A/N: This was for Day 7 of Royai Week, and also for Royai Day. The theme for Royai Day was "Even Into Hell".

Sometimes, when Roy Mustang lets his mind wander, he considers the many, many choices he has made regarding Riza Hawkeye. Snippets of conversations held long ago traverse through his head, hiking through the mental debris and winding passageways of his brain: "You don't have to call me Mr. Mustang- you can call me Roy, if you want." "Can I kiss you?" "I'll come back, don't worry." "Hey, no worries, we'll get you all patched up in no time." "Are you really willing to let me use your father's research?" "I promise, you'll never have to give your secrets to anyone ever again." "I can't afford to lose you." When he thinks of these, his heart clenches, and he wants nothing more than to hold his wife in his arms and never let go.

He remembers her eyes most of all- blazing, brown, beautiful. He had always known if she was sure about something by looking into those eyes. In Ishval, when the exhaustion and regret had been clouding both their eyes and weighing them down like lead, the echo of that blaze and surety was still there. The day she had begged him to burn the secrets from her back, her eyes were still bright and absolutely certain. Later, after the dust had cleared and the bodies had rotted, she had come to his office in East City, hair still cut short, pale skin now covered in scars, and insisted that she become his bodyguard and subordinate. Roy knew the second Riza stepped in that she was confident that she would get her way. Those brown eyes, full of determination and undeniable security, bored deep into his soul and always watched him, no matter where he went. "Will you follow me?" "Understood. If that is your wish, then even into hell."

Every mission, every day spent in the office, every night in each other's arms, they had always watched each other. It seemed as though, after all these years, they had acquired some sort of sixth sense for one another. They always moved in tandem, in perfect synchronization that no other member of their team could ever hope to replicate or understand. They did not need words to say what they needed from the other, whether it was safety, backup, cooperation, or just comfort. After the first few years together, the other men in the office had learned that Roy and Riza were inseparable, whether the two of them were willing to admit it or not. And in the dark evenings where the nightmares would come in all their fury, they would hold each other, murmuring things in the silence to calm one another.

He knows with a certainty that she has changed his life permanently. Every time he looked at her, he saw how far he had come, but more importantly, how far they had come. He remembers the first time they had ever seen one another on that first day in Master Hawkeye's house. Roy had known almost instantly that she was different. There was no denying it. He'd never seen eyes that were more full of fire, full of an intensity he could not yet comprehend. But he had stuck with her, determined to bring her out of her meticulously constructed shell. And he had succeeded. He remembered the night they spent under the stars in Riza's secret place, where he had kissed her for the first time. That was a moment he would never forget. From then on, they had been devoted to one another, even during his stretch in the military academy and in Ishval when they had lost contact. Roy had been delighted to discover that she still felt the same way, even after all those years.

Still, they'd had their arguments, though they were few and far between. Every couple had them. Using that word is strange, Roy thinks. Any word that they would use to describe their relationship had always seemed stilted, uncomfortable, inadequate. They were more than a couple, or boyfriend and girlfriend, or even just husband and wife once the fraternization laws were abolished. The closest word Roy had ever come up with was soulmate. And in a world where souls could be bound to suits of armor and cities full of souls could disappear overnight, it seemed to be the closest thing to adequate.

Every choice he had made ever since she became his subordinate had involved her in some way. A sudden ache radiates through his left side; this was common now in his old age. He remembers reducing the homunculus Lust to a mere pile of ashes as Alphonse had shielded Riza behind his alchemy-created wall. Roy remembers Riza's voice screaming his rank, begging him to stop. He remembers the way she had knelt over him, tears in her eyes, that light he knew and loved slowly returning. But most of all, he remembers the rage and cold focus that had flooded through his veins, seeping through his fingers with the blazing inferno he controlled. That feeling had infused him with all the angry serenity and rushing blood of a madman. Never again, he had sworn when he woke up the next morning in the hospital. But he had been wrong.

When he thinks of the Promised Day, all he can see in his mind is red and black. So much of that day was coated in a film of undulating red and smoky black- blood and blindness. Occasionally a speck of green bleeds through but is quickly extinguished by the roaring maw of hatred and rage he feels. Roy hates that he had stood on the very edge of insanity, of being lost forever. He had willingly stepped to that edge, his fate hanging in the balance of one simple snap of his fingers, or the easy trigger-pull of his lieutenant's. He can recall the splintering agony of a surge of blue washing through his pain soaked veins and arteries, bringing him back from that dangerously spinning cliff. His lieutenant's words had caused that surge- "This fight will be my last. Once all of this is over, I'm going to end my life, and remove my secrets of Flame Alchemy from the world." She had taunted him, for the first time. She had never hung those words over his head before. Their implication haunted him to this day- "I should have never trusted you with this. You are becoming exactly the monster we have feared all these years. You have no right to be Fuhrer."

She was truly his better half. Riza had always held him down to earth when his aspirations had flown sky high. There is absolutely no way that he would have turned out as good a man as he did without her. She was his light, his security, his very soul. He knows that he would at least be able to function if she were taken from his side, but he would always much rather have her there. She was his mirror, his other half. As he remembers the rush of clarity she had brought him in his very worst moments, he knows that she is the only reason he reached his goal.

So as he gazes over her funeral pyre, filled with longing and sadness, he concludes, Without her, nothing would have been the same.

A/N: Leave a review! :)