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Stealth/ ‘stelth/ noun – a secret, clandestine or surreptitious act or action.
Painfully aware that he’d reached his limit, Mustang desperately summoned the very last dregs of his energy. His frantic movements bordered on the erratic now, and only the knowledge that Riza was hanging on by the barest thread drove him onward.
Dammit, we’re so close…I can’t keep this up much longer…almost…there! Yes! That’s it!
But had Riza…? Yes– he’d managed to drag his lieutenant over the edge with him, just before his arms gave out.
Oh, thank God.
Exhausted and overwhelmed, Roy collapsed gracelessly on top of her. For several long moments they simply lay there breathing heavily: his face mashed against her left shoulder blade, her cheek pressed into the damp earth, her heartbeat steady and warm against his ear.
A light breeze whispered over his damp skin. His sudden, violent shudder elicited a tiny sound of displeasure from Hawkeye, but she made no effort to dislodge him or to untangle their limbs, seemingly content to be crushed face-down beneath him for the moment. At least until they’d both caught their breath, anyway.
Every last scratch and bruise from their earlier altercation throbbed angrily, and Roy was profoundly grateful for Riza’s present passivity. He wasn’t quite ready to relinquish the comfort of physical contact just yet. If he’d had the energy to spare, he’d have tried to reverse their positions and cuddled her close against his chest, rather than half-crushing her with his body weight. As it was, he contented himself with counting her heartbeats, reassuring himself that she was real, that she was here with him, that they were both still alive.
As his ragged breathing slowly returned to normal, Mustang strained his senses to take stock of the moonlit forest around them. From the patch of damp soil beside the river where they were sprawled, he could smell the fresh, green scent of wild herbs growing somewhere in the underbrush close by. The only sounds aside from the soft babbling of the water and their own labored breathing were crickets, frogs, and the distant hooting of an owl.
No threats approaching, not yet.
With a murmured apology, Roy finally roused himself enough to roll off of Riza and onto his back. Beside him, she shifted over to lie on her back as well. In the dappled moonlight, her exposed skin was nearly luminescent, and Roy stared for a long moment before abruptly realizing that such pale, creamy skin would be as good as a beacon to anyone who might be looking for them. He felt her cold fingers slipping into his, and squeezed them feebly.
They both knew that they couldn’t stay here much longer. People would come looking for them, soon, and they could not afford to be caught like this. But with the stars clear and bright above them, with the gentle breeze whispering through the moonlit leaves and the soft murmuring of the river – it was all very like a dream, and neither had quite recovered enough to willingly shatter the illusion. Precious minutes slipped away as they lay side by side on their bed of leaves, vulnerable and exposed and simply listening to each other breathe.
It was Hawkeye’s delicate shivers that finally broke the spell.
“Shit,” Mustang muttered, sitting up stiffly. “We can’t stay here; we’ve got to keep moving.”
“I know,” Hawkeye whispered, already dragging herself to her feet. Both of her sleeves had been torn away earlier, and when she turned toward him, Mustang noticed a nasty gash on her upper right arm. That looked like it needed medical attention.
“How badly are you hurt?” he asked, even as she winced. “Your arm is still bleeding.”
“It’s nothing,” Hawkeye said, glancing down at it. Mustang glowered at her in silence. “It’s nothing that can’t wait until we’re back at the base, where there are medics with fully stocked med-kits to check it out,” she amended, carefully straightening what was left of her ruined clothing, and wringing as much water from her hair as she could. “How about you?”
He shook his head.
“Minor cuts and bruises. I’ll live,” he said. Stripping off his long-sleeved shirt, he tried to wring some of the excess water from it before pulling it back on with a grimace. In the meantime, Hawkeye had knelt to take stock of her black cargo pants, methodically checking each pocket to determine which items she’d lost to the river. Suddenly she stiffened.
“What is it?” Mustang asked anxiously.
Oh fuck, if they’d lost their objective to the river after all of that! But, no, Riza turned to him with a grim smile.
“It’s still safe,” she said. On her palm, the crimson stone glittered unnaturally in the dark, larger than any he’d yet seen. How many lives had it cost? Did he even want to know?
A streak of light flashed through the treetops, and they both froze.
“Helicopters?” Hawkeye breathed, prudently tucking the stone into a more secure pocket. Mustang nodded.
“Looks like,” he replied. “They got them up in the air much faster than I thought they would.”
“Wonderful,” she muttered darkly.
Moving closer to the water’s edge, Hawkeye knelt down and dug her hands into the soft, damp soil.
“Better helicopters than dogs, I suppose...what are you doing?” Mustang asked, bewildered. She spared him a glance as she rubbed her bare arms with the mud.
“In case they’ve got men on the ground,” she said simply. “Bare skin stands out too much in the dark.” She worked quickly, covering the pale flesh he’d been admiring just moments earlier with rich, dark earth. She hesitated when she reached her injured upper arm.
“My gloves are sopping wet, and I lost my lighter to the river,” Mustang informed her, stepping closer. “And yet it appears I’m not entirely useless,” he added as he offered her his handkerchief.
“Hmm, debatable,” she sassed, but she allowed him to tie the dark fabric securely over the bloody gash on her arm before adding a healthy layer of mud right up to the edges of the cloth.
“Thank you,” she said. She was shivering again.
“Sorry about your jacket,” he murmured, contrite. “It was too tangled up. I hope I didn’t nick you when I cut you free; it was too dark to see clearly.”
“No, I don’t think so,” she replied, thoughtfully. “Pretty sure this was from either the fence or the shrapnel from the explosion. And please don’t apologize; you saved us both with that little trick back there. Not to mention pulling me out of the water just now. I certainly couldn’t have managed that on my own.”
Mustang’s sigh was eloquent.
“If it makes you feel any better, it wouldn’t have been much help by now, anyway,” Hawkeye added, plucking at his sopping sleeve for emphasis.
“Still...now you’re all muddy,” Mustang frowned.
“Better wet, muddy and alive than dry, clean and dead,” she retorted.
“Cheerful,” he said dryly.
“Practical,” she corrected, smirking faintly as she knelt down to rinse the excess mud from her palms. “I lost my gun at some point but I’ve still got a dozen or so throwing knives. You?”
“I’ve still got your other knife. And I have my revolver, but I’m out of ammo,” Mustang said, offering the gun to her with a raised eyebrow.
“So am I,” she sighed, accepting the weapon anyway and tucking it into the holster at the small of her back. Useless as it was, just having it close made her feel more secure. “Good thing I didn’t lose my mask,” she added, tugging at the black fabric currently pooled around her neck. “At least I don’t have to worry about washing this muck out of my hair later.”
Roy huffed out a laugh in reply before bending down and scooping up another handful of mud.
“Turn around,” he ordered. “You missed a spot.” Obediently, Hawkeye presented her back to him, and he quickly smeared the mud over her bare right shoulder, noticing another deep gash there as he did so. “Looks like you got caught back here as well,” he said softly. “Your shirt is torn in a few places.”
“Is any of it visible?” she asked anxiously, craning her neck.
“Just a bit,” he admitted, carefully running his fingers over the edges of the well-known pattern of lines on her skin. “But not enough for anyone to notice what it is. I’ll cover what I—” he cut himself off as the searchlights flickered again in the distance. “Damn, are they already coming this way?”
“Better hope they don’t have night vision or we’re screwed,” she breathed.
“Maybe our heat signatures won’t even show up,” he quipped. “That water was fucking cold, and this breeze isn’t helping.”
“Well, if we’re not captured and subsequently tortured, at least we have the hypothermia to look forward to,” she replied in the same flippant tone.
“Always the optimist,” he said fondly, letting his fingertips trail down her spine in an almost-caress as he pulled away. “All right, that’ll have to do. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here before they figure out how far we washed downriver,” he said, pausing only to splash some more water over the patch of mud they’d disturbed.
Wordlessly, Hawkeye pulled her balaclava up over her face, covering her pale golden hair and leaving only her dark eyes exposed. With a sharp nod, Mustang pulled up his own mask, and then silently led the way into the woods. They melted into the shadows of the trees, leaving behind only a damp patch of earth.
Earlier:
Sprinting across the airstrip, they spotted the fence up ahead just in time to skid to a halt. He could hear the alarm being raised in the compound at their backs. They were running out of time. Hawkeye was already crouching beside him, fumbling open a pair of wire cutters with gloved hands. Crouching at her side, he stood guard as she efficiently snipped at the metal until the opening was large enough for one person to squeeze through.
“Go,” she urged, peeling it back for him with one hand while drawing one of her weapons with the other. He didn’t waste time arguing, although he did shoot her a glare as he wriggled though first. Just as he stumbled to his feet on the other side, he heard the sound he’d been dreading - the crackle of an alchemic reaction and a muted cry of pain.
“Ri - Elizabeth,” he gasped, dropping to his knees and tearing off his mask.
“It’s the fence; he’s re-sealed it,” she hissed, struggling fruitlessly.
That wasn’t all, Mustang realized with horror. The unknown alchemist had also transmuted the innocuous chain link into a vicious tangle of barbed wire. It seemed meant to capture and restrain her, rather than kill or severely injure, but Hawkeye had been mostly through the gap already when the metal had twisted and re-fused around her. Even as Mustang reached for her, his wide eyes desperately searching for any sign of blood, there was an angry shout far too close to their position.
‘You must not be seen. No one can know we were ever involved. Secrecy is absolutely paramount,’ their commander had told them.
And so Mustang knew that he really shouldn’t have done what he’d done next.
With a snap of his fingers, three unoccupied trucks tore themselves apart in a deafening blast that lit up the whole compound. Their pursuers were thrown to the ground by the shock wave (which rocked him and his Lieutenant quite a bit more than he’d anticipated). Even so, Mustang knew the distraction wouldn’t buy them much time.
Careful examination revealed that Hawkeye was mostly caught by her clothes, and Mustang nearly wept with relief. One of her wrists was wrapped in wicked loops of the razor-sharp wire (which the wire cutters made short work of), but none of the metal had actually re-fused inside of her body, as he’d initially feared.
Sliding one hand gently down Hawkeye’s calf, he found the sharp knife he’d seen her stash there earlier. There simply wasn’t time to cut away each of the links caught in her clothing, so instead Mustang sliced away first the jacket, and then the long sleeves of the turtleneck beneath. There were several (hopefully) superficial cuts on her back and arms, but they didn’t have the time or luxury to worry about any of those now.
Once he’d dragged his still-stunned subordinate to her feet, he snapped his fingers again to dispose of the scraps of cloth still caught in the fence. Considering his specialty, stealth really wasn’t his strong suit, but he wasn’t foolish enough to leave tangible physical evidence behind, either.
Hand-in-hand, the two stumbled along together over uneven ground.
“We’ll never make it to the rendezvous point if they pursue,” Hawkeye gasped, yanking her mask down to suck in deep lungfuls of the frigid air.
“I know,” he said grimly. As if on cue, another explosion rocked the compound behind them. “Hopefully that will slow them down a little,” he added, as they abruptly ran out of ground.
Some thirty meters below, they could just make out the swirling eddies of the river in the semi- darkness. They looked at each other, and then back over their shoulders. The compound itself was no longer visible, swallowed up by the surrounding trees. But judging from the faint orange glow in that direction, the fires from Mustang’s multiple explosions seemed to be spreading rapidly.
Hawkeye turned resolutely towards the water, and Mustang inhaled sharply.
“It's not as though we have a lot of options,” she said softly, before he could voice his protest.
He swore viciously, unable to argue. She squeezed his fingers once, dropped his hand, and then stepped over the edge into nothingness.
They hadn’t gone very far when it became apparent that Hawkeye was favoring her left ankle. Concerned, Mustang slowed the pace, but she shook her head violently, indicating that he shouldn’t make concessions for her sake.
Despite her resolve, though, they both knew she was flagging with every step. As they passed the marker indicating that the rendezvous point was still some two miles off, Mustang turned swiftly and lunged at his companion. Assuming he was trying to do something stupidly chivalrous like sweep her off her feet to carry her, Hawkeye very nearly clocked him. But then she heard the familiar thudding noise above them, as he had – the blades of a chopper.
Mustang pressed her flat under a clump of brush, partially covering her body with his own. They waited, breathless, as the spotlight came closer, and then closer still. It passed over their hiding place without pause, but it was another several tense minutes before the helicopter moved slowly away, spotlight still dancing over the ground.
“It’ll be back,” she whispered.
“I know. And no, we’re not splitting up,” he replied, tersely.
“I’m slowing you down,” she hissed. “And you don’t have the strength left to try carrying me, so don’t even suggest it.”
“I’m not leaving you behind,” he growled, grabbing her shoulder and giving it a little shake. “Do you understand me? We cross into neutral territory in less than two miles, and they can’t follow us into the no-fly zone without risking an international incident. So we’ll go as far as we can and then find cover before it comes back. On your feet, soldier!”
“Yes, sir,” she said, resolutely staggering upright. He grabbed her arm and pulled it over his shoulder, slipping his other arm around her waist.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
His determined support gave her new strength, and they covered more than half the distance before they had to stop again to conceal themselves in the dense, leafy branches of an oak tree.
When they finally crossed into the neutral zone, their appointed pickup time had long since passed. And there was no extraction team waiting at the agreed-upon rendezvous point. With sinking hearts, they wearily lowered themselves to the ground near the distinctive rock formation. Stripping off their black balaclavas, they shared a dismayed look.
Before they had time to wonder what their next move would be, a voice rang out from behind the rocks. Mustang attempted to leap to his feet, only to sink into a sort of half-feral crouch when his aching legs crumpled under him. Hawkeye knelt at his side, keeping her weight off her bad ankle, fistful of throwing knives at the ready.
“Show yourself!” Mustang snarled.
“Colonel Mustang, sir! Stand down, sir; I’m one of yours!” the voice cried, as its owner stepped out from his hiding place. It was a young warrant officer, holding his hands out in supplication. “Warrant Officer Will Tanner, sir. The general sent me to meet you,” he added quickly.
Easy for him to say, Mustang thought.
“Password?” Mustang growled through clenched teeth. This idiot kid was liable to get himself killed, if this was how he approached the assets he was sent to extract. Realizing this himself, the boy flushed scarlet.
“R-right, sorry! Ah... ‘The Keeper of the Flame, the Rose Captain knows my name,’” the young soldier recited dutifully.
Hawkeye sighed but refrained from rolling her eyes.
“Oh the call of the collared dove, how I long to be your one true love. We’ll move like gypsies ‘neath the stars and beneath the moon,” she recited in turn. Roy glanced at her in surprise. He hadn’t known her countersign was as obnoxious as his own.
Tanner turned to Mustang next. He winced a little at the expression on Mustang’s face, but nevertheless went on to the next part of the signal.
“‘Oh how the river flows, under the ice and snow,’” he said.
“Ugh, it’s even worse out loud,” Mustang groaned softly. The warrant officer looked pained. Mustang sighed and made a little moue of distaste. “All right, all right: ‘This perfumed breath we breathed. For you, my dear, my love will never leave.’”
“Great, that’s all settled, then!” Warrant Officer Tanner said with obvious relief. “If you’ll just follow me, sirs, I’ve got our transport hidden over by the road.”
He waited while the other two carefully helped each other stand.
“Why does the old man always choose such ridiculous passwords? And why are they always lyrics from songs I’ve never even heard of?” Mustang griped, offering his arm to Hawkeye again before she could limp away without assistance.
Hawkeye smiled wanly as she accepted it.
“Be grateful he didn’t insist that we sing them,” she said dryly. As Mustang stifled his laughter (poorly), Warrant Officer Tanner looked torn between amusement and anxiety, and wisely decided to just keep his mouth shut. He was palpably relieved when they reached the hidden vehicle without incident.
“Here we are! It’s only a short drive; camp’s not far from here,” he explained as the two bedraggled soldiers climbed in.
“Please tell me there are baths back at this camp,” Mustang said pleadingly. Tanner smiled.
“No baths, sir, but the temporary shower facilities always have a decent supply of hot water.”
“Thank God,” he muttered, slumping against Hawkeye’s mud-encrusted shoulder. “My lieutenant here reeks of river sludge.”
She smacked his arm without any real heat. Tanner watched with a hidden smile as the two of them leaned against each other with the ease and familiarity born of deep mutual respect and trust.
Before they had gone a mile, the colonel had fallen asleep, his head lolling drunkenly with every bump in the road. His lieutenant carefully and quietly shifted him (and herself) until he was half-lying across the seat, with his head resting in her lap. Though visibly exhausted herself, she did not lean her head back or even close her eyes. Resting one hand on Mustang’s arm and the other on the top of his dark head, her eyes restlessly scanned the terrain. It was clear that she was standing guard over him.
“‘Keeper of the Flame,’ huh?” Tanner thought, smirking. “Maybe old General Grumman’s taste in music is pretty out of date, but it sure is apt.”