I'm having a really hard time thinking of a clever way to say "I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist". Anybody got any ideas?

Seize the Moment


Roy hadn't meant to do it, really. He'd had the small wooden box in the pocket of his coat for weeks, ever since it – or rather the simple ring it contained – had caught his fancy as he hid from his escort behind the cluttered shelves of an antique shop. He didn't know why they had insisted on providing him with a set of matching bodyguards; after all, he'd made it through the rebellion practically unscathed, and he wasn't even Fuhrer yet. (And he wasn't going to be Fuhrer any time soon, either, if they insisted on him finishing all that paperwork first.)

He hadn't meant to buy it, either, because he knew he had no use for it, but once the bodyguards had started looking elsewhere and it had been safe to leave the shop, he had found that his wallet was significantly lighter and that the little box was nestled comfortably in the pocket of his coat. He wasn't sure how it had happened.

He certainly hadn't meant to bring it with him that afternoon. After all, he was only seeing Havoc off at the train station. (The man wasn't even going to be gone for a month; Roy didn't know why he had insisted on being waved away by everyone he knew in Central.) It had been by force of habit that he'd plucked it off the table and dropped it into his pocket on his way out the window (the table the box was on was in a corner and could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered "on the way" to the window, but he wasn't going to think about that). He hadn't even realized that he had it until after the train had gone and the others had gone, and he and Riza were walking slowly towards a teashop which she said sold excellent muffins. Roy didn't particularly like muffins, but he had been anxious to postpone the inevitable reunion with his bodyguards, and a cup of tea sounded good. He had put his hands into his pockets in an attempt to warm them, and his fingertips had brushed the worn wooden surface of the little box, and after that he hadn't been able to forget it, for some reason.

(He had told himself, a little wearily, that he had absolutely no idea why he couldn't stop thinking about the box, and how nice the ring would look encircling a slim, brown, blunt-nailed finger.)

Riza had led him past two tables of chattering old ladies in silly hats and one table occupied solely by a bearded, smiling man in a shabby suit with a red carnation in one fraying buttonhole, to a little table in a corner. She'd slid into a chair with an ease that suggested long acquaintance, and had spoken with cheerful familiarity to the waitress who had come to take their order. The tea and the muffins hadn't been long in coming, and they'd chatted light-heartedly about their friends as they waited for them. He hadn't asked about her, though, even though he'd been trapped in meetings and had hardly spoken her in weeks, despite the fact that their desks were only separated by a few yards of space and a wall or two. (He tried very hard not to think about the mountain of paperwork.)

Perhaps it had been the tea. At any rate, as soon as he had downed the steaming liquid, he'd found himself talking enough for two, not complaining, of course, but ticking off his friends on the tips of his fingers: Havoc on vacation, Fuery thinking about retiring to marry that pretty little girl – Minnie or Melly or something – and wanting to become a greengrocer, the Elric brothers back home, probably stuffing their silly boyish faces with apple pie, Falman spending all his time in the library, researching for that book of his, Breda in Drachma, of all places, working as a diplomat. And Riza, of course, working as his secretary, but the both of them so busy that exchanging greetings in the mornings and farewells in the evenings was the most conversation they'd had in over a month. It was infuriating.

He hadn't said that, of course. What he had said, fingering the small box in his pocket, was: "Since everyone's getting so spread out, I was wondering if you'd like to become a permanent fixture – not just at the office. We should stick together now that everyone else is going off on their own."

And he slid the box across the table.

Well, that's done it, he thought ruefully.

(Later he told her that it wasn't so much that he had seized the moment as it was that the moment had seized him.)

Riza caught the box up deftly in one hand and opened it, her expression of careful respect changing to one of surprise and then wonder as she stared down at the ring inside it.

After a moment she set it back down on the table, the lid still open, her brown hand lingering on it with a touch that was almost a caress, and looked back up at him. Her face had always been expressive, an open book to anyone who knew her, but now her eyes were serene and unreadable. He tried read her emotions in the set of her shoulders, the tilt of her head, the movements of her hands – one resting on the table beside her teacup, one still cupped around the little wooden box, but all the emotion her could find was in the halting, quizzical lilt in her voice when she spoke. "Isn't this a bit...."

"Informal?" suggested Roy, lightly. "Yes. I know this isn't right – there ought to be violins and roses – "

Here the bearded man at the next table, who had been listening to their conversation with undisguised interest, plucked the brilliant carnation from his buttonhole and passed it to Roy with an affable smile.

"Thanks," said Roy. "Here, Riza. Where was I? Oh – and I know I ought to go down on one knee and say 'Dearest, darling, beautiful Riza, will you honor me with your fair hand', but the floor's dirty, and these are my good pants. And anyway I might as well begin as I would go on, and it'd only mean massive amounts of paperwork and having to put up with me when I'm cranky from running a country – at least until I get that democracy going – and probably a lot of other petty irritations I haven't thought of. What do you say?"

"All right," said Riza.

It was the answer more than the casual tone in which it was spoken that startled Roy. He stared at her: she had picked up her tea and was sipping it with her eyes downcast.

"Er," he said. "Well – thank you."

Riza put her cup down and looked up at him, her eyebrows set at an amused angle. "You didn't expect me to say yes, did you?"

"Not really, no," admitted Roy.

"Why not?"

"I didn't – " he began, and broke off. And, casting about for the right answer in a host of half-formed thoughts (the smooth skin at the base of her neck; the way her hands wrapped around the grip of a pistol, firm and careful; the rubble of cities and the blood of martyrs; the remembrance of her presence just to the right and slightly behind him; aren't you tired of watching my back–?) he settled unconsciously for the one which embodied all his fears and then reduced them to absurdity:

"Well," he said, "I wouldn't want to marry me."

And the tension dissolved unexpectedly into laughter.

Finis

A/N: I didn't mean to write more Royai, but somehow it happened. Actually, I've had the last half of this and the first ... third? maybe half? of another Royai ficlet written for about as long as Hands has been up here, and just this morning I wrote a whole 'nother one, which I'll post in a few days when I've edited it some, if I can get over the horrifying suspicion I have that it's more or less totally OOC. And then I'll finish that other one, and then I'll finally write that other other one that I've been thinking about for a few months. And then maybe I'll move to the moon and grow green cheese. Yeah. Thanks for reading!