There is a tense silence where Riza hears nothing but her own heartbeat. Thump… thump… thump. It is slow and forceful, and it punctuates the seconds that trickle by as her Colonel glares at the mysterious man who calls himself a doctor. It is her only reminder that she is still here with him, putting up one last fight alongside him, even though he is vulnerable and disarmed and she is unable to protect him.

The doctor says that they are running out of time, and something cuts through the air. Something bursts into a brilliant red. Something violently pulls Riza down, and her body drops heavily onto the cold stone floor. Everything around her swiftly turns cold. The sound of her heartbeat is gone—or it pauses for far too long before the next labored thump —and the screams that follow are too blurry and distorted to immediately make out.

The Colonel is screaming for her.

"Lieutenant…! LIEUTENANT…! "

All that Riza knows now is that one moment someone is dragging her across the floor, the next her own blood is quickly pooling around her, and that this must be what dying feels like. She is numb and confused and slipping away and yet inexplicably calm. Perhaps there isn't enough blood in her anymore for her to feel anything else, but somehow she is able to find her hand and press it feebly against the cut in her throat.

She isn't going to die, she gasps as her voice breaks. "I'm under… strict orders… not to die."

And Riza is still fighting even though she can only move her eyes now. She can barely see the Colonel in the dark, his limbs strained from struggling to break free from his captors, his face shining with sweat and contorted in rage and desperation and terror. Maybe he can still see what she is trying to tell him. She knows that something good has come, hidden in a shadowy passage somewhere in the ceiling, but her mind cannot make the connection between what she's glimpsed and what she does with the last of her strength.

Riza fades to black.

She is no longer in the tunnels that run through the heart of Central, no longer with the strange doctor or his puppet-like men with brute strength. She is in the Fifth Laboratory with the Colonel, collapsed on the ground with his uniform ripped open to reveal the wound that nearly killed him. The memory plays out as clear as day. Riza was the one who had screamed and flown into a blind rage thinking that her Colonel was dead, and the Colonel was weak and critically injured like she is now. She remembers her hopelessness, her fleeting but all-consuming wish to die right then and there, then the euphoric rush of hope when she heard his voice and realized that he had fought his way back to her.

But Riza also remembers something else. The spark of a feeling, a strange impulse that broke through her anxious relief over realizing that he was still alive but knowing she could still lose him if he wasn't treated right away. Riza nearly said it then. The words hung from her lips while they waited for help to come, but she swallowed them back quickly once the medics arrived to carry him away, tearing his hand away from her trembling fingers. She buried the warm, yearning feeling away once she was certain that the Colonel was going to be all right, and she persuaded herself then that she would never find room or feel any need to consider it again.

Then, as quickly as she lost consciousness, Riza finds herself back in the tunnels, her body unresponsive and the ground slick with her blood. Her head spins with uncertainty, but she finds that she can hear a little more of what's happening around her now than she did when she began bleeding out—fist to flesh, frantic footsteps, fingers snapping, a familiar voice yelling. She is in somebody's arms now.

It's Roy who has come to her, not the Colonel, because the Colonel would not hold her closely like this, his body warm and protective over hers. The Colonel would not plead with her to stay with him, would not gasp for breath like he was dying with her, would not whisper "Lieutenant!" over and over with the tenderness of calling her by her first name. It's Roy who is making her feel safe. It's Roy who is making her realize, despite the haze and the numbness, that the longing she kept hidden and worked hard to forget has resurfaced.

This time, it feels stronger. It's as if it were something precious that has become more valuable for its rarity and its long absence. Riza has underestimated it, because now the words are coming back to her not with an impulse to be said, but a need. And if this is where she dies, then she is grateful that he is here now, that despite the severity of her wounds she is able to cling to dear life for one last chance to say the words:

"…"

Riza slowly opens her eyes, and Roy's face is the first thing she sees. Everything else remains a blur; she isn't sure she knows who saved her or how her bleeding stopped. But Riza cannot help but smile. In the flurry of emotions that wash over her, the words feel thick in her throat and heavy in her chest all at once, and all she manages to say as she looks at him is, "Colonel… I'm so sorry."

"No, don't speak. Just rest now."

The words have slipped away from Riza again, further and further away as more of her surroundings and the present situation come back to her. But she knows him well enough to know that he must have heard the words in her voice, felt what she truly wanted to say without her having to tell him. Perhaps Riza isn't imagining that she feels it in the way he looks at her now, holds her as if he is afraid he will lose her if he lets go.

But Riza is certain of exactly one thing as her dazed mind turns clear: she has loved Roy long before she admitted it to herself.

She has only loved him more every day since then.