I'm sorry for the wait and for such a short update! Hopefully the next one won't take so long. Thanks for the reviews and your patience!


Chapter Five: Sunlight in Her Hair

The weeks that followed, Riza's smiles were few and far between. October rolled in from the river with still more fog, and no word had reached Eastern Headquarters regarding Jason Koch. Riza had attended Beth's funeral, standing at the back in her military dress uniform with a stoic face and guilt clawing at her heart. Caroline Sawyer had approached her toward the end, bright red curls in disarray. "You find him. Whoever did this to my little girl, you have to find him," she had said. Riza, in turn, had offered a hollow promise.

Now, as Riza leaned against the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee in her hands, she wondered just how much of a chance they had at finding the man. She knew all too well how many quiet, lonely places the East held. As she stared out at the dreary grey sky, a memory slipped past her defenses. She had met a soldier in the woods once—just the once, despite his insistence that hunting out of season was a criminal offense he was supposed to put an end to. Had he been searching for someone in particular? Had soldiers gone to her hometown to search the surrounding countryside?

She supposed it would have been a simple matter to ask Mustang, but morbid curiosity was greatly outweighed by both her pride and the hope that he had forgotten their first day in the woods together. It seemed very unlikely that he had. Though the first few months of her new assignment had been tense, she had recently begun to suspect that the resentment she had sensed between them was entirely her own. Apprehension, regret—she had seen these things in Mustang from the start of their new, entirely professional relationship, but she had never felt anything like animosity. It occurred to her then that, to a woman as proud as herself, pity could feel as cruel as hatred. Worse, even, from a man she had once considered her best friend.

A sharp knock at the door startled her thoughts away, and she set the mug aside. Through the peephole, she could see a very impatient Rebecca, arms crossed and dark hair pulled back. Riza opened the door. Before she could even say hello, Rebecca opened her mouth.

"I haven't seen you since your birthday. Riza, what the hell has gotten into you lately? If I hadn't cornered Havoc at the range, I wouldn't have even known you were still alive. Why haven't you answered any of my calls?"

"I—" Riza began, but all the excuses that approached her tongue were empty, and so she swallowed her pride and the lump in her throat. "I should have answered them. I'm sorry."

Rebecca had clearly prepared herself for a defensive Riza, and she looked at a loss for how to deal with the Riza she had found instead. A few seconds of confusion resolved themselves in the form of Rebecca pulling Riza into a hug. "I've been so worried about you. Never do this to me again."

As she returned the hug, Riza tried to remember if anyone had touched her since Rebecca had hugged her goodbye outside the bar on her birthday. It didn't seem likely, and Riza appreciated the contact all the more for it. There had been too many stretches of time in her life without hugs, without so much as even a friendly nudge, and as a result, she had grown almost accustomed to loneliness. It did not surprise her in the least that Rebecca was once again attempting to rescue her from that; she had done the same at the Academy, after all.

"You should come in. I'll make some tea and we can catch up." Riza stepped aside to let Rebecca in, and then closed the door behind her.

It wasn't long before both women sat side by side on the kitchen counter with oversized mugs in hand and steam curling up into their faces. Rebecca had borrowed a pair of oversized wool socks to match Riza's, and the muffled sound of her heels bouncing against the cupboard set a comforting rhythm for the conversation.

"What have you been up to lately?" Rebecca asked. "I never see you at the range anymore."

Riza shrugged. "I've been here, for the most part."

That was clearly not the answer Rebecca had been hoping for. Still holding her mug with one hand, she reached out with the other to give Riza a gentle shove. "You're going to die alone if you keep acting like a hermit, you know."

"Not everyone is as desperate for a man as you are, Rebecca," Riza said coolly.

"It's not just that—you've been ignoring your friends, too. I'm worried about you. We're all worried about you," Rebecca said.

With a sigh, Riza set her tea aside and told Rebecca about the funeral, and about Beth, along with all the guilt Riza felt over not taking the time to listen to her. To her credit, Rebecca listened without saying a word. Not once did she point out that Riza had done the same to her. When she had finished, Riza expected Rebecca to say something, and was surprised when her only response was a wordless and one-armed hug.

They sat together in silence until a sense of belonging came over Riza. It was strange at first, though as she drained the last of her tea, she realized it was familiar as the wildflowers that grew along the road outside her childhood home. Seasonal and fleeting, fragile and beautiful. She clutched her empty mug tight to her chest that suddenly felt too small. We're all worried about you. This was not the Academy, and they were no longer as young and carefree as they had been, but she felt immensely grateful to Rebecca and Havoc and Breda. They had been her family once, and she realized for the first time since her return to East City that they still were.

As though she could read this realization in Riza's eyes, Rebecca took hold of it, used it as leverage to pry open the shell Riza lived in these days. It took a bit of coaxing and a pouting, pleading expression, but Rebecca managed to drag her outside and into the thin sunshine that had broken through the fog. Though the trees still held most of their leaves, the few that had fallen were soggy and brown, clogging the gutter and the junction between buildings and the ground.

It was the kind of day that once would have found Riza making every excuse to stay inside, but with Rebecca beside her and the desert dryness that never seemed far from her skin, the damp ground and chilly air were as welcome as her morning coffee. All around her, the city hummed with life. Strangers with brightly-colored scares hurried past with groceries in their arms; children darted through the crowd, their laughter mixing with the music that streamed out of the riverside cafes that already bustled with a Saturday morning crowd.

This was the part of East City where Rebecca had grown up, Riza recalled from the times she had accompanied her friend on leave from the Academy without a home of her own to go back to. Rebecca had asked—had begged, even—on many occasions for even the name of the town where Riza had grown up, but she had let the past fall behind her with the smoke from the train's engine. She was an orphan from a village somewhere in the East, and that was all she had said. It was all anybody needed to know. That she and Roy Mustang had known each other before the war was a secret they carried between themselves. And Maes Hughes, who had kept his silence at their request. Mere days before, she had received a wedding invitation in the mail that had since taken up residence on her nightstand, as if it contained a life of its own rather than just the promise that life did, in fact, go on. As for herself, she was unsure where she fit into all of that, and so she had yet to make a decision on whether or not she would attend.

Roy Mustang would be best man, of course. It was the first thought she had had upon reading the invitation. She wondered if, as his bodyguard, she would be forced to accompany him to Central no matter what. There would be fittings and rehearsals and all the trappings of a wedding that she had never allowed herself to think about, even as a young and decidedly romantic girl. Weddings were for other girls, not for her. It was the kind of practicality born of her parents' elopement. It was the kind of practicality Rebecca had tried to drag her away from.

Biting back her doubts, she turned to Rebecca. "I have a project for you."

"Oh?" Rebecca looked as though this new development were too good to be true.

"I've been invited to a wedding and I could use some help picking out a dress."

Rebecca's face lit up brighter with every word until her smile was almost enough to draw one from Riza. For a moment, it was just like being back at the Academy, and the fleeting nostalgia came with the jarring realization that Rebecca had changed very little since then. She was older, sure, and perhaps a little more mature from the responsibilities that came with the job, but for the most part she was still the same Rebecca she had always been.

Still bubbling over with enthusiasm, Rebecca dragged Riza into a familiar shop. Brightly colored dresses hung from racks and Riza noticed that, just as before, most of them would not cover her tattoo. Each rack she leafed through held the kind of dresses that would suit another woman perfectly. Even Rebecca was starting to look discouraged as she shoved aside another backless dress. It was here, after all, that Rebecca had learned Riza's terrible secret. After Rebecca had passed Riza the third strapless dress in a row, she had nearly broken down in that dressing room. It was a testament to the strength of their friendship that Rebecca had never spoken of that day to anyone, had never even asked Riza about the similarity between her tattoo and the markings on the Flame Alchemist's gloves. She had simply promised to keep it a secret when Riza had explained why none of these dresses would work and then helped Riza with the arduous task of coating her entire back in makeup before every physical examination.

"Try this one," Rebecca said after they had combed nearly the entire store. It was a plain dress, not particularly suited to Rebecca's taste or for a party, but it had a collar and it was the right size and so Riza took it to the dressing room. The scarlet fabric was soft as a dream, and as she twirled in front of the mirror, Riza could see no sign of scarred or tattooed skin. The bodice was almost too tight around her chest and the skirt was certainly shorter than Riza would have chosen for herself, but it was good enough for one night.

Fighting back her self-consciousness, Riza unlocked the door and stepped out to show Rebecca. "You're beautiful, Riza," she said, pulling her into a hug. "Every guy at that wedding is going to fall over himself to take you home."

Riza certainly hoped they wouldn't, but she refrained from mentioning that to Rebecca. Instead, she simply returned the embrace, holding tight to Rebecca and the rapidly fading memories of happier times. "Thank you," she said before she pulled away.

"You're welcome." Rebecca gave Riza a gentle shove. "Don't be such a stranger next time, okay? I'm here for you, whatever you need."

Riza looked away, unable to meet Rebecca's eyes. A shopping trip was one thing, but she doubted that she would ever be ready to open up to her about Ishval or even more than a hasty, half-brushed aside version of her childhood. What she needed, as much as she hated to admit it to herself, was an honest conversation with Roy Mustang.