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The first two weeks after the war ended were strangely quiet.
Not peaceful — never that — but quiet in the way a wound is quiet while it scabs over. Everything in their little world revolved around her back, the burned array, the fever, the bandage changes, the salve, the endless worry she kept seeing in Roy’s face whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. She was in pain, he was guilty, the team was tiptoeing around both of them.
During that time, neither of them had the energy to dream. They dropped where they stood, slept like collapsing stars, and woke only to continue the pattern.
But a few days after she could finally walk without hunching, the trauma had space to breathe again.
And nightmares hate empty space.
Riza saw the first signs before anyone else did.
Roy had always been a disaster in the mornings — hair a mess, tie crooked, coffee practically IV-dripped into his veins — but this was different. His eyes were red from the inside, the way they got when he hadn’t slept at all. He kept flexing his right hand, the gloved one, as if trying to shake out a tremor.
He didn’t snap or bark orders. He was too tired for that. He was oddly quiet. That was worse.
The men didn’t notice; they were exhausted too. Hughes sent letters. Command pushed paperwork. The world kept spinning its usual broken circles.
Riza watched him try to pretend that everything was normal.
On the seventeenth day after the war, she watched him drop a pen.
Just a pen. A small, ordinary pen.
It clattered onto the desk, rolled off, hit the floor.
His hand had simply… missed.
He stared at the fallen pen for a moment too long. The mask didn’t slip — it just thinned. She saw the tremor in his fingers. The redness in his eyes. The tightness in his jaw that meant he hadn’t slept and didn’t expect to.
When he bent to pick up the pen, his hand shook again.
That’s when she knew.
No orders. No lectures. No awkward asking. No waiting for him to admit it.
She would go to him.
She left work a minute after he did — not enough to seem suspicious, just enough that Havoc wouldn’t tease. The winter air was cold on her healing back as she made the walk to the small apartment Roy had been assigned. It wasn’t far. Close enough that she could reach it before the weariness swallowed him whole.
She stopped at the general store on the corner.
Whiskey. The cheap kind. The kind that burns and numbs in equal measure.
By the time she climbed the stairs to his apartment, she could feel the pressure of the bottle’s weight in her coat pocket like a quiet mission statement.
She knocked once.
When he opened the door, he looked worse up close than he had at the office. Hair uncombed. Vest unbuttoned. A thousand-yard stare trying very hard to look like sarcasm.
“Hawkeye,” he said, voice rough. “Did I forget to sign something? Is Havoc dead? Please tell me Havoc’s not dead, I don’t have the emotional bandwidth—”
She held up the bottle.
His mouth paused mid-sentence.
“…This is highly against regulations,” he said.
“We’re past regulations for tonight,” she replied.
Something fragile flickered in his expression.
He stepped aside.
She entered.
His apartment was small, barely lived-in. Boxes still unpacked. A coffee mug in the sink. A stack of papers on the table he’d probably tried to read before his hands betrayed him.
She took off her coat and placed the whiskey on the table.
He stared at it like she’d set down a grenade.
“Hawkeye… you don’t have to—”
“I know,” she said.
“But you shouldn’t—”
“I know.”
“You should be resting. Your back—”
“It’s healing.”
“That’s not the same as healed.”
She met his eyes. “Neither are you.”
He stopped talking.
For a long moment, he just stood there, looking at her like he was trying to decide whether to laugh or break.
She didn’t move. Didn’t fill the silence. Didn’t offer him a script.
Eventually, he inhaled shakily.
“Pour it,” he said.
So she did.
They sat across from each other at his small kitchen table, the bottle between them.
He didn’t drink first — he waited until she took a sip, confirming that this wasn’t pity or caretaking or obligation. Only then did he lift his glass.
The whiskey was terrible. It burned all the way down.
He winced. “This is awful.”
“I thought you’d appreciate the authenticity.”
“Of suffering?”
She shrugged. “You’re very good at that.”
A soft laugh escaped him. Real, tired, but real.
They drank in slow sips. Not enough to get drunk — neither of them would allow that — but enough to take the edge off the day.
Eventually, she said, “How long has it been since you slept?”
He didn’t answer immediately. He traced the rim of his glass with his thumb.
“Hawkeye, don’t… don’t make me answer that.”
“I think you should.”
He exhaled through his nose. “Three days. Maybe four.”
Her heart clenched.
“And the nightmares started?”
“Immediately,” he admitted. “Every time I close my eyes. Ishval. The… everything. The heat. The faces. The—” He swallowed. “The smell.”
Her breath caught. She knew that smell. Burned into her memory. Into her skin.
He rubbed a trembling hand over his face. “I keep hearing them. The ones I incinerated. I know they aren’t real, but—”
“You don’t have to justify it,” she said quietly.
He looked up at her.
Eyes red. Exhaustion carved deep.
He didn’t ask her anything. Not what she dreamed of, not whether she slept. He knew better. They both did.
“What about your back?” he asked instead. “Does it hurt still?”
“Sometimes.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She stared into her glass. “It’s been… sensitive. The skin is tight. Certain movements pull.”
“Does it wake you up?”
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened.
“You should have told me.”
“And you should have told me,” she countered.
His lips twitched. “Touché.”
They sat in the dim light for a long time. The wind pushed against the window. Somewhere downstairs, a pipe clanked.
She watched the tremor in his right hand grow more pronounced.
He tried to hide it under the table.
She pretended not to see.
Eventually, she stood and carried the bottle to the counter. “You should go to bed.”
He scoffed. “Sleep is the whole problem, Lieutenant.”
“You won’t solve it here at the table.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think I can sleep.”
“You can try.”
“Trying is when the nightmares hit.”
She stepped closer.
“Roy,” she said softly. “You’re shaking.”
He blinked rapidly, looking away from her, toward the wall, toward anything that wasn’t admitting he needed someone.
“Riza…” he murmured, voice crack-fragile. “I can’t—tonight, I genuinely can’t—”
“I’m not leaving,” she said.
He froze.
Like she’d said something no one had ever said to him before.
She reached out, gently brushing her fingers against his wrist, steadying it. “Let’s go,” she said.
He let her guide him — not like a child, not like a soldier, but like someone finally too tired to pretend he wasn’t drowning.
His bedroom was small, barely furnished. The bed was unmade. The sheets tangled from restless nights.
He sat on the edge of the mattress. She stood in front of him.
“This is against every rule,” he said, voice thin but amused.
“We’ve had worse nights.”
He huffed a soft, helpless laugh. “That’s technically true.”
She untangled the blanket and sat beside him. Close enough that their shoulders brushed.
“You don’t have to lie down,” she said. “We can just sit.”
He hesitated. Then leaned back until he was half-reclined.
She followed, settling next to him on top of the blankets, both of them fully dressed.
After a long, shaking breath, he said, “Stay.”
It wasn’t an order. It wasn’t even a request.
It was a confession.
“I planned to,” she answered.
They lay there in the dim quiet for what felt like hours, neither asleep nor fully awake, just… present.
She could feel the tension leaving his body in uneven waves. Every time a tremor ran through him, she placed a steadying hand on his arm. Every time her back twinged, he shifted to ease the pressure without calling attention to it.
They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.
And slowly, impossibly, Roy drifted.
His breathing evened out. The line of his jaw softened. His right hand stilled.
She didn’t sleep yet — she was too aware of him, too aware of the way the world seemed to finally stop spinning for him.
But eventually, exhaustion caught her too.
She fell asleep with her shoulder against his, his breath warm against her hair.
In the morning, she woke first.
For a moment, she panicked — unfamiliar ceiling, unfamiliar warmth beside her. She tensed, instinct sharp.
Then she remembered.
Roy stirred beside her. His voice was rough but soft. “Hawkeye…?”
“Morning, sir.”
He blinked at her slowly. “Did you sleep?”
“For a few hours,” she said. “You?”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I… think so.” His brow furrowed. “Actually, yes. I did.”
“No nightmares?”
He exhaled. A long, shaky sound.
“No nightmares,” he whispered.
They lay there in the quiet morning light, the air warm between them.
Then he looked at her, something gentle and almost shy in his expression.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do.” His voice softened. “Because you stayed.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “It won’t be the last time.”
He smiled — small, real, and unbearably grateful.
“I hope not,” he said.
She reached for her boots.
He caught her wrist — just briefly — and released it just as fast, as if remembering himself.
“Riza,” he said, softer than dawn. “If… if it gets bad again, you don’t have to wait for me to fall apart to show up.”
“Same to you,” she replied.
They stood.
They straightened uniforms. They pretended nothing had happened. They left the apartment separately, two professionals walking into the gray morning toward Central.
But for the rest of the day, every time their eyes met, there was a new understanding there.
A promise.
A beginning.
And neither of them had nightmares that night.
The second night happened three days later.
Roy left work stiffly, jaw tight, a tremor starting in his right hand. Riza had seen the signs all afternoon — the way he rubbed the bridge of his nose, the way he snapped at Havoc for misplacing a stapler, the way he stared too long at nothing.
She waited ten minutes and followed.
She found him not in his apartment, but halfway down his street, sitting on the curb with his head bowed and his elbows on his knees like the weight of gravity had changed and only he felt it.
She didn’t say a word.
She just sat beside him.
He exhaled, a broken laugh tumbling out. “I thought I’d make it longer.”
“You did,” she said.
“Barely.”
“Barely counts.”
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, a tired, quiet gratitude there. Something raw and grateful flickered between them, too fleeting to name.
When he finally stood, she stood with him.
This time, he didn’t wait for her to offer.
“Stay?” he asked, the word barely even voiced.
She nodded once.
He walked a little closer than usual on the way in. She didn’t move away. They didn’t drink whiskey this time. They didn’t talk. They just lay down — shoulders brushing — and sleep came without dragging nightmares behind it.
By morning, he looked younger. She looked rested. Neither commented.
The third night came two days after that.
His temper was frayed to threads that morning. He barked at Havoc. He shot Breda a look that promised paperwork torture. He told Fuery to stop breathing so loudly.
Riza didn’t scold him. She didn’t soothe. She didn’t overstep.
She simply watched him unravel.
When the office emptied and the building quieted, he lingered at his desk staring at nothing. She pretended to organize files until he finally stood and walked out.
She followed again.
He made it to his door this time but froze with his key halfway to the lock.
“Hawkeye,” he said without turning. “Do you ever get angry?”
She startled. He’d never asked her something like that.
“Yes,” she said simply.
“At what?”
“Everything,” she said. “The war. The choices we had to make. The ones we couldn’t take back.”
He let the key fall from his hand. “I thought anger would be easier than fear.”
“It isn’t,” she said.
“No,” he sighed. “It isn’t.”
He opened the door and stepped aside.
“Stay?” he asked, exhausted, not pleading — just honest.
“Yes,” she said.
They didn’t sleep as quickly that night. They lay side by side, facing each other, staring at the ceiling like two people waiting for something awful to land. Eventually, their breaths synced. Eventually, sleep found them.
No nightmares.
Again.
The fourth night was hers.
She arrived at work with perfect posture and perfect silence, but she moved stiffly, her shoulders tense. By midday, she could feel the scar pulling every time she reached for a file. By late afternoon, the irritation had spread — itchy, hot, tight.
He noticed.
Of course he did.
He kept shooting glances at her through the glass until finally, when the men left, he said quietly, “Hawkeye. Go home. Rest.”
She nodded like a soldier and walked out with dignity.
By the time she reached her apartment, her back felt like it was burning again.
She sat on the floor beside her bed and pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, trying not to breathe too deeply.
She heard a knock.
Then the scrape of a key.
Roy opened her door without waiting for permission.
He saw the way she was sitting — straight-backed, trembling at the edges — and his expression shifted.
He knelt beside her.
“Let me see.”
She didn’t fight him.
She turned. Lifted her shirt. He inhaled sharply when he saw the irritated scar tissue, red and furious under the lamplight.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were having a good day,” she whispered.
That nearly undid him.
He fetched her salve — from his cabinet now, because she’d quietly left one there — and applied it gently, hands steady, jaw clenched. She winced once. He whispered, “Sorry,” like it was a sin.
They lay down in her bed that night — her back to him, his hand resting above the damaged skin, warm and careful.
It was the first time she slept with her pain eased by someone else’s touch.
He didn’t move his hand all night.
The fifth night came with a storm.
Rain hammered the windows. Thunder cracked like artillery.
Riza had just finished cleaning her gun when she heard frantic knocking at her door.
She opened it to Roy — soaked, shivering, eyes wide in a way she’d only seen in the desert.
“Sorry,” he said. “I know it’s late, I just— I can’t—”
A thunderclap shook the building. He flinched visibly.
She reached forward and pulled him inside by the wrist.
“Come in,” she said. “You’re freezing.”
He stood dripping in her entryway as she grabbed a towel. When she handed it to him, his fingers brushed hers, cold and trembling.
“I made tea,” she said softly.
“You always do,” he murmured.
Thunder cracked again. His breath stuttered.
“Roy,” she said gently, stepping close. “Come on.”
When she guided him to her bedroom, he didn’t even pretend to hesitate.
They lay together, fully dressed, on top of her blankets. The storm raged outside. His breathing shook each time the thunder rolled.
She reached out slowly, giving him time to pull away.
He didn’t.
Their hands intertwined.
He stopped shaking.
They slept.
After that, it wasn’t planned. It wasn’t negotiated. It just… happened.
Some nights were hers.
Some nights were his.
Some nights they walked home together in silence, neither acknowledging that they stayed in step without trying.
Some nights he knocked on her door without a word.
Some nights she found him sitting on the floor of his living room with his head in his hands.
Some nights they arrived at each other’s apartments at the same time, startled and not startled at all.
They never discussed the pattern.
They never analyzed it.
It wasn’t romantic.
Not yet.
Not officially.
But it was something. Something vital. Something mutual. Something they couldn’t have survived without.
When her scar ached, he was there with salve and steady hands.
When a storm hit, she was there with tea and quiet presence.
When guilt stole his breath, she placed a hand over his heart until it returned to normal.
When nightmares clawed at her spine, he rested against her back until the heat and pressure quieted it.
They didn’t call it comfort.
Or reliance.
Or intimacy.
Or anything at all.
But every morning after those nights, Roy’s eyes weren’t as hollow.
Every morning after, Riza’s shoulders sat lower, easier.
The team never figured it out — not then. Not fully. They just knew that the colonel and his lieutenant had become… steadier. In sync. Sync like breathing, sync like combat, sync like survival.
And once — only once — Havoc caught Roy staring at Riza for a moment too long and muttered under his breath, “One day I’m going to figure you two out.”
Roy smirked.
Riza raised an eyebrow.
Neither broke.
But that night, when she showed up at his apartment with leftover dinner, he stepped aside and said, quietly, almost too casually:
“You’re early.”
And she said, “You looked tired.”
That was all either needed.
They lay down as always — clothes on, boots off, bodies angled but touching lightly at elbows or knees or shoulders.
He said, “Goodnight, Riza.”
She said, “Goodnight, Roy.”
And they slept — no nightmares, just warmth and quiet and breath.
Not a confession.
Not a declaration.
But a beginning that had already begun, night after night, without either of them ever saying so aloud.
A beginning that neither of them ever wanted to end.