July 19

"The heat wave hasn't let up all week, but the good news is that Hawkeye-sensei has started to allow me to work on certain transmutations down in the basement laboratory. It's MUCH cooler down there than it ever is in the rest of the house. I'd spend every day there if I could, but sensei only lets me go in there when he's there as well…I understand why, of course, but some days I almost want to tell him I don't care what he's working on or what secret notes he has down there so long as it's nice and cool inside.

In the meantime, Miss Riza and I are getting along better than ever. I'm actually really glad we had that misunderstanding before, because ever since the Great Locket Debacle, she's been much more relaxed around me. She still slips off on her own, sometimes, but I'm trying not to take it personally. I believe Veronica and Juliet had it right when they said she just needs time to herself every now and then."

Roy glared at the messy piles of paper strewn over the coffee table in front of him. He tore another page from his notebook and viciously crumpled it into a tight ball that he dropped on the floor with the others, each similarly crumpled. He sighed heavily and leaned back into the soft cushions of the couch. Just as he told himself he's better call it a night, Riza's soft voice broke into his thoughts.

"Couldn't you sleep, either?"

Roy startled a little and turned towards the open doorway, where Riza lingered doubtfully with one small hand resting on the door frame.

"Haven't gone to bed yet, actually," he admitted, smiling. "I was trying to finish this cipher first."

She glanced over at the clock, but didn't comment. It wasn't the first time she'd found him studying late into the night, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. But she'd never interrupted him before.

"Mm," she murmured in acknowledgement. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to disturb you. Good night, Mr. Mustang," and she turned to leave.

"No, wait," Roy said quickly, dropping his pen. "I'm not making any progress anyway; I was just about to give it up for the night. Come in and talk to me for a little bit, won't you?"

After the slightest hesitation, Riza entered the living room without further protest, and a voice in the back of Roy's tired brain wondered if she'd been secretly hoping he'd ask her to stay. It was odd for her to deliberately seek him out at such an hour, even if their recent interactions were markedly different from their initial awkward encounters. As he shifted some of his things aside so that she could sit beside him on the couch, Roy decided to find out what was on her mind.

"I didn't wake you, did I? Making too much noise?" he asked, knowing that he'd barely made a sound in hours.

"No, not at all," she replied a little absently, letting her gaze wander over the stacks of books and papers scattered around him. She was wearing a modest, pale blue dressing gown over her night clothes, in spite of the warmth of the summer night, and her arms were folded tightly across her chest. "I was…already awake when I noticed that the lights were still on down here," she said.

"Bad dream?" Roy asked lightly, purposefully looking away from her as he spoke. He was pushing his luck, he knew, and he half-expected her to ignore the question entirely.

"Something like that," she replied, almost too quietly to be heard. Roy stole a glance at her, surprised that she'd answered him at all. There was something forlorn in her expression, which he'd never seen there before. It made her seem…fragile, somehow. Vulnerable. More so than she'd ever been in his presence, even when injured and drugged.

The cushions next to him dipped slightly as she settled into the spot he'd cleared for her, drawing her legs underneath herself. She took a moment to tuck the edges of her robe around her bare feet. Roy had an odd feeling that if she'd been a much younger girl, or a less reserved one, she'd have curled up against his side for comfort, seeking the solace of human contact in the wake of a disturbing dream. But just as quickly as the thought formed, he pushed it from his mind. Regardless of her reasons, she'd sought out his company intentionally, and that was enough.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" he asked in a low tone, shooting her another sidelong glance. She bit her lip, considering.

"It was…it was a dream about my mom," she said at last, wrapping her arms more tightly around herself.

"Ah," he replied softly, understanding lighting his features. Not a scary dream then. Not really a sad one either, or at least not entirely, but the sort of heartbreakingly joyful dream about a lost loved one, where you woke up filled with longing and an empty sort of ache in your chest, fighting to stay in the dream-world even as you realized that it was just a dream.

"Yes, exactly," Riza said, and Roy suddenly realized that he'd said the last part out loud without intending to. He flushed slightly. But Riza looked at him, then, and the sadness in her eyes had given way to a mixture of gratitude and relief, which drove away his embarrassment and left him feeling as though he'd said precisely the right thing for once.

Roy didn't know whether to blame the late hour or the dim amber glow of the lamp, but the conversation felt more intimate than any they've had before. Worried that anything else he might say would break the spell between them, he thought carefully about how Claire or Elinor would respond in such a situation, they being the two most likely to inspire confidences in others.

"If…you know, if you want to talk about it more…I'll listen," he offered, rubbing the back of his neck and trying not to sound like an awkward teenager. "And if not, then that's fine too." Not quite what he'd meant to say, but it seemed to do the trick.

"Thank you, but I'm all right, now," Riza said with the hint of a smile. "I just…I still really miss her, sometimes. But...I'd feel worse if I didn't miss her at all, if that makes any sense." Roy noticed that she'd relaxed somewhat while speaking, loosening her tightly crossed arms and slumping a little more naturally on her cushion. When he shifted in his place to face her more directly, she moved also, unconsciously mirroring his position.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he replied. "I can barely remember what my own parents looked like, since I was so little when they died. If it weren't for the pictures, I dunno if I'd even have that much. But Aunt Chris made a point of talking about them a lot when I was growing up, so at least I feel like I know a little bit about them, even if I can't remember much." Something flickered across Riza's face then, and Roy wanted to kick himself. He'd said something wrong, again. Had he just ruined this moment? But Riza just sighed and picked at the hem of her robe with restless fingers.

"Papa never talks to me about my mother," she admitted softly, unraveling a loose thread. "I think…I think that it hurts him too much to think about her. So he just…doesn't."

Roy couldn't think of anything to say in response that wouldn't sound petty or trite. Instead, he reached over to give Riza's hand a quick squeeze. She didn't flinch or move away, and no flicker of fear or suspicion crossed her features, and Roy rejoiced inwardly.

After a moment, she cleared her throat delicately and shifted to tuck a stray wisp of blonde behind one ear.

"Need a hand straightening all this up?" she asked, with a vague gesture at the scattered notebooks and papers strewn across the table and floor around them. "Or are you not going to bed yet?"

"I think I'd better," he said, stifling a yawn. "Maybe this stuff will make more sense in the morning." He lurched forward and started to shuffle the papers together into a rough kind of pile. Riza leaned down to gather a few stray pages that had fallen to the floor. Glancing at a sheet of handwritten notes as she handed them over, she frowned.

"What did you say you're working on?" she asked as he took them. "Codes?" Roy glanced up, surprised.

"Yeah, how could you tell?" Riza shrugged.

"These little boxes and the strings of letters, with half of them crossed out. It looks like you've been working on a cipher and trying different key words."

"Yeah, that's exactly it. I'm trying to crack a playfair cipher," he sighed. "Sensei's been talking about codes and things lately. He says it's important to learn some basic codes if I want to delve into some of the deeper branches of alchemy. I guess most alchemists encode their notes so their work can't be stolen, and the research into certain topics might involve a certain amount of code breaking and puzzle solving. If you know the key it's easy, but trying to guess is...difficult." Riza's dark eyes flicked to his, sparkling with interest.

"He wants you to figure out what that sheet says? Using a playfair cipher but not knowing the key word?"

"Yep."

"That's extremely difficult, especially if you're a beginner," she breathed. "No luck so far, then?"

"Nope," he sighed. "I think he's trying to prove a point, actually."

"Why, did you tell him it sounded too easy for you or something?" she asked with a slightly lopsided smile. He didn't respond right away, and her soft smile widened into an impish grin. "You did, didn't you?" she demanded.

"No! Well, not in those exact words..." he said sheepishly. "I might have implied that it seemed easier than the other stuff we've been working on…but never mind. I'll just have to grovel appropriately when I fail miserably and pray that he'll take pity on me."

"It's your only hope," she agreed, still grinning. "I got pretty good at cracking the sort of codes that require a key text, but only because I cheated. I stopped dusting for a week to find out which books he'd been consulting on a regular basis," she said conspiratorially. "And then I just tried each of them. He said something once about knowing the person whose code you were trying to crack; that their habits and likes and connections helped you to know what sort of key they'd be likely to use. So…I took his advice." Roy was watching her with open admiration.

"Sneaky and brilliant, I like that!" he laughed. "Well, so far I've only tried his name, your name, and the name of the town, with no luck...your last name has repeating letters, and so does your mom's, so those won't work either. I don't suppose you'd happen to know what other word he'd be likely to choose for this, do you?"

"How'd you know my mom's name?" she asked, with an odd hitch in her voice. Roy glanced at her, concerned.

"Saw it on the back of a photo I found, a while back," he explained. Her large brown eyes flicked to his quickly and then away. Roy had his head cocked to one side, genuine confusion on his face.

"I thought that maybe…oh, never mind," she mumbled, turning pink. It clicked, then.

"Hey," he said gently, reaching for her hand again. "He's not gonna talk to me about personal stuff he won't tell his own daughter. He's not, you know, keeping you in the dark, or anything."

"I know," she murmured. "It's stupid; I'm just being silly." She gently returned the pressure of his warm fingers, but didn't make a move to draw her hand away from his.

"Hey, I have an idea," he said cautiously, after a moment. "What if we go treasure hunting?" She looked up at him again, the question clear in her eyes. "You said before that sensei got rid of a lot of your mom's things a few years back, right?"

"Yes…" she arched one eyebrow.

"Okay. Look, I know a woman who was widowed like a year after she got married. It was pretty tragic, they were both really young, and Ada was a total wreck afterward, and…well, long story short, she couldn't bear to look at Rick's things, but she didn't want to throw them out or give them away, either. So she boxed a bunch of them up and set them aside, thinking that one day she might be able to look at them again without bursting into tears."

"You have a point, somewhere in there," she said, faintly amused. He grinned.

"Well, what if sensei didn't chuck all your mum's things? Suppose he just boxed them up someplace? Have you ever gone looking?" She sat up straighter, intrigued.

"No," she said slowly. "I just started to notice that some of her things had been moved or gone missing…her clothes and jewelry from their room, some of the pictures and little trinkets she had out, that sort of thing," she mused. "That's when I took her locket and a few other little things and hid them in my room." Her free hand drifted to her collar, where Roy noticed the shimmer of a golden chain against her pale skin.

"But you've never looked, like in the attic or anything?" he persisted. "There is an attic somewhere, right?"

"There's mostly just books and old furniture up there, though," she answered thoughtfully. "But if he actually kept all those things of hers…then maybe they're in the barn."

"The barn? But isn't the hay loft too small to use for storage?" She shook her head.

"Not the hay loft. The room above it. Did you never notice that the barn looks bigger from the outside?"

"There's a secret room?" Roy exclaimed. Riza laughed.

"Sort of. It's meant to be a second story, but it's really more of an attic space, up in that big triangular space above the main part. You can only get into it from the hay loft, though, and I couldn't figure out how to get up there on my own. I was always too afraid to climb up on a ladder," she said. "It's too rickety. But if you came with me, one of us could hold the ladder steady while the other one climbed."

"Tomorrow, then?" Roy suggested.

"Tomorrow, tomorrow, or today tomorrow?" Riza asked, glancing at the clock again with a faint smile. Roy debated a moment.

"Um…tomorrow, tomorrow. I've got a lesson later today," he explained. "And by the time sensei's through lecturing me on my spectacular failure in cipher cracking, it'll probably be too late."

"In that case, we should probably get to bed," she said, rising. Roy followed suit, wincing slightly as his joints cracked in protest.

"Ow. No arguments here," he agreed, stretching his arms over his head.

She waited for Roy to put the rest of his papers in order and put out the light, and the pair walked upstairs in companionable silence. When they reached her bedroom, Riza stopped and turned to face him, her face earnest and pale in the dim light spilling out of her open doorway.

"Thank you, Mr. Mustang. For listening, and everything," she said quietly.

"You're welcome. And you know, I wouldn't mind if you just called me Roy," he added impulsively. Riza blinked, and then smiled a little regretfully.

"My father wouldn't like for me to take that liberty," she said gently. But before Roy had a chance to feel snubbed, she continued, a little shyly. "But you can call me Riza, instead of Miss Hawkeye. If you wanted to, I mean." Roy's answering smile was bright enough to light up the shadowy hallway.

"Goodnight, then, Riza," he replied cheerfully. "Or good morning, rather, I guess."

"Good morning," she replied with a soft laugh. "And sweet dreams."

A.N. Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up, everyone. Real Life WILL insist that I pay attention to it sometimes. Updates might be a little less regular for the next few weeks, but I shall do my best! And thank you all for your support; feedback is deeply appreciated!

xoxo Janieshi