Riza gasps as she watches Barry the Chopper's head slide across the ground with a sickening klang.
"Now," the woman says as she steps closer, her high heels clacking against the stones on the floor.
What did Alphonse call her? Homunculus?
"Who wants to go first? Armor boy? Or maybe the Lieutenant?"
Riza widens her stance and grips her pistol, taking aim.
What if my bullets don't work against this one, either? How am I going to protect this boy?
"You seem like the loyal type," the homunculus taunts, her grin an evil thing. "Very soon I'll send you to join your commanding officer."
Riza feels a sudden cold sweat break out across her forehead.
"Wait…You said 'Two human sacrifices in one night'"? It can't be…It can't be."
Her mind fills with a sort of white fuzz that makes it hard to think, the possibility too awful to conceive. Her hands start to tremble around the gun in her grasp.
Before her, the homunculus grins, and the fuzz turns to red.
"Why, you! You bitch!" She's fired every shot in the chamber of her primary weapon before she's even aware of pulling the trigger, but the beast is still moving.
How, how can it still be alive if Mustang is dead?!
She unloads her secondary weapon, too, then reaches for her handgun. She keeps pulling the trigger, uselessly, as it clicks again and again. Riza's breathing fast, and now her mind is just…blank.
"Are you finished?" Riza feels her entire body contract in horror, as she sees the homunculus is still coming towards them.
How? How?! And now, she's out of ammunition. She's got no way to protect Alphonse. Riza's knees give way, and she slumps to the ground, sobbing in a way she hasn't done, not in years.
"Such a sad and weak creature."
She's just that, sad and weak. She failed to protect Roy. How? How?! Her one chance at salvation, her hope to atone for all she's done, her dream, her impossible dream…is gone.
Riza can barely feel the tears pouring down her face, and is barely aware of Alphonse stepping in front of her.
"Get up, Lieutenant. You have to get out of here."
"Foolish boy, do you want to die first?"
I've got nothing left to protect him.
She can hear the crack and fizzle of Al's alchemy, can feel the pulse of energy around her. She hears his voice, as though coming through water, a long way off.
"Don't just sit there, Lieutenant! Run!"
She can't; she can't run, because she doesn't deserve to. For all the blood on her hands, to add his to it now, is a stain she'll never scrub off, a sucking wound from which she'll never recover.
"Leave me, Alphonse, save yourself," she manages.
"No!"
Riza feels rage bubble over.
"I said 'leave me'! Just get out of here!"
At least, once the boy runs, she can succumb to her fate without him having to witness it. She'll let herself be beaten by this sick, twisted, imitation of a human being, because... Then, might she at least be with Roy again? If some kind of afterlife, some kind of heaven exists…No, neither of them would have any business there. There's no blessed reunion awaiting her, only blank emptiness, but at least this pain, this darkness will end. She doesn't want Alphonse to see.
"No! I won't! I'm sick of watching people die because of my weaknesses."
Yes, it was my weakness. Roy is dead because of my weakness.
"I won't let another person I care about be killed- not if there's anything I can do to protect them!"
This boy is so much stronger than she is, and Riza wishes there was something, anything she could do to-
"I like what you just said, Alphonse Elric."
Riza's eyes widen. Her tears forget to fall.
That voice…That's…Roy?
She feels the ground beneath her shift and looks up to see a solid alchemical wall of concrete. She strains to see, to look around it, but Alphonse pulls her back. The room is hot, so hot, and the smell, she knows it.
Flame alchemy? How? Please….
"To gain the initiative in war, first take away your enemy's mobility." She knows his voice, and he's reciting from the damn academy textbook on strategies and ways of war.
He's alive.
"And whenever possible, use the element of that," he snarls. "You're finally on your knees homunculus!"
Flames heat the room again, and the sheer relief she feels is so palpable, Riza lets out another sob.
"You should have bled to death! How are you alive?"
"I used fire to sear the wounds closed."
So he is injured.
"Almost passed out two or three times in the process."
"Colonel!" Riza tries again to see, to get to him, but Alphonse holds her fast.
"No, Lieutenant!"
Heat continues to suffuse the room as he attacks again and again. Riza can't help but wonder, if he's injured, how long can he keep it up? Is there still a chance she might lose him?
She doesn't hear the final exchange between the two combatants, her pulse is pounding in her head, and finally, finally Alphonse releases her. She sprints across the room just as Mustang slumps forward.
"Colonel! Are you all right, sir?"
"Oh, Lieutenant. You're safe." The odd half-smile on his face, and the strange cadence of his words tell her that he's not.
"Worry about yourself, sir!" She lowers him to the ground, wishing for a radio, a medical pack, anything that could help to save him. Like he just saved me.
"Alphonse, thank you for protecting my subordinate." His breath is labored, pained.
"Never mind that!" The boy shouts, alarmed. "We have to call a doctor!"
"Yes," Roy groans, and her heart seizes. "Hurry, call a doctor for Havoc. Please."
Havoc, oh god, Havoc. Have I lost them both?
"Go, Alphonse," she shouts. "Run! Sound the alarm, find a phone, get help!"
"Right!" His metal footsteps fade, echoing down the eerie hallways. I'd have been faster, she thinks. But I can't leave the Colonel vulnerable and unguarded. It's only then that she remembers she's out of ammunition. She has essentially left him vulnerable, and she feels tears choke her throat again.
"Don't die," she moans, grabbing his hand. She can see that he has, indeed, cauterized his own flesh, and, as she looks closer, she realizes he's not wearing his gloves, but rather he's carved the transmutation circle for flame alchemy into his own skin. The sight sickens her. "Please." Riza realizes she's crying again only when her teardrops hit his chest. "Roy."
His name seems to act like a magic talisman, and he opens his eyes.
"Riza," he mutters. "Is-," he breaks off, flinching. "Is that an order?"
"What?"
He gives a dry chuckle.
"'Don't die'?"
"Yes!" she says. "If that's what it takes, consider it an order! Please, sir, please." His eyes flutter closed again, and her tears continue to fall.
It seems to take help so long, so very long to come, but then the paramedics arrive, and she crawls backwards, surrendering him to hands that know more than hers, that can actually do something to help. Very quickly, they're loading him onto a stretcher, hustling out of the room. Riza sees Alphonse, then, and calls out to him.
"Did they find Lieutenant Havoc?" she demands.
"Yes, they're bringing him to the ambulance!"
Riza nods and hurries after her Colonel.
As they reach the ambulance, an MP tries to stop her from following Mustang.
"Hold on a minute, miss. Let the doctors do their jobs. We've got some questions for you."
Riza is beyond reason, and she doesn't care who knows it as she pulls her sidearm, aiming at the officers' face.
"My name is First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, that man is my commanding officer, I'm his bodyguard, and I am going to the hospital with him! Now!" she shouts. "Back the hell up!"
"Yes, sir!" The MP raises his hands and lets her pass. The paramedics either heard her tirade, or they're too busy working on Roy to bother who comes along in the ambulance. Riza's glad she did as she picks up on their conversation.
"...blood loss. They say he cauterized it?"
"How could that even be?"
"It's alchemy," Riza volunteers, and their surprised gazes shift to her. "This is Colonel Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist. He used alchemy to cauterize his wounds."
They've actually discussed the possibility of battlefield cauterization before. She shouldn't feel so shocked or sickened at the sight and smell of his burnt flesh, but she does. It makes the scars on her back prickle uncomfortably, as if they know his wounds are a twin to them.
"How-uh- how does that even work?" One of the paramedics asks, while the other cuts away the layers of his uniform to fully expose the wound. There will be fibers burnt into his skin.
She knows the details, but keeps her explanation simple. "He's able to use alchemy to create fire, to break down the elements and manipulate them to create a flame. Normally, he wears gloves made of a special ignition cloth, but he had a lighter, which I think he must have used to create a spark."
"That's helpful," the female paramedic says, glancing up from her work. "Hey…I think I went on a date with this guy once, what's his name again?"
"Colonel Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist," Riza manages to grit the words out through clenched teeth.
As long as they get him to the hospital alive, I don't care if he marries her.
—-
Riza stands vigil outside the hospital room all night, waiting for him to regain consciousness. Fuery brings her a clean uniform and promises to take care of Black Hayate. He also brings ammunition, and she finally starts to feel like herself again, with a loaded gun in her hand.
Every time medical personnel enter the room behind her, Riza feels her heart skip a beat, and her hand falls to the hilt of her gun, ready, listening.
Finally an emerging nurse says. "He's awake. He's asking to see an officer, Lieutenant Hawkeye?"
"That's me, ma'am."
"Go ahead, then."
Riza steps into the room, honestly a little afraid of what she'll find. She doesn't know the extent of his injuries, and doesn't know if he's still at risk. Then again, surely they're all at risk, now, as they've shown their hand….
"Sir." She gives him a salute as she enters the room, and she's grateful to see that he's sitting up in the hospital bed.
"Hawkeye, there you are." His eyes draw her closer, and she obeys.
"How are you?" She asks quietly, and he sighs.
"Well, that wasn't exactly my idea of fun," he says grimly, his left hand drifting over the wound at his side. "But I'll live."
She lets out a small breath of relief.
"I'm very glad to hear it, sir." She stands next to him now, giving a soft smile, and suddenly his arms are reaching for her, he's pulling close, and he's kissing her- hard.
Kissing may not even be the word, as he jams his lips to hers. She's so caught off guard her own lips are parted in a gasp, and he takes advantage, his tongue pressing into her mouth. It's hard and demanding, all tongue and teeth and bitterness, and Riza doesn't know, cannot decide if this is better or worse than the forced formality she's been subjected to since- don't think about it, she orders herself.
She doesn't think about what happened the night of Maes Hughes' funeral. She doesn't think about Roy and his crippling need, or the bruises he left behind on her body, or that she wants him again, now just like that.
"Uh, heya Chief." Riza whirls around, drawing her gun, and then she's aiming at an orderly and Jean Havoc whose bed is being wheeled into the room. She never heard the door open. Riza gasps and lowers her gun, quickly retreating back towards the door, checking behind them to see that nobody else has approached the room while she was distracted.
When she's satisfied that no-one who doesn't belong has invaded the sanctity of the hospital floor, she holsters the weapon, holds open the door for the departing orderly, and stands against the wall, surveying the two men before her.
"How ya feelin', Chief?" Havoc asks, glancing between them. "Hawkeye?"
"It's good to see you awake, Havoc."
"Never mind that, now," Roy snaps, and his dark eyes are fixed on Riza again. "Lieutenant Hawkeye, I need your report. What happened down there?"
She takes a deep breath, focusing.
"Sir. After we split up, Alphonse Elric, Barry, and I continued to follow the trace of Barry's body. We found it." Her nose wrinkles at the memory, her stomach threatening to heave. "Afterwards the w-woman- the-," she breaks off, glancing around, and lowering her voice. "The homunculus, Lust "
"Solaris," Havoc mutters
"... .She found us and dispatched Barry."
Mustang nods. "Then?"
Riza swallows.
"I burned through all my ammunition. Then…well, then you showed up and defeated her, sir." His eyes narrow at her.
"No," he says, slowly. "When I arrived you were on the ground and Elric was standing in front of you, guarding you. You were injured?"
Riza takes a deep breath, briefly meeting Havoc's curious gaze, then continues.
"Sir, she…taunted us. She led us to believe that you and Lieutenant Havoc were, well, she," Riza breaks off, swallowing around a new lump that has come unbidden into her throat. "She said that she'd killed you, sir."
His expression is inscrutable. His next question hits below the belt, betraying his knowledge of the workings of her mind.
"Did you 'burn through' your ammunition before or after she made that claim?"
Riza almost lies. She almost tries to convince him that she'd fought smart and brave, until the very last moment, but she doesn't have the heart.
"After, sir."
His eyes widen, and for a moment, a tiny moment, it's Roy that looks back at her, her Roy, her best friend, her childhood romance, the man she's been in love with since she was sixteen years old. Then the moment breaks, and his face turns cold.
"You idiot."
She casts her gaze down at the floor, shame pouring into her very soul at the contempt in his voice.
"You believed the enemy's lies? Even if they'd been telling the truth, how could you just lose the will to fight?" He asks, glaring at her. "I expected more out of you, Lieutenant Hawkeye!"
The humiliation she feels at the reprimand is warranted, surely, but no less painful to bear. To be scolded so by him, in front of Havoc no less, cuts a hole into a tiny spot in her heart, filling it with fire.
"I'm very sorry, sir," she says, giving a slight bow.
"Learn to keep it together," Mustang snaps, not backing down even a little at her contrition. "You can't shut down under pressure. And never, ever lose your resolve!"
He waits until she lifts her head to meet his eyes before he continues.
"As a soldier, and as my subordinate, you need to strengthen your resolve."
"Yes, sir."
She cried so desperately in that cavern, when she had believed him lost to her forever, but now, no tears burn their way to the surface. She stands before him- abashed, contrite- and takes the punishment he doles out.
The silence in the room stretches out for a long-time. Havoc stares back and forth between his two commanding officers, stunned, never before having witnessed them share a moment of discord that didn't have good-natured teasing at its core. This is so different, this is raw emotion, pain, anguish, and it's clear he feels that he shouldn't be part of it.
Finally, Mustang speaks again.
"I'm going to continue to entrust you with my back," he says, his tone almost dismissive. "Devote yourself to this task."
As though she had ever been less than devoted…As though he didn't trust her resolve, her mettle…As though she was just another officer being disciplined by her subordinate.
Havoc comes to her rescue, saving her from having to come up with a response by giving Roy a small taste of his own medicine, calling him out for coming onto the battlefield in the first place. Havoc's right, of course. Riza had yelled at Roy herself when he turned up at the clocktower…when he saved her life. She shuts her eyes tightly, then opens them again. Good. No tears.
The men are arguing, grumbling at having to share a room, which she had requested.
"Please try to understand," she says, feeling as though she ought to prove she's done something right. "The enemy might try to kill you in your sleep. It's much easier to protect the two of you if you're in the same room."
Roy grunts, sitting up on the side of the bed.
"That's it," he says quietly. "This is the perfect opportunity for them to finish us off. People die in hospitals all the time, they could make it look like an accident." His gaze sweeps the room, intense. "So why haven't they come?"
Riza's been wondering the same thing, hypervigilant as she's kept watch, wondering if at any moment the enemy would appear and strike again.
The door opens at that moment, and Riza nearly pulls her weapon again, but it's only Fuery and Alphonse.
"Alphonse!" she snaps, rounding on him as she sees his injured arm. "Should you be walking around in the open like this? If they find you, they could take your life at any moment!"
"I'll be okay!" the boy insists.
"Lieutenant?" Fuery asks, lightly touching her shoulder. "Maybe you should rest up a bit. I'll find someone to take over for you."
Riza looks over at the junior officer. She was impressed with his combat-readiness and quick thinking the day before. If he hadn't managed to get a gun into her hands when that monster was bearing down on them, if they hadn't had those precious extra seconds before Mustang arrived, neither of them would have survived. Fuery had put himself in the line of fire to protect her, and she was grateful.
"I'm fine," she says, looking away. "This is my duty. I'll be fine."
Mustang glances sideways at her, but she doesn't meet his gaze.
There's work to be done, and her personal feelings will have to wait while she attends to her duty.