It had been hours, but she could still feel the pressure of his lips on hers, and the ghost of his touch lingered on her skin like a memory that wouldn't fade even as she tried to distract herself. She kept thinking about his hand on her waist, and in her hair, the way his lips moved beneath hers, and the feel of his body as she tried to get closer. They'd broken apart, and moved away from each other before things could get out of control. As if they weren't already out of control. As if kissing on the bathroom floor wasn't already ridiculous and the last thing they should've been doing. As if neither of them would be thinking about what had just happened, and where it could have lead.

Riza had wondered if they'd done that before, if they'd given into their feelings in a moment of weakness, or if that was the first time. In the end, it didn't matter if it was the first time or the thousandth, they shouldn't have crossed that line. She shouldn't want to do it again and again, she should be focusing on trying to get her memories back, and not daydreaming about how Roy would feel beneath her.

To distract herself from fantasy, she'd poked around the house some more. Her old bedroom was almost the same. Cleaner, with a new coat of paint on the walls, but the small bed was still against the far wall, under the window, and her old clothes still hung in the wardrobe. Old dresses and tops that she couldn't wear after the tattoo, for fear it would poke out of the top and reveal her fathers secrets to the world. Now she couldn't wear them because she wasn't sixteen anymore, and even if she wanted to, she was fairly certain they wouldn't fit.

Her desk still stood in the corner, books would have been piled up on it when she was younger, a mixture of indulgent fiction and books for school that she'd brought home for the holidays. She'd have put them on the bed whenever she needed to do her homework, she'd have chosen to hide away in her room from her father and his apprentice. Times had obviously changed. Riza opened the desk drawers, there was a half empty bottle of whiskey next to a couple of dozen sealed envelopes, all with her name scrawled on them in Roy's handwriting.

"Oh Roy…" She whispered to herself, and closed the drawer. Even with his grief locked away and out of sight, it weighed heavily on her. Riza didn't know Roy like she should have, like she had before, but she knew him well enough to know the half empty bottle wasn't the first, and that the letters came later. After the determination to get her back (there must have been some, surely?), after the rage, and after the drinking, then there would have been the private sadness. The grief he would have tried to keep hidden, but would have taken him over completely.

Riza knew him well enough to know that's what probably happened, and his grief weighed heavy on her. Maybe she wasn't the only one confused and distracted by the kiss they'd shared. Maybe he was fighting his own emotions just like she was fighting hers. There was little point in mentioning her discovery to him, he could keep his personal grief to himself, it was his to share with her if he wanted to. It was enough to know it existed at all.

She closed the bedroom door behind her, and headed downstairs to be in his company. Yes, he was distracting, and it tempted her to cross a line that she shouldn't have gotten so close to, that she shouldn't have pressed her lips against. But maybe he needed to have her around, to be reminded of her presence. That she was here. That she was alive.

Riza was halfway down the stairs when the lights went out.

Another day, another safe house. Rebecca's face and head throbbed painfully, but she wasn't about to be left behind as if she was some kind of damsel in distress, no way. She stuck a plaster over the cut on her head after she wiped away the blood, and then helped the boys bundle Weird and Creepy into the back of the car Breda had borrowed from work. Once he was secured in one of the rooms, cuffed to a chair with Breda, Ed, and Al keeping watch while Fuery hooked up recording equipment, Jean dragged her off to the bathroom.

"Sit." Jean ordered. Rudely.

Rather than sitting on the edge of the bath, like she would have if he asked nicely, Rebecca folded her arms in front of her chest and gave him her best incredulous What Did You Just Say To Me? Look. Instead of baking down, which any sensible man would have, he mirrored her pose, only infuriating her more.

"What's your problem?" Rebecca asked, her annoyance seeping into every syllable.

"I don't have a problem, but I need to clean that cut." At least if he was annoyed, he didn't sound it.

"Well you don't need to order me about like I'm Hayate."

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you - are we really doing this right now?" Rebecca asked. "While there's a perp downstairs and we have bigger things to deal with?"

At the mention of Weird and Creepy, Jean bristled, and turned away from her to the bathroom cabinet and dug around until he found the first aid kit. When he turned back to her and jerked his head in the direction of the bath, to get her to sit on the edge, she refused and took a step closer to him.

"I'll stand." She said defiantly.

Rebecca was directly in his personal space, and glaring at him, but he kept whatever was bothering him in his head, for a change, and went to work on treating her wound. It was smaller than she thought it would've been, but head wounds always bled a lot, and she hissed in pain as he cleaned it.

"Ouch."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it just stung a bit." Rebecca said, and Jean nodded before he placed a fresh plaster over the cut.

"I think you'll live."

"Probably." Rebecca agreed. "So, you gonna talk about what's eating you, or do I need to start guessing until you open up?"

Jean was close enough that she could smell him, cigarette smoke, sweat, and aftershave. She could reach out and brush her fingers against him, she could lean in and kiss him, she could hold him in her arms, and if he got stupid and annoying, he was close enough for her to slap.

"He could've killed you, Becca," Jean whispered. It was as if the idea had entered his head and floated around in it, eating away at him, until he was forced to speak it allowed. Rebecca softened, the tension fell from her shoulders and her annoyance seeped away as if it had never been there. Of course he would get worried and idiotic about what had just happened.

"Well. Yeah, but so could training with the guys from Briggs, but we still do it." She pointed out, and slid her fingers between his. "I'm okay, Jean."

"I know." He wrapped his free arm around her and pulled her close, so her body was flush against his, and she felt him kiss the top of her head lovingly. "But I can't help-"

"Stop it." Rebecca insisted. She looked up at him and dragged her hands up his arms - Rebecca loved his arms - and wound them around his neck. "I'm okay, Jean."

"But what if he'd just shot you instead of trying to kidnap you or whatever?" He asked, a note of panic rising in his voice. "I love you, Rebecca, I can't lose you like that."

Rebecca smiled warmly, and stood up on tiptoes and pressed her lips to his gently. "I'm okay, Jean." She assured him. "Now, let's go and get this guy to talk, so we can go home and I can show you how alive I am."

Jean chuckled, and kissed her heatedly, passionately, it was a kiss with promise for much, much more later. It didn't last long, but it left her knees weak and her skin flushed with desire. It left her wanting his hands on her skin, and his mouth on hers, preferably in a comfortable bed while wearing absolutely nothing. "Promises, promises, princess." He mumbled against her lips.

"I always keep my promises." Rebecca said. "Now let's get this guy to talk."

Ed leaned against the wall and looked at the captured man. He was blonde, which wasn't really shocking considering how many people in the country had that hair colour. In fact, the man looked completely unremarkable. There was no way, in Ed's mind, that he'd been responsible for any of this bullshit. A pawn? Sure, he could see that. But a mastermind? Ed was pretty sure masterminds didn't get knocked out after going to try to kidnap people.

Not unless they were really shitty masterminds, and someone that kept Riza Hawkeye locked away for a couple of years wasn't going to be a shitty mastermind, there was no way they would've been able to keep her that long if they were this stupid. So, he had to be a henchman of some sort.

At least it was a lead, he had to remind himself. An unconscious lead, sure, but that wouldn't last forever. Soon he'd wake up, and then he'd have to talk.

The clock ticked by, and eventually the guy groaned. Show time.

Rebecca sat next to Fuery, ice pressed against her face in a vain attempt to stop the bruise from forming. He'd given her a headset to listen in on what was going on in the other room. Breda and Ed playing good cop/bad cop. Or, well, really it was bad cop/worse cop. It didn't take long for the guy to break and start spilling secrets. About how he'd helped target Riza in the first place, how his boss had told him to, how they'd try to brainwash her into fighting for them (although he was a bit hazy on who exactly 'them' were), how she'd resisted. How she'd fought. How she'd battled against them every step of the fucking way until they'd tried to wipe her memory to start again.

Maybe if she didn't remember a life before, she'd be more compliant. Instead, Riza had ran, like a scared animal, she'd fought and battled her way out of there and straight into Jean. So they'd followed her, to make sure she didn't remember anything about them.

It all seemed fruitless, now that he was spilling his guts to them.

She took off the headset, proud of her sister in arms, but unable to listen to anymore about her confinement or their plans for her.

"Has anyone been able to get a hold of Mustang and Riza?" She asked the others in the room; Fuery shook his head, as did Al and Jean.

"They're out in the sticks and it's late. Might be that they're busy-" Jean waggled his eyebrows, and Rebecca rolled her eyes. "-Or it could be that the phoneline's out. It happens more out in bumfuck nowhere than in the city."

"We should keep trying. They need to know all about this." Rebecca insisted.

"Don't worry, baby, we are."

Roy came back into the house, and took his ignition gloves and shoved them into his pocket. "Nothing out there, must just be a powercut." He explained, and Riza felt the tension disappear. From the second the lights had gone out she'd been worried that someone had cut the power, that her captors were here to take her back, but it wasn't that at all. Just a power cut out in the country, not unusual, and not remotely noteworthy.

Riza nodded, "Do you have candles?" She asked.

Together they gathered up some candles, stumbling into each other occasionally in the dark, his hands rested on her waist to steady her and Riza had to remind herself to step away from him, and not towards. It was harder in the living room, surrounded by nothing but candlelight, not to slide up to him and kiss him tenderly.

While Riza sat on the couch next to him, her feet tucked up under her, she tried not to sit so close that temptation would become too great. Even if it was always there. It was getting ridiculous, this desire for him that she was trying to keep under control.

"Why did you decide to restore the house?" She broke the tension, and the silence, between them.

"Penance." Roy admitted. "I got the idea from rebuilding Ishval. It's not the same, obviously, but I lost you and nothing I could do would change that. I thought that maybe rebuilding this place with my hands would make losing you easier."

Nothing could make losing her easier, was what went unsaid. It would always be painful, and hard, just like the thought of losing him took the air from her lungs and turned her blood to ice. The thought was unfathomable.

"What were you going to do with it?" She asked. "Retirement out to the country isn't your style."

"I thought about giving it to Havoc and Catalina if they ever got married." Roy admitted. "Or giving it to someone that needed it. It doesn't matter though, because it's yours."

"I don't need a house out in the country, Roy." She said. "My place isn't here. It's never been here."

"So where is it?" He asked.

"With you," Riza said. "Always."

Roy's hand brushed against her leg, and she leaned closer to him. Their lips touched, and this time it wasn't sweet or gentle, it was needy and hungry, demanding proof that she was alive, and here, and in his arms. There were thousands of reasons why she shouldn't have kissed him back with enthusiasm, but there was a good reason that beat all of them. She wanted to.

Riza wanted to kiss him, she wanted to pull his shirt off of him and run her hands over his skin, she wanted to bask in him, and she wanted to love him, and prove to him that she was here and whole and alive. She wanted his mouth on hers, and his hands on her thighs and her breasts, she wanted him. Right then, everything else was inconsequential.

"Riza... " He moaned against her neck before kissing it. "Are you sure you want-"

"Upstairs." Riza interrupted, making her intentions very clear. "We should go upstairs. To a bedroom."

Roy nodded, and they extinguished the candles before going to his bedroom together.