[roy/riza; pg] Life Comes Back Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Title: Life Comes Back Author:emilie_burns Written for:Transmute_Fluff, for Rukusho Pairing: Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye Rating: PG Word Count: 1318 Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) is copyrighted by Hiromu Arakawa/Square Enix. This is a work of fanfiction for personal entertainment only. Translated manga lines were done by the ZOMGFTA scanlation team. Warnings:Spoiler Alert for manga chapter 61 on up. Summary:It would never be the exact same, he knew; too much had happened for there to be any real innocence left. But he could make things right. Original Post:May 21, 2007 @ Transmute_Fluff
Life Comes Back
"When it seems we will never smile again, life comes back." - anonymous
He didn't regret his choices with her, and Riza Hawkeye didn't leave him any room for regret. She would never be the girl he first met -- and he would never again be that idealistic youth. The war had changed them both beyond any hope of going back. The only way out was forward, through hell or high water.
"Please... burn and crush my back."
He'd been nothing short of horrified at her request, certain he'd never be able to carry it out. Certainly, the ability to do so was well within his means, but to deliberately bring harm to his teacher's daughter? Even then, covered in dirt and sweat and dried blood, kneeling by a covered grave she'd dug herself with improvised tools, even knowing her lethal accuracy with her rifle, Roy Mustang still remembered a soft-spoken young girl with a sweet, innocent smile and a gentle hand.
"So that it can't give birth to a new Flame Alchemist. So that the secrets on this back can't be used. So I can lay down the bonds to my father and alchemy. To become Riza Hawkeye as an individual. Please."
Her voice had been pleading, desperate, but there was nothing soft in those brown eyes when she turned to look at him. They were hard, cold. Determined and angry, even hateful. She'd hated what her father had studied, the secrets he'd unlocked, the destruction he'd allowed to be brought onto the battlefield by teaching him. And he suspected that in that moment, she'd hated him too, for wanting to learn it, for mastering it, for using it.
The war had damaged too many, killed too many. Even surgeons had to amputate a limb too mangled for recovery in order to save the whole. He looked at it in that light, and he knew he could do it. That he had to do it. And she left him no choice but to comply, with the words unspoken in that hard gaze.
You owe me.
He'd minimized the amount of destruction, burning away only the essential key points to the coded array on her back, corrupting it beyond a normal alchemist's ability to decipher it. Perhaps a truly learned and talented one could fill the missing parts, but if that were the case, then the knowledge would already be at the alchemist's disposal, and whether or not her back came into the picture wouldn't matter much one way or another.
She hadn't let him tend to the blistering, weeping wounds on her back, pushing him away as she staggered to her feet and bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed as she pulled her coat back on.
"You need to get that tended as soon as possible, Lieutenant."
"It is no longer any of your concern, Mister Mustang."
Her expression was hard, trying to not to show the pain he knew she was feeling, and her mouth was set in such a hard line that it seemed it had lost any ability to ever smile again. She'd returned to the base on her own accord, and avoided him after that. When he'd learned that she'd remained in the military instead of leaving as so many did after the war, he took a chance and pushed the paperwork through to bring her under his own command.
He'd done what she'd asked him to. He'd amputated what had been beyond salvation, complying with her request to be set free from the burden and legacy her father had impressed upon her. A chance to become her own person.
Now he wanted her forgiveness, a chance to make amends, to set things right. A chance to regain the right to that look she gave him at her father's grave. A look in her eyes of naked hope and a smile of naïve trust. It would never be the exact same, he knew; too much had happened for there to be any real innocence left. But he could make things right. He would make things right. He would find a way to reach high enough in the government to prevent another Ishbal from happening, to stop the use of alchemy for war.
But how could he fix things on a nationwide scale if he couldn't fix things for even one person?
"I'm thinking of recommending you as my aide. I want you to protect my back. Do you understand? To entrust my back to you means that you can shoot me from behind anytime. If I step off the path, shoot and kill me with those hands. You are qualified to do that. Will you follow me?"
He immediately knew he'd done the right thing. The hard cynicism and defiant bitterness that had settled over her since Ishbal started to melt. Just a tiny bit, only for a moment, but in that moment, he caught sight of the remaining traces of the girl he'd once known. There was a bit of a smile again. Not on her lips, but he caught it nevertheless, in the flicker of warmth and light in her eyes.
"Understood. If that is your wish, then even into hell."
He'd been able to prove to her that her trust and hope in someone, for once, wasn't misplaced. As hard as it had been to heed her wishes and leave painful, scarring wounds on her back which she'd denied him any chance to soothe, he knew he'd done the right thing, watching her now.
Her hair was longer, clipped up in an efficient style, and her face was leaner, having long lost the childish roundness of youth. She was a woman, confident in her own abilities, in her own place in life, a path of her choosing. He was getting behind on his paperwork again, he knew, but it wasn't time wasted in his book.
She would look up at him sooner or later, and realize he'd lapsed behind in sifting through documents and signing and reviewing the never-ending parade of paperwork that came with a military desk job, and her brow would furrow in a small frown of rebuke, and she would remind him of the time and scold him for procrastinating, and he would stretch and yawn and complain about what a relentless slavemaster she could be, and pick up the pen.
It was comfortable and familiar, their public routines and faces that they put forth for the benefit of bystanders and eavesdroppers, the coldly efficient and humorless adjutant who was frequently exasperated by her commanding officer, a flippant and arrogant playboy who cared more about enjoying himself than diligent hard work. Hardly a model example of anyone viciously driven onward by inner demons and a personal vendetta to become the most powerful man in the nation, and hardly anyone one might suspect of being passionately in love with a man who seemed to be the very antithesis of what she represented, despite her undeniable loyalty to him.
They were just faces, masks worn in public, like their uniforms. Hawkeye remained Hawkeye, even at home and off-duty, efficient and dedicated and quietly steadfast, a reliable port in any storm that might blow through. But the difference would be in her eyes, in her smile.
He never did get that old smile back from her. It was far too late, and too much had been seen. There was too much blood and death in the way. But it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, for Mustang had long since decided he liked the new one better. There was no innocence to it, but what was there made up for that. It was a smile suited not to a young girl, but a grown woman. Serene, secretive, warm, and coy all at the same time, somehow. He never did figure out how women managed that.