[closed] Give me your hand and take what you will

[firebornfidelis]

Who: Riza Hawkeye (firebornfidelis) and Roy Mustang (ignite_the_sky)
When: Just after he arrives
Where: Outlander building
Format: Paragraph
What: Oh, it's a reunion.
Warnings: Angst? sob

Comments

[ignite_the_sky]

When he woke up on the floor of a room he didn't recognize, Roy had been incredibly confused. When he'd gotten a better look at his surroundings and discovered the little communicator, the confusion had doubled, but the relief that washed over him when he'd seen the Lieutenant's face was enough to push it by the wayside.

The Lieutenant's presence, even if it was just via the forge, had done wonders to calm his nerves --she'd always been the voice of reason in their relationship, like an attractive conscience-- so when she'd told him to stay put and she would come to him, he was more than willing to do as he was told.

The last time he'd seen her, the little Xingese girl had just finished healing her. She'd had her throat slit in an effort to 'convince' him to perform human transmutation. It hadn't worked, but had it not been for that girl, she could have died.

No. He wasn't going to think about that. About how close she'd come to getting killed because of him, how many times she'd come so close. He'd focus on the here and now, he'd sit patiently and wait for her, and he'd take the rest as it came up.

As the knock sounded, he jumped, startled out of his thoughts. There was no mistaking that voice, though, and it was what pushed him to open the door for the second time, one hand on the knob, the other out of sight but unconsciously poised for attack despite the fact that the array on his glove had been rendered useless.

"My apologies, Lieutenant, but after everything that's happened, I'm afraid I'll have to ask that you prove you are who you claim to be."

[firebornfidelis]

When the door opened and she saw him, her heart raced faster. Maybe it is real, oh god don't let him vanish again. She wanted to reach out and touch him, feel the familiar blue fabric of his uniform, the scar on his right hand, the warmth of his skin. The last time she'd seen him, been this close to him, he had been cold and pale. She remembered his skin felt almost the same as the medals on his chest and she had forbidden anyone else from getting near him.

He wanted proof? It was almost funny. Half the reason she was here was to prove that he really was who he seemed to be. But there were a thousand, a hundred thousand things that only he knew, that only they knew. She frowned and met his dark eyes, searching them as she thought.

"Your back," she said with a slight nod. "I made a promise to watch your back after you made my father's research illegible."

[ignite_the_sky]

He regarded her warily as she thought it over and made a visual assessment, searching for something -anything- out of place which would signal that she wasn't Riza Hawkeye. There was no blood splashed across her throat and over the side of her face, but that didn't mean anything.

Everything seemed in order... and then she spoke and all doubt was thrown out the window. If he could have thrown his arms around her and hugged her for all she was worth without having her think he'd completely lost his mind, he would have. Truth be told, when the transmutation had started, he'd thought he'd never see any of them again.

"And apparently I'm still on your good side because you haven't killed me yet," he replied, and absently extended a hand toward her before pulling it back when he realized that she probably wouldn't appreciate it if he bled all over her.

[firebornfidelis]

Always, she wanted to say. Always always, even if you lead me to hell I will always protect you. But her mouth wouldn't open at first. This was so normal, it was almost as if the last six months had never happened.

"I believe I have the strength to continue to put up with you a while longer, sir," she said, a stock answer pulled out of an archive she had thought would be closed forever.

Her heart leaped, fearful, when his hand reached toward her and was drawn back again. It was the only way she could be sure he was really here and not just a product of the mist and her mind. She reached out for him, moving slowly, and touched his hand. Solid. Real. Warm.. Her heart felt like it was squeezing tight in her chest and her fingers trembled - just a little - as they closed gently around his wrist and turned his hand palm up. Blood. She didn't care if it got on her, because it was not from his throat, but from his hand. Where Wrath's swords had stabbed through. She closed her eyes and breathed out, eyelids stinging a little against unreleased moisture. And if she could have thrown her arms around him at that moment, she would have cried a lake onto his shoulder she was so relieved.

But there were more important things right now. She looked up at him again. "You should have your hands looked at, sir. I know a very good healer." And she paused. She knew he must be desperate for some information and there was a lot she would have to tell him. "How much have you learned about this place? Tell me what you know, sir, and I can fill in the gaps." A breath. This, she knew, would be most confusing to him. "I've been here for six months."

[ignite_the_sky]

He wasn't sure what to say to that. How had she been here for six months if he'd just seen her moments before he'd woken up in that room? The only way he could make sense of that was if the transmutation had rendered him comatose, but surely his hands would have healed if that had been the case.

"Scar and Alphonse are here, FullMetal isn't, there's a clinic nearby, a woman by the name of Sakura is touted as the best healer in residence, evidently "here" is Anatole, and I woke up lying on a communicator Alphonse called a "forge" which I promptly bled all over so it might require cleaning." He paused to consider his words carefully. There was probably a perfectly good explanation behind that statement...

"And how is it possible to have been here for six months if I distinctly remember seeing you moments before I wound up here?"

[firebornfidelis]

She breathed out. "Mei Chan is here as well. The little girl from Xing who healed me. I can vouch for Sakura's healing abilities as well. She has helped me more than once." She had no particular desire to go into just how many times and in how many different ways she had hurt herself since arriving here. "Has anyone told you about the mist, sir? Or our inability to leave this world?"

As to his second question, well. She already knew he wasn't going to like the answer much.

"It seems time moves in a different way, here," she began, though she wasn't exactly sure how to explain how differently it ran. "Mei Chan, Scar, and Alphonse do not have the same memories as you and I do. They were brought here from different times. But, six months ago, before I came here, I was in the underground. They cut me and they threw you in a transmutation circle." For proof or emphasis, she pulled down the collar of her shirt far enough to show the long-healed scar, thin across her throat, left by the sword. Now the hard part. "You were here, too, sir. But you didn't remember anything after the fight with Lust."

And though she knew he would ask, she couldn't bring herself yet to tell him what had happened three months ago. What had been happening since.

[ignite_the_sky]

To say her explanation had left him a little more lost than before was an understatement and he didn't care for being left out of the loop. "What I told you is the extent of what I know. There wasn't much to be gleaned from having everybody tell me that I needed to see you, aside from the obvious." There were some things best learned through interaction and experience, though, so he didn't expect her to be able to explain everything.

"I see..." he replied, even though it was a bit too much to swallow right away, and filed the information away for later reflection and analysis. "Lieutenant, what happened between then and now?"

If she chose not to tell him, that was her decision and he wouldn't try to sway her. There was always another time, and if what she'd said was true, he wasn't going anywhere for a while so they had all the time in the world.

[firebornfidelis]

"There is a document, sir, that explains a lot about this place better than I could. I'll send it to your Forge." She glanced beyond him into the room and spotted his bloodied communications device. "They can take a lot, so you should be able to clean the blood off. But I should tell you that the mist, which is thickest in the ruins outside the city limits, can be hallucinogenic. And there are... creatures that live out there who are less than civil." She refused to allow herself to show the shiver that raced down her spine and met his eyes again. "Please, sir. Please don't ever go out there alone." And where, months ago, she might have had an insubordinate glare to go with this request, now she had only wide eyes that showed the faintest trace of fear that only someone who had known her as long as he had would see.

"Between then and now?" she repeated, trying to shore herself up, trying to stop her hands from trembling. "We joined the Patrol, sir, which is an organization designed to protect the people of this city. I am still the aide to its leader at this time. We were patrol partners for several months, sir, until." She paused, breathed. Tried. She closed her eyes because she couldn't take his eyes, couldn't stand to look at them as she remembered. But it was better that she told him. Better than hearing it from that everybody that had told him to see her, better than him looking back through the Forge transmissions and seeing it for himself."Until you were killed in action, sir. And that was three months ago." The longest, most awful, unbearable three months of her life. She bowed her head slightly and kept her eyes closed.

[ignite_the_sky]

He was about to acknowledge both the offer of the documentation and the warning about the mist, but that hint of fear in her eyes caught him off guard. If it was bad enough that she was afraid, he would make it a point to tread lightly where it was concerned. "I promise not to set foot out there without backup."

The recap of events preceding his own arrival made his blood run cold. Killed in action while partnered with her meant that most likely, it happened right in front of her. He'd overheard the tail end of what happened when Lust had told her she'd killed him, and she hadn't even seen it happen, but this... To know that she'd more than likely been present when that took place, that she'd once again been made to endure something terrible, hurt. He'd apologized for it once, and yet -against his own knowledge, but it was him all the same- he'd done it again.

"Lieutenant..." Against his better judgment, and because she looked like she could really use some form of comfort, he raised a hand to brush against her cheek. "I'm sorry."

[firebornfidelis]

Her eyes closed tighter and her jaw clenched. She could feel her hands, too, curling into fists to stop their shaking, to control her reaction. But everything froze when she felt his hand on her face. His skin warm, alive, against her cheek. She looked up again, into his face, his dark eyes not glassy, not empty and staring up at the misty sky. That image had burned itself into her brain as what she had thought was the last she would ever see of him. But here he was. She had never let herself hope that he would come back. But his hand on her face was real.

"No, sir." Practically a whisper. "It was my fault. I couldn't protect you. I couldn't save you." Her fists clenched again, angry tight, shaking. She'd never been able to forgive herself, either. "But I'm stronger now, sir." Strong enough never to let that happen again, strong enough to stop you from saving me. Strong enough to protect you at any cost.

[ignite_the_sky]

He frowned at that, not terribly fond of the self-depreciating turn her words took. "The fact that you're still here and haven't given up speaks volumes about that strength, Lieutenant. I don't believe for a moment that you were at fault and neither should you."

It was the truth, plain and simple, and nobody could tell him otherwise. As far as he knew, she had the strength enough to keep moving forward despite what she'd been through. That was all he could ever ask of her -of any of them, really. Any strength he had was fed by those who stood by him and supported him, and without them to keep him on the right path, he was as good as lost. Had it been her that died, he wasn't so sure he could have kept going without falling apart along the way.

[firebornfidelis]

She nodded. He didn't remember, didn't know. He couldn't make her stop blaming herself, but even if she didn't believe him there was so much comfort in his words, in his voice and presence, in this familiarity, that she felt a little more at ease. A little lighter, at least for the moment.

"I couldn't give up, Colonel. You told me not to. I was just following orders." Because when he had died, she had thought she'd lost everything and all that remained was the sound of his voice echoing in her head telling her never to give up on life. Ordering her not to die. That was what had made her stand up again even though all she wanted to do was lie down beside him and give in to death. She couldn't bear to disappoint him like that again, even if she had thought he was gone.

She looked again at his hands, at the blood and the cute straight through his palms. It felt like a lifetime ago now, that day she had nearly bled to death on the floor of that room below Central. But she remembered the fear, watching him disintegrate and disappear above that transmutation circle.

"I'm glad you're all right, sir." And as with many seemingly simple phrases exchanged between the two of them, there were so many layers of meaning in her words, so many things unsaid but none the less true, so many things that did not have to be spoken to be understood.

[ignite_the_sky]

There wasn't anything he could think of to say that hadn't already been said in one form or another, so instead of saying anything at all, he just gave her a small, relieved smile. She was alive, unharmed, and safe, and as far as he was concerned, that was all that mattered. While it wasn't something she'd have been pleased to hear, he would gladly risk his own life to keep her safe -and had apparently done so once already.

His gaze followed hers to his hands and the blood soaked 'bandages' wound around them. He'd done a pretty shoddy job of patching himself up, but she'd mentioned something about a healer earlier, so perhaps the best course of action was to give them something to busy themselves with while she filled him in on anything she saw fit until he was able to access the documents she'd intended to send.

"If you have nothing pressing to attend to at the moment, perhaps you would be so kind as to accompany me in finding someone to tend to my wounds, Lieutenant?"

[firebornfidelis]

Her lips quirked up just slightly in answer to his smile. It was right, the world was right again because he was here and alive and she hoped to whatever power might be listening that this wasn't just a dream.

Flattening her mouth again into a more businesslike expression, she nodded curtly and stood up a little straighter. She was the Lieutenant again.

"Of course, sir," she said. As if there could be something more important to her than his well-being. She turned and moved back toward the hall, a quick glance implying he should follow. She just hoped he wouldn't be disturbed by how much of the clinic staff knew her by name.

[ignite_the_sky]

That fleeting glimpse of a smile on her face gave him pause, forcing him to think long and hard about something. It was difficult to say, and harder still to predict a response, because Riza Hawkeye was anything but the typical woman.

By the time he'd finally decided on what he wanted to say, he had to lengthen his stride to catch up to her. That would teach him to space out when he should be paying attention! As he rushed to catch up to her, he couldn't help but wonder if it was like this for her. Always trailing in his shadow, unable to glance away in case of sudden stops, turns, or something happening that would require immediate action. It wasn't exactly the greatest feeling, to know that someone he'd requested as his aid and thought of as an equal was reduced to the shadows.

There were certain things that they didn't talk about, preferring to let the weight of the words they did say speak for themselves, but he wanted to say it -needed to say it- if just because he hadn't thought he'd ever have the chance again. "You have a beautiful smile. You should use it more often."

[firebornfidelis]

It did seem odd to have him following her for once. To feel him a step or two behind where she usually stood. But he was new here and didn't know the way so there really was nothing else for it. Strange though it may be, she had to take the lead this time.

But at his words her steps faltered, if only for a second as she tried to compute what he had just said to her. It was exceedingly uncommon that she got compliments in general, and from him even more so. She glanced back at him, a little bewildered and very unsure how to respond.

"Colonel?" That, paired with a questioning glance, was all she could come up with.