A/N: There is slight Royai references but not much. Enjoy, and please review!

Reprise

A repeated passage in music

There's a moment of silence. It is drawn out throughout the days with a sickening rhythm that slowed in the daylight and quickened in the dark. She noticed the breaths of her body draw quick as he strode through the home at dusk. The rhythm was stuck in her mind, her heartbeat catching up to it with each passing day.

She didn't dare to turn her head. She'd given her body to him but her attention belonged to dreams. It belonged to the outside. He couldn't take her mind just yet. He rushed with the smell of alcohol, a hurricane through the house, and with a clatter he was out of the house. There was deafening silence. Her eyes flicked to her own door and with a quickness she'd forgotten about she rushed to see where the source of his anger was from. She stood in the doorway with a loose tank top and a lack of any other major articles of clothing. Her thighs would have touched if not for the starvation she'd encountered. Long gone was the warmth she used to feel between her legs and in her core. Her arms barely brushed her ribs, the same boney weakness her legs carried. She let her eyes adjust to the light. She found an empty hallway and a cold draft. Her chest rose and fell as the chilly air gutted her and carried her away.

The door to the outside was left slightly ajar.

She blinked. Had she fallen ill? Asleep in the tireless days of pain and anger? She closed her eyes and let the chill rest on her skin. This was very much real.

In his drunken rage he'd forgotten to lock the door. She opened her eyes. He'd realize his mistake in a matter of moments. If she didn't act now...

She swallowed. It wasn't like him to be so careless. Something was wrong. She stepped towards the door and the eager pain of guilt thrust itself into her stomach. She felt the courage from so long ago return and fill her up. She blinked again and she was reborn.

Gliding from her spot she stole into her room and slipped on a pair of thick denim pants and a thin overcoat that would have to suit her on her trip. Riza began to think, her mind now overflowing with thoughts she'd left untouched in the years prior. She dashed from the room and to the door, leaving no time for hesitation or gentleness. She threw open the door, her eyes sharp for her tall and dark captor. She swung her body back and forth to look for a mode of escape, and like a miracle she'd asked for in her times of struggle she saw it. A car covered in snow just under five-hundred feet, or so she assumed. She ran to it, her peripherals scanning the soft white layers around her, and she swept off the snow on the front door, ignoring the bite of the snow. It was nothing to what she'd felt previously. She yanked open the door, struggling with the latch for a precious minute, but succeeded and entered the car. She slammed the door behind her, careless now. She just wanted out. The fire had started to burn inside her and she'd give it the embers to stay alive.

She leaned down and yanked at the chords below the dash. She blinked twice before she remembered the trick her old friend had taught her. She smiled at the memory of her teenage days. She hadn't had one in a while. A memory.

She broke the film with her teeth and touched the wires together, setting the car into a roar. She didn't take time to get excited and she immediately jerked the wheel, throwing all of her strength into the throttle and drove off, her head whirring with the feeling of faint.

She stopsped the car with a sudden jerk that throws her stomach forward and into her chest. She reaches down again and tugs the wires from their places, permanently parking the vehicle.

She jumped from the seat and jogged towards the nearest path. It hadn't even taken an hour to get to this point, and her disappointment in herself was growing at every passing second. She could have escaped. She could have left. If only she'd... If only...

Riza swept her anger away and replaced it with the hope she'd lost. There was something she had to do. She narrowed her eyes and went faster. Her legs ached and her stomach writhed inside her. She'd learned long ago to never trust Kimblee. She had faith in his dishonesty now.

She could tell that the town before her was in the East. The spread of houses and the rugged center told her she'd come to the right place.

She strode through the pain in her unused body, and ran right into the middle of the town, her eyes working hard to stay open and looking. She couldn't see as far as she used to. Lack of practice.

She found a light and rushed towards it, finding a beaten down bar without a name. She pushed her way inside and nervously looked around. There were men inside and the place was clouded with smoke. She coughed loudly, her lungs heaving out the air fast and quick, and all eyes were soon on her. She turned to the bartender who seemed to be the most interested in her appearance.

She has no words to say. She hasn't spoken to another person in so long.

"S-sir," she addresses him, her fists curled and her breath returning, "I n-need to use a phone." she says with a helpless whimper in her mouth. He gives her a look of pity and nods to his right. She turns quickly to see a telephone box, and her knees almost collapse when a thick book sits next to it. She begins to shake as she rushes to it and steps inside. The closeness of the glass to her skin sends a shiver up her back, but she ignores it and flips open the book, turning to the section for the 'M' names. The letters are engraved in her mind. She finds his name quickly. His address is written as well. There is something inside her that explodes. There is something inside her that rivets up her spine and into her neck. She picks up the phone and dials one number after the other, thinking for a long time about which number is which. Math had been dulled in her mind. Almost everything had.

She flinches when she hears the ringing sound. It drills into her head. The noise is ear shattering. And then it stops.

"Hello?" It's a deep and groggy word. She knows that voice. Her throat closes up. Her eyes widen. There is a blossoming flower in her chest. "Hello? Anybody the-" the phone is places delicately on the hook. She glances out of the box to see that the bartender is no longer interested in her. She tears the address from the book and closes it, slipping from the box and through the bar. She forgets to thank the man, and only thinks of it after she's outside the door and back into the cold, her eyes reading the numbers on the buildings until she finds the one she wants.

Her knuckles hurt when she knocks on the door. She steps backwards. Was this really happening?

She thinks about knocking again but her eyes notice a shift in the doorframe. Someone is unlocking the door. She swallows, the saliva rolling down her throat like ice. It hits her chest as the door opens. She inhales.

She sees his face. He sees hers. They melt like the snow.

Her throat is burning when her consciousness returns. She pushes up with her elbows and blinks open her eyes. She's alone in the bedroom. She's barren of clothing besides a chest wrap and underwear. She tastes decay. She's been sleeping.

She hugs herself to feel the warmth of a night after dreaming. She touches her hair and her face to make sure she's all there. She avoids the gashes in her body and before long her hands are back on the bed, feeling the dent in the mattress where another body should be.

She looks up with a gasp and he's standing in the door.

"You were out for four days." there is a cigarette between his teeth and a cup of something sweet-smelling in his hands. "You take milk and one sugar, right?" he asks, moving with ease to sit on the bed beside her. He places the cup on the table beside her and she freezes at the sound. Familiar.

She then remembers the night she arrived. She remembers whispering and crying. She remembers being tucked into the bed, and gentle and dark eyes watching her from across the room. Roy Mustang had been watching her.

"You're alive." she whispered in awe. Kimblee had lied. He always did.

Roy let out a laugh and nodded. "Yes I am..." his smile disappeared as his eyes roamed her body. The scars have finally caught his attention. "You don't have to tell me where you've been until you're ready." he said quietly, leaning closer to her to study her. She feels her heart quicken. She didn't mind her near-nakedness, or her physical shape, but what she feared was the spoken word. She had to speak.

She took her attention to the window and saw it was nearing night time again. She blinked slowly and turned back to him with a fearful nod. He smiled weakly, taking the cigarette from his lips and placing it on the table.

"You never smoked before." she commented in a hushed tone. He laughed. She felt weak from it.

"My friend Havoc got me into it. He didn't want to but I made him give me a pack. I needed some way to de-stress." he said, then growing bold in his temper and words, "I've been looking for you for so long, Riza." he said, furrowed brows and a frown marking his face. She nodded. Her heart dropped and her mind raced backwards to the day she was taken. She was going to see him. She was going to commit herself to him. Had he been looking since then?

"You just vanished without a trace... no records... I didn't think you were even real for a while." he remarked. She cringed. Her body in pain from his words.

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. There was a hand on her neck, running over the ridges.

"Tell me about them." he said. Her body. Her marks.

She let her eyes half-close, reaching up to touch her hand to his.

"The circles on my wrists and ankles are from rope burns. The ones on my neck are from knives and fingernails. The ones on my back are from anger. My legs for when I tried to escape. My side," she said, her hand now on the blotchy place, "my-my- side.." tears welled in her eyes. He leaned forward. He held her. She wept into his shoulder. She really had become weak.

"Do you remember your promise?" she asked as he touched his fingers to her hair. "The one about my back... my tattoo..." she said, muffled by fabrics that smelled like him. Warmth. It smelled like fire.

He nodded against her. He was weary.

"I need you to do it... tonight." He nods again. And she falls back into the darkness.

She sat on her knees. She wanted to be destroyed in the apartment. She silently willed him to kill her. But she wanted to stay alive.

He could hold her now. He could be with her. He could save her.

There is a snap and a flicker.

She screams with a vigor to suffice for the years of silent agony.

There's cold water on her heated back and she feels his hands sliding gauze over her wounds. She tries to thank him but she can't move nor speak. She's entranced with her inner warfare. She's broken herself and given in to the enemy. But she fights on inside. Her body crumbles in the sheets. He holds her pieces together but they both know it isn't enough.

The next time her eyes open is later into the night. His arms are around her and she can see the dried tears on his face. She wipes her own and looks up to the door. She isn't surprised. She was prepared for this.

A white-suited man stands and watches her. She is a child again. She is afraid.

"Hello." she whispered. There is no smirk to applaud her valiant effort in speech. She is taken again that night.