[riza; pg-13] Not Over Title: Not Over Author:emilie_burns Series: Fullmetal Alchemist Rating: PG-13 Word Count: 1926 Warnings: None Pairings: Implied Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye Spoilers: Entire series spoilers, as well as officially released rumors on the movie. (I have no idea whether or not this is anywhere near close to what'll be shown in the movie, as far as the situation goes. It's just a plotbunny that would not. stop. freakin'. chewing. on the damn teasers being released and trying to sort them out so they make sense. Take it all with a what-if grain o' salt.) TOTALLY OFF BASE IT TURNS OUT BUT WHAT THE HELL. :D Genre: Gen, angst, songfic. Summary:He took the full brunt of the blame, the accusations, the suspicions, and protected her, protected all of them. And the price was the loss of everything. Contact between Roy Mustang and his former command, his former co-conspirators was strictly verboten. She dared not give the slightest appearance of even stepping over the line. She was a dog of the military. She was well-trained. The orders were to heel, and she dared not let her gaze waver. Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist and everything therein belongs to Hiromu Arakawa/Square Enix. The lyrical snippets from the song "The Nightmare", written and sung by Stevie Nicks. Original LJ Post Date: May 01, 2005 @ FanfictionLJ
Not Over
It was Friday.
She always knew when it was Friday, even before fully waking up. Her subconscious kept careful track of the days, and in the darkest hours, her nerves would curl and fray in anticipation. The cold, hard knot deep in her gut often woke her before the alarm would sound, the rattling clapper jangling through thin layers of hazy sleep.
Friday.
She still had at least seven hours to get through, a day like any other. No one could know what Fridays meant to her. Everything was so precarious, the separations, the whispers, the rumors, the suspicions, the danger. It hadn't ended with the Fuhrer's death, none of it did. Too many questions were still unanswered to the public at large, and the answers available were beyond the realm of reality which most wanted to believe.
Blinded by the light of the day, She has known the nightmare.
But there was doubt, just enough, and for that she was thankful. It hadn't meant prison or execution. Just loss of rank, loss of commission, loss of his State Alchemist certification, loss of his post. He was on the front lines now, enlisted. She heard a rumor of a promotion to corporal, but yet unconfirmed. She could find the information easily should she care to look, but she didn't dare.
She wants him to stand up. She wants him to win.
Her assignment was here, in Central, under watchful eyes. He took the full brunt of the blame, the accusations, the suspicions, and protected her, protected all of them. And the price was the loss of everything. Contact between Roy Mustang and his former command, his former co-conspirators was strictly verboten. She dared not give the slightest appearance of even stepping over the line. She was a dog of the military. She was well-trained. The orders were to heel, and she dared not let her gaze waver.
At least not where they might see.
Friday.
She fed Black Hayate while waiting for her water to boil, and drank her morning tea as hot as she could stand, as hot as it could be without scalding her mouth. It wasn't enough to drive away the deep-rooted cold that leeched from the knot in her stomach into her bones. Dressing was dangerously routine - the same as it had always been. It always startled her to realize how little things had actually changed. All around her, everything went on as normal, and for just a moment, it was far too easy to believe it was all just a nightmare. He would be there, procrastinating on his paperwork, greeting her with a lazy smirk, and perhaps later she might mention the dream. Perhaps.
And she knew the dream was over, But the nightmare was not over.
But it was real. The sick, twisted feeling deep down inside would not let her forget the reality, forget that it was Friday. Everything was almost the same, and yet what was different was horribly wrong, like the world had slipped out of the natural order of nature.
She wanted to resign her commission, to follow him, to stay with him, but he ordered her not to. He needed her where she would be. He still had a few tricks left up his sleeve, and although she might outrank him, he was still her commanding officer. No one could change that. No one could change her.
You never understand when you're gone, She wakes up calling out.
Work went on as it ever did; Fridays were always surreal to her like that. She found herself distracted by the ebb and flow of people, voices, paperwork, orders, watching and listening like an outsider observing. She always tried to forget that it was Friday, to push that awareness from her mind in order to focus on work, but it always failed. The harder she tried to ignore it, the larger it loomed, the louder the clock in her mind would tick away at the minutes, counting away Friday. Counting down to her afternoon break.
Over time, she grew accustomed to it, the feeling of surreality, and in its way, that posed as a distraction in itself. It would amuse her in a detached, and perhaps morbid sense, to see how everything continued on as ever before. Her little secret would make her smile, and a sense of bemusement would settle over her as she watched herself make it through the day. No one could ever know about the clock ticking down in her head, counting down, reaching zero hour.
She walks through the night, And then she tries to get through the day.
She had set it up months ago, after she learned where he had been sent. An otherwise innocent meeting, brief. Only once. They never spoke a word again after that. Every Friday, she would be there at a café near the Central Headquarters. She was a creature of habit. Every Friday, as certain as the days pushing past the seasons, she was there. Two o'clock sharp. The same lunch every time. A small sandwich, a cup of tea. The same little table in the far corner under the dangling yellow and cream leaves of a large columnea rubra plant.
One gesture in lieu of a spoken word would determine whether her world would remain the same, or change beyond all hope of repair.
She carried her tray to the tables in the café's enclosed garden room, picking out her usual spot, giving a carefully casual glance around the room. It wasn't time yet. Riza sipped her tea, and forced herself to begin on her sandwich. There was no worry about finishing it before Sheska arrived. Her stomach was far too knotted up in a twisted, cold lump to handle more than the smallest of bites at a time.
It had been a month after he'd been shipped out to the front that the idea came to her. Whether or not it was a good idea was still up for debate. In some ways, having a definite means, an established day of finding out about him increased her worry and tension. But in others, it relieved the ever-present agitation of not knowing at all. But whether she knew or didn't, the hatred for the entire situation remained.
She wasn't where she wanted to be, where she was supposed to be. She almost wasn't there in time once, and now, she wouldn't be there at all. This was what it came down to; how foolish had she been to think that it was over? Did he think the same once, or did he suspect this might happen? She never asked, and he never said. She suspected he was at least prepared for the possibility, the way they all got off with what essentially amounted to a slap on the wrist, where he took the flak.
That was why they had followed him, why they had abided by his orders, no matter how strange they might have been. They believed in him, and more than that, there was no doubt he would do everything in his power to protect those under him. That was why she remained with him, straight to the end of the line, straight to the Fuhrer's mansion. If she had to do it over again, the only thing she would change was getting out there faster, back to him in time, before Archer got to him.
The greatest threat to Amestris had come from within, and they risked their lives and dreams to defeat the undefeatable. The first week was hell, with his condition lingering in critical. Then came the slow recovery, and she never left his side. She had thought it was over, the worst of it all, and perhaps it was a dawn of a new future. New dreams. But once he was back on his feet, life delivered another twist, as if the existence of the homonculi, the disappearance of Edward, and the stakes they had played against weren't enough.
She paled in the wake Of what some call a dream.
Riza went to the one person who came to mind, the one person who might be able to provide her with the information she sought. Sheska had easy access to records, to the reports that came in. A single meeting, a happenstance crossing of paths, that was nothing which would catch anyone's attention. But Riza did not dare to risk more than that. She could have kept abreast to a wealth of information if she spoke to Sheska regularly, but there was only one thing which mattered. Was he still alive? Later in the future, she knew more likely than not she would be under orders to procure more information, but until Roy found a way to send to word to her, until he found the aces which he always seemed to have hidden up his sleeve, she dared not jeopardize anything.
So the day the reports from the front would arrive, the casualty reports, the lists of soldiers killed in combat skirmishes, she was here, in the café, waiting. Waiting for a signal, a word one way or another - was his name anywhere on those lists? It was an answer she dreaded with an intensity that knotted her nerves, bundling up everything inside of her into what felt like raw iron.
A reflection of light caught her eye, and Riza spotted her, immediately recognizable with her slightly messy brown hair and those large, owlish spectacles perched on her nose. Sheska held a tray clutched in both hands as she looked around the seating area, frowning a bit, as if trying to determine where she wanted to sit. For a brief moment, their eyes met, and Sheska looked away, continuing her search for a suitable table.
Riza held the teacup to her lips, unable to force herself to sip as she continued to watch her covertly out of the corner of her eye. Then she saw it. Sheska's frown deepened, and she shook her head as if lost in a conversation with herself, a debate on where to sit, and the brunette bookworm walked across the café to an empty table.
No. His name was not on the list. He was still alive, as far as they knew.
She almost dropped the cup as every nerve relaxed and unsnarled, making her feel weak. The knots in her stomach loosened, leaving behind a lingering sort of sick feeling. With the sudden release of the tension which had gradually built up since last week, Riza felt drained, exhausted clear down to her bones. She managed to finish the sandwich, buying a bit more time before standing so her knees would be certain to hold her once she stood.
She couldn't be there. She couldn't protect him, from the knives at the back or from the rain. His orders were to remain in the military, to stay where they sent her, to toe the line. It couldn't just be to protect her - he had a plan. He knew how she felt about the military, and never would have asked that of her if he didn't have a plan, a reason, a purpose. For now, all she could do was wait, watch, and wonder.
At least for now, she had another reprieve of wondering if he was still there.