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Roy finds her on the edge of the main building just as the pale November sun crests the horizon.
“It’s cold out today.” His words leave trails in the air, slowly blowing across the dirty gravel until they reach her bowed back.
“Winter tends to be cold here, or so I’ve heard.” Her voice is empty. She doesn’t turn around.
Why would she? She knows his face better than he does. Knows that his nose has flushed a bright red from the icy winds, knows that his dress uniform is hidden underneath a giant, fluffy, non-regulation scarf that Jean’s last girlfriend gifted him. Knows that his eyes carry the same sadness she’s trying to escape.
“And who told you such a thing?”
He did. After all, he’s the one who grew up around these parts. Not a country girl like her, he’s Central City through and through.
The stones underneath his heavy-duty boots crunch, their edges sharpened by the early winter. By now, he’s almost reached the edge of the roof. Only the metal railing separates them – him on one side, her on the other.
“Some brat.” The clouds part to allow a ray of sunshine to tangle in the strands of hair framing her face. They glow golden. Roy likes to think she’s smiling. “Kept going on and on about how he used to collect newspapers in the weeks leading up to Yule so he could rip them up and stuff them into any cracked plaster to insulate his room. He kept referencing the laws of thermodynamics.”
“Sounds like a brag.”
“I think it was supposed to be.”
“Maybe he wanted you to think that he’s cool.”
Leaning against the iron railing, felted wool the only thing protecting him from an icy burn, Roy waited for an answer. Of course it hadn’t been a brag. Back then, he’d mostly just wanted her to know that he understood. That, just because he was a city slicker, didn’t mean he didn’t know what hardship looked like. Not that his awkwardly teenaged self had managed to convey his point – Roy knows he deserved the kick in the shin just as much as the evil eye that followed.
All of that had been before.
Riza chuckles. “If that was his attempt at flirting… oh boy. He must be leading a hard life.”
“Some would say he does.”
“Doing what? Avoiding paperwork and an officer’s pay?” It is the first sign that Riza is done playing, even if her tone is giving nothing away. With the rising sun, more and more of her face comes into focus. Roy could stare at her until the end of the world, at the lines slowly etching themselves between her brows and the traces of passing time marking the corners of her eyes and mouth. There is a mole underneath her left earlobe, and one of her eyebrows is darker than the other.
He tears his gaze away.
In the distance, Central City begins to wake up. Smoke rises from the chimneys dotting the apartment buildings of the inner city, curling up towards the sky like an army of question marks. It’s early morning still, but soon enough, the streets will fill with day laborers and soldiers on their way to shift change.
Their spot on the roof of Central Command removes them from all that – neither of them belong in the crowd of bakery apprentices late for work or newspaper boys desperate to sell their fair share of merchandise.
They are above it all.
(they are beneath it)
“Did I forget to sign a report?” Roy shrugs, makes sure to keep his eyes away from the vulnerable shake of her shoulders. It is a long way down to the moat.
“This–” His eyes flicker up from the deadly drop until they capture everything: the city, Riza, the dreary air of despair. “–is a lot of theater just because of a missing signature.”
“Sir…” For a moment, her voice breaks. But she’s Riza; she’s the Hawk’s Eye. When she continues, there is only polished steel. “Please don’t joke about that, Sir. I got a call from HR last week, complaining about the infrequency of your reports on the State Alchemists stationed under your command.”
“Ah, pardon me, then.”
“I shall, Sir.”
Silence falls between them. A few crows are battling for a dead animal in the shallow waters of the moat, and Roy tries to avoid the images this mundane show of cruelty provokes. There were a lot of crows in Ishval. Crows and vultures.
Hughes later told him that vultures aren’t native to the region, but that they followed the Amestrian Army all the way to the battlefield, the smell of decay that enticing.
“Is it really worth it, do you think?” This time it is Riza who breaks through the quiet. The tremor in her voice evidence enough that not even she is imperceptible to the cold.
“Is what worth it?”
Roy already knows what she really wants to ask. How could he not? It is the question haunting his every breath after all. Every morning, when he wakes up to the shriek of his alarm; every afternoon, when his staff hurries out of the office to escape his cold calculations; every evening, when he considers the bottle of whiskey on his nightstand before going to bed.
“This— our plan.” Finally, she turns to look at him. Her brown eyes are cold. There are no tears hiding in the corner of her eyes. There is no hidden weakness. Still, Roy can see the redness rimming her eyes, knows that the insides of her mouth are bitten bloody. “Is it really worth it? Can we make up for what we’ve done, or are we only digging further trenches of blood in the river we already spilled?”
“You did what you had to do.”
“I shot a child.”
A child aiming a gun at Roy Mustang’s back.
Last night was rough. Roy can’t even blame her.
“You did what you had to do,” Roy repeats.
It’s disgusting how his voice doesn’t even shake. Smooth marble all the way. No crack in the facade of the perfect Colonel moving up the career ladder. It’s the same voice he used just a couple of hours ago when Bradley and General Hakuro demanded an in-person report on the incident downtown.
Somewhere in the distance, a child cries for their mother. The streets are no longer almost empty, automobiles and horse drawn carriages fighting for the limited space. Humans are loud. Listening to them from a distance turns the ache in his heart, already chronic, into something acute.
“I know.” The defeat of her admittance is crushing. She’s still on the other side of the railing, still facing the moat. Roy doesn’t fear for her, not really, and yet he has to push down the urge to reach for her hand and pull her back towards him. “I know.”
The child was probably— not innocent, but… a tool. Some anti-military faction thought that using a kid to carry their weapon of choice would make the Hero of Ishval hesitate before burning her down to a crisp. Little did they know that Roy learned long ago how to close his eyes to the destruction of lives, even little ones. Little did they know that, even if Roy hesitated, his shadow, the Hawk’s Eye, would not.
“The only bullet I shall die from is yours.”
It is as much a promise as much as it is a plea.
For his death to come by Riza’s hand, she needs to be alive to deliver it.
“So that’s it then?” On a brighter day than today, the sun would turn her brown eyes a deep chocolate color, vibrant enough to drown in. As it is, they are muddy, like quicksand. Roy gets stuck either way. “Your life is worth more than— Our plan demands I continue this senseless slaughter?”
“Yes.” The word catches in his throat. Broken glass and molten ire. A truth that is fundamentally cruel. “Yes, because unless we— unless we survive—”
“I should have pulled the trigger back in the desert.”
At least on this they can agree on.
“Yeah, you should have.” It’s hard to say whether she means that she should have killed him when she had him in the crosshairs of her rifle or whether she should have turned her gun around and blown her own brains out. Either way, he knows that she is right.
She’s silent for a long moment. By now, she must be freezing – Roy certainly is. His fingers have lost all feeling, even inside his special gloves, and not even the wool of his winter uniform is enough to keep the chill from seeping in. And he’s been here for a much shorter time than her.
“It smells like snow.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. Before the end of the day, Central City will be covered in white. Their sins will be hidden; their tears long since turned to ice. “Yeah, it does.”
“You should head back inside, Sir. You’re useless when you’re wet.”
“Hah.” Roy tries for a smile. “I think I’ll stay. Just for a little bit.”
Riza has turned away again. Silhouetted like this, she looks like a painting. A woman in muted colors, a few brushstrokes away from certain death. It might just be a trick of the light, but Roy swears there is a lone tear running down her cheek, a piece of silver immortalizing the sorrow neither of them can speak aloud.
Riza won’t jump. She can’t.
Not with Bradley still in power, not with Father pulling the strings underneath Central City, not with Fullmetal on the run, not with— not with their hands still permanently stained red.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
That doesn’t mean Roy won’t have to pull the gun out of her trembling fingers another four or five times before it is finally time for them to give up. It’s as if they are running against a wall, again and again, their goal unreachable. As they climb the steps to the gallows, their shared moments become less common as the noose tightens. It’s Bradley keeping watch, it’s Pride listening from the shadows, it’s their own fate sealing their lips shut. And when they get together… Riza kills for him. Pulls the trigger, even if the person holding the gun is twelve, shaking and crying.
(Roy went down to the archives before coming up to the roof. Martha Steggert, born on March 11th, 1902. Oldest of seven children. Her mother died of typhus during an epidemic in ‘09 and her father went missing as part of a military cover up)
(before the day is over, Riza will know all this too)
(and she’ll remember the face)
The sun moves across the sky inch by inch. It’s beautiful, even on a dreary November day. A flock of ducks move due East, their cries loud and obnoxious. Somewhere down on the streets, Garcia is busy buying groceries for her daughter, Dr. Knox prepares for another shift at the morgue, the Armstrong siblings fight over something inane. Life moves on. Roy just has to remind himself of this truth. Life moves on.
Riza remains on the other side of that invisible border.
“Don’t you want to appreciate the view from my angle? I promise it’s prettier that way.”
His words are light, airy. Their intent is true.
Riza shakes her head, but she is smiling, “Not yet, Sir. Not yet.”
“Then how long do I have to wait?”
“Maybe when it starts to snow.”
“Why?” This time, Roy doesn’t know the answer.
Her stance is steady when she shifts around, even as Roy’s gut freezes at her laissez-faire attitude towards the height. She won’t jump. She is the Hawk’s Eye; she cannot fall. And yet, the part of him that knows that the drop down would be deadly can’t quite stifle the urge to panic.
When their eyes meet, Roy can tell that Riza has seen his momentary weakness, just as he can glimpse her desperate need for reassurance, a vulnerability neither will allow themselves. Not even here. Not even on the roof of Central Command during the early hours of the day.
Their hands never touch.
“A boy once told me,” she starts, eyes completely dry once more, “that winters can get really cold here in the city. And I just thought— if I stay up here for a little bit longer, maybe the cold would help numb the pain.”
“Ah.” Roy forces his lips into a thin smile. “So then we wait. From what I can tell— the first snow in the city is supposed to be beautiful.”
“Didn’t you grow up here, Sir?”
“Yes, but it always just reminded me of white ash back when I was living with my aunt.”
Riza hums, “I see. Then we’ll have to wait here and find out if maybe this perspective changes things.”
“Yes. We just might.”
As they watch, clouds gather in the West. They are heavy and pregnant with snow. It won’t be a long wait – well, long enough, considering the cold penetrating everything. Even that won’t be enough to freeze their hearts solid though. No matter how desperately Riza wishes for it. No matter how much easier it would make the return home.
The people living normal lives are far away, growing further by the moment. The threat of bad weather makes them hurry home, the quickening wind an icy sword ready to slaughter.
Roy and Riza prevail.
Her on one side of the railing, him on the other.
Never touching, never going home.
With one last dusting of pale golden light, the sun vanishes.
They can’t die just yet.