Nightmares

Roy opened the door to his office and stepped inside, unsurprised to find the room empty. He was almost two hours early, after all. He was normally the last one to arrive, but his inability to get a full night's rest the past few days had eventually led to him coming to work early.

So here he was, sitting alone at his desk in his darkened office, staring down at paperwork that he probably wasn't going to do. Instead, he reflected upon the very reason he'd been having difficulty sleeping; nightmares. More specifically, nightmares in which Lieutenant Hawkeye died in front of him, each time in a different way. In some, she was killed by the Homunculi, in others she ended up taking a bullet for him, something he knew she wouldn't hesitate to do in real life, if necessary. A particularly terrifying one featured him as her murderer, burning her to death with his own flames.

He shivered at the memory, closing his eyes for a moment.

"I'm not gonna die… I'm under strict orders… not to die."

And then there was the cause of the nightmares, the time when he'd thought she was going to die in the underground.

He could still see her bleeding out in the middle of the transmutation circle chalked onto the stone floor, practically begging him not to perform human transmutation. It definitely didn't help that her nearly dying was one of the last things he saw before he had gone blind for those few days, until Doctor Marcoh had healed him using a philosopher's stone.

His head snapped up when the door to his office opened suddenly, wondering who else could possibly be here so early.

"Colonel?"

Of course, he should have known.

"Hello, Lieutenant."

"You're here early." Riza observed, recovering from her initial surprise enough to shut the door and make her way over to her own desk, paperwork and coffee mug in hand.

"As are you." He replied, watching as she set everything on her desk before taking a seat and looking over her shoulder to meet his gaze.

"I'm always here this early, sir." She said. "But you aren't. Is there a reason you're here so soon?"

Roy shook his head, ignoring the worried shine in her eyes. "Had some trouble sleeping, that's all. It's nothing worth worrying yourself over, Lieutenant."

She nodded once, obviously not satisfied with his answer, but turned back around nonetheless to focus on her paperwork. He stared at her back for a moment or two longer before turning his attention to his own work, although all he did was continue to stare at it.

He glanced over at her as he finally reached for his pen, gaze lingering on the bandage that was still wrapped around her neck, evidence of the life-threatening wound she'd acquired during the fight with the gold-toothed doctor.

If Mei and the chamiras hadn't arrived when they had… would he have willingly performed human transmutation in order to save her life?

XXX

"Back for more, Colonel?"

Roy spun on his heel at the hauntingly familiar voice, shooting a flame into the tunnel he'd just exited.

"Tsk, tsk. Eager for a fight, are we?" The homunculus continued, dodging the column of fire with ease.

"Shut up, Lust." He seethed, shooting another wave of flame in it's direction with a snap of his fingers.

The homunculus dodged again and retaliated his attack with it's own. Pain blossomed in Roy's cheek as Lust's limb grazed it, close enough to draw blood. He snapped his fingers, prepared to attack again, only to find his target had disappeared.

He was caught off guard when the blade of a sword cut across his back, staining the blue of his military uniform red with his blood.

"I see you're not dead yet, Mustang." Wrath snarled as Roy spun around. He was surprised to have been attacked from behind, usually Riza would have eliminated any threat to his back in a fight.

"Not yet." He agreed, recovering quickly. He snapped, and flames erupted around the homunculus. Regardless, it burst forth, body aflame, and pinned Roy to the stone wall. He gasped as each blade sliced through his hands and twisted, preventing him from using the transmutation circle on the backs of his gloves, and, in turn, his flame alchemy.

The layers of flesh Roy had previously burned off the homunculus grew back quickly to reveal not King Bradley, as he had expected, but Envy. The shape-shifting homunculus sneered, pulling the swords Wrath had left behind out of the wall and freeing Roy.

"What are you going to do now that you don't have your flames?" Envy asked with a wicked grin, slashing at his legs so he was forced to leap to the side to avoid being hit.

He didn't answer, didn't really have a chance to, as gunfire rang out from somewhere else in the underground. The familiar sound spurred him into action, and he blocked Envy's oncoming attack with the palm of his hand, catching the blade and wrenching the weapon free from the homunculus' grip. Envy's brief state of shock gave Roy a chance to grab the hilt of the sword in his opposite hand and land a blow across it's abdomen.

It was his turn to be surprised when the gunfire abruptly ceased and a voice that he could clearly recognise as his Lieutenant's screamed. Without a second thought, he turned around and ran towards the sound, dropping Wrath's sword on the ground with a clatter. Envy let him go without even attempting to attack him.

"That's right, run off to your precious Lieutenant. Maybe you'll get there in time to see her die."

Roy ignored Envy's words, focusing instead on finding Riza. The underground was far too much like a maze for his liking, as each path he turned down only seemed to get him more lost. Eventually her cries seemed to get closer, until he finally found himself in the same room as her. He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight that greeted him, nearly stepping on her pistol that lay useless on the floor.

"Lieutenant!"

From her position on the floor, she raised her head to meet his gaze, surprised brown eyes meeting black.

"Colonel?"

He started running towards her again, but only made it a few steps before forcing himself to stop again as to not step in the fire that suddenly lit up the room. The foul smell of burning flesh and hair met his nostrils a second before he saw the outline of her body hit the floor among the flames.

"Lieutenant!"

"Lieutenant!"

"Riza!"

"Sir!"

Roy jolted awake, sending papers flying as he shot into a sitting position. Riza's worried face gradually came into focus as she leaned a little further over the arm of his chair.

"Are you alright, Colonel?"

As his sleep-fogged brain slowly took in the fact that she was standing next to him, alive, he wordlessly stood and pulled her into a tight embrace, nestling his face into the crook of her neck.

"S-Sir?" Riza stuttered, surprised. Her arms hovered, raised, at his sides, unsure.

"L-Lieutenant." He sobbed into her shoulder, his grip on her tightening, vaguely aware of how childish he sounded. Not to mention the fact that he was letting his subordinate see him in such a vulnerable state.

"Please don't cry, sir." She said, finally returning his embrace, albeit a bit less tightly. "You're useless when you're wet."

A/N: This is my first FMA fic, which I wrote in like, two or three hours altogether. They're all probably really OOC, but I'm quite happy with the way this turned out. Thanks for reading, and please review, it keeps me writing :)

~Uni