behavior. She was strong enough to fist fight with them, able to punch a bullet through the middle of a target at 50 yards, and seemingly fearless. They adopted her into their pack without hesitation.
Will and Curtis were the closest to her in age, so she kept company with them whenever they visited. The towheaded twins had mischief hardwired into the synapses of their brains, and she was fascinated by their pursuits. On that day, the three of them had already tired of teasing her baby brother, so they lounged, bored and alert, like big cats in the tree branches.
She remembered how the shade fell on her skin, like the cold sighs of a ghost dancing in the blossoms. Will and Curtis flicked twigs at each other, and she dissected blushing blossoms. Wind licked at her burnt face and legs, and she didn't have a care in the world beyond the hummingbird and his ruby throat.
Roy awoke in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room under unfamiliar sheets that smelled freshly washed and pressed. Window-shaped squares of sun laced over the floor and crawled, catlike, across the bed. The light reflected off the mirror on the wall in painful white stabs, catching in his eyes and making him blink until they adjusted to the glow. His mouth was cottony and sour with sleep, and the foreign bed was incredibly soft. He pressed his face into the goose down pillow and sighed. This was why some people actually enjoyed sleep. He fully intended to nap for a few more minutes.
Except, there was something on his neck. At first, his sleep-fogged brain couldn't make sense of this, but as he regained his senses, he became increasingly aware of something warm and plushy wrapped over his neck and pressed against his cheek. He mumbled in annoyance and tried to roll away, but he was pinned beneath the furball. A tail twitched across his face, dusting his nose and eyelids. In response, a sneeze tickled inside his sinuses, forcing him awake against his will.
"Dammit."
With a groan of frustration he scrunched up his nose and sat up to sneeze, dislodging the cat at his neck in the process. She fell into an undignified heap on his lap, glared at him with the accusatory expression of angered royalty, and flicked her whiskers at him, displeased by the rude awakening. He mopped a hand across his face to clear away any stray cat hairs and unceremoniously pushed her off his lap.
"That was all your fault," he croaked when she turned up her nose and sauntered away.
The clock on the nightstand broadcasted 6:23. He knew it would be pointless to try to reclaim sleep, so he got up. The beige walls of the room swam in the light from the windows. Central mornings were never this bright. He stretched and nearly tripped over another cat that had sprawled out on the floor.
After he'd washed up and combed his hair in the tiny guest bathroom that attached his and General Grumman's rooms, he dressed carefully. What did one wear to impress Hawkeye's grandfather without making it seem like he was trying to impress anyone? How formal was too formal for a visit to a hospital? How hot was it outside? What was everyone else going to be wearing? He paced around the perimeter of his room once before deciding that agonizing about which clothes to wear had to be the most moronic waste of his time, and it was embarrassing, so he resolved to just pick something and throw it on.
He stumbled over the cat on the floor for a second time on his way to his suitcase and selected a pair of unobtrusive black slacks between muttered curses. The creature blinked its egg yolk eyes and went back to snoozing. He buttoned his shirt and gave it a dark look. Then he wondered absently just how many cats Mr. Hawkeye housed. If he could tip the estate upside down and shake it, how many animals would fall out?
He slipped into the hallway outside his room and realized with a surge of dismay that he had no idea where he was going. Mr. Hawkeye's house was large enough to need posted signs and maps, of which there were none. He descended the staircase at the end of the hall and wandered around the first floor rooms for what must have been a good half hour before he stumbled across another living soul, a portly maid dusting shelves in the library.
All of her impressive girth was balanced precariously on a flimsy ladder. She appeared to be struggling to reach a difficult spot when he approached. He offered to assist, but she gave him a pained look and told him with no small amount of scorn that she was perfectly capable of dusting the master's shelves on her own, thank you very much. He tried a different tactic, and asked her if anyone else was awake in what he considered to be his politest tone. She brushed a coil of steel wool hair from her forehead, and pointed him in the direction of the kitchen with an impatient frown.
He decided he didn't like her either.
She told him the master of the estate would be up at this hour, and when Roy finally found the kitchen, he discovered that the ill-tempered maid had spoken the truth. Jacob Hawkeye was seated at a cherry wood table in front of an enormous picture window that looked out over his expansive grounds. He had a pipe in one hand and newspaper balanced in the other. There was a steaming cup of coffee on the table in front of him and three large, wolfish dogs at his feet.
Roy couldn't stop staring at the scene. The kitchen was as big as his office in Central. The walls were done in a pale cornflower blue, offset with hardwood trim. The glass fronted cabinets alone would have cost him a year's salary, and the dogs looked like they shared a very exotic and pricy pedigree. Mr. Hawkeye peered over the top of his paper and tapped his pipe against the table, "Good morning, Roy. Come in. Stay awhile."
Roy entered the kitchen hesitantly, "Good Morning, Mr. Hawkeye."
The dogs galloped over to inspect him. Roy offered his hands cautiously. He feared that if one was more than big enough to take him down, the three of them could completely dismember him if they decided to jump. And they seemed lively enough to jump. Mr. Hawkeye was quick to command order.
"Down!" He barked at the dogs, and they adhered at once. Then to him he said, "Would you like anything? Coffee? Tea? The cook should be up shortly."
"No, I'm fine," Roy was watching the dogs. They lost interest in him quickly, and trotted obediently back to their master. Mr. Hawkeye noticed his curiosity.
"The dogs are Drachman Borzois," he said, bringing his pipe to his lips again, "I bought them from a diplomat when I was up north five years ago. The man also raised beautiful Akhal Tekes. It's a pity that in my old age, I have no use for horses, especially given the efficiency of automobiles. My stables have been empty for years. I cannot feasibly house horses anymore, but the dogs are very elegant, are they not?"
Roy watched them jostle around the ornate legs of the table. They seemed to prance—all delicate legs, soft undulating coats and slender snouts—like carousel animals made to maul wolves in the wilderness of Drachma. There was something terribly seductive about watching deadly warriors with beguiling appearances.
"Yes," he agreed.
"Indeed," Mr. Hawkeye appraised his dogs critically, "I'm thinking about breeding the bitch. What do you think about that?"
Roy shrugged. He didn't know what he thought about that. What did Mr. Hawkeye expect him to think? He was not well versed on the subject of dog breeding, and discussing esoteric topics he didn't understand always made him feel inferior. Mr. Hawkeye's eyes thinned to the same width as his lips. Clearly, a shrug was not the correct response.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Roy, sit down," he thumped the table with his newspaper, "Just because breakfast isn't ready yet doesn't mean we can't sit and be sociable."
Roy obeyed. One of the beautiful ram-headed dogs nudged at his hand. He stroked its satin wrapped skull and traced the furrows behind its ears. Jacob Hawkeye sipped at his coffee and pulled thoughtfully on his pipe.
"You don't mind if I smoke, do you?" he asked.
Considering the pipe was already lit and in his hand, the question seemed rhetorical. Roy shook his head anyway. Pipe tobacco didn't smell as cheap as the commonplace cigarettes that Havoc liked to suck down to the filters. The musky smoke emanating from Mr. Hawkeye's pipe reeked of affluence and proper breeding, as ancient and fixed as the walls around him. Nicotine was nicotine, the same drug for the well-to-do, the ne'er-do-well, and everyone in between, but the package it came in was a measure of one's sophistication. He was reminded again that this stage was different, and he was not in charge of the man before him. Manners and pretensions dictated his every move.
"Are you sure you don't require anything?" Mr. Hawkeye asked again.
Roy shook his head again, "No, thank you."
They regarded each other from across the gulf. Mr. Hawkeye set down both his paper and his coffee and looked at him, occasionally puffing on the pipe, but always looking at him. He didn't say anything, and Roy began to wonder if he was ever planning on speaking again. He tapped his toe against the floor nervously.
"Was there something you wanted to ask me, Mr. Hawkeye?" he finally ventured.
The older man sighed laboriously, the way doctors often do before bringing up unpleasant subjects with their patients, "Yes, as a matter of fact. Perhaps you can clear something up for me because the General was very cryptic about the matter."
Roy froze, his foot suspended in mid-tap. Oh no. He was going to ask about his teacher, about his alchemy, about his role in the massacre at Ishbal. And what could he say when faced with such questions? He couldn't lie about knowingly killing hundreds of human beings for an unspecified and unjustifiable cause. He couldn't deny that he'd become exactly what his teacher hadn't wanted him to be, or perhaps more importantly, what his teacher's lovely amber-eyed daughter hadn't wanted him to be. He owed her, needed her, wanted her more than anyone. He'd never understand why she chose to follow him on his descent into Hell, but he wasn't about to make her stop. Someday when they were both dying on some distant battlefield, fighting another war with no name, he'd probably feel very guilty for loving her.
There was a certain dusty glimmer that floated in the eyes of murderers. There was a certain dream about a thousand bloody Ishbalens burning him alive that would still wake him in the night, and every bead of sweat clinging to his brow when he woke up gasping marked him for what he really was. There was a certain irony to all of it that he sometimes picked at like a kid with a worm, but cold irony did nothing to stave off the shuddering.
He braced himself for the interrogation.
But it seemed that Mr. Hawkeye had other topics in mind.
"What exactly is your relationship with Riza?"
His foot dropped with a clunk in the same instant that his heart rate decided to pick up. His brain bumbled stupidly over the question and absolutely failed to produce a worthy answer beyond a bewildered sounding, "Wh-what?"
Mr. Hawkeye's gaze leveled into something piercing, and it reminded Roy rather unsettlingly of his granddaughter's similar jelly-petrifying glare. They were almost exact replicas of each other, and both had the power to chill his blood, "Mr. Mustang," he murmured, "I have four sons and innumerable grandsons. Riza is my only granddaughter. I don't know what you know about her past, but you must know she is a wounded woman, and I will never forgive any man who takes advantage of her, even a man I know as well as you."
'Even a man I know as well as you.' Did they really know each other, or were they just pretending? He knew Mr. Hawkeye had been playing a power game disguised with niceties from the beginning, and now he knew why. If Roy proved to be a threat, it was not too late to cast him out.
He sputtered wordlessly, "I . . . we . . . Mr. Hawkeye, we aren't . . ."
"Do not insult my intelligence, boy," Mr. Hawkeye growled, "General Grumman has told me what he understands about the two of you, and he understands a great deal. I've also seen the way you look at her. I am not stupid and I am not blind. Whatever you have done, are doing, or will be doing with my granddaughter, you will be very sorry if you hurt her."
In other words, "If you lay one unprecedented finger on my precious darling, you will wish you had never been born." Roy knew a veiled threat when he heard one. He wondered what Mr. Hawkeye would do if he knew that his darling was pregnant and suffering because of it.
He stared at the table in a desperate attempt to escape the hammer to steel gaze of a Hawkeye on the warpath. He almost wished this conversation was about Ishbal now. Almost. Talking about his Lieutenant was always preferable, in any context. He might as well drop his act of indifference toward her. Neither of them believed it.
"I don't plan on acting upon my feelings, Mr. Hawkeye, and I would never intentionally hurt her."
"Good," Mr. Hawkeye laced his hands together beneath his chin, "I'm glad we understand each other."
Roy bit the side of his mouth. In his opinion, Lieutenant Hawkeye was perfectly able and willing to pistol whip anyone who hurt her, with or without her grandfather playing protector, but he could see that the man was well-meaning. Jacob loved his granddaughter fiercely, and Roy could not find fault in anyone who loved her as much as he did. He understood Mr. Hawkeye's wanting to keep men like him away from her, but he had to wonder what he had meant when he called her 'wounded.' Was he missing something he should have known?
Another dog pressed its head into his knee. He scratched it behind the ears and frowned at the ripples in the cherry wood. He didn't like not knowing what other people knew about his lieutenant. If he was honest with himself, he knew his newly born jealousy was wrapped up in this feeling of discontent. He wanted to be the one who knew her best, the way she knew him best. They ought to know each other the same amount. He idly wondered if the dog he was petting was the female who would be a mother, whether she wanted it or not.
He didn't have time to ponder further because the cook and Lieutenant Hawkeye appeared at that moment.
The cook was carrying food. That was the extent of his observation of her. Hawkeye had his undivided attention from the moment she stepped into the room. He struggled to take in all of her appearance at the same time, without staring too obviously, but it was a nearly impossible endeavor. He was riveted.
Hawkeye out of uniform was always a sight for sore eyes, but now, all of his suspicions about exactly what she hid under said uniform were confirmed. Simply put, Hawkeye in a short skirt was a knockout. It wasn't immodestly short or a miniskirt by any standard, but it bared her legs nonetheless, and he only barely succeeded in stopping his mouth from falling open. He decided he could live with the heat and humidity of Isis for the rest of his life if it forced her to wear things like that. His only regret was the sight of her luxurious blond hair pinned back in the usual style. He also regretted the fact that there were two other people and three dogs in the room, and they all seemed to be watching him.
"Good morning," she smiled and sidled past Roy's chair to kiss her grandfather on the forehead.
Roy Mustang had wished to be a great many things in his life, but he had never wished he was an old man's forehead before. It was a very interesting experience. How could he have known her for so long and never once tried to kiss her?
"Do you know if the General is up yet?" he asked her over the plate of muffins that the cook deposited in front of him, "Should we wait for him?"
"I wouldn't," she exchanged a knowing look with Mr. Hawkeye, "My grandfather, General of the Amestrian military, a man trained to wake at the break of dawn for the better portion of his life, still enjoys his beauty sleep on days off. I have no idea how he does it."
"He is unfathomable," Mr. Hawkeye remarked, "You were up later than usual yourself Darling. Are you feeling alright?"
She reached for an orange and began to pry it open, "I'm fine. I've just been a little tired lately. You know how draining the holidays can be."
The hospital was only a ten minute drive away from her grandfather's estate. It was a modest sized building, set back from the main road and screened by a wall of pines, but it was bigger and more efficient looking than any hospital she had seen in all her years away from Isis. It had clearly been through several renovations since she'd seen it last. This hospital could afford to be somewhat decadent because its patrons hailed from the neighboring estates, and old money was a plentiful commodity. In an obvious attempt to seem less foreboding, someone had decided that the color scheme for the outer walls would be buttermilk trimmed with lilac, and someone else had arranged a cheerful display peonies, hyacinth and columbine on the lawn. She thought she even saw a hummingbird skipping over the tops of the flowers, but she couldn't be sure. It was very pretty, but the inside still smelled like a sterilized rubber band.
A young female orderly who was unnecessarily friendly with the Colonel issued them visitor's passes at the front desk, and Riza tried not to appear disgusted by what she considered to be a grave lack of propriety on the part of the other woman, or more grievously, the Colonel's suave responses. He was here to see a patient, not pick up secretaries. The very idea that she could possibly be jealous of his interest in another woman was laughable but still, the incident managed to sour her mood.
For his part, Mustang was far beyond noticing any woman who wasn't Hawkeye, especially considering the alluring nature of his lieutenant's current attire, but he was also helpless to resist any opportunity to preen his ego. He was just beginning to warm up to the attention when Hawkeye suddenly decided to cut in. He watched her with wide-eyed bemusement as she snatched up the passes and snapped something threatening at the orderly about wasting her time. She nearly scared the poor thing to death. Then she marched all of them away from the desk with a muttered oath that sounded suspiciously like, "My kingdom for a handgun."
That was very interesting. Perhaps he wasn't the only one who could turn possessive when provoked. He tried not to look too pleased by the thought.
Mr. Hawkeye led them to her mother's room, identifiable only by the pink slip of paper tacked to the door with the words 'Lydia Hawkeye' scrawled across it, along with the name of her doctor. Her grandfather rapped his knuckles against the door twice before sliding it quietly open to reveal a tiny room the contained a single bed, two chairs and a work counter crammed against one of the walls.
"Lydia?" he said, "I brought some people to see you."
The woman occupying the bed looked away from the open window and turned to smile at Mr. Hawkeye. Roy recognized her as Hawkeye's mother, even emaciated as she was, and he was relieved to see her cognizant. When the General said she was sick, he had not known what that would entail.
Lydia Hawkeye had never been an attractive woman, not even in the sneaky stop-and-do-a-double-take way of her daughter, but she wasn't terribly plain either. Her face was a handsome sort of face, the kind Roy often saw on women in mosaics or carved out in worn marble sculptures, but it was not a handsomeness that gave any striking quality to human flesh. Features that bespoke of purest Amestrian breeding were combined too harshly on her face, wide, triangular cheekbones, a roman nose and smallish eyes that quivered under platinum lashes. Riza had inherited only the better things, like the sensual curve of her mouth.
Her dry lips split into a grin when she saw the entourage Mr. Hawkeye had brought, "Dad! And Riza . . . my beautiful girl. Get over here."
Roy watched his first lieutenant submit to being petted and sighed over as if it had only been seven days and not seven years since she'd last seen her mother. Suddenly he understood the reason why she'd worn a nice skirt and the reason why she'd exchanged her modest posts for a pair of white gold hoops in the car on the way to the hospital. She had been arming herself for this treatment. Her mother pressed a flypaper palm to her cheek and drew her close to kiss her temples.
"I was hoping you'd come," she whispered.
"Hi mom," Hawkeye's voice was wash of softness he'd never thought her capable of, "How are you feeling?"
"Just seeing you makes me feel better child," Lydia fluffed her daughter's bangs like she was straightening a pretty lampshade, "But let's not talk about that right away. I'm sure I'll be back on my feet soon, so there is no sense in you worrying about it. Now, don't tell me that man behind you is Roy Mustang."
Roy started at yet another unexpected recognition, and yet again, he could only nod and feel like an interloper. Hawkeye sighed and flicked a brief glance in his direction. She didn't want to have to explain why he was there, but Lydia's eyes were already darting back and forth between them in a startlingly perceptive manner.
"Are you two . . . ?"
"No," Hawkeye said emphatically, "Colonel Mustang is my superior officer now."
She knew that still didn't explain what he was doing there, but her mother seemed to accept the rebuff. Roy's eyes tiptoed reluctantly toward the pair of grandfathers standing beside the door. One was grinning, and one was frowning. He wanted them both to stop looking at him. Being yo-yoed back and forth between chastisement and encouragement was beginning to rattle him.
"Lydia," Mr. Hawkeye finished glaring at him and spoke tersely, "I'm sorry to be leaving so soon, but I have some errands that require prompt attention. I'll leave these three with you and come back for them in about an hour."
"Yes, that's fine. You take care of whatever you need to do," her mother bid him goodbye, and he excused himself without another word.
"He is too kind, that man," Lydia smiled when Mr. Hawkeye had left, "Do you know he visits me almost every day? And now he brought you. Speaking of which, stop lingering in the doorway, General. I haven't seen you since August, and you can't even give me a hug?"
She didn't mention how long her daughter had been away, or the fact that had she wanted to, Riza could have seen her just as often as Grumman. Verbally acknowledging what they all knew to be true would have forced them to face her reasons for doing so in the oppressive environment of a hospital. All Lydia could care about was that Riza had finally come back to her, and she was determined to ignore the rest if it would keep her close.
The General embraced his daughter tightly, and his hands shook slightly when he released her. Roy shifted uncomfortably and glanced at the door. He was in the middle of something private, and he wasn't family. The only way to change that reality would be to become Hawkeye's . . . what? Boyfriend? Lover? Significant Other? Husband? He sized her up, noting the flat area that still showed no signs of pregnancy. Did she already have one of those? He was too damn scared to ask her because an answer would be inescapable and devastating. As long as he didn't know, he could still pretend there was no one else.
The lie was fragile, but it held him together.
"My voice is going," Lydia leaned back on her pillows, "Tell me about things at Central. Leave nothing out."
Hawkeye and Grumman took turns telling her anything and everything they could think of, but the subject that was plaguing both Hawkeye and Mustang, her pregnancy, never came up. Occasionally, they asked Roy to supply a few details, and he obliged, but for the most part, he watched them interact. The only interesting thing he picked up that he hadn't known before was that Hawkeye hadn't been seeing anyone in over five years. Or so she claimed. Two weeks ago, he would have rejoiced. Two weeks ago, he would have believed her. Now he felt only a dull throb of anger.
He also noticed that Hawkeye seemed to be skirting around the subject of her career. She talked at great length about her new apartment, her neighbors, good books she had read recently, but if she had to mention the military, she always slid immediately into the next topic with an almost frantic haste, running words over each other and slopping them together in what she must have realized was futile effort to draw attention away from a subject that consumed much of her life. There was little she could discuss at length that didn't somehow relate back to her job.
Grumman gossiped about the family, which nephews were getting married, the aunt who had moved to East City, and Lydia soaked up the news with the relish of a wilted plant being placed in the sun. Most of the names he mentioned meant nothing to Roy, except the name of Riza's younger brother. Robin's wife had just given birth to their first son, and they were hard pressed to leave Dublith at the moment. His only memory of Robin was a fragment, a scrappy little kid who used to show him the grasshoppers and crickets he caught. There would be no recognizing him now.
When the steady stream of stories came to a lull, Lydia spoke again.
"Riza," her mother turned the blankets in her hands apprehensively, "Could I see the sigil? Just once?"
Hawkeye blinked and glanced around at Mustang and Grumman. They had similar stricken expressions on their faces, and she supposed her own face was probably not as composed as she would have liked it to be. Presently, she became aware of the whispery touch of her shirt against her back. The array she'd come to think of as Roy's was always there just beneath a shell of fabric, but she often succeeded in forgetting about it for long stretches of time. The burned flesh had stopped stinging years ago, and it was laid out in such a way that she couldn't see it without the help of a few mirrors. Sometimes she cherished the tie that bound her to the Colonel, and sometimes she rather resented the nuisance. It was a beautiful sigil, but it was also her body, and she hated baring it to appease the curious.
This time, the curious party was her mother. There was only one suitable answer.
"Yes, of course."
She nodded her acquiescence and shifted to look at her grandfather. He understood her unspoken request at once.
"The Colonel and I will wait outside," Grumman ushered Mustang out of the room with a slight wave of his hand, and the Colonel complied.
Roy caught her eyes just as he passed through the doorway. Her fingers were already loosening the buttons of her shirt, and the look she gave him was both apologetic and paralyzing. He very nearly forgot himself at the sight, but he drew his bottom lip through his teeth and followed the General into the empty corridor.
Grumman closed the door behind them and paced over to a window at the end of the hall with a sigh, "It doesn't make a great deal of sense, does it?" He glanced back at the Colonel to make sure the younger man was still following him, "I know her back is nothing you haven't seen before but . . ."
"It's okay," Roy drew up beside him and watched a lone starling dart into a poplar outside, "I don't like to be reminded of what I did to her."
He'd marred her perfect, perfect body, willingly, and the feeling was akin to desecrating a church. Even the intricate array had been terrible and perfect, flawlessly transcribed on the milky sheaf of her back. She was effortless and statuesque as he remembered her. The wineglass curve of her waist. The soft golden hairs at the base of her neck. The soundless noise she made when she tried not to scream. She never screamed when he burned her. She knew her screams would have driven him mad.
Even after all the Ishbalens he'd killed. The General was right about one thing. It made absolutely no sense.
"She asked you to do it, didn't she?" Grumman stared out the window too, but he wasn't seeing the bird or the tree.
Roy jerked his shoulders up and down, "Yes."
The General was silent for an indigestible moment, "She would have found some else to destroy that sigil. She was desperate to have her back broken, and you know as well as I do that some of those soldiers, fresh from the war, with death in their eyes . . . They wouldn't have cared if they mutilated or killed her."
Roy tried to capture whatever the General was looking at in his frame of reference, but he could only see a horizon mottled with trees. The sky burned blue on their crowns. "She shouldn't have had an array carved into her skin in the first place. It's barbaric."
Grumman was still transfixed, "Perhaps not."
Roy knew a diplomatic answer was all he was going to get, but that knowledge did not quell the rising tide of indignation. Some of his teacher's ethics had never sat well with him, and what he'd done to his daughter was especially unforgivable. If he ever had children, he was certain he'd love them more than that. If he ever had children. He nibbled on all sides of that thought, afraid to take a bite.
"Lydia believes she is going to die," Grumman murmured.
"Huh?"
"I saw it in when she looked at me, and I felt it when I held her in my arms. She is already leaving me. If she wants to see the sigil again, that means she is preparing for death," The General traced a fingertip along the glass, tracing the memory that had pooled in his eyes, "Why must they all go before me?"
"Life is cruel," Roy replied. Cruel, unfair and torturously lovely.
"They say the dead feel no pain," The General continued, "It is us, the living, who are crippled by loss."
Roy nodded and watched the hummingbirds pirouette on the lawn. Loss was the hardest wound to bear, and he feared very much that he was losing Riza to forces he could not overcome. But he was far from giving up. There were very few things he actually considered worth fighting for.
She was one of them.