It had been two years since Edward had disappeared beyond the Gate of Alchemy. No one had seen nor heard of him since then until today when he came back amid the chaos of rockets and soldiers led by a fanatical woman named Eckhart. The attack against Central had bled over into the surrounding towns and the military was working hard to clean up the remaining rubble and soulless bodies. Reports were flooding into Central command from all corners of military headquarters. Within a few hours, a handful of events had taken place that had shaken the core of Amestris. Word traveled fast in such a small country, and the attacks made on Central had been widespread. Eckhart's army had touched in nearly every town encompassing the country.

The Elric brothers had appeared again, and vanished just as quickly. The Fullmetal Alchemist, whom had been missing for two years, came into the save the day with almost no differences. He was even complete with a shoddy automail arm and leg. Alphonse Alric had also appeared, along with a gang of friends and the brothers were together again, briefly, before Edward ran off, piloting the attacking air ships back through the portal made in the Gate. This time, he took Alphonse with him.

But Edward hadn't been the only one that had reappeared. In fact, the country of Amestris was safe for good from the horrors on the other side of the Gate due to the efforts of the miraculously appearing man. Dressed in his army blues, he had walked on scene in a torrid affair of Central being devastated, and his reaction was simply to do the thing he was most natural at. Take charge.

And it was probably due to the appearance of two State Alchemists, that even amid all of the city wreckage and busy work putting Central City back in tip top shape, everyone was abuzz with hushed chatter of the mysterious appearances and disappearances of both. As quickly as he had come in and destroyed rows and rows of soldiers, the Flame Alchemist Roy Mustang had vanished in a hot air balloon and not yet resurfaced.

Calm and collected even among mayhem, Riza Hawkeye strolled down another depilated street, clipboard and pen in hand as she took notes on damage. Her mind was numb as she tacked down another estimate of shop damage in a column on her sheet. The moment she had seen him had been so fleeting. Their eyes had met for only seconds before hot air blasted him towards the heavens and she was left on the street calling after him.

He had left her behind again and the pain of that realization ebbed its way into her chest. The only thing she could do to draw her mind from it was tack down numbers, take names, scribble notes, and bite at her lip as people rushed back and forth all around her. She was moving in slow motion in comparison. Her legs felt heavy and she couldn't bring herself to do a brisk jog down the streets as all the rest of the military personnel was.

"Major!" a voice squeaked from behind her. Riza turned on her heel and focused her eyes on a small man wearing glasses jogging her way and waving papers in the air above his head.

"Fuery. Word from command?"

"Yes. The Fuhrer is requesting an update on the civilian count, as well as your damage estimates so far."

Her eyes didn't betray her frustrations in her subordinates request. She understood the need for a rush on what she was doing, but her body wouldn't listen to what her mind knew she needed to do. it was still bogged down by the thoughts of that brief moment. Everything that had passed in that split second of gaze meeting gaze...

"Hawkeye?" She shook her head and looked over at Fuery who appeared have have been calling her for about a moment already. She took the pen tip from off her page and ripped it from its clipboard, handing it over to Fuery.

"Before you return that to HQ, also take a few more notes down. To the west end of HQ, the fencing is destroyed and will need to be completely rebuilt. The Library over to the east has two walls down and books are pouring out onto the street. The community is helping to regather. There is an estimated total of 78 houses that have been affected within the Central City limits, I am still waiting to hear from-" Riza paused in her debriefing of the city's cosmetic damage to look back over at Fuery. His pen had stopped scratching along the page, noting her every word. Instead his eyes were glued to a point just on the other side of her shoulder.

No.

Eyeballing a few of the other military workers around her she could see that they were slowly starting to straighten themselves, looking past her to the point that Fuery had his eyes glued to.

She could feel him there, even before she saw him. His air of command had never left the man, even when he had requested to step down in rank and be shipped off to the far north. All around her, people still straightened themselves, stood with their boots heel to heel, and tried not to put their hands to their brow in a salute, something they had been actively trained to do.

She wasn't going to turn around. She wasn't going to look him in his smoldering dark eyes. She wouldn't give him the privilege.

The hush of the crowd around her made it possible to hear the approaching shuffle of two military issued black boots. The steps were slow, deliberate, and they were maybe twenty yards away from her. The smell of ash and campfire reached her nostrils and it overpowered everything she thought and felt. That smell, the familiar scent of fire and burning. Flames. She could smell it, so near her and within her reach.

Without her permission, her knees rattled unnoticeably in her large military pants. Her hands shook and she nearly dropped the clipboard she only just realized she had been clutching onto. The stray bits of blond that had fallen from her clip fell forward into her auburn eyes as she looked down at her eyes and noticed that the heels were together, legs straight, body erect and ready to salute. The actions were so habitual she hadn't even noticed doing so.

Fifteen yards.

She could just walk away, right now. Central command needed numbers for print, estimates for funding crunching, the city was partially destroyed and it was her duty to the state to help clear away the wreckage. She could just walk away...

Ten yards.

Something inside her snapped and against her better judgement, she twisted around slowly, eyes still glued to the ground before her. She squared her shoulders and grit her teeth together, a million waves of emotions coursing through every vein of her body. Relief, anger, confusion, sadness, excitement.

The shuffling sound became a grating noise in her ears as he grew closer and closer. She still had it in the back of her that she could turn around, stand tall, and walk off. She had no reason to say any words to him, nor give him the time of day to explain himself. But that was just it, she was going to. And as she continued to stare at the ground, a shiney black pair of boots appeared before her vision, standing only a foot or two away. Close enough that she could feel the weight of his stare.

And then, there was nothing. A piercing silence as about twenty-five pairs of eyes landed on them and she continued to stare downwards, ignoring every biting word that sprung to her lips. She bit her tongue to hard the taste of iron burst into her mouth, and yet she still said nothing, just sat in silence.

"Major Hawkeye."

In that very second her eyes flew from her feet and up onto the face of the man she had known since she was just a girl. He had always had the same handsome boyish features, except now they were aged with two years of grief and remission. His skin was pale, lips chaffed, eye heavy with lines of fatigue and wear. His body didn't fit his uniform as well as it once had, the fabric hanging off of his now thin frame. Their eyes met and she looked first into his deep colored right eye and then painfully into the black fabric of the eyepatch covering his left. The eyepatch that was there from her doing. That she could have prevented...

And then the man that she had not seen in two years did something very curious and unsettling to her. He drew himself to his full height, nearly a half foot taller then her own, set his hand against his forehead and slowly drew it into a salute. He stared into her eyes, once again saying, this time a little quieter, "Major Hawkeye."

Riza continued to stare at this man, saluting her so casually as if he had done it for years. She watched his body, unmoving yet covered in indefinable debris. It was curious the way he saluted her, staring at her, waiting for her to give the permission. It was something she had never planned on seeing in all her years.

"At ease Mustang," she replied, the words coming from her mouth as foreign, unnatural. They left a weird taste on her tongue, one that though she may try to spit it out, she knew would last. Her former superior let his hand drop back to his side, and his stance relaxed just a little but he still kept the airs of addressing someone of superior rank to himself.

Those around the two of them remained silent, still struck by the fact that the Flame Alchemist had come waltzing back into their lives. And here he was with his closest companion, the used to be 1st Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye.

She suddenly outstretched her hand. The internal monologue that was whizzing by in Riza's mind screamed at her to stop her action, retract her hand back to her side and walk away, greeting over. But she was drawn to this moment, to the lines on his face that had been added from two hard years, to the milky pale in his skin having never seen the light for months. And drawn to the eyepatch that he now brandished around with him, a painful memory of a shot gone wrong.

Inches from his face, she hesitated before bringing her fingers against the cloth patch, lightly dancing her fingers around the edges, just barely gracing his skin. She felt the fabric, memorized the shape, even noticed the way he flinched away from her fingers, draining the flicker of emotion from his eye. She felt the patch, a glaring memory staring her in the face. One that she would rather wipe from existence.

She traced over the black, a few of his dark hairs tickling the skin of her hand. Her short tipped nails ran a line down his cheek and she felt the cool of his skin, warming slightly beneath her touch. He resisted the urge to melt into her caressing hand, and stayed firm, face portraying nothing.

A crisp slap rang through the air and a soft gasp went across the crowd that had stopped their clearing work to watch the return of Mustang. Riza's cheeks were puffed out, a slow hiss coming from her lips. Upon Roy's cheek was a bright pink hand print. His eyes had widened as he looked at her, and his hand went to grace the side of his cheek. The skin pickled where she had hit him, as if it was burning from the inside and eating his skin out. He could feel the tenderness beneath his light touch and dropped his hand back to his side.

The venom that came pouring from her eyes as she locked back onto him almost made Roy take a step back. Her body was bent over in a consumed sort of hatred and she wheeled up, brought her hand back, and laid it upon the opposite cheek, leaving him with two bright hand prints on either side of his face. Those that had been watching, embarrassed to be watching the spectacle between old friends, quickly turned back to what they were doing. Fuery gathered up the slack and timidly pressed on a few orders to the lower ranked military officials clearing away rubble. Most of those standing around found excuses to hurry down the street to another corner and away from the enraged gun toting woman.

Roy sighed as he saw the others move away from him and Hawkeye, leaving him at her mercy. A knot wound itself up in his stomach as he looked into her eyes and saw the spitfire hatred, the pent up frustration, and just a glimmer of... Was that pain?

"Hawkeye I-" he started before she flung another wild hand towards his face. His time a scowl worked its way onto his lips and grabbed a hold of her wrist, holding it tightly enough to keep her from budging without hurting her slender arm.

"Let me go you bastard!" she screamed, wiggling in his grasp. She shoved a hand into his chest hard enough for him to have to catch his breath, but he held tight.

"Goddamn it Mustang, let me go. Get your hand from off of me and never touch me again. Get out of my sight! Let me go, get out of here! I hate you!"

She stopped fighting against his hold as she shouted the last three words, and gazed over at him. Mustang held on, but loosened his grip, knowing she was done struggling. They both stared hard at one another, neither one of them flinching. He looked into her hypnotizing pools of auburn, the eyes that had haunted many a visions on his wintery north retreat. And she glared back, her brows knit together, her look spelling out murder and anger.

He looked deep into her eyes, looking for any sign of a hesitation, a flicker of doubt in her statement. Hate him? She couldn't possibly hate him in every way possible after all their years together. But he didn't see it. When he looked into her eyes all he saw was loathing, anger, animosity, and cold hard hatred. His grip on her wrist loosened all together and she wrenched her wrist away from and he stiffened, preparing for another blow to the face that never came.

Wounded by the disregard of who used to be the person closest to him, he looked on past her and at Fuery who even out ranked him at this point. The small man had turned back to look at him and caught his eye. Fuery came over to Riza's side and one could tell he fought with the instinct to raise his hand into a salute.

"Fuery, if you could escort me to HQ when you return with Major Hawkeye's reports I would be very much obligated."

"Yes C-, yes Mustang. Follow me."

Silently, Roy moved past Riza who had moved since he had let her go, body still shaking in a mountain of rage waiting to explode on something. He felt the rustle of their uniforms as they passed, the heat of her anger, and the hopelessness that there was nothing he could do to change that. And without another word passed between them, he followed Fuery towards the giant bland structure that was Central Headquarters.

When he was decently out of eye shot, he sighed and muttered under his breath, "I'm so sorry Hawkeye. I'm so sorry."

Not even Fuery heard him.