28. A Dream Worth Keeping (Sheena Easton)
A/N: Takes place in the manga after Roy's team is split up, but before she comes in to collect the rest of her stuff.
Some days, he just could not believe it.
On those days, he could hear the laughter, the shuffle of papers, the snarky comments, and Hayate's bark.
On those days, it felt like Roy was going crazy.
Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, he'd lost everything, so it seemed. At least, he'd lost everyone. Like he hadn't lost enough. He'd almost lost his will after Ishbal. He'd lost his best friend.
Really, he should have seen it coming, careful as his team had tried to be. But that damn homunculus… Trying to be like humans. Well, he certainly had the ruthless part of it down.
But getting angry alone wasn't going to do anything about it. He had to put things together, somehow. Down, but not out, the saying went. Time to start making connections.
Ishbal. Roy didn't want to go back to those memories. It was a risky trip he might never return from if he wasn't careful, but it was a necessary evil. Emphasis on the evil.
So, he'd been ordered to do the unspeakable, the unforgivable: to take human life. Correction: innocent human life. The Ishbalans were like any other people, now angry (and justifiably so) at the military that might not have protected them, but could have at least let them be.
However, Scar was taking it to the extreme. If Riza hadn't been there…
No. Thinking of Riza hurt nearly as much as thinking of Ishbal. Riza had been why he'd been able to do what he did in Ishbal, no matter how he looked at it. She'd warned him time and again, and her father before her. Roy had been too idealistic to listen. Holier-than-thou, even.
He thought he'd known better, but now he was beginning to see just how little he really knew. In so many ways, Riza had known what he hadn't, and she'd tried to tell him.
After Edward's test, she'd given him a stern talking-to about acting the part, even if for a few seconds. She'd tried to tell him not to take on Scar, ordered him not to leave his hiding spot while she retrieved Gluttony, and attempted to keep him out of danger after he was out of the hospital.
And all for this.
It meant only one thing: Bradley had known, and he'd played along, pretending not to notice until it was getting too risky.
He'd seen it: the fear in her eyes, trying to push past her determination.
Roy wished he could apologize for everything except having a dream to work toward. Riza would never let him apologize, though. He could almost hear her voice now.
"Excuse me, Colonel."
Roy had to stop himself from smiling. Even if it was just for a moment, he knew that she was okay. She was really here, and not just a memory. That was all that mattered.
A/N: I've done a lot of Riza's thoughts lately, mostly to get better at it, but because of that, I've neglected to write anything Roy-centric for a while. Thus, this exercise in writing. Well, that, and I just wanted to write this, of course.
If it wasn't entirely clear, Riza actually comes in at the end to collect her stuff. I know I somewhat contradicted that in my beginning note, but she's really there in the end.
ALSO: The family computer has had... er, security issues (i.e. computer virus), so my parents are trying to make sure I don't go on any "suspicious" sites. Updates might be sporadic for a while, 'til I get my own computer.